An analysis of the automatic stabilizers associated with taxes and transfer payments

This paper examines the question of the stability of automatic stabilizers in the United States. Based on a statistical test suggested by Brown, Durbin and Evans, the analysis concludes that the magnitude of automatic stabilization of economic activity afforded by personal tax receipts has remained virtually invariant over the period 1939–86. The automatic stabilization effectiveness of transfer payments, however, had increased, since 1964. This is attributed to the implementation of various Great Society programmes beginning in 1964.     

Poland's agricultural sector under transformation

The Polish agricultural sector and food processing industry was the first industry to follow market economy because of agriculture's significance in the Polish economy and the dominant role of private ownership in agriculture. Full price liberalization, internal convertibility of the Polish currency, and liberalization of foreign trade completely changed the situation in agriculture. The main objective of this paper is to test the existence of market processes using monthly data from the agriculture and food processing industry covering the time period 1990–92. The largest part of the estimation is dedicated to agricultural products' and foodstuffs' prices. Typical demand-supply relations are observed on the pig, cattle, and milk markets only. In many equations, such variables like imports and exports of agricultural goods are not significant.     

Intermediaries and payments instruments

We study an economy in which intermediaries have incentives to issue circulating liabilities as part of an equilibrium. We show that, with arbitrarily small transactions costs, only the liabilities of intermediaries will circulate, and not those of other private sector agents. Therefore, our model connects intermediation activity with the issuance of payments media, a connection that has not been made in earlier literature. We use our model to suggest a resolution of the “ banknote underissue puzzle” of Cagan (in: D. Carson (Ed.), Banking and Monetary Studies, Richard D. Irwin Publishing, Homewood, IL, 1963).     

Economic structure and factor payments

There is a growing body of evidence that the labour payment share in national income varies across countries and over time, suggesting that the popular aggregate Cobb–Douglas production function may not capture income share dynamics. There remains conflicting evidence on the importance of natural resource rents among low income economies and on estimates of the rate of return to produced capital. This paper focuses on the structural differences among countries, confirming the importance of the agriculture sector in estimates of labour and land’s share of factor income based on 81 countries at diverse levels of economic development in the year 2005. I find that cross-country data are best modelled by a CES production function with an elasticity of substitution of 0.8 and that many low income countries have a higher return to capital than the United States.     

论企业家市场化

企业家是一个国家或地区的重要而又稀缺的资源,这种资源必须由市场配置,即实现市场化.企业家市场化必须首先职业化,即企业家将经营管理企业作为终身职业,社会公认企业家是经营管理企业的专家,国家建立相应的稳定和发展企业家队伍的制度与机制.我国必须建立合理的激励机制,借鉴市场经济发达国家的做法,推行企业家年薪制和企业家股票期权制,建立统一与完善的企业家市场,遵循市场交易规则,防范和减少市场风险.在经济全球化浪潮中,我国实现企业家市场化十分迫切.     

Overcompensation by severance payments

An important aim of severance payments is to reduce the economic disadvantages of dismissed employees. However, it may well be the case that a considerable fraction of employees is actually better off, if they are re-employed shortly after their dismissal. This is the first attempt to estimate the relevance of overcompensation by severance payments. It is found that about 7% of dismissed employees or about one quarter of those with severance payments are overcompensated in Germany. In particular, employees with many years of tenure have chances to receive severance payments as well as wage increases in their new jobs subsequent to dismissal.     

Determinants of card payments

Although the development of the card payment system allows for lowering the costs of money circulation and thereby leads to significant economic gains, relatively small amount of research has been dedicated to the analysis of the determinants of this development. Therefore, the aim of the article is to seek cross-country determinants of retail card payments focusing on trust in the system. The article concentrates on two econometric models. One is constructed with the use of representative population survey data for Poland, the other is based on panel data from the EU countries in the years 2000–2012.     

展望佣金市场化

我国目前仍实行的高比率固定化的佣金制度对投资者的投资行为、券商的创新机制和市场运行产生了消极的影响。     

Trade protection and balance of payments problems

A model to be used for planning short-term in-patient medical care is presented. The individual clinic is treated as a production unit which produces different kinds of treated wardcases with a given technique of production (given production-cost-structure). It is assumed to maximize the yearly number of treated wardcases under the constraints of (1) The yearly demand for different kinds of treated wardcases, which is assumed to be proportional to the number of citizens within the area which the clinic serves (the clinics population), (2) The yearly budget which is assigned by public authorities and has to cover all costs as the medical care is supplied free of charge, (3) The clinics physical capacity, measured by the number of beds.

The model has been applied to the branch of general medicine using the estimated production-cost-structure at an existing clinic within this branch. The kind of information that one can get is illustrated, for example: Given a clinic with a certain technique of production (production-cost-structure) which optimizes its production in the way that the model assumes, what is the marginal effects of changes in the size of budget, physical capacity or the size of population? In the case of an existing clinic, perhaps it serves too big a population (the marginal effect of reducing this constraint is zero)? or, when establishing a given kind of clinic what is the best combination of population size, size of budget and physical capacity? How much of the demand will be unsatisfied with different combinations, i.e. how large will the queues become?     

Moral hazard with bounded payments

We study the moral hazard problem with general upper and lower constraints M on compensation. We characterize the optimal contract and show existence and uniqueness. When minimizing costs for given effort, a principal harmed by M will pay according to M on some range of outcomes; when M reflects limited liability or a minimum wage, the contract is option-like. When the principal also chooses effort, a principal harmed by M might nonetheless never pay according to M. This cannot occur if the cost of inducing effort in the standard principal-agent problem is convex, for which we provide sufficient conditions related to the informativeness of outcome about effort.     

