Prices and Tree Planting on Hillside Farms in Palawan

This paper investigates determinants of tree-planting decisions on low-income farms in the Philippines. The analysis quantifies the extent to which agricultural prices, price uncertainty, and farm-specific characteristics help to explain mango-planting decisions on hillside farms. Regression analysis is applied to data on tree planting for 1981–94. Results indicate tree planting is positively correlated with mango prices and negatively correlated with prices of competing crops. Relative price uncertainty and farm size also play important roles in explaining tree-planting patterns. Implications for policies to encourage tree planting are discussed.     

Mises's dynamics of interventionism: Lessons from Indian agriculture

Despite trade liberalization, industrial delicensing, and deregulation in other sectors of the Indian economy since 1991, the agricultural sector is stifled by arbitrary, complex, and ever-increasing regulation in both input and product markets. This article resolves this puzzle of the Indian economy and, using Mises's theory of interventionism, explains the growth of regulation and subsidies in Indian agriculture. I argue that each intervention in agriculture created distortions in the market, necessitating the subsequent intervention in agricultural inputs and/or outputs. Land ceiling policies led to a large number of farmers with small and marginal landholdings. Attempts to increase agricultural productivity and income on small holdings led to interventions, and consequent distortions, in factor markets for seeds, fertilizer, electricity, water, credit, insurance, as well as in output markets in the form of minimum support prices. Indian agriculture policy serves as a cautionary tale of interventionism and needs systematic and comprehensive reforms.     

Responding to High Commodity Prices

The recent commodity price boom resulted from rising demand in the face of a long period of low supply growth and market distortions. Structural factors are expected to return international commodity prices to relatively high levels as the global economy recovers. The Asian and Pacific economies and the region's poor will be among the most exposed to a rebound in prices. The recent response to high commodity prices can be improved upon. At the global level, the priority for Asian and Pacific governments is to seek a commitment to lessening distortions favouring bio-fuels. At the regional level, there is a need to address the use of trade restrictions on food commodities in Asia, notably rice. At a national level, the long-term neglect of the rural economy warrants correction; and efforts to expand and make social safety nets more 'market friendly' are called for.     

试论明代福建屯军家族的土地经营--兼及户籍转换与屯制演变

明代福建屯军整合制度与社会资源,完成了家族化与地方化。其间附籍州县,置民田,建构家族组织以运营军、民户头和屯田民产,成为横跨军、民两籍的跨籍宗族。顶屯、拓屯政策与屯、民田科则差异,是屯军家族土地经营的重要依凭。科则差异与家族内部屯民田的混合经营,不但使得屯田民佃有利可图,亦使屯军家族实现制度套利成为可能。屯田民佃过程中,民户顶充军户的现象使得军户身份呈现出模糊性。     

The impact of structural adjustment on housing prices in China

Studies of the factors that influence housing prices have focused on housing characteristics, governmental policies, environmental goods, macroeconomic and social fundamentals, and so on. However, the effect of industrial structural adjustment on housing prices is worthy of further investigation. In China, it would be helpful to measure this effect to coordinate housing policy and the ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy, which aims to accelerate industrial restructuring. We selected a spatial panel data model to quantify the effects of the industrial rationalisation and sophistication attributable to spatial dependence in housing prices. Estimation results show that structural adjustment has a statistically significant effect on housing prices that varies widely across regions. In descending order, the impact of industrial structure sophistication decreases in eastern, central, western, and northeastern China. This finding suggests that the government should match housing with local industry, prevent excessive real estate development in conventional agricultural areas, and pay close attention to changes in housing prices caused by increasing industrial restructuring.     

Easing Countries' Transitions From Price Controls and Subsidies

In transitional economies, initial popular support of market reforms is often followed by disillusionment and repudiation of the reform program. To facilitate economic transition, this paper proposes a marketable discount coupon system (DCS) that reassures the public, even as an economy moves from nonmarket to market prices. Unlike price controls, subsidies, or ration coupons, DCS involves no queuing or allocative distortions. Unlike vouchers, DCS would not be negated by inflation. To avoid distortions, discount coupons would be marketable and redeemable, even without purchase of specific products. This procedure permits efficient adjustment of domestic prices to international levels.     

Macroprudential policy under high capital mobility: policy implications from an academic perspective

The paper explicates the issues raised for macroprudential regulation in a global economy with high capital mobility. The study surveys the recent literature and aims to translate the academic rationale for such policies, in which market imperfections lead to external effects that require policy interventions. The new economics of capital controls is addressed, in which capital flow management measures may be introduced to reduce financial market distortions or to help stabilize exchange rate movements in the face of other market distortions. The empirical literature on the effectiveness of such policies is surveyed.     

