A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD WEALTH PATTERNS IN FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES

We find that household wealth is distributed more unequally in the U.S. in 1983 than France in 1986. The Gini coefficient is 0.77 for the U.S. and 0.71 for France. There are also significant differences in the composition of wealth. Owner-occupied housing accounted for half of total assets in France, and only 30 percent in the U.S., while corporate stock and financial securities amounted to 19 percent in the U.S. and 8 percent in France. The debt-equity ratio was 0.13 in France and 0.20 in the U.S. The age-wealth profile in the two countries had the characteristic hump-shape predicted by the life-cycle model, but the profile was much flatter in France and peaked for families aged 50–59 in France, compared to 60–69 in the US.     

MODELING MOVEMENTS IN INDIVIDUAL CONSUMPTION: A TIME‐SERIES ANALYSIS OF GROUPED DATA

We characterize the time‐series properties of group‐level consumption, income, and interest rates using microdata. We relate the coefficients of moving average representations to structural parameters of theoretical models of consumption behavior. Using long time series of cross sections to construct synthetic panel data for the United Kingdom, we find that for high‐educated individuals the Euler equation restrictions are not rejected, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is higher than one, and there is evidence of “excess smoothness” of consumption. Low‐educated individuals, conversely, exhibit excess sensitivity of consumption to past income, and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is not statistically different from zero.     

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS,GOVERNANCE, AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

This article aims at identifying the determinants of government expenditures of developing countries by placing emphasis on the political institutions and governance variables, which have not been addressed so much in the previous literature. Using a panel data analysis for 97 developing countries from the period 1984 to 2004, this study finds evidence that controlling for economic, social, and demographical factors, political institutional and governance variables significantly influence the consumption expenditure in developing countries. Political institutional variables such as the type of political ruling and political power in the parliament positively influence consumption expenditure; on the contrary, governance variables such as corruption influence negatively. Furthermore, we find that autocratic governments with military ruling are not particularly accommodative toward consumption expenditures as the public spending significantly shrinks under military dictatorship compared with other forms of governance. In order to check consistency of our findings, we ran alternative specifications as well as conducted extreme bound tests. Our results largely survived these tests showing robustness of our findings. (JEL E01, E02, E61, E62, H2, H4, H5, H6, O11, O5)     

中国城市居民的家庭收入、消费和储蓄行为:一个基于组群的实证研究

近年来,中国的高储蓄率越来越引起关注。本文利用中国城镇居民住户调查数据对城市家庭的收入、消费以及储蓄率进行基于组群分析的实证研究。实证结果表明,中国城市家庭的储蓄行为具有独特性,家庭储蓄率不断提高。本文从两个方面对此做出解释:其一,各个组群的家庭消费增长慢于收入增长;其二,年轻组群的高储蓄倾向及其在样本中随时间的比重不断提高。此外,本文也分析了养老金收入对于年老组群家庭收入和储蓄的影响。     

PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL IN ITALY: A DISAGGREGATED ESTIMATE BY SECTORS OF ORIGIN AND DESTINATION: 1985–88

This study presents a series of matrices of the capital stock disaggregated both by branch of origin and by branch of destination for the years 1985 to 1988 for Italy. The tables, whose dimensions are 23 × 23, were constructed using the perpetual inventory method and are based on disaggregated time series of gross capital formation provided by Istat (Italian Statistical Institute). The tables refer to both gross and net capital (with straight-line depreciation) and have been tested on alternative hypotheses for the average expected service lives of capital goods and their survival functions.     

GIBSON'S PARADOX AND POLICY REGIMES: A COMPARISON OF THE EXPERIENCE IN THE US, UK AND ITALY

This paper compares the behaviour of long-term interest rates and prices in Italy, the UK and the USA, and seeks to shed light into what has become known as the 'Gibson Paradox'. We compare the various theoretical explanations for the observed positive correlation of interest rates and prices in the USA and the UK. Using both regression and frequency domain techniques, we demonstrate that there is little evidence for the occurrence of the paradox in the case of Italy. The key conclusion of the paper is that the comparative evidence from these three countries supports a gold standard interpretation of the Paradox.     

中国东、中、西部地区农地非农化进程的影响因素

将农地非农化过程带给地方政府的效用划分为制度收益和发展收益,通过比较制度收益与发展收益对东、中、西部地区农地非农化进程的影响,以判别驱动地方政府推进农地非农化进程的主要因素。研究结果表明,东、西部地区农地非农化进程表现为制度驱动型,制度收益对农地非农化进程的影响大于发展收益,而中部地区农地非农化进程则表现为发展驱动型,发展收益对农地非农化进程的影响大于制度收益。中央政府要达到控管农地非农化进程的目标,必须进行制度创新以经济管理手段来约束东、西部地区地方政府违规谋取制度收益的行为,引导中部地区地方政府节约与集约利用非农用地。     

MONITORING THE LABOUR MARKET: A PROPOSAL FOR A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH IN OFFICIAL STATISTICS (ILLUSTRATED BY RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN FRANCE,GERMANY AND THE U.K.)1

This paper analyses the weakness in labour demand which appeared in 1973–78 in France, Germany, and the U.K. and attempts a comprehensive assessment of it. Hitherto, the situation in labour markets has usually been measured by official figures of the registered unemployed which tend to understate unemployment itself and neglect other dimensions of labour slack, such as reversal of previous migration flows or declines in labour force participation or in working hours which may contain highly significant cyclical movements cushioning unemployment. The report proposes the adoption of a more comprehensive concept for labour market monitoring, along lines already used in the annual reports of the German Institute of Employment Research. Such an approach presents advantages in economic and labour market policy analysis. A simplified form of the proposed monitoring tables is presented in Annex Tables F-1 to F-4, G-1 to G-4 and U-1 to U-4. They can be considered as a potential satellite to existing national accounts. It is also suggested that analysis of the degree to which labour potential is used be conducted on a regular basis. The possibilities of this approach are outlined in considerable detail in Section V and in the annex. The different dimensions of the use-of-potential account are summarised in Table 3. The report contains a review of the literature on the full employment rate of unemployment and its components. This is one of the major issues on which a judgement must be made in use-of-potential analysis. This review is presented in Section VI of the report. It emerges from the analysis that Germany had the biggest labour slack (8.6 percent of potential) in 1978 though its unemployment rate (3.8 percent of the labour force) was the lowest of the three countries.     

