Financing budget deficits in the Netherlands

Summary In The Netherlands public debt management is in the hands of the budgetary policy-maker, whose recourse to the capital market can exceed or fall short of the total borrowing requirement in order to absorb or create liquidity. The conduct of that policy since the early 1960's is analyzed in this paper, emphasizing the importance of medium-term control over the public finances as a prerequisite for the ability of debt management to make a flexible contribution to monetary policy. During the 1960's this condition was satisfied and debt management followed a stable countercyclical pattern which, however, was abandoned after the early 1970's as the public finances swung into substantial disequilibrium.The author thanks J. Boughton, L. Bovenberg, D. Hendry, P. Masson, J. Muellbauer, and the referees for comments on earlier versions. However, the views expressed are his alone and do not necessarily represent those of the International Monetary Fund.     

瞿秋白编辑宣传工作略论

瞿秋白是一位品质高尚、理论涵养深厚的优秀编辑，编辑活动分为上个世纪的“五四”、二十年代中后期和三十年代三个时期，其编辑工作主要呈现出宣传方向的坚定性、政策舆论的前导性、编辑与创作的一体性等特点。他为我党报刊宣传事业作出了杰出的贡献。     

Fiscal sustainability in the wake of the economic crisis in Korea

The total amount of government debt was expected to rise sharply over the following several years in the wake of the Korean financial and economic crisis in 1997, raising concern about the sustainability of government deficits and fiscal consolidation. This paper provides an overview of Korea’s fiscal stance after the financial crisis and the policy implications for fiscal consolidation by assessing fiscal sustainability. Sustainability tests are carried out and show that Korean fiscal policy for the period 1970–1999 should be regarded as sustainable. Indicators of sustainability are also measured to that Korean fiscal policy for the period 1970–1996 is sustainable. However, both the primary and tax gap indicators with a sharp rise in the debt ratios are shown to be worsening since 1997 indicating increasingly possible unsustainable fiscal policies. It implies that the current primary deficit is too large and current taxes are too low to stabilize the debt ratio.     

Economic Policy and social democracy; the Austrian experience

In the 1970s, Austria's social democratic government pursueda distinctive policy strategy to overcome the period of stagflationand to maintain full employment after the first oil crisis.In the Keynesian tradition, the model assigned expansionaryfiscal and monetary policy to stabilize effective demand andemployment; the exchange rate to curb inflation; while the balanceof trade was left to moderate incomes policies by the socialpartners. In the 1970s, this strategy was successful and themacroeconomic performance of the Austrian economy was outstanding.In the restrictive environment of the 1980s, the Austro-Keynesianmodel waned; while the stabilizing elements of the model, i.e.the hard currency and moderate incomes policies, were maintained,deficit spending as a discretionary strategy was given up. But,although the Austrian economy has been put under much competitivepressure owing to a continuous appreciation of the schillingalong with the Deutschmark, its macroeconomic performance hasbeen at least as good as the European or OECD average, but withlower unemployment.     

金融加速器理论与伯南克的金融危机应对之策

金融危机席卷全球导致真实经济下滑,为应对危机美联储实施＂量化宽松＂货币政策。本文借伯南克对20世纪30年代美国大萧条研究提出的金融加速器理论分析了大萧条影响范围、程度以及持续时间长的原因和内在机制,进而分析量化宽松政策的原因及其影响。     

Financial Development, Uncertainty and Economic Growth

By performing a cross-country growth regression for the 1970-1998 period this paper finds evidence for the fact that the impact of policy uncertainty on economic growth depends on the development of the financial sector. It appears that a higher level of financial development partly mitigates the negative impact of policy uncertainty on economic growth. This clearly indicates the relevance of financial sector development.     

Oil demand in the US and Japan: why the demand reductions caused by the price increases of the 1970's won't be reversed by the price declines of the 1980's

This paper analyzes the imperfect price-reversibility (‘hysteresis’) of oil demand in the US and Japan. We test econometrically oil demand data, disaggregated into transportation oil and non-transportation oil uses.The oil demand reductions following the oil price increases of the 1970's will not be completely reversed by the price cuts of the 1980's. The responce to price cuts in the 1980's is perhaps only one-fifth that for price increases in the 1970's. This has dramatic implications for projections of oil demand, especially under low-price assumptions.We also consider the demand effects of a price recovery in the 1990's, especially whether the effects would be as large as for the price increases of the 1970's or only as large as the smaller demand reversals of the 1980's. On this the results are inconclusive.     

