改善国有企业资产负债结构之对策

资产负债率过高是影响国有企业走出困境以及建立现代企业制度的重要因素。针对这种情况 ,十五届四中全会的《决策》就改善国有企业资产负债结构问题 ,提出一整套政策思路 :诸如增加银行核销呆坏账准备金、债权转股权、提高直接融资比重、减轻企业利息负担等。所有这些 ,必将对国有企业的改革与发展 ,产生深远的影响     

诉讼时效的若干程序法问题探析

诉讼时效既是一个实体法问题，又是一个程序法问题。在我国，存在诉讼时效审查中的职权主义，证明责任的分配不明确等问题，使诉讼时效的立法目的无法实现，有时甚至适得其反。因此，随着我国民事审判制度改革的深入，确立诉讼时效审查时的法官不自动援引原则，在证明责任中确立被告承担诉讼时效完成的主张责任的基础上，同时确立原告承担诉讼时效未完成的证明责任，这样，既符合诉讼时效的立法目的，又有利于我国司法公正。     

Reforming the Direct–Indirect Tax Mix

This paper provides a new framework for evaluating the welfare effects of commodity tax reforms. It is shown that tax reforms are welfare improving if and only if they satisfy the following intuitive property: on average, consumer prices fall for commodities with high marginal excess burdens. The rule is then applied to analyze a shift from differentiated commodity taxation to direct flat-rate taxation of labour income. The welfare impact of such reforms can be decomposed into two effects: (i) the increase in welfare associated with substitution among taxed commodities, and (ii) the loss in welfare associated with substitution between commodities and leisure. On balance, a shift towards direct taxation is desirable when inter-commodity substitution effects are large relative to commodity–leisure substitution effects. The analysis allows us to reconcile the apparently conflicting results of the tax reform and optimal taxation literatures.     

Farmers’ Preferences for New Environmental Policy Instruments: Determining the Acceptability of Cross Compliance for Biodiversity Benefits

This paper addresses the issue of farmers’ views concerning the perceived legitimacy of environmental cross compliance as a governance mechanism. Recent work on the theory of regulation emphasises the importance of the legitimacy ascribed to a regulation in determining the effectiveness with which it can be implemented. The current study outlines a rationale for why this motivational question should receive attention in economic studies of policy design and reports the results of a survey of 102 arable farmers in East Anglia, UK, which investigated the level of support for the principle of cross compliance for biodiversity objectives. It was found that two attitudinal factors, referred to as ‘Stewardship Orientation’ and ‘Technological Beliefs’, were by far the most significant in determining the acceptability of cross compliance in the sample, and that structural and socio‐demographic factors were considerably less important. The study also identified clusters of farmers according to their overall attitudinal orientation. Of the five groups thus categorised, four appeared on average likely to reject cross compliance as a general principle, leaving only the most ‘Environmental’ cluster in support. The policy implications are discussed and some conclusions drawn.     

国有企业改革核心:是明晰产权还是剥离国企政策性负担

国有企业改革是目前经济体制改革的重心,学术界和国家有关当局认为国企改革的核心在于明晰产权。但笔者认为不剥离国企政策性负担就不能从根本上解决国企改革问题。国企改革的思路应是剥离政策性负担,硬化企业预算约束,理顺价格体系,完善外部治理。     

重塑产权制度是国有地勘单位改制的关键

国有地勘单位改制的核心问题在于重塑产权制度。目前 ,国有地勘单位面临三大难题 ,即现有国有资产定价问题 ,债务负担问题和员工身份转变问题。解决这些问题的关键是构建产权制度 ,使地勘单位带资分流改制 ,解决地勘单位债务负担 ,并置换职工身份 ,实现产权多元化。为此 ,地勘单位领导和员工要转变观念 ,加强财务管理 ,对国有地勘单位进行股份制改造     

Firms’ Compliance to Environmental Regulation: Is There Really a Paradox?

It has often been claimed that firms’ compliance to environmental regulations is higher than predicted by standard theory, a result labeled the “Harrington paradox” in the literature. Enforcement data from Norway presented here appears, at first glance, to confirm this “stylized fact”: firms are inspected less than once a year, detected violators are seldom fined, but still, serious violations seem relatively rare. However, at a closer look, the pattern seems less paradoxical: enforcement of minor violations is lax, but such violations do flourish; serious violations, on the other hand, are subject to credible threats of harsh punishment, and such violations are more uncommon. This seems quite consistent with predictions from standard theory. We argue that the empirical existence of the Harrington paradox is not well documented in the international literature. The claim that firms’ compliance with environmental regulations is generally higher than predicted by standard theory should thus be regarded as a hypothesis rather than an established fact.     

The size and development of the shadow economy: An empirical investigation from states of India

Using the state level data from India, this paper investigates the size of the hidden economy in Indian states over the period 1974/75 to 1995/96. Our analysis has shown that after liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991/92, the growth in the size of the hidden economy has decreased on an average. Our results show that the growth in the size of the hidden economy is approximately 4% less in scheduled election years than in all other years. We also demonstrate that the growth is significantly lower in those states where the coalition government is in power. An increased growth of newspapers and the literacy rates translate to cleaner governance, e.g. to fewer amounts of shadow economy activities in the economy.     

Fighting vacation rental tax evasion through warnings to potential evaders

This paper uses differences-in-differences to analyze the effectiveness of messages sent by the Spanish Tax Agency to deter tax evasion by owners of vacation rentals. The results suggest that these messages were effective in the aggregate, as there was an increase both in the declared amount of such income (6–8.5%, depending on the line item under which it is declared) and in the number of filers (29.7–64.2%), and this effectiveness became more marked over time. Notably, there was more response to the intervention from the self-employed. However, in some collectives, the intervention produced the opposite of the intended effect.