中国东、中、西部地区城乡收入差距比较分析

中国东、中、西部地区城乡收入差距呈扩大趋势,其主要原因有:地理特征不同,区域非均衡发展,非农产业发展不均衡,人力资本、生育率差异.缩小东、中、西部地区间城乡收入差距的对策有:协调区域发展,中、西部要发挥比较优势;加快中部崛起;继续推进西部大开发;中、西部要加强非农产业的发展;降低农村生育率,提高农村人口素质.     

DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: EFFECT OF INCLUDING PENSION RIGHTS,AND ANALYSIS BY AGE-GROUP*

This article on the distribution of wealth among individuals in the United Kingdom presents recent work on the effects of including pension rights and the significance of sex, age and marital status. It describes the rationale for including the accrued rights in occupational and State pension schemes (funded or unfunded) and the methods of estimation used. For funded schemes the rights are valued as the accrued liability of the schemes to their members, and for unfunded schemes similar liabilities are hypothecated; these estimates of the value of accrued pension rights involve assumptions about future earnings and interest rates. The trend in average marketable wealth with age is upwards until advanced years when it slows down or slightly reverses. Adding occupational pension rights only slightly raises the trend for females but has a bigger effect for males. Adding State pension rights raises these upward trends until the age of 60 after which there is a decline. For marketable wealth on the average males are wealthier than females but less wealthy if single, divorced or widowed. Adding occupational pension rights improves the relative position of males; adding State pension rights cancels this out. The effect of marital status rises with both age and sex and therefore a detailed three-way analysis is made. For females widows are on average the wealthiest; for young males the married; for older males the single. Using Theil's coefficient of entropy for comparing the inequality of wealth, the addition of pension rights reduces inequality by two-thirds. Age accounts for only 6 percent of inequality for marketable wealth but for 31 percent if pension rights are included.     

EFFECTS OF HEALTH RISK INFORMATION ON ADDICTIVE GOODS CONSUMPTION: A CASE OF TOBACCO,ALCOHOL, AND BETEL NUTS IN TAIWAN

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between the dissemination of information about the health risks of tobacco, alcohol, and betel nuts and their consumption in Taiwan. To estimate cross‐elasticities, the paper uses the Central Bureau of Statistics demand system model. Empirical results indicate that an increase in the dissemination of information on the health risks of tobacco, alcohol, and betel nuts substantially reduces real consumption. Empirical evidence from the cross‐elasticity of price also confirms that a complementary relationship exists in Taiwan among these three addictive products. (JEL D12, Q11, H26)     

THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN FRANCE (1977): A FIRST ATTEMPT AT THE ESTATE DUTY METHOD

This paper reports upon the first official application of the estate multiplier method of estimating the wealth distribution to French data. It is based upon a sample of estate duty returns filed during the period September-December 1977. The sampling rate was 5 percent for estates under one million francs, and 100 percent for estates over this level, giving a total of 5031 records. The data available did not permit a breakdown by type of asset. It did, however, permit classification of estates by age, sex, and occupation of decedent. Experiments were conducted using five different sets of mortality multipliers. The set of mortality multipliers judged most appropriate leads to an estimate of aggregate net wealth that is 77 percent of that given in the national balance sheet of the national accounts. Comparison of the distributions of wealth derived in these estimates suggest that the figures are consistent with those found in other countries.     

INTER AND INTRA FIRM DIFFUSION OF ICT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM (UK) AND SWITZERLAND (CH) AN INTERNATIONALLY COMPARATIVE STUDY BASED ON FIRM-LEVEL DATA

This paper examines the effect of participation in government-sponsored R&;D consortia on the R&;D productivity of firms in the case of robot technology in Japan. We attempt to provide a new empirical analysis and discussions on the issue of government project evaluation by investigating the impact of the evolution of government programs, and to compare government-sponsored R&;D consortia with collaborative R&;D among firms. Using indicators of the quality of patents, which enables us to provide an estimation of quality-adjusted research productivity, we find that participation in government programs has a positive impact on the research productivity of participating firms. Moreover, the impact of participation became much higher after the design of government programs in this field changed in the late 1990s. Also, we find that participation in government-sponsored consortia has a greater impact on research productivity than participation in collaborative R&;D among firms. This may support government involvement in R&;D as a coordinator of R&;D collaboration.     

THE ENRICHMENT OF A SECTOR (INDIVIDUAL,REGION OR COUNTRY) BENEFITS OTHERS: THE THIRD WELFARE THEOREM?

The economic enrichment of a sector may make other sectors as a whole better or worse off. However, for the benchmark case of proportionate enrichment, other sectors tend to gain. This result is shown using offer curves, supply and demand analysis, Cobb-Douglas utility functions, and a more general case. Allowing the enriching sector to be monopolistic does not affect the result. Semi-economic enrichment through migration and population growth also makes others better off. Most enrichments also tend to be equalizing in their effects on others.     

海(咸)水入侵区人地系统作用机制及调控分析--以山东省莱州湾沿岸地区为例

本文分析了海(咸)水入侵区人地关系相互作用的机制,提出了基于水资源可持续开发利用的人地关系的各种调控措施.