The shift from sterling to the dollar, 1965–76: evidence from Australia and New Zealand

The management of foreign exchange reserves has recently attracted attention from both policy‐makers and historians. Historical research has focussed on the nineteenth century and the interwar period, with less attention to the strategies of smaller countries in the final transition from sterling to the dollar in the post‐1945 period. This article examines the evolution of reserve currency policy from the perspective of Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and early 1970s. As in the 1930s, economic uncertainty and a shift in global economic power prompted changes in reserves strategy. Patterns of trade and debt and falling confidence in British economic policy prompted a move away from sterling, but the timing and extent of this transition were affected by the fragility of the sterling exchange rate, lack of alternative assets, and continued dependence on the London capital market. The choices for Australia and New Zealand were thus constrained, but they were able to leverage their position as holders of sterling to engage in agreements that provided an exchange rate guarantee for their sterling holdings and continued access to the London capital market. This mitigated the effect of the final global transition from sterling to the dollar while protecting their interests.     

完善企业年金监管的几点思考

由美国次贷危机引发的全球金融风波至今已近四年,其造成的损失和影响自20世纪30年代以来前所未有.美国、英国和欧盟为防止危机对经济的进一步拖累,纷纷提出自己的金融监管改革计划,以应对危机.文章首先介绍了美国和欧盟金融监管改革的发展历程,然后总结了美欧金融监管改革对我国加强金融监管的启示,最后结合国际金融监管改革的新动向,并从市场化、风险控制和构建合作机制等三方面提出了改善我国企业年金监管的政策建议.     

振兴苏北经济的江苏省财政政策评价

改变苏北经济落后状况,江苏省财政政策经历了促进发展、振兴苏北和南北挂钩共建三个阶段。运用财政理论试着对江苏省振兴苏北的财政政策作出评价,振兴计划改变了苏北经济落后的状况,由于区域竞争的原因,苏北与苏南的差距进一步加大,为防止出现"美左桥诺"现象,需要进一步改进振兴苏北经济的财政政策。     

Loan-to-value policy in a bubble-creation economy

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of macroprudential policy in the form of loan-to-value (LTV) restrictions in a bubble-creation economy. Such policy measures have been used intensively in Asia to deal with credit and property price boom-bust cycles while the effectiveness remains unclear, especially the country-specific cases. We find that the effect on investment and size of bubbles depends on the degree of financial development. Specifically, restrictive LTV policies tend to be more effective in dampening asset-price bubbles in economies that have a high degree of financial depth. High (low) financial depth implies that bubbles originally crowd out (in) investment, so that implementation of LTV policies causes bubbles to decrease (remain unchanged). These might explain some mixed empirical results of LTV policy on dampening asset-price growth.     

Expansionary monetary policy and credit allocation: Evidence from China

We identify the impact of expansionary monetary policy in China during the 2008–2009 global financial crisis on the credit and investment allocation among firms. We obtain robust evidence that expansionary monetary policy led to the misallocation of bank credit to less productive firms after controlling for confounding factors. However, we find that investment increased more for more productive firms. Additional analyses show that this occurred partly because more productive firms hoarded cash before the crisis, and partly because less productive firms invested more in financial assets.     

Energy conservation — what price a local initiative?

With the collapse of oil prices, shortages and long term increases in energy prices seem far away, and conservation is the last thing on our minds. Thus, national energy supply monopolies encourage the use rather than conservation of energy, whilst the alleged prospect of a long-term increase in electricity demand is used to justify investment in nuclear power. This article examines how decentralisation and a greater local involvement in national energy policy could overcome this contradiction. It also finds that the conservation strategies developed, after the oil crisis of the 1970's, in several other countries have, surprisingly, no British equivalent.     

