Expropriation risk,investment decisions and economic sectors

We build a Real Options model to assess the importance of private provision and the impact of expropriation risk on investment timing, business values, governmental costs and social welfare. We consider two types of businesses (essential and non-essential) and two stages (operating businesses and investment opportunities) and answer questions regarding three main topics: the firm's reaction to expropriation risk, the government drivers to expropriate, and the welfare costs of expropriation. Our results show that responding to expropriation risk the private investor is driven to suboptimal investment decisions. When we endogenize the reputational costs of expropriation, our results show that the decision of the government to expropriate largely depends on the type of business being targeted. In terms of welfare, our results show that expropriation is always associated with a loss.     

产业共性技术研发政府支持合同

建立了产业共性技术研发三阶段博弈模型,基于政府视角研究了以企业研发投入最大化为目标的共性技术支持合同的最优设计问题,并分析了合同性质。研究结果表明:足够多的政府预算是共性技术研发最优合同存在的前提,企业的最优研发投入随着政府预算的增加而增加,且其增长速度比政府支持投入的增长速度更快;企业的最优研发投入与共性技术市场化预期收益、企业及政府投入对共性技术研发成功的影响系数正相关,与双方单位投入成本系数负相关。     

Expropriation risk and competition within the military

How can agents in the military, who control the means of coercion, commit not to expropriate from producers? In this paper we propose competition within the military as one of the mechanisms that can deter predation and consequently create commitment. In our model, even if agents within the military could expropriate all output costlessly, it is attractive to protect producers from predating military units. This marginal defensive advantage and consequently defence is an effective way to potentially eliminate is because there is a other military units, reducing competition and leading to higher future payoffs. Our model predicts that greater internal competition within the military lowers the risk of expropriation and that this effect is strongest for countries with low institutional and economic development. Testing this prediction empirically, we find a robust negative relationship between competition within the military and expropriation risk. In line with our model this effect is strongest for countries at lower stages of institutional and economic development, and it weakens as the latter improve. These results indicate that there may be a short-run component to property rights institutions that varies with the degree of competition among agents who control the means of coercion.     

International Procurement as a Signal of Export Quality

In 1996, the British Government was accused of a protectionist 'buy British' campaign when it awarded a contract for army ambulances to Land Rover. We present a model where the procurement decision of the government affects the perception of consumers in the rest of the world about the quality of the domestic firm's product relative to that of a foreign rival's product. The model compares the outcome when the government's only concern is value for money with the outcome when the government takes account of the effect of its decision on export sales of the domestic firm.     

Mode of International Investment and Endogenous Risk of Expropriation

This paper analyzes the relationship between the mode of international investment and institutional quality. Foreign investors from a capital‐rich North can either purchase productive assets in a capital‐poor South and transfer their capital within integrated multinational firms or they can form joint ventures with local asset owners. The South is ruled by an autocratic elite that may use its political power to expropriate productive assets. The expropriation risk lowers the incentive to provide specific capital in an integrated firm and distorts the decision between joint ventures and integrated production. We determine the equilibrium risk of expropriation in this framework and the resulting pattern of international production. We also analyze as to how globalization, which is reflected in a decline in investment costs, influences institutional quality.     

Ownership structure,monitoring, and market value of companies: evidence from an unusual privatization mode

This study analyses the impact of ownership structure and market liquidity on company value. We investigate different aspects of ownership: the risk of political interference, private investors vs. the state acting as influential blockholders, and preferential political treatment of companies. Using a unique dataset of Polish partial privatizations initiated by shares transfers to entities under limited government influence, we find that government divestments can enhance company value, due to reduction in risk of political interference. A potential increase in the liquidity of trades in transferred companies’ shares also boosts their market value. On the other hand, an increased likelihood of the emergence of private blockholders able to expropriate minority shareholders reduces the firm’s market value. Our results support the political view of privatization: governments have objectives different to profit maximization, which leads to suboptimal investment from this point of view and lower market value of companies. We also develop a model to empirically distinguish between different aspects of ownership on company value.     

Foreign investment and expropriation under oligarchy and democracy

We study the incentives to expropriate foreign capital under democracy and oligarchy. We model a two‐sector small open economy where foreign investment triggers Stolper–Samuelson effects through reducing exporting costs. The incentives to expropriate depend on the distributional effects associated to the investment. How investment affects the incomes of the different groups in society depends on the sectors where these investments are undertaken and on structural features of the economy such as factor intensity, factor substitutability, and price and output elasticities. We characterize the equilibria of the expropriation game and show that if investment is undertaken in the sector that uses labor less intensively then democratic expropriations are more likely to take place. We test this prediction and provide strong evidence of its validity.     

