Tariffs,Offshoring and Unemployment in A Two‐Country Model

This paper develops a two‐country model that incorporates offshoring opportunities, and analyses the effects of tariffs under economic stagnation in a liquidity trap that causes unemployment. We find that a rise in tariffs on imports of outsourced goods contributes to an increase in employment by inducing a shift in production, but also leads to an appreciation of the real exchange rate that tends to reduce employment. The effect of real exchange rate appreciation dominates the effect of the production shift, and accordingly employment and consumption fall. The effects of tariff adjustments are reversed, however, when there is no liquidity trap and hence no unemployment.     

Tariffs, Time Preference, and the Current Account under Weakly Nonseparable Preferences

Incorporating weakly nonseparable preferences into the familiar time–preference model, the author emphasizes a role of steady–state welfare changes in determining the effect of permanent tariffs on the current account. The effect consists of a welfare effect, due to steady–state welfare changes, which is negative (positive) when preferences toward imports are more (less) wealth–enhanced than toward exports; and a substitution effect, which occurs only with initial distortion. Even without initial distortion, a marginal tariff has a first–order welfare effect on the current account. Its sign does not depend on whether impatience is increasing or decreasing in wealth.     

Responses of Economic Activity to Global Oil Market Shocks: A Comparative Analysis of Major Net Oil‐Producing and ‐Consuming Countries

We argue that four channels drive oil price shocks during 1986M5–2013M1, namely the oil supply, aggregate demand, oil‐specific demand and real exchange rates. Our findings are that oil price shocks driven by oil supply positively affect net oil‐consumer countries faster than net oil‐producer countries. Oil price shocks driven by aggregate demand are largely country‐specific. Oil shocks driven by other demands influence net oil‐producers faster than net oil‐consumers negatively, and persistently mostly among net oil‐producers. Other shocks have large negative effects on the industrial production of all countries, with responses appearing very quickly and persisting for at least a year.     

2008年国际经济热点问题研究综述

2008年,我国经济学界对国际经济的热点问题展开了深入研究。本文将从美国金融危机产生的原因及影响、人民币汇率水平与汇率制度改革、利用外资及外资银行问题、全球经济失衡问题、经济全球化与中国对外开放战略、粮食危机问题等方面对相关研究观点进行综述。     

Adverse Welfare Shocks and Pro‐Environmental Behavior: Evidence from the Global Economic Crisis

This paper examines the effects of the 2008–9 global economic crisis on people's pro‐environmental behavior and willingness to pay for climate change mitigation. We hypothesize that the crisis has affected pro‐environmental behaviors through tightening of budget constraints and relaxation of time constraints. Using data from a large representative survey Life in Transition II, conducted in 35 European and Central Asian countries in 2010, we find that people adversely affected by the crisis are more likely to act in an environmentally‐friendly way, but less likely to be willing to pay for climate change mitigation. Our findings confirm the importance of time and budget constraints for undertaking pro‐environmental action, and highlight a potentially positive role of adverse, external welfare shocks in shaping pro‐environmental behavior.     

经济责任审计:给你一本明白账

2000年至2001年,全国各级审计机关共完成经济责任审计项目59149个,其中审计党政领导干部53358人,审计国有及国有控股企业领导人员5791人。审计查出各种违规行为金额1156.13亿元,损失浪费金额54.13亿元。其中由于领导干部直接经济责任造成的违规行为金额78亿元,损失浪费金额17亿元。审计中还发现个人经济问题3.88亿元。通过审计,有关部门参考审计结果,免职、降职、撤职3805人,给予党纪政纪处分265人,移送纪检监察机关854人,移送司法机关370人。     

Systematic Political Grass–Root Support for Tariffs

The leading political–economy–of–trade models are virtually silent on two fundamental questions raised by Rodrik in 1995. Why are trade policies systematically biased against trade? And why are tariffs rather than more efficient production subsidies adopted to redistribute income? This paper shows that systematic political grass–root support for trade–restricting and inefficient tariffs emerges when the government has a revenue goal and collecting taxes is costly. Even if no tax instrument enjoys an advantage with respect to collection costs and the factor ownership distribution is unbiased, more people support tariffs than import or production subsidies. More generally, the presence of tax–collection costs creates a grass–root support bias for taxes over subsidies as instruments to redistribute income.     

Cross‐border Lobbying in Preferential Trading Agreements: Implications for External Tariffs and Welfare

This paper examines the effect of cross‐border lobbying on domestic lobbying and on external tariffs in both Customs Union (CU) and Free Trade Area (FTA). We do so by developing a two‐stage game which endogenizes the tariff formation function in a political economic model of the directly unproductive rent‐seeking activities type. We find that cross‐border lobbying un‐ambiguously increases both domestic lobbying and the equilibrium common external tariffs in a CU. The same result also holds for FTA provided tariffs for the member governments are strategic complements. We also develop a specific oligopolistic model of FTA and show that tariffs are indeed strategic complements in such a model.     

