中国银行业高利润的来源:市场势力还是高效率

中国银行业的高利润究竟来源于行政垄断保护下的市场势力溢价,还是应对未来金融开放环境下的激烈竞争进行改革带来经营效率的提高,抑或是整体经济稳定增长的结果?通过对银行业系统市场势力和经营效率测度发现,银行业整体存在着较高的系统性市场势力溢价,且规模弹性小于1;银行业整体效率低下,全要素生产率平均增长为负值;银行业的高利润主要来源于行政垄断造成的行业系统性市场势力,而非因改革带来的效率提高,GDP的增长一定程度上促成了银行业的高利润。     

经济金融化行为的政治经济学分析--一个演化博弈框架

自2008年美国金融危机发生以来,经济金融化成为国内外学界关注的焦点。文章从政治经济学的角度指出了金融化的本质在于资本积累演变为资本脱离剩余价值的生产与交换而通过金融系统实现增殖的过程,进而通过构建一个包含异质性主体的非对称演化博弈模型,揭示了非金融主体与金融主体之间从普通经济关系到金融关系的动态演变过程及其作用机制。研究表明：(1)经济主体之间的动态关系演变表现为非金融企业主要通过金融活动获取利润,金融企业则关注中间业务和表外业务并将普通家庭纳入其体系使之成为新的利润源泉,而普通家庭则被迫接受强势经济主体的二次分利,这些关系的变化将导致一国经济的金融化乃至金融危机。(2)经济发展状态取决于金融主体与非金融主体之间的相互关系,其中,非金融主体行为起主导性作用。在既定假设下,当非金融主体仅通过其资源保护行为影响金融主体的分利技术时,既可以促使一国经济走向新的稳定状态也可促使其走向崩溃;当非金融主体通过其资源保护行为和分利技术影响金融主体的分利技术时,经济可以实现演化稳定状态。(3)经济主体的金融化行为有三个层面的影响：一是经济主体的金融化行为促进经济主体自身在短期内实现高额资本积累;二是金融主体的分利行为与非金融主体的生产行为经常呈现对立的经济关系并容易被激化;三是没有政府介入的自由市场必然导致矛盾激化而陷入危机。因此,深入理解经济金融化问题的本质及其对经济的影响机制,对当前中国的经济转型和金融改革都具有重要意义。     

From Industrial Policy to Innovation Policy: Japan's Pursuit of Competitive Advantage*

Japan faces significant challenges in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship. Attempts to formally model past industrial policy interventions uniformly uncover little, if any, positive impact on productivity, growth, or welfare. The evidence indicates that most resource flows went to large, politically influential “backwards” sectors, suggesting that political economy considerations may be central to the apparent ineffectiveness of Japanese industrial policy. Rather than traditional industrial or science and technology policy, financial and labor market reforms appear more promising. As a group, Japan's industrial firms are competitive relative to their foreign counterparts. Where Japan falls behind is in the heavily regulated service sector. The problems appear to be due less to a lack of industrial policy than to an excess of regulation. Japan may have more to gain through restructuring the lagging service sector than by expending resources in pursuit of marginal gains in the industrial sector.     

如何看待银行业利润大幅增长问题

今年以来,银行业利润大幅增长问题引起了社会各界高度关注。本文的分析表明,银行业利润的大幅增长主要归因于实体经济平稳较快增长、现行金融保护制度、银行中间业务快速发展、银行业改革红利和市场环境变迁等,是各种内外部、主客观因素共同作用的结果。银行业良好的经营绩效对于银行、金融体系乃至国民经济的健康平稳发展具有重要意义。受制于多方面因素,当前银行业的高盈利不具备可持续性,可采取有关改革措施保持银行业利润合理、平稳增长。     

Increasing inequality,consumer credit and financial fragility in an agent based macroeconomic model

We investigate the interplay between increasing inequality and consumer credit in a complex macroeconomic system with financially fragile heterogeneous households, firms and banks. Simulation results show that there are pros and cons of introducing consumer credit: on the one hand, for a certain time, it leads to lower unemployment through boosting aggregate demand; on the other hand, it accelerates the system tendency to the crisis. Since the increase of financial profits goes with a decline of households’ real wealth, a policy trade-off emerges.     

