中国人为什么不花钱

中国需要彻底改变其增长模式,从净出口和投资转向降低储蓄并增加消费。中国经济增长的传统模式现在受到挑战,因为巨额债务及贸易赤字已迫使美国进行痛苦的去杠杆化:美国消费者要减少开支和消费,并缩减进口。因此,中国需要彻底改变其增长模式,从净出口和投资转向降低储蓄并增加消     

中国经济增长面临内外挑战

【美国《福布斯》4月14日】中国经济显现见底迹象 2007、2008两年间，中国作为以购买力衡量的世界第二经济大国，对全球经济总产出的贡献度都在10％以上。因此，全球经济要复苏，中国必须发挥关键作用。2008年下半年，中国面临着经济增速的急剧下滑，这表现在众多指标上：GDP、发电量、采购经理人指数、汽车销量、住房销量、制造业数据以及进出口都是如此。事实上，据一些私人机构估算，中国经济的环比增长率一度降至零点、甚至负值。     

“Rules of thumb” for sovereign debt crises

This paper investigates the economic and political conditions that are associated to the occurrence of a sovereign debt crisis. We use a new statistical approach (Classification and Regression Tree) that allows us to derive a collection of “rules of thumb” that help identify the typical characteristics of defaulters. We find that not all crises are equal: they differ depending on whether the government faces insolvency, illiquidity, or various macroeconomic risks. We also characterize the set of fundamentals that can be associated with a relatively “risk-free” zone. This classification is important for discussing appropriate policy options to prevent crises and improve response time and prediction.     

MACROECONOMIC POLICY AND ELECTIONS IN OECD DEMOCRACIES*

The purpose of this paper is to test for evidence of opportunistic “political business cycles” in a large sample of 18 OECD economies. Our results can be summarized as follows: 1) We find very little evidence of pre-electoral effects on economic outcomes, in particular, on GDP growth and unemployment; 2) We see some evidence of “political monetary cycles,” that is, expansionary monetary policy in election years; 3) We also observe indications of “political budget cycles,” or “loose” fiscal policy prior to elections; 4) Inflation exhibits a post-electoral jump, which could be explained by either the pre-electoral “loose” monetary and fiscal policies and/or by an opportunistic timing of increases in publicly controlled prices, or indirect taxes.     

Fiscal deficits, public debt, and government solvency: Evidence from OECD countries

This paper discusses different empirical tests of public sector solvency and applies them to a sample of 18 OECD countries. Under the maintained hypothesis that the government solvency constraint needs to be imposed, these tests develop from the idea of verifying whether the intertemporal budget constraint of the public sector would be satisfied (a) if the fiscal and financial policy in the sample had been pursued indefinitely and (b) if the relevant macro and structural features of the economy were stable over time. If solvency is not supported by the empirical evidence, a change either in the policy or in the relevant macro and structural variables (growth, inflation, interest rates, demographic factors) must occur at some point in the future. Among the G-7 countries, public sector solvency seems a serious issue in Italy, whereas it does not appear to be a problem in Germany and Japan. The evidence for the United States is mixed. Problems of sustainability of the current path of fiscal policies are also present in Belgium, Ireland, The Netherlands, and Greece.     

基本假设脱离现实，美国银行业压力测试不可信

【美国《福布斯》4月16日】为美国银行业压力测试造势的宣传机器已开始全速运转。曰前，已有银行监管官员向《纽约时报》表示，参加压力测试的19家银行将全部过关。     

自由资本主义已破产，避免“L型准萧条”亟需四类措施

【美国《福布斯》2月19日】U型衰退已成现实，L型准萧条风险增大 本次危机是大萧条以来最严重的金融危机和60年来最严重的经济危机，这已经毋庸置疑。目前，短暂而温和的V型衰退的幻想已经破灭，我们已陷入了严重而漫长的U型衰退。不仅如此，危机进一步恶化、以至成为更严重的、持续多年的日本式L型滞缩（停滞、衰退与通缩的恶性组合）的风险正在增大。     

The BW 2 regime: an unstable disequilibrium bound to unravel

The paper presents a critical analysis of the Bretton Woods 2 (BW2) hypothesis. According to this view China, other Asian economies and other emerging market economies follow mercantilist policies of maintaining fixed pegs to the US dollar at undervalued levels as a way to pursue export-led growth. The view in the paper is that there is indeed a BW2 regime in some regions of the world. But it is argued that BW2 is different from the first Bretton Woods system: BW2 is structurally unstable and fragile and will unravel over the horizon of the next few years, not a decade or longer. This unraveling could lead to a sharp fall for the US dollar and the US bond market with high real collateral costs with a disorderly rebalancing of the global economy.     

美国及全球股市展望

【美国《福布斯》3月12日】6个月以来，我一直认为，虽然美国和全球股市已经大幅下滑，但股市进一步下行的风险仍然很大。预期之外的宏观面利空消息以及金融市场和金融机构的冲击将对市场构成打击，因此，每一次熊市反弹最终都会化为泡影。     

Politically Motivated Fiscal Deficits: Policy Issues in Closed and Open Economies

In this paper we reconsider the trade-off between rules and discretion in fiscal policy in the presence of politically motivated fiscal deficits. We present a model of political bias in the budget process appropriately developed to allow for tax-smoothing-motivated deficits as well as for the consideration of deficit biases in open economies. We find that endowing politically-biased governments with the ability to respond to economic shocks with deficit finance will not exacerbate the existing biases. In an open economy, the ability to borrow abroad will significantly increase the deficit. However, restrictions to public foreign borrowing will not reduce the political bias as long as the private sector has access to international capital markets at the same terms as the government.