Evolution of Risk and Political Regimes

The risk of political predation impedes the achievement of economic prosperity. In this study, we analyze how the risk of predation evolves in different political regimes. Formally, we look at the interaction between a government and citizens in which, in each period, the government has an option to predate. Citizens prefer governments that are competent and non‐predatory and strive to replace ones that are not. Regimes differ in the degree to which citizens can succeed in doing so. In pure democracies, citizens can displace incumbent governments; in pure autocracies, they cannot; and in intermediate cases, they can do so in probability. After economic downturns, the posterior probability that the government is competent and benevolent declines. According to the model, in intermediate regimes, but not in others, governments can separate by type. One implication, then, is that these regimes are politically and economically more volatile, with higher levels of variation in assessments of political risk and in economic performance. Another is that in such regimes, political leadership can make an economic difference. Empirically, we test our argument by measuring the impact of economic downturns on the perceived risk of political expropriation in different regime types, using as instruments the incidence of natural disasters and unexpected terms of trade shocks.     

Campaign spending regulation in a model of redistributive politics

Summary. We consider a model in which parties that differ in perceived valence choose how to allocate electoral promises (money, pork-barrel projects) among voters. The party perceived to be less valent has a greater incentive to “sell out” to a favored minority and completely expropriate a fraction of the electorate. By reducing the difference in perceived valence, campaign-finance regulations may reduce the extent of the expropriation and achieve a more equitable political outcome. We analyze various instruments of campaign-finance regulation from this perspective.Received: 20 Februay 2003, Revised: 25 January 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: D72, H2.Nicolas Sahuguet: Correspondence toWe thank Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, and Andrew Postlewaite for their comments. We also thank the editor Dan Kovenock and an anonymous referee. The second author is grateful to the National Science Foundation for financial support under grant SES-0078870.     

对影响征地补偿价格相关因素的调查与分析

对河北省高碑店市10个村50位失地农户自1994年以来三次大规模征地的土地征用价格进行实际调查显示,土地征用后的用途是影响土地补偿价格的重要因素。另外,土地补偿价格是国家、用地单位、村集体和农户四者博弈的结果,土地补偿价格的高低与农民的自组织和实力相关。建议对不同用途的土地征用,在相同区位实行相同的土地征用和补偿价格,国家在向用地单位提供土地时,根据不同用途收取不同的出让税金,以保证政府收支平衡。     

Permit markets, market power, and the trade-off between efficiency and revenue raising

This paper focuses on an emissions permit market dominated by one firm and with a government concerned about social efficiency and permits revenue. In this setting, it is shown that the dominant firm's market power reduces the opportunities for the government to raise non-distortionary revenue from permits without loss of consumer surplus. Since the government's objectives are thus hampered in auctioning permits, the dominant firm should be excluded from the auction. Specifically, the regulator should sell permits directly, through bilateral negotiation, to the dominant firm, and auction off the remaining permits to the fringe firms.     

Ethics,welfare, and capital markets

We examine implications of a society's cultural emphasis on moral sentiments. Entrepreneurs and investors interact in a game that entails both adverse selection and moral hazard; entrepreneurs may attempt to breach their contracts and expropriate investors. An agent is born into a particular culture but chooses whether to develop a moral conscience and thereby subject himself to moral sentiments. In equilibrium, societies that place less emphasis on guilt exhibit a lower risk of expropriation in contracts, a greater net price of capital, a larger size of firms, increased capital inflows and greater social welfare. The results of a greater emphasis on pride are in the same direction.     

PUBLIC PROTECTION OR PRIVATE EXTORTION?

We analyze the strategic interaction between a firm, an extortionary mafia, and a potentially corrupt government. The model identifies several results. First, government spending is not monotonic in revenues. Second, although the firm wants the government to challenge the mafia (it uses the threat of electoral sanctions to induce the government to do so), in equilibrium, the firm does not directly appeal to the government for protection even though it is extorted. The more likely the government is to uncover mafia extortion independent of an appeal from the firm, the more effective the firm's threat of electoral sanction is at motivating the government to invest in law enforcement. This is because the electoral threat to punish failure on the government's part is only a compelling reason to invest in law enforcement when the government actually expects to confront the mafia. This same logic also implies that the relationship between mafia strength and government corruption is somewhat counterintuitive. When the mafia is strong in equilibrium (i.e. pervasive and extorting large fees), the government is not very corrupt. When the mafia is weak, the government is highly corrupt. Finally, an extension shows that if the mafia and government can collude, then the harsher the threatened sanctions against the mafia, the less likely the government is to challenge the mafia because the mafia is more willing to bribe the government.     

