庚子赔款的债务化偿付及其影响

庚子赔款是中国近代史上最大一笔赔款,也是以长期债务形式体现的赔款。本文对庚子赔款的债务化偿付安排、利率水平、支付流程及经济影响等进行比较分析。发现:(1)庚子赔款本金4.5亿两,是清政府 1903 年财政收入的 4.33倍,但通过债务化偿付,每年支付赔款占财政收入比重逐步下降;(2)按购买力折算,庚子赔款本金约占1900年中国GDP的2.1%;(3)与当时主要国家长期债务利率相比,庚子赔款4%的利率属于中等水平;(4)将庚子赔款与德国“一战”赔款进行比较,发现赔款本金和占经济总量比重,中国低于德国,但中国每年支付赔款的财政压力高于德国;(5)庚子赔款偿付对近代中国的财税金融产生深刻影响,外籍海关税务司借机成为独立于中国政府的“第二财政”,外商银行藉此强化其“隐性中央银行” 地位,赔款还催生了货币流通的“新周期” 和“新危机”。总体上,赔款的债务化偿付安排不仅受政治外交形势主导,也与金融机构特别是银行跨国经营存在密切联系。赔款的经济影响不仅取决于偿付总量,也取决于经济治理能力和财税金融制度。国家财税金融制度落后,则受到冲击较大。     

控股股东“掏空”与“支持”:企业所得税的影响

源于企业所得税的征收,国家某种意义上是公司最大的“小股东”。本文将“国家股东”纳入控股股东与小股东间博弈行为的分析框架,检验企业所得税征收对控股股东“掏空”与“支持”的影响。结果表明,在“掏空”与“支持”的选择上,企业所得税会产生两方面效应:税率提高会增强控股股东“掏空”的倾向;而税收征管则能够抑制其“掏空”的倾向。区分“掏空”与“支持”两类情形,当控股股东试图“掏空”时,税率越高,税收征管强度越低,“掏空”程度越高;当控股股东试图“支持”时,税率越高,税收征管强度越高,“支持”程度越高。本文不仅提供了“掏空”与“支持”影响因素方面新的经验证据,且丰富了税与代理问题相关的学术文献。     

Inflation,real economic growth and unemployment expectations: an empirical analysis based on the ECB survey of professional forecasters

Expectations are at the centre of modern macroeconomic theory and policymakers. In this article, we examine the predictive ability and the consistency properties of macroeconomic expectations using data of the European Central Bank (ECB) Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). In particular, we provide evidence on the properties of forecasts for three key macroeconomic variables: the inflation rate, the growth rate of real gross domestic product and the unemployment rate.     

On the determinants of long-run inflation uncertainty: Evidence from a panel of 17 developed economies

Based on a cross section of 17 advanced economies and data for the period 1975 to 2015, we examine how the interaction between monetary policy and macroeconomic conditions affects inflation uncertainty in the long-term. We construct a proxy for the unobservable inflation uncertainty based on the slowly evolving long-term variance component of inflation from a Spline-GARCH model (Engle and Rangel, 2008). We show that long-run inflation uncertainty is high if an inflation-tolerant central bank governor is in power during a period of high inflation, if the policy rate is below the one that is prescribed by the Taylor rule and during times of heightened stock and exchange rate volatility.     

信贷管制、隐性契约与贷款利率变相市场化——现象与解释

本文将视角聚焦于利率市场化改革之前,重点研究金融抑制对银企信贷契约的异化。研究发现,在金融抑制背景下银企之间存在以留存贷款为表现的隐性契约,用以帮助银行在满足管制要求的同时追求利润最大化。本文对这一现象进行了理论分析与实证检验,发现隐性契约的发生与否会随着货币政策、企业特征等因素的改变而有所差异,这在一定程度上起到了利率变相市场化的作用。进一步研究则发现,这一隐性契约对企业价值产生了负向影响。     

中国货币政策利率传导效率研究:2008-2017

随着利率市场化进程的不断推进以及商业银行利率定价机制的发展,中国货币政策利率的传导效率也不断提高。基于2008年1月-2017年6月的宏观时间序列数据和微观调研数据,本文检验了中国货币政策利率对银行贷款利率的传导效率。总体而言,基准利率是影响金融机构贷款加权平均利率的主要因素。分时间段看,贷款利率浮动限制放开之后,货币市场利率对金融机构贷款利率的传导效率显著提升;基准利率对金融机构贷款利率的影响略有下降,但仍然占主导。对商业银行贷款利率定价的微观机制进行探讨后,本文发现贷款利率定价机制的变化是中国利率传导效率出现变化的主要原因。进一步的分析表明,资金来源和市场利率波动均是影响货币市场利率传导效率的重要因素。最后,本文就如何提高货币政策利率传导效率提出了政策建议。本文研究对完善价格型货币政策体系以及中国货币政策框架转型具有重要的实践意义。     

Forecasting the UK economy with a medium-scale Bayesian VAR

We estimate a Bayesian VAR (BVAR) for the UK economy and assess its performance in forecasting GDP growth and CPI inflation in real time relative to forecasts from COMPASS, the Bank of England’s DSGE model, and other benchmarks. We find that the BVAR outperformed COMPASS when forecasting both GDP and its expenditure components. In contrast, their performances when forecasting CPI were similar. We also find that the BVAR density forecasts outperformed those of COMPASS, despite under-predicting inflation at most forecast horizons. Both models over-predicted GDP growth at all forecast horizons, but the issue was less pronounced in the BVAR. The BVAR’s point and density forecast performances are also comparable to those of a Bank of England in-house statistical suite for both GDP and CPI inflation, as well as to the official Inflation Report projections. Our results are broadly consistent with the findings of similar studies for other advanced economies.     

Euro area real-time density forecasting with financial or labor market frictions

We compare real-time density forecasts for the euro area using three DSGE models. The benchmark is the Smets and Wouters model, and its forecasts of real GDP growth and inflation are compared with those from two extensions. The first adds financial frictions and expands the observables to include a measure of the external finance premium. The second allows for the extensive labor-market margin and adds the unemployment rate to the observables. The main question that we address is whether these extensions improve the density forecasts of real GDP and inflation and their joint forecasts up to an eight-quarter horizon. We find that adding financial frictions leads to a deterioration in the forecasts, with the exception of longer-term inflation forecasts and the period around the Great Recession. The labor market extension improves the medium- to longer-term real GDP growth and shorter- to medium-term inflation forecasts weakly compared with the benchmark model.     

Monetary policy and food inflation in South Africa: A quantile regression analysis

Although optimal monetary policy stabilizes food inflation theoretically, empirical studies remain limited not only in the context of volumes and the estimation approaches, but are focused on selected advanced and emerging countries to the neglect of Africa where poverty and dominance of food in the consumption basket are more pronounced. We provide empirical evidence in the context of South Africa using quantile regressions. Rising food prices are destabilized even further by restrictive monetary policy; a finding that has ramifications for inflation targeting, especially given that a quarter of the country’s population is food poor.