会计准则国际趋同的经济后果:一个分析框架

全球目前已有超过130个国家和地区要求或允许采用国际财务报告准则(IFRS)。采纳IFRS既有直接后果,又有间接后果,直接后果即采用IFRS会对会计信息可比性、相关性和可靠性等信息质量特征产生影响;间接后果则是IFRS通过影响会计信息质量特征,进而影响分析师行为、资本市场发展、委托代理成本以及公司内部经营决策效率等。本文提出了两个推论:一是制度差异调节论;二是小国受益论。本文认为,会计准则国际趋同对会计信息有用性的影响,一方面取决于一国资本市场和发达资本市场中投资者结构的差异,这影响了会计信息需求特征;另一方面取决于一国的投资者产权保护体系和准则执行力度,这影响了会计信息供给特征。同时,小国更可能从IFRS采纳或趋同中获益。     

Composition of International Assets and the Long‐run Current Account

We document the role of capital gains and losses for the current account that a country can sustain along a balanced growth path. While it is well know that growth allows a country to run a current account deficit and still keep its external debt stable as a share of GDP, the sensitivity of the current account to the composition of external assets and liabilities has received little attention. We show that this composition matters because several assets, such as equity or FDI, earn substantial capital gains that are not reflected in the current account. A country that is a net creditor in such assets can then sustain a larger current account deficit. Using a broad sample, we show that this aspect substantially tilts estimates of the long‐run current account towards a deficit among industrialized economies, with the opposite situation for emerging markets. We also show that industrialized economies are likely to benefit from predictable capital gains in the future.     

资本账户开放与经济增长关系综述

在新古典模型中,开放资本账户有效地推动了资源的国际问分配,使得发展中国家可以获得较低成本的资本流入,从而推动了该国投资的暂时性增加,带动经济增长,最终提高了该国人民的生活水平.经济学家们在这一理论思想的指导下,分别用横断面模型、政策实践观点和企业层面的实践考察了资本账户开放和经济增长之间的关系,其测定理论的研究显示出资本账户开放对资本成本、投资和经济增长有着巨大的影响.     

China in Global Economic Governance

China has made contradictory claims about its attitude toward the existing international order. Is China a “responsible stakeholder” in the existing international regimes? Or has China been a new type of great power seeking to reform the existing world order, making it more friendly toward the global South? In this article, we look beyond Chinese rhetoric and examine China's behavior in global economic governance. A comparison with other emerging powers and traditional major powers shows that China has been actively involved in global economic governance. But, thus far, China has not exercised substantive leadership nor has it pushed hard for change to benefit the developing countries. The level of its support of the current regimes varies across issue areas and is primarily driven by its changing economic interest.     

Economic Volatility and Capital Account Liberalization in Emerging Countries

Economic volatility has increased drastically in the age of financial liberalization. The tendency among mainstream economists has been to explain this trend by government misdeeds and various market imperfections. For instance, government overspending was the main culprit in the first generation models of currency crises. Following the Asian crisis the emphasis shifted onto capital flow reversals, and arguments based on the ‘moral hazard’ problems began to replace the emphasis on the monetized government deficits. This paper outlines an explanation of economic volatility that is not based on moral hazard problems or other market distortions. Two stylized facts associated with the aftermath of financial and capital account liberalization are singled out for emphasis and brought together in the context of a macroeconomic framework that draws from Keynes’ Treatise. These are: (i) liquidity preference becomes intertwined with currency substitution, producing a macroeconomic destabilizer that explains procyclical changes in bank credit independently of moral hazard problems; and (ii) asset prices become fairly easy to predict, stimulating destabilizing ‘trend’ speculation by foreign investors, which means that profit seeking and market rationality might lie behind erratic shifts in capital flows.     

On the Equivalence of Ad Valorem Tariffs and Specific Tariffs under Duopoly*

Using a quantity conjectural variation model, this paper examines whether an ad valorem tariff and a specific tariff are equivalent under duopoly. We show that if the average per‐unit import tax is the same for the two tariffs, domestic output will be smaller while foreign output will be larger under an ad valorem tariff. We further show that for any value of a specific tariff, there is a Pareto‐superior ad valorem tariff for all values of conjectural variation except in the case of perfect competition where the two tariffs are equivalent.     

经济增长、金融深化与全球经济失衡

文章建立了一个囊括经济增长、金融市场和资本流动等诸多因素的全球均衡模型,并采用ECM模型实证检验了这些因素对全球经济失衡的影响.研究发现,由于亚洲新兴国家和美国之间存在经济增长率的差异和非对称的金融市场,导致全球经济失衡.解决全球性经济失衡的根本出路在于改变现有的资产组合的供求关系,降低亚洲新兴国家对美元储备资产的需求,而美元贬值则并不能纠正全球经济失衡.     

Tariffs and Welfare In A Dynamic Differentiated Oligopoly*

Using a dynamic general-equilibrium environment with strategically interacting oligopolists, this paper demonstrates that dynamic elements will significantly alter the equilibrium effects of tariff policy. In particular, the tariff rate which maximizes aggregate steady state welfare is decreasing in the level of adjustment costs. Furthermore, when tariff rates change, there are short-run welfare losses along the dynamic transition path to the new steady state. Gradual implementation of policy can avoid these losses. This provides a justification for the gradual implementation of tariff reductions in the GATT rounds or in the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States.     

Tariffs as Signals of Uncompetitiveness

In this paper, a domestic and a foreign firm compete as Cournot duopolists in the domestic market. The foreign firm has incomplete information about the costs of the domestic firm, but the domestic government and the domestic firm are completely informed. It is shown that the domestic government can use its tariff to signal about the costs of the domestic firm. In the separating equilibrium, the domestic government signals the uncompetitiveness of the domestic firm by setting a lower tariff than is optimal under complete information.