两大股权激励方式激励作用的比较研究——基于厌恶经理人的委托代理模型分析

笔者采用委托代理模型,以股东为风险中性、经理人为风险厌恶为基本假设,分析了限制性股票和股票期权两种股权激励形式的激励作用。结果显示,当限制性股票无偿赠送给经理人时,股票期权的激励作用大于股票的激励作用;为激励经理人采取股东希望的行动,股票期权对股东的经济成本低于限制性股票对股东的经济成本。这一结论为我国股权分置改革后上市公司选择股权激励方式提供了一定的理论借鉴。     

Estimating the Value of Implicit Government Guarantees to Thai Banks

The paper estimates the contingent liability of the Thai government to their banking system prior to the 1997 financial crisis by maximizing a likelihood function that utilizes the established result that deposit insurance can be modeled as a put option on the value of bank assets. The results show that the estimated value of the government guarantee was large and statistically greater than the premium banks paid for this guarantee, suggesting that guarantees provided a subsidy to Thai banks. Additionally, the estimates are able to identify weak banks before the crisis emerged. These results suggest that the estimated value of implicit deposit guarantees can serve as an early warning indicator of banking crises. The paper contrasts the option pricing results with traditional balance sheet indicators, and demonstrates that these alternative indicators are unable to identify weaknesses in the Thai banking systems before the crisis.     

论西部旅游开发中的政府主导作用

目前 ,绝大部分西部省、市、自治区均提出将旅游业作为支柱产业来培育 ,但政府在其中扮演怎样的角色成为一个倍受关注的话题。本文认为 ,政府应该在西部旅游开发中发挥主导作用 ,并界定了政府发挥主导作用的领域 ,就政府在西部旅游开发中如何发挥主导作用进行了初步的探讨。     

A theory of mutual migration of polluting firms

Abstract.  Suppose that governments care about their tax revenue and local firms have some say in environmental regulations. Then, the level of employment and environmental compliance may be negotiated. We find that firms located in different countries can improve their threat‐point payoffs by mutual migration. This in turn affects the negotiated output/employment and environmental regulations, which causes profits to increase if the firm's threat‐point payoff is higher than that of the local government. The model predicts that pollution‐intensive firms or firms with highly inelastic demands are more likely to move out. Increases in the government's valuation of the environment, or in the degree of globalization also cause mutual migration of dirty firms. The effect of a government caring about consumer surplus leads to a lower pollution tax, reducing firms' incentives to move out. JEL classification: F2, Q0     

商务成本的分解模型

商务成本直接影响到投资吸引力,文章将商务成本分解为硬成本与软成本,并分别分析了影响硬成本与软成本的主要因素,最后建立起一个基本的模型,分析了软环境对企业生存规模及企业盈利水平的影响,以及软环境改善对硬成本提高的抵消作用,从而建议在对待商务成本问题上要双管齐下,即要控制好生产要素等硬成本,也要注意改善政府效率等的软环境。     

政府产业管制中的非理性倾向分析

关于政府产业管制的行为属性的分析和研究,学术界通常是从理性的角度看待问题的.其实,从有些方面来观察政府的产业管制行为,政府管制行为中经常蕴涵着非理性的倾向.本文拟在对政府非理性行为及其属性作出解说的基础上,分析政府非理性行为倾向的形成机理,并在一定程度上联系政府产业管制的现实选择来说明这种非理性行为倾向对政策制定所产生的影响,从而对政府管制自然垄断产业提出一些可供探讨的观点.认识政府行为的非理性倾向,无疑对于理解政策的行为底蕴有着重要意义.     

城市基础设施市场化改革中的政府监管

文章在介绍了基础设施市场化改革的背景基础上,总结分析了我国基础设施市场化改革中政府职能应由行政管理向行业监管转变。通过对我国目前政府监管存在问题的分析,提出完善政府监管的建议,即明确政府角色、建立监管机构,完善法律法规,明确监管内容,开发有效监管手段及建立监督机制。