Severance payments in equilibrium unemployment

Under the insider wage model of Mortensen and Pissarides [Mortensen, D.T., Pissarides, C.A., 1994. Job creation and job destruction in the theory of unemployment. Review of Economic Studies 61, 397–415], this paper shows that (1) severance pay negatively affects market tightness (vacancy to unemployment ratio) and (2) the amount of severance pay is limited thereby insuring the employer a rational bargaining outcome.     

新兴市场应从波兰大变革中吸取的七条经验教训

人们普遍认为,后社会主义的转型是从波兰开始的。但这种说法并不全面。虽然促成1980年代深刻变革的各个进程确实在波兰获得了最大的推动力,但是其他中欧和东欧国家也并不是一成不变。另外,人们普遍认为,后社会主义的转型是从1989年开始的,发轫于波兰,然后在整个区域产生了连锁效应。对这个巨大转型带来的挑战,波兰在许多方面都比其他国家做得更好。其他国家,尤其是所谓的新兴市场国家必定能从波兰的转型中吸取到不少经验。对什么起作用,为什么起作用？什么不起作用,为什么不起作用等问题作更深入的考察,是有价值的。     

多重网络嵌入、市场化水平与双元创新

基于资源基础理论和制度理论,利用2000-2016年电子信息产业专利数据,遵循“制度—资源—绩效”思路,将市场化水平、网络嵌入和双元创新纳入同一框架,利用负二项回归模型,实证了多重网络嵌入和双元创新的关系,并检验了市场化水平的调节作用。结果表明：①组织的创新网络嵌入对探索式创新具有倒U型影响,而对利用式创新具有显著负向影响;②知识网络嵌入对探索式创新和利用式创新均具有倒U型影响;③市场化水平能够促进网络嵌入对创新的倒U型关系,降低网络嵌入对创新的抑制作用。     

煤气化技术的市场化

在未来20～30年内，中国仍将保持以煤炭为主的能源结构，但是煤直接燃烧会带来严重的环境污染问题，对我国的经济发展和人们健康产生不容忽视的负面影响。所以，我们必须立足本国优势能源，开发和推广清洁煤技术，加快煤气化技术市场化的步伐。     

中国各地区市场化相对进程报告

本文是对一项开拓性研究课题“中国各地区市场化进程相对指数”(简称“市场化指数”)的分析报告。市场化指数由五个方面、2 3个分指标为基础 ,用“主因素分析法”(PrincipalComponentAnalysis)为基本计量方法构造而成 ,其各分指标在指数中的权重 ,不依赖于“专家评分”等主观因素而定 ;是用来分析各地区体制改革进程相对关系的一个有用的经济分析工具。文章论证了只有这样一种“相对指数”才是可以验证的 ,从而是具有科学性的。而这一指数的价值就在于它可以作为一个“制度变量” ,在许多理论研究中作为解释体制变革在中国经济效绩的改进中的作用的有效工具 ,也可以在改革政策的分析中 ,被用来分析各地区差距、使各地区相互借鉴、加速改革进程的有效工具。     

中国金融业发展的市场化问题

货币政策是调节社会总供给和总需求平衡的总量政策,是市场经济条件下国家实施宏观调控最重要的经济政策之一。我国货币政策的目标是“保持货币币值稳定,并以此促进经济增长。”这一规定,借鉴了世界范围货币政策的经验,同时也是我国货币政策经验的历史总结。货币政策目标能否有效实现,取决于货币政策能否有效传导,而货币政策能否有效传导,又依赖于货币政策工具的有效运用。在货币政策工具中,利率、准备金率和公开市场操作是最重要的三大政策工具。现在的问题是,我们必须按照市场化取向的要求,进一步灵活运用和提升这些货币政策工具的配置效能。     

市场化:企业债券改革与发展方向

文章认为，制约我国企业债发展的主要原因是长期实行计划行政管理体制。企业债发展必须坚持以市场化为导向，在发行主体资格、发行条件、发行用途、利率限制等方面放松管制，改革传统的计划管理手段，转由市场力量来决定，并积极促成具有充分流动性的企业债券市场.此外还应注重建设和完善相关的配套制度和债券中介服务机构。     

我国利率市场化的发展及其影响

利率是货币政策的重要内容,它不仅决定着金融机构的资金运用,同时对企业的资金融通具有巨大影响.利率市场化、扩大贷款利率浮动区间,是国家经济发展的需要,它有利于营造公平竞争的市场环境,有利于支持中小企业发展和扩大就业,有利于推进金融机构改革,也有利于抑制民间高利贷、维护正常的金融市场秩序.改革开放以来,我国采取种种措施推进利率市场化.     

论利率市场化与货币政策

我国利率市场化正在稳步推进。利率市场化会对货币政策产生巨大影响,主要表现在:货币定义与计量更加困难,削弱了中央银行控制货币供应量的能力,改变了货币政策的传导机制。     

Convenient prices,cash payments and price rigidity

Recent works suggest that convenient prices that match monetary denominations exhibit above-average price rigidity and are set up by firms that have incentives to be paid in cash. The relationship between convenient prices and cash usage has however never been explicitly examined. This paper proposes a model that relates convenient prices to cash usage and exploits to test it a unique dataset in 2011 on cash payments and prices by a representative sample of French consumers. In line with the model, estimation results bring direct evidence that individuals' shares of cash payments increase with convenient prices. This finding confirms that price rigidity can be in part explained by the use of cash to pay convenient prices.