Robust Institutions: The Logic of Levy?

Levy (2002) argues that J. M. Buchanan's worst-case philosophy of constitutional political economy and J. W. Tukey's worst-case philosophy of mathematical statistics are analogous. Levy's analogy, however, is problematic. Institutions are only contingently robust. Worst-case political economy is simply best-case thinking in another guise.     

Core Concepts of Institutionalist Public Finance: Problem Solving,Institutional Analysis,Strategic Choice,and Stakeholder Engagement

Citizens and policymakers in many nations are becoming increasingly concerned about large budget deficits and mounting long-term fiscal policy challenges. At the same time, slow economic growth in the United States and Europe is causing some people to demand more government spending (and lower taxes) and others to question the efficacy of fiscal policy. Against that backdrop, institutional economists are exhibiting renewed interest in the field of public finance. This article responds by outlining four core concepts of institutionalist public finance: problem solving, institutional analysis, strategic choice, and stakeholder engagement. What distinguishes the perspective of institutionalism from that of neoclassical economics, today’s dominant economic paradigm, is described in the course of the discussion. The core concepts of institutionalist public finance offer a coherent approach to the study of fiscal policy questions. Those concepts were first fashioned decades ago, but remain relevant: institutionalism continues to provide a solid basis for constructive analyses of fiscal challenges.     

Cognitive Rules, Institutions, and Competition

Rules exert an important influence on rational individual behaviour. In economic analyses, two different types of rules occur that both induce rule-following behaviour. However, they are rarely distinguished. The differentiation of institutions (as interpersonal rules) and cognitive rules (as intrapersonal rules) allows for a clarification of substantial differences between the two types of rules, for example, concerning the incorporated knowledge and rule-persistence. Furthermore, the analysis of the interrelation of the two types of rules offers fruitful insights that still are not much explored in economics. The important dimensions to be considered are rule-harmony that stabilises institutional arrangements, and rule-conflict that induces pressure on persistent institutions. In this context, competition can be seen as a medium of interaction that allows individual agents to learn both about the behaviour of interacting agents and the nature and effects of the institutional framework. The integration of competition - as the core concept of economics - into the interplay of institutions and cognitive rules explores a missing point within the analysis of the economics of rules.     

Robust political economy

This paper introduces the idea of “robust political economy.” In the context of political economic systems, “robustness” refers to a political economic arrangement's ability to produce social welfare-enhancing outcomes in the face of deviations from ideal assumptions about individuals' motivations and information. Since standard assumptions about complete and perfect information, instantaneous market adjustment, perfect agent rationality, political actor benevolence, etc., rarely, if ever actually hold, a realistic picture and accurate assessment of the desirability of alternative political economic systems requires an analysis of alternative systems' robustness. The Mises-Hayek critique of socialism forms the foundation for investigations of robustness that relax ideal informational assumptions. The Buchanan-Tullock public choice approach complements this foundation in forming the basis for investigations of robustness that relax ideal motivational assumptions. JEL Code B53, P16, P26     

Institutions as knowledge capital: Ludwig M. Lachmann's interpretative institutionalism

This article revisits the socioeconomic theory of the AustrianSchool economist Ludwig M. Lachmann. By showing that the commonclaim that Lachmann's idiosyncratic (i.e., eclectic and multidisciplinary)approach to economics entails nihilism is unfounded, it reachesthe following conclusions. (1) Lachmann held a sophisticatedinstitutional position vis-à-vis economics that anticipateddevelopments in contemporary new institutional economics. (2)Lachmann's sociological and economic reading of institutionsoffers insights for the problem of coordination.     

为什么不同时期不同国家提供的公共产品不同?——兼论中西公共财政的异同

本对不同时期不同国家公共产品（Public Goods)提供的不同状况的原因作了分析,认为公共产品提供的差异是公共选择的结果。并在个人理性与集体理性的一致性的前提下,从技术、传统化等角度对公共产品提供这一制度变迁过程进行了探讨。最后,本指出公共产品提供的差异性对我国建立公共财政框架的启示意义。     