Unemployment and Economic Integration for Developing Countries

While financial or trade integration between countries may increase the size of the market and aid the adoption of more advanced technologies, will it also increase the level of urban unemployment for a developing country? In this model, there is unemployment in the urban sector. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Financial firms provide capital to manufacturing firms and they also engage in oligopolistic competition. We show that an increase in the wage rate in the manufacturing sector changes neither the level of technology nor the level of employment in the manufacturing sector. While financial or trade integration between developing countries leads manufacturing firms to adopt more advanced technologies, the level and rate of employment in the manufacturing sector will not deteriorate.     

Western Rules for Eastern Banking

The article outlines the most significant changes in the banking sector and traces its possible future path in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the context of competing banking models. The main conclusion is that despite the transition the orientation of the banking sector will be towards the government sector (including the central bank). The new network of financial interrelations that emerged during transition is characterised by the banking sector's significant net defensive position and creditor passivity. Although CEE countries are developing their financial systems in line with a universal banking model the aggregate balance sheets of their banking sectors reveal a structure that is more in line with other proposed models. Financial relations between households, the corporate sector and the state sector intermediated by the banking sector reveal a severe retreat of banks from the corporate sector in favour of maintenance of government and central bank operations.     

FINANCE,DISTRIBUTION AND THE ECONOMIC OBJECTIVE OF FINANCIAL COOPERATIVE INSTITUTIONS

This paper proposes a model where the structure rather than the size of the financial sector explains its influence on income distribution. Because of information asymmetries, a financial sector dominated solely by profit‐maximizing financial intermediaries will increase income and wealth inequality as it gives preferential access to credit for high‐income agents, whereas a diversified inclusive financial sector with alternative models of finance, like cooperatives, will reduce the inequality gap. No full convergence in income distribution can be realized through finance only and there is still a need for redistribution policies. Accordingly, an objective function for cooperative financial institutions should define a desired pricing behaviour that can increase the income of members at a rate higher than the average growth rate of the economy.     

Fiscal and monetary effects on environmental quality,growth, and welfare

This paper examines the effect of fiscal and monetary policies on economic growth, inflation, environmental quality, and welfare. To this end, the horizontal-R&D growth model is extended to include pollution generated in the intermediate-goods production, and the demand for money through cash-in-advance (CIA) constraints on intermediate-goods production and R&D investment. Fiscal policy embodied in the taxation of pollution decreases output, profits, inflation, and wages in the intermediate-goods sector, reallocating labor to R&D that is the engine of economic growth. As it reduces pollution, it increases welfare if there are strong preferences for a clean environment. In turn, since the inflation rate is an increasing function of the nominal interest rate, the effects of changes in this monetary policy variable extend to the effects of changes in the inflation rate. An increase in the nominal interest rate penalizes employment, wages and output in the R&D sector relatively more if the respective CIA constraint is more demanding and thus economic growth decreases. As it also reduces pollution since decreases intermediate-goods production, it increases welfare if the preferences for a clean environment are strong enough.     

NATIONAL AND SECTOR BALANCE SHEETS IN CONCEPT AND IN PRACTICE

National and Sector Balance Sheets are playing an increasingly important role in economic analysis. This article reviews the actual and potential applications and considers whether there is a case for modifying SNA practice and recommendations to increase the value of the contribution that balance sheets can make to analytical work.
The major sections of the article relate respectively to financial and non-financial items in national and sector balance sheets. In the context of financial items, there is discussion of the perception of what constitutes an individual's total financial portfolio and therefore which items should be included or excluded when assessing the financial assets of the household