Why will Trump lose the trade war?

ABSTRACT

The escalating U.S.–China trade conflicts have increasingly shadowed the outlook of the world economy. The Trump administration aims to achieve its strategic goals including reducing current account deficits, promoting the U.S. manufacturing sector, and curbing Chinese high-tech industries by waging the trade war against China. This paper argues that the current account deficits and the declining manufacturing sector in the U.S. are mainly driven by its internal structural factors, such as low saving rates, high labor costs, and rising service sector, rather than by the import competition from China. Moreover, the trade war further deteriorates the U.S. current account deficits and erode its comparative advantage, and it forces China to invest more in technological innovation and human capital, and thus promote its progress in high-tech industries. Thus, the U.S. will not be able to achieve its strategical goals and eventually lose the trade war.     

Fiscal decentralization, revenue and expenditure assignments, and growth in China

Theory suggests that a close match between revenue and expenditure assignments at sub-national levels benefits allocative efficiency, and hence economic growth. That is, a convergence of revenue and expenditure assignments at sub-national levels of government should, according to the theory, be positively associated with a higher growth rate. In the case of China, this paper shows, divergence, rather than convergence, in revenue and expenditures at the sub-national level of government is associated with higher rates of growth. A panel dataset for 30 provinces in China is used to examine the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth over two phases of fiscal decentralization in China: (1) 1979–1993 under the fiscal contract system, and (2) 1994–1999 under the tax assignment system. The seeming contradiction between the theory and evidence in the China case is reconciled by taking into account the institutional arrangements that prevailed during the two phases of fiscal decentralization, in particular the inconsistency between the assumptions of the theory of fiscal decentralization and the institutional reality of China.     

Discussion of “The Role of Expectations in Explaining the Cross-Section of Stock Returns”

This paper discusses Copeland et al. (2004), which empirically investigates the role of changes in expectations in explaining contemporaneous cross-sectional stock returns. Because the main results in this study are largely confirmatory of results reported in prior literature, my discussion emphasizes conceptual issues in the econometric specification of earnings–return relations. I derive three versions of return specifications from popular valuation models based on residual earnings, free cash flows, or earnings growth, and contrast them with that adopted by Copeland et al. (2004). This analysis suggests that firmer grounding in theory would help the paper in empirical specifications as well as interpretations of results.     

通货膨胀的各种成因及其在我国的实证分析

本文不仅总结了当前主要的实证研究文献提出的我国通货膨胀的种种成因,而且对每种原因给予了比较分析和新的实证分析,并在此基础上尝试进行了综合分析,以得出一些有益的结论。     

从税收电子技术应用看政府上网问题及对策

政府上网不仅是新的技术工具的获得和经营模式的改变,更重要的是政府要用信息技术向社会提供更有效的服务.税收信息化即是电子技术在税收工作中的具体应用.     

Money and specialization

Summary.  This paper examines the relationship between specialization and the use of money in two versions of the search-theoretic monetary model. The first version establishes a surprising result that specialization is more likely to occur in a barter economy than in a monetary economy. The result is reversed in the second version where a different specification of preferences is adopted to limit the scope of barter. This contrast between the results provides a concrete illustration of the general argument that money encourages specialization only when it enlarges the extent of the market. Received: January 31, 1995; revised version August 12, 1996     

电子商务:经济发展的新税源

随着我国电子商务行政管理机构的确立,我国电子商务发展已经初具规模,政策法规已初步完善.预计十五期间,网络规模将迅速发展,电子政务将迅速普及,数字化生活将迅速推广,电子商务将成为21世纪人类信息世界的核心、新型的经济贸易形式和新的经济增长点,也必将成为税收制度建设的新税源.     

倾力构建网络泉城

在济南市一合资公司任部门经理的李世新有一个习惯:不管多忙,每天晚上两个小时的上网时间他总会想办法挤出来。“在互联网上看一看,了解跟自己有关的东西,也放松紧张了一天的神经。”     

The effects of transition on the distribution of income in China

Using two large samples for 1988 and 1995 we decompose the Gini coefficient of household income according to type of income with the purpose of analyzing reasons for the rapid increase of inequality. The results show that the change in relative size of money income and its changed profile are found to be the major processes behind the rapid increase of income inequality in rural China. Changes in housing allocation and an increased number of retirees in combination with higher benefits have made inequality increase in urban China and in China as a whole. JEL classification: D31, P27.