基于ESDA的江苏省县域经济发展空间模式解析

利用1988—2009年江苏省县域人均GDP数据,基于邻接和距离规则定义空间权重矩阵,采用ESDA全局和局部空间关联分析方法,对江苏省县域经济发展的空间发展模式进行了研究。结果表明：在基于邻接规则的空间关联模式分析下,江苏省县域经济发展的空间相互联系强度可划分为四个阶段：①1988—1993年,苏南与苏中、苏北空间差异并不显著;②1994—1996年,全省经济布局极化现象显著增强;③1997—2003年,极化现象有所缓解;④2004—2008年,苏南与苏中、苏北区域经济差距进一步拉大。在基于距离规则的空间关联模式分析下,初步推断江苏省县域经济之间正的空间关联性影响范围在240 km之内。苏南经济的快速发展对沿江地带经济起到了较大的推动作用,但沿海地区的经济发展在2009年前还有很大改观,还需要进一步挖掘和带动。     

Robust estimation of models of Engel curves

Both standard and robust methods are used here to estimate models of Engel curves for three household commodities, namely, food, transport, and tobacco and alcohol in Canada. The income elasticities of demand computed from the various methods differ significantly for the transport and tobacco-alcohol consumption where there are obvious outliers and zero expenditures problem. Robust estimators point to lower income elasticities and have better performance than the standard LS and Tobit estimator. These results are analyzed in the light of the information on finite-sample performance obtained in a previous Monte Carlo study. First version received: July 2000/Final version received: July 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  I wish to thank Victoria Zinde-Walsh, John Galbraith, Clint Coakley, two anonymous referees and an associate editor for helpful comments. I would also like to thank Anastassia Khouri for kindly providing the 1992 Family Expenditure Survey of Canada data.     

河北省金融机构金融创新对策研究

创新是金融业发展的动力。河北省是一个经济大省,但称不上是一个经济强省,更不是一个金融强省,只有通过不 断的金融创新,才能推动河北金融业快速健康的发展。本课题组通过对河北省各金融企业的深入调查,发现在金融创新方面 做得很不够,问题很多,在深入分析的基础上我们提出一些建议。     

Institutional difference and foreign direct investment location choice: Evidence from China

Resting upon an extensive data set on foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in China, we investigate the role of institutional difference in determining the locational choice of foreign direct investment (FDI). Estimation results using firm-level discrete choice model suggest that FIEs from source countries that are more remote institutionally from the Chinese mainland exhibit a higher degree of sensitivity to regional economic institutions in their choice of FDI location. Furthermore, we find that FIEs coming from countries with better institutions than China are more sensitive to the institutional difference. Interestingly, we find that the deterrent effect of institutional distance on FDI entry is mitigated for FIEs coming from countries with more ethnic Chinese individuals in their overall populations.     

经济转型中的制度移植与非正式制度约束

经济转型的实践表明,制度移植很大程度上取代了制度设计.而制度移植成功的关键在于制度创新,将移植来的正式制度形式与本土的非正式制度相融合.如果在经济转型过程中只关注目标制度的形式,而不关心其内涵,必然会与本土的非正式制度形成冲突,导致移植失灵,陷入制度陷阱.文章的主要观点通过对中国和俄罗斯制度创新模式的实证分析得到支撑.     

Endogenous Selection of Institutions and Their Exogenous Effects

Institutions shape social outcomes, yet institutions themselves are products of political choices. When institutional choices are determined by the same political and social processes that they shape, institutions are endogenously selected. Here I address the question of whether this endogenous institutional selection necessarily implies endogenous institutional effects. If it does, the use of institutional parameters as independent variables explaining policy outcomes and properties of the resulting political regimes, widespread in the literature on comparative political institutions, is hard to justify. I argue, however, that strategic choice of the rules of the game implies designers' ability to obtain their preferred institutional effects only under conditions of complete information. Under incomplete information, ex-post institutional effects do not need to be endogenous, since at the time of designing the rules the designers were not in position to control the selection of these effects. The reason why the choice of the rules does not imply the choice of their effects lies in the intervening and interactive (rather than additive) role played by the environmental parameters, including players' own characteristics, that are not revealed at the time of the institutional choice. Additionally to the model which illustrates the logic of the argument and the workings of intervening structural effects, I find supporting evidence in the processes of design of election laws in post-communist Europe, where stages of design and implementation followed each other in a very quick succession yet were characterized by substantial changes in manifested institutional preferences of the key political players.     

Permanency and Flexibility of Institutions: The Role of Decentralization in Chinese Economic Reforms

The purpose of this paper is to offer a Lachmannian analysis aimed at studying the coherence and the efficiency of reforms in China in terms of institutional change. The idea is that transition dynamics cannot be analyzed by reference to market criteria only; transition is, above all, a change in institutions. Every transition economy thus faces the problem of creating a new institutional framework which associates the co-ordination of activities by the market with the preservation of a centralized mechanism of resource allocation. We explain that, in China, this role is played by decentralization. Indeed, we demonstrate that Chinese economic reforms, of which the main institutional vector is decentralization, show the particularity of reconciling, within one single logic, the permanency of a well-established institutional order required for the co-ordination of individual plans, and the flexibility of institutions necessary for the move towards the market. We then defend the theory that both the success and the originality of Chinese economic reforms rest on their capacity to resolve the permanency-flexibility dilemma.     