房地产调控政策制定及影响——大城市商品房高房价分析

宽松货币政策、产能过剩]资本逐利性等是造成房价上涨的宏观外部因素。房价上涨是个人利益选择与交换。房价上涨有门槛作用。政策调整将影响房地产价格,但决定房价还是价值规律,政策针对性和有效性是建立在对客观规律深刻认识基础上。土地招投标政策提倡简单性原则。文章还探讨了政府出台房地产政策根本目的和底线。     

Employment,welfare and reserve effects of global protection

Summary In this article it is shown that expenditure-switching policies, like exchange rate protection, tariff protection and export subsidizing, might increase the level of employment and welfare in the short run (when indexation of factor prices is absent). Complete indexation of factor prices, however, makes exchange rate protection senseless. In the case of tariff protection, complete indexation will even worsen employment and welfare (protection becomes impoverishing). Only a policy of export subsidies makes sense if employment is to be improved in an indexed economy. This additional employment, however, is paid for with a deterioration of the terms of trade and the risk of retaliation. Therefore, taking the long run view, expenditure switching policies should be rejected for macro-economic purposes. The author is professor of international economics at Tilburg University. He would like to thank Dr. G. van Roij of the department of economics at Tilburg University and an unknown referee for their remarks, which led to an improvement of this article. The author is professor of international economics at Tilburg University. He would like to thank Dr. G. van Roij of the department of economics at Tilburg University and an unknown referee for their remarks, which led to an improvement of this article.     

我国房地产升值的原因

我国房地产目前处在繁荣阶段,其特征是购房、"炒房"火热,交易量增加,需求拉动房价快速上涨.特别近一段时期,在宏观调控的大背景下,房地产价格在较高的情况下仍然迅猛上涨.而房地产市场的供不应求、房地产商投资和投机以及我国货币政策刺激等是房地产价格不断攀升的主要原因.     

Red Holocaust

ABSTRACT

Reduced transport costs and income growth in industrialising European countries changed the market conditions for European farmers in the late nineteenth century. Grain prices fell while dairy prices rose. It has been claimed that these price changes hit large grain farmers with vested interests in grain trade particularly hard, while owner-occupiers and smallholders fared better and with help of developing cooperative associations, came out as successful commercial agriculturalists by switching to intensive branches, foremost dairying. Recent research on the Danish case, shows, however, that change was initiated on large elite estates with long-term dairy traditions. The literature on the Swedish case indicates, that larger farms switched to intensified fodder production quicker than smaller farms did, while in the early twentieth century smaller farms played an un-proportionally large role on the dairy market. Using individual farm data from two East-central Swedish parishes in 1878/80, 1895/96 and 1910/11, it is shown, that larger farms tended to modernise crop rotations and switch towards dairy production earlier than small farms did. Smaller farms caught up, and by 1910 their land use was about as strongly adapted to commercial dairy production as larger farms’ land use was.     

我国煤电价格水平、交易方式及其相关决定因素

对中国和美国煤炭与电力价格水平与结构及其决定因素的比较分析发现:中国煤炭价格过高,电力价格过低,单位发电量电煤成本、单位发电量电煤成本占上网电价或销售电价比重,中国都是美国的2～3倍,中国煤炭价格扭曲问题较为严重,在对资源的所有权、环境和安全补偿尚存不足的情况下,就已达到美国的1～3倍;煤炭运输瓶颈和中间环节及其他不当收费较多导致中国煤炭成本偏高;畸形市场准入和资源整合政策制约了煤炭供给;偏向工业特别是重工业的产业结构和严重依赖煤炭发电的电源结构不断拉升电煤和电力的市场需求;长期合同交易机制的缺乏和不合理的定价机制也是导致中国煤电关系紧张的重要因素。理顺中国煤电关系需要从上述根本原因入手设计有效的政策。     

人口老龄化与房价——基于中国省级面板数据的分析

文章采用2002-2011年的省级面板数据分析了中国人口年龄结构变化对住房价格的影响及其区域差异。结果发现:老龄化所导致的房价波动滞后于老龄化进程,各年龄阶段人口比例对房价均产生正向影响,但不同年龄阶段在不同区域的解释力度不尽相同。对此实证检验结果,文章认为可以从我国居民的改善性住房需求与投资渠道匮乏、人口家庭结构小型化以及城市集聚效应等方面进行解释,并以前瞻性政策加以应对。     

Analysis of the Interactive Linkages Between Gold Prices,Oil Prices,and Exchange Rate in India

This study investigates the co-movements and linkages among gold prices, oil prices, and Indian rupee–dollar exchange rates for the time span of 12 January 2004 to 30 April 2015 to investigate whether Indian economic policy-makers should detach financial policies from energy policies. Various econometrical methods such as Johansen’s cointegration test, vector autoregressive model, Granger causality test, and impulse response were used to explain the co-movements among the variables. We find that gold prices, oil prices, and rupee–dollar exchange rates stay substantially independent from each other, which denotes energy policies and financial policies must be detached.     

CAPITAL FLOWS AND EXPORT EXTERNALITIES: AN EAST ASIAN CURE FOR THE DUTCH DISEASE?*

The analysis so far suggests several conclusions regarding policy under externalities in tradables production. It shows that conventional profit-maximizing solutions lead to too much investment, too much “up front” consumption, high period 1 real exchange rates, and underproduction of tradables. In this setting, it is possible that an improvement in an economy's access to foreign capital will lead to welfare losses. These distortions are most efficiently corrected by a tradables output subsidy, equal to the externality. This subsidy should be increased if the economy's access to foreign capital markets improves. In the absence of such subsidies, however, incentives to reduce investment and postpone consumption may be appropriate second-best policies. These policies, in effect, drive a wedge between rates of return on investment and foreign interest rates. Therefore the optimal policy will also require controls on foreign capital seeking to take advantage of higher interest rates at home than abroad.     

Labour force and land distributional effects of agricultural technology: A case study of coffee

Land reform frequently refers to government policies which expropriate large farms and fragment them into smaller units; however, land reform can also refer to the opposite process, that of consolidation of farms which are too small for efficient production. In the latter sense, that of land consolidation, land reform may or may not be socially desirable and prompt government intervention. Possible gains in efficiency accruing from land consolidation may not be desirable if it entails agricultural unemployment and accelerated rural-urban migration, in which case governments may try to intervene. This paper looks at land reform in the context of one crop, coffee. New techniques of coffee cultivation will increase output-labour, output-land and labour-land ratios, offering the prospect for higher coffee employment and output. However, economic and institutional barries will preclude higher output; as a result coffee employment and small coffee farms will be threatened. This paper examines the economic implications of the new coffee technology in the context of Columbia.     

Food crisis and export taxation: the cost of non-cooperative trade policies

This paper aims to assess the rationales for export taxes in the context of a food crisis. First, we summarize the effects of export taxes using both partial and general equilibrium theoretical models. When large countries aim to maintain constant domestic food prices, in the event of an increase in world agricultural prices, the optimal response is to decrease import tariffs in net food-importing countries and to increase export tariffs in net food-exporting countries. The latter decision improves national welfare, while the former reduces national welfare: this is the price that must be paid to keep domestic food prices constant. Small net food-importing countries are harmed by both decisions, while small net food-exporting countries gain from both. Second, we illustrate the costs of a lack of regulation and cooperation surrounding such policies in a time of crisis using a global computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, mimicking the mechanisms that appeared during the recent food price surge (2006–2008). This model illustrates the interdependence of trade policies, as well as how a process of retaliation and counter-retaliation (increased export taxes in large net food-exporting countries and reduced import tariffs in large net food-importing countries) can contribute to successive augmentations of world agricultural prices and harm small net food-importing countries. We conclude with a call for international regulation, in particular because small net food-importing countries may be substantially harmed by those policies that amplify the already negative impact of a food crisis.     

中国商品房价格长期上行的政策性因素分析

本文从政策学的角度,采用实证分析的方法,剖析了1998～2008年中国商品房价格以及相关变量之间的联动走势和政策性成因。文中提出,商品房价格后期的持续走高背离了市场的真实价值,其政策性原因是对土地总量的行政化控制、以及金融稀缺资源向购房市场的倾斜。本文认为,通过实行土地供应量与房价指数联动机制、以及灵活运用货币政策等组合手段,未来中国商品房价格可能呈现高位窄幅震荡、缓慢上升的趋势。     

Exploring the limits of comparative advantage

Exploring the Limits of Comparative Advantage. - The paper examines extensions of the Law of Comparative Advantage to several situations that have not been adequately covered before. The basic result is the positive one that a country’s pattern of trade will be negatively correlated with its relative autarky prices. The first extension is to situations of unbalanced trade. The second extension is to an economy with domestic distortions. Finally, the third extension is to a lumpy country model, in which regions of a country may differ in various ways, including differences in factor prices.     

Novel indicators of the trade and welfare effects of agricultural distortions in OECD countries

Agricultural markets in OECD countries have long been highly distorted by government policies. Traditional weighted average aggregates of the price distortions involved, such as producer and consumer support estimates (PSEs and CSEs), can be poor indicators of the trade restrictiveness and economic welfare losses associated with them, especially if a country’s support estimates vary a lot across the product range. Certainly estimates of trade and welfare effects of price supports can be obtained from sectoral or economywide models using price elasticity estimates, but the results can be contentious if there is no consensus on what model specification and elasticity parameters to use. This paper shows that, if there is a willingness to accept simple assumptions about elasticities, it is possible to generate indicators of the welfare and trade restrictiveness of agricultural policies using no more than the price and quantity data needed to generate PSEs and CSEs. These new indexes thus provide an attractive supplement to the current policy monitoring regime developed by the OECD Secretariat.