Unemployment and Economic Policy in Denmark in the 1930s

Abstract

The paper examines Danish unemployment and the employment policy in the 1930s. The unemployment data indicate that though the unemployment increased dramatically the rate of unemployment remained low. The official Danish unemployment records definitely underestimated the actual unemployment in the early 1930s, but the discrepancy was hardly as big as some scholars have suggested. The paper furthermore points out that the rather atypical rise in the Danish unemployment from the mid-1930s can be attributed to a rise in the natural rate of unemployment due to an improved unemployment insurance coverage and a more comprehensive registration of the unemployment. The second part of the paper deals with the Danish employment policy. Unemployment remained high on the political agenda, but the employment problem never became the main target for the economic policy. An active employment policy was constrained by the problems of the balance of payments and the political disagreements in parliament. While the macroeconomic policy did help to stabilize the economy and the employment, the number of measures directly targeting the labour market was small, and they seldom gave rise to much job creation.     

Influence of the public sector on activity in Denmark, 1929-39

Abstract

The article presents the first quantification of Denmark's discretionary fiscal policy of the 1930s. The measuring of the discretionary budget effects is based on a revision of the changes in the aggregate public sector budget balance and a computation of the size of the automatic stabilisers. It is shown that Danish fiscal policy became steadily more contractive between 1932/33 and 1936/37, while changes in an expansive direction occurred only in 1931/32 and in the late 1930s. It is concluded that the fiscal policy pursued in Denmark had considerably more points of similarity with fiscal policy in Great Britain than with the Swedish policy of the 1930s.     

The appropriate intermediate target for monetary policy in less developed countries: Empirical evidence

It is argued in this paper that recent financial innovations and deregulation in less developed countries may have established a case for an intermediate target strategy for monetary policy. The question of which financial aggregate to target is not, however, a trivial one. Three criteria have to be met for a financial aggregate to serve as an appropriate target for monetary policy. Using time series data from a sample of six less developed countries, these three criteria are empirically tested to determine whether narrow money, broad money or domestic credit is the most appropriate target for monetary policy in less developed countries. The results indicate that it is difficult to generalize and that until monetary policy can be independent of fiscal policy in these countries, none of the tested financial aggregates would be appropriate as an intermediate target.     

Early Analytical Agricultural Economics in Australia

Analysis of home consumption pricing by Giblin and Copland in the 1930s preceded the development of an identifiable Australian agricultural economics profession. They demonstrated that costs of increasing domestic prices of agricultural products above export levels would be borne largely by lightly assisted exporters and hinder their development. This work was taken up later within a framework of computable general equilibrium modelling. Now largely of historical interest, their work sheds light on likely consequences of some past policy debates ? of protection all round in the 1920s and tariff compensation in the 1970s.     

贸易保护的周期性变化——美国的经验分析及金融危机的影响

国际金融危机爆发后,贸易保护主义抬头,导致全球贸易环境进一步恶化,也使中国出口面临更为严峻的挑战。本文通过对1970～2008年美国进口倾向变化的统计分析,探讨贸易保护的周期性及其影响因素。在此基础上,建立基于真实经济周期(RBC)理论的动态一般均衡模型,分析奥巴马推出"购买美国货"这一保护性措施对美国经济复苏的作用,并提出我国应对贸易保护主义的对策思路。     

The west and China: globalisation and competition in financial services

This paper examines the evolution of the industrial structure of global financial firms since the 1970s, during which time, free market policies dominated theoretical and practical policy discussion. It examines the logic behind and evidence on consolidation in the international financial services industry. It analyses the impact of Washington Consensus policies upon the expansion of global banks in developing and transition economies. It contrasts the evolution of the international banking structure during the era of modern globalisation with that in China, which has followed a fundamentally different path. Although Chinese banks have large profits and market capitalisation, their international competitiveness is still limited. Global banks have only a small role in the Chinese economy and Chinese banks have a small role in the international economy. The contrast between the two systems is of central importance for the way in which competition and regulation develops in the global financial sector.     

Forces of economic growth in China,India, and other Asian countries

This paper applies different approaches to modelling sources of economic growth from time series and panel data sets for 10 Asian countries over the period 1970–2010. After being subjected to fragility tests, the cross‐country estimates indicate that investment, together with policy variables and openness to trade, explains about 90 per cent of the estimated 3.2 per cent steady‐state growth rate for the region. Regional growth policy points to expanding trade, supporting financial development, and maintaining sound investment environments. Although country‐specific growth effects vary, the results imply that different estimation methods, combined with fragility tests, can help establish stronger links between growth theory and policy advice.