The Political Economy of Fiscal Supervision and Budget Deficits: Evidence from Germany

In many federal countries, local governments run large deficits, even when fiscal supervision by state authorities is tight. I investigate the extent to which party alignment of governments and fiscal supervisors influences budget deficits. The data set includes 427 German local governments for the period 2000–2004. I exploit a period after a far‐reaching institutional reform that entirely re‐distributed political powers on both the government level and the fiscal supervisor level. The results do not show that party alignments of governments and supervisors (co‐partisanship) drive short‐term deficits. Instead, I find that the ideology of partisan governments and supervisors matters: left‐wing local governments run higher deficits than their right‐wing counterparts; left‐wing supervisors tolerate higher deficits than right‐wing supervisors. These findings imply that political independence for fiscal supervisors is recommended.     

财务重述影响供应商向企业提供商业信用吗——来自A股上市公司的经验证据

以我国2007-2014年上市公司为样本,实证检验财务重述对供应商向企业提供商业信用融资规模的影响.研究结果表明:财务重述引起了供应商对目标企业会计信息质量的关注,导致企业商业信用融资规模减少,并且在非国有企业、市场地位低的企业以及金融生态环境较差的地区更为显著.进一步研究发现,上述结论因财务重述性质的异质性而存在差异.     

New development: Local government ethics in England: how is local ownership working?

With the abolition of the Audit Commission and the Standards Board for England, and the emphasis in the Localism Act 2011 on local ownership in England for standards, research was undertaken into a group of councils to assess their legislative compliance arrangements and the development of organizational ethical cultures. The research argues that the delivery of the former is a work-in-progress and that there is little evidence of the latter.     

Interest Rates in Trade Credit Markets

All things equal, interest rates should increase with the borrower's risk. And yet, Klapper, Laeven, and Rajan (2012) cannot find such a positive relation in a broad sample of trade credit contracts. We shed some light on this puzzle by arguing that competition between informed and uninformed suppliers weakens the link between the trade credit cost and the borrower's creditworthiness. Our model implies that trade credit rates are more likely to increase with the borrower's risk if suppliers are less profitable, have high cost of funds, or sell inputs to firms plagued by moral hazard and financial distress.     

Transformational change and the vacuum of performance measurement: How a story of success became a failure

Some local government organisations stand out in terms of their capability to adopt and use management accounting innovations and become a model for those struggling with issues such as performance measurement (PM). But what happens to the innovations if the organisation is forced into transformational change? This longitudinal case study is based on the theory that the use and impact of PM is influenced by (a) its contractibility and (b) how the performance management systems in place are configured and used. One conclusion is that transformational change can result in a vacuum of PM, even with a high degree of contractibility.     

The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis and the Role of External and Internal Factors in Emerging Economies

This article assesses the impact of trade, capital openness and institutions on emerging economies’ output loss during the “Great Recession.” The fixed-effect estimates of an unbalanced panel of 122 emerging countries observed from 2008 to 2010 yield three main results. First, trade openness has exacerbated output loss. Second, capital openness can help mitigate the negative impact of an external shock, but this is conditional on the level of financial development. Finally, the results also point out that the interrelations between financial and institutional development affect the crisis’s severity.     

河北省对外贸易与经济增长关系的实证分析

运用计量经济模型分析河北省对外贸易与经济增长之间的关系,结果表明:对外贸易对河北经济增长有很强的拉动作用,其中出口对经济增长的贡献要高于进口,而净出口对经济增长的作用不明显.     

出口退税对我国出口影响的实证分析

采用1985-2004年的样本数据,运用Eviews软件测算出出口退税额与我国外贸出口之间的相关系数和回归系数,结论是:在99%的显著水平上,出口退税对我国出口增长的促进作用十分明显,出口退税率的调整将会使得我国的出口受到直接的影响.     

中美贸易摩擦下我国农业产业安全深层次困境及破解思路

2018年3月以来,中美贸易摩擦不断升级。面对美方贸易制裁,我国采取了包括对大豆等农产品加征关税的反制措施,却也暴露了农业产业安全面临的深层次困境：一是我国作为最大农产品进口国具有“大国效应”和贸易依赖,陷入了“贸易困境”;二是我国农产品价格与国际农产品价格“倒挂”,形成了“价格困境”;三是我国农业补贴政策受内外条件制约而面临着“补贴困境”;四是在经济全球化趋势下我国农业产业该如何与国际市场接轨的“全球化困境”。美国贸易保护主义行径不应动摇我国捍卫经济全球化的决心,未来我国农业产业只能是更深度参与农业资源全球配置。基于此,我们提出“口粮自给,休养生息,因粮于敌,大权在握”的十六字破解方针,即将国内有限农业资源集中于口粮生产、建立和完善休耕制度、发展海外屯田、着重培育本国农业综合企业和建立具有国际影响力的农产品交易中心。     

内陆自由贸易港的属性及建设内容和路径——兼析重庆自贸试验区建设经验

自由贸易港是目前全球开放水平最高的自由贸易区,内陆自由贸易试验区应向内陆自由贸易港升级。中国内陆自由贸易港应具有“自由贸易园区”“试验区”和“内陆港”的属性,需要构建多式联运的国际通道体系及其高效运营机制,形成内陆港协同开放体系,整合和拓展开放型经济功能区,打造营商环境最为便利和开放水平最高的内陆开放平台,“内陆枢纽港→内陆开放经济高地→内陆改革开放示范区→内陆自由贸易港”是其可行的建设路径。当前中国内陆自由贸易试验区整体处于从内陆枢纽港向内陆开放经济高地发展的初期阶段,要着力建成以国际陆上大通道为核心的对外综合交通物流网络,持续创新海关监管协同机制,重点突破开放型经济功能区的建设瓶颈,不断探索以陆上国际贸易规则为核心的制度创新。