Institutions and growth: evidence from estimation methods robust to weak instruments

This article focuses on the empirical approach proposed by Hall and Jones (1999 Hall, RE and Jones, CI(HJ99). 1999. Why do some countries produce so much more output per worker than others?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114: 83–116. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to estimate the effect of what they call ‘social infrastructure’ on productivity across countries. We consider the issue of weak identification in their linear instrumental variables model. The evidence obtained from partially robust estimators, such as the k-class and jackknife estimators, is interpreted on the basis of Monte Carlo studies. Our findings suggest that using certain k-class estimators allows exclusive reliance on the linguistic variables to instrument for institutional quality despite their low correlation with the endogenous regressor in question.     

Political Entrepreneurship and the Democratic Allocation of Economic Resources

Political entrepreneurship occurs when an individual acts on a political profit opportunity. These profit opportunities can be divided into two categories: productive, and predatory. Productive opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from enhancing the efficiency of government, while predatory opportunities enable entrepreneurs to profit from forcibly transferring resources from some to others. This analysis shows that political institutions tend to favor predatory over productive political entrepreneurship, and shows that what is sometimes referred to as political exchange does not have the same efficiency characteristics as voluntary exchange in private markets.     

The Simpsons: Public Choice in the Tradition of Swift and Orwell

Abstract: The author disagrees with Homer Simpson who claims that" … cartoons don't have any deep meaning. They're just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh." He argues that The Simpsons have a deep meaning in the same way as the works of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell. The message in The Simpsons, Swift, and Orwell is that those in charge do not always undertake action with the public interest in mind—the basic premise of public choice. All three sources provide examples of other public choice themes, and they deliver their message through popular satire with layers of allusion.     

另一只＂看不见的手＂——埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆与＂多中心＂理论

在“多中心”理论之前,社会上主要存在市场秩序和国家主权秩序。多中心的产生源于集体行动理论的局限性,它颠覆了公共财产只有交由中央权威机构管理或完全私有化后才能有效管理的传统观念。本文对当代公共选择学派和公共经济学的代表人物埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆的“多中心”理论做了解读,并从奥斯特罗姆个人学术研究经历出发,追溯多中心思想形成的全过程,最后就“多中心”理论的重要意义与发展方向做了展望。     

机关事业单位养老保险制度的人性化选择

伴随着城镇企业养老保险制度的逐渐完善,建立机关事业单位养老保险制度无疑是目前社会养老保险工作中最棘手的难题。由于过去城镇内部养老保险“二元化”特征导致现阶段对机关事业单位试点和改革存在诸多的分歧,试图在过去改革试点和城镇养老保险改革的经验基础上,以最终建立全国统一的社会保障制度为目标,力图最小化转制成本,对机关事业单位养老保险制度建立的原则和框架问题做一些探索。     

京津冀能源强度的空间特征及供给侧降耗路径研究

基于2011—2016年京津冀13个市的面板数据,利用探索性空间数据分析方法研究了京津冀能源强度的空间分布特征,结果表明:京津冀市域能源强度的局部空间分布的相似性和差异性并存且不稳定,使得京津冀能源强度在整体上没有表现出显著的空间相关性。在此基础上,从要素、产业、制度等三个层面提炼能源强度的供给侧因素,并构建了固定效应回归模型,结果表明:能源强度与产业结构、技术进步、产权安排呈显著的正相关关系,与投资、政府调控呈显著的负相关关系。     

Institutional quality and public spending in Europe: A quantile regression approach

We appraise the effects of institutional quality on public spending for a set of 27 European countries and 18 Euro-area economies over the 1996–2017 period. While institutions play a weak role in affecting spending once the fixed-effects model is employed, the application of the quantile regression indicates that improved institutional quality mitigates public spending, although the effects crucially depend on the distribution of public expenditure and the sample examined. For both the Euro-area sample and the full sample, we show that better quality of institutions reduces public spending, although the effects become less significant the higher the levels of public spending. Further, for the Euro-area sample, institutions appear to have a stronger role in mitigating public spending. Several robustness tests confirm our findings.