Old and new problems in the estimation of national accounts in transiton economies1

The paper discusses the measurement and interpretation of real GDP in transition economies. It argues that the statistical offices in Eastern Europe, the Baltics and the CIS should place emphasis in the years ahead on improving the mechanism by which estimates of output, consumption, investment and foreign trade are balanced to ensure compliance with standard accounting identities. Improvements to this ‘balancing mechanism’may substantially strengthen the reliability of national accounts data and would not necessarily require a major further financial outlay for the statistical offices. In its discussion of the interpretation of real GDP data, the paper demonstrates that the use of the measured change in output at constant prices as a proxy for the evolution of ‘social welfare’may be particularly problematic in the context of transition economies.     

Unemployment accounts and employment incentives

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UAs) system. Under the UAs system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during periods of unemployment. The government is able to undertake balanced-budget interpersonal redistributions among the UAs. At the end of their working lives, people could transfer the remaining balances on their UAs into their pensions.We present an analytical framework to analyse the incentive effects of UAs and calibrate our model for the high high-unemployment countries of Europe. Our results suggest that this policy reform would significantly change people's employment incentives and could achieve reductions in unemployment without reducing the level of support to the unemployed.     

浅析应收账款管理问题及对策

应收账款是激烈的市场竞争环境下因赊销和收款与销售有时间差而产生的付款方式。企业加强应收账款管理,可以降低呆账坏账风险,提高流动资金的使用效率和周转率,使企业获得稳定持续的发展。因此,主要从财务管理和企业持续发展管理的角度分析应收账款问题的赊购方原因,并针对这些原因追溯赊销方各部门应尽的职责,从而给出解决应收账款管理问题的对策。     

Are stocks desirable in tax-deferred accounts?

Existing literature suggests that, in order to maximize the tax benefit of retirement accounts, investors should follow a “pecking order” location rule of placing highly taxed assets (e.g., bonds) in a tax-deferred account and lightly taxed assets (e.g., stocks) in a taxable account. Empirical evidence, however, documents that a large number of investors violate this rule. In this paper, we show that such violations can be optimal for risk-averse investors who face portfolio constraints. In particular, while the strategy of placing bonds in the tax-deferred account maximizes the expected level of tax benefit, it may lead to volatile benefits under different realizations of stock returns. By holding a similar portfolio in both accounts, investors can achieve a more balanced growth in the two accounts, minimize the likelihood of violating the constraints in the future and hence “smooth” the volatility of the tax benefit. For some risk-averse investors, this smoothing motive can lead to the observed violation of the pecking order location rule. Our model predicts that such violations are more likely when future tax benefits are more volatile, which can occur, for example, when: (i) the tax rate differential across assets increases over time due either to tax law changes or to tax bracket changes for investors; (ii) asset returns are more volatile; and (iii) investors anticipate large future liquidity needs.     

Implementation of land and ecosystem accounts at the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency has started the implementation of a programme of land use and ecosystem accounts, following the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) guidelines of the United Nations. The purpose is to integrate information across the various ecosystem components and to support further assessments and modelling of these components and their interactions with economic and social developments. This programme reflects the increasing demand for environmental policy integration in Europe, both vertically through thematic policies as well as horizontally across policies in those sectors that contribute most to environmental impacts. The construction of land and ecosystem accounts is now feasible due to continuous improvements in monitoring, collecting and processing data and progress with the development of statistical methods that facilitate data assimilation and integration. The accounts are based on explicit spatial patterns provided by comprehensive land cover accounts that can be scaled up and down using a 1 km² grid to any type of administrative region or ecosystem zone (e.g., river basin catchments, coastal zones or bio-geographic areas). Land cover accounts have been produced for 24 countries in Europe and first results published in the European Environment State and Outlook2005 report of the EEA.¹     

National accounts and environmental resources

In the paper, optimal growth theory is used to derive the appropriate definition of the net national product concept, when there are environmental resources and environmental damage to take into account. The basic conclusions are that conventional defined NP should be corrected by deducting environmental damage and adding the value of the net change of all resources.     

Optimal savings with taxable and tax-deferred accounts

We solve and estimate a life-cycle model with earnings risk and liquidity constraints in the presence of tax-deferred retirement accounts (TDAs). We explicitly consider two very different types of households (with TDAs): direct and indirect stockholders. The latter hold stocks only through TDAs and, consistent with the data, save considerably less than the former, who hold stocks both inside and outside these accounts. We find that TDAs promote higher wealth accumulation but only marginally higher net savings. Consumption increases mostly during retirement, as desired, but the effect is largest for those households with higher savings rates already.     

The relationship between government accounts and national accounts, with special reference to the netherlands

National accounts are a macro-economic accounting system that is compiled on the basis of a globally harmonized accounting standard, that is SNA93/ESA95. To a large extent, the SNA93/ESA95 accounting principles are also suitable for government (micro-)accounting purposes, if only because the accounts drawn up according to this standard are comparable across (types of) units and over time. That facilitates performance monitoring and benchmarking. In addition, the ESA95 guidelines and procedures deal with innovative transactions and accounting, which increases the credibility of the accounts. Finally, accounts for government units are then directly comparable with the macroeconomic accounts, which facilitates the link between forecasts for the national economy and drawing up government budgets. This paper also describes the present conversion of government accounts to national accounts for the government sector in the Netherlands and the plans of the Dutch government to change from a cash-based to an accrual government accounting system.     

The role of technology development in national competitiveness — Evidence from Southeast Asian countries

Technology development (TD) plays a key role in national competitiveness (NC) by giving a country a competitive edge in our age of information. Lots of researchers have focused on specific areas of TD, such as technology transfer, technology acquisition, and technology management, in most of developed countries. To our knowledge, however, they have seldom discussed the influence of TD on other categories of NC and vice-versa in developing and less-developed countries. In this study, we examine the influences of each category of NC of TD. Southeast Asian countries are divided into three patterns by means of a cluster analysis. The results show that Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos have the same rank on measures of TD and NC. Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Laos have the same rank on measures of TD and Economic Performance. Malaysia and Thailand have the same rank on measures of TD and Management Capability. In contrast, the TD performance of Southeast Asian countries is worse than the human resources performance because of their insufficient human resources assigned to R&D. Furthermore, based on a strategic grid for comparing the relative performance, four types of country and their achievements are discussed. Singapore outperforms all Southeast Asian countries. Malaysia and Thailand have to leverage their TD resources in order to enhance their NC. The other countries are still hindered in developing the determinants of their NC. Finally, our study offers a path to the identification of how countries of each pattern should supplement their insufficient capabilities, and what are the most important issues that need to be addressed in retuning their TD policies in order to enhance their NC.     

洞庭湖治理与湖区经济结构调整的探索

本文阐述了将退田还湖与发展养殖业、平垸行洪与发展避灾农业、退耕还林与发展林牧业、移民建镇与发展二、三产业、加固干垠疏浚河道与发展优质高产高效农业有效结合,是实现洞庭湖治理与湖区经济结构调整的两全之策。     

民族精神在体育教学中实施的途径

本文分析了民族精神教育存在的问题和学校体育在民族精神教育中的作用，着重阐述体育与民族精神教育的关系以及如何寓民族精神教育于学校体育教学中。     

A research agenda for improving national Ecological Footprint accounts

Nation-level Ecological Footprint accounts are currently produced for more than 150 nations, with multiple calculations available for some nations. The data sets that result from these national assessments typically serve as the basis for Footprint calculations at smaller scales, including those for regions, cities, businesses, and individuals. Global Footprint Network's National Footprint Accounts, supported and used by more than 70 major organizations worldwide, contain the most widely used national accounting methodology today. The National Footprint Accounts calculations are undergoing continuous improvement as better data becomes available and new methodologies are developed. In this paper, a community of active Ecological Footprint practitioners and users propose key research priorities for improving national Ecological Footprint accounting. For each of the proposed improvements, we briefly review relevant literature, summarize the current state of debate, and suggest approaches for further development. The research agenda will serve as a reference for a large scale, international research program devoted to furthering the development of national Ecological Footprint accounting methodology.     

Information and IRA participation: the influence of tax preparers

The steep drop-off in the number of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) contributors after 1986 has led to suggestions that taxpayers misunderstood and over-reacted to the restrictions on deductible contributions imposed by the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Tax panel data is used to investigate the role of taxpayer misunderstanding in the drop-off in IRA contributors after 1986. The hiring of a tax preparer is the transmission mechanism for knowledge of the deductibility rules after 1986. The results suggest that more information and promotion of IRAs would have increased the probability of contributing to an IRA in 1987 for high income taxpayers, but would have decreased this probability for middle-income taxpayers. Taxpayer confusion over the deductibility restrictions appears to have been resolved by 1988. Therefore, taxpayer misunderstanding did not play a major role in the steep drop-off in the number of IRA contributors after 1986.     

行政腐败的宏观经济学分析

本文在增长模型中引入行政腐败和由行政腐败而引起的调整成本 ,考察其对经济增长的影响。通过模型分析得出 ,当政府公共支出的边际生产率比较高 ,税率比较低以及由腐败引致的调整成本比较高时 ,行政腐败对经济增长的负面影响占主导地位。通过对我国行政腐败与公共支出、经济增长率之间关系进行实证分析得出 :在我国市场化过程中 ,行政腐败降低了我国经济增长率 ;在我国公共支出领域 ,行政腐败行为的发生浪费了大量的公共支出。不论以受贿金额占GDP的比重 ,还是以腐败涉及县处以上官员的变动作为衡量行政腐败的指标 ,行政腐败与公共支出占GDP的比重都呈现正相关关系 ;在我国经济发展的过程中 ,存在着大量的预算外支出。预算外支出为腐败行为的发生提供了便利。而且 ,预算外支出由地方或政府官员控制 ,由此引起围绕公共支出的调整成本上升。这表明 ,预算外支出就整体而言阻碍了经济增长。     

国防工业区际调整与创新网络

我国国防工业原先主要布局在“三线”地区,经过区际调整后呈现西、中部均有分布的格局。由于东部创新能力远高于中西部地区,导致了国防工业相对分散与创新资源相对集中的错位分布,抑制了国防工业创新能力的提升。在这种两难处境下,可通过网络把各种创新要素与国防工业进行深度融合,积极构建企业创新网络、产业创新网络、区域创新网络和社区创新网络,开辟出一条跨越空间障碍、全面提升企业创新能力的有效途径。     

增长极溢出效应的空间计量分析——以环首都经济圈为例

中国地区经济发展不平衡,以环首都经济圈为例,运用空间计量模型对增长极溢出效应进行实证分析。分析结果表明,北京经济增长的空间溢出效应对其在地理位置上较接近地区(外围层)比较明显,而对于较远地区(辐射层)则不太明显,即北京经济增长的空间溢出效应具有显著区位差异性。因此,增长极的形成及溢出效应的利用应该在跨区域的范围内统筹兼顾,实现资源的优化配置。     

On the diffusion of inconsistencies in linear regression

We present a general result relating inconsistencies in estimating coefficients of correctly measured regressors to inconsistencies in estimating coefficients of incorrectly measured regressors. The result is reinterpreted to apply in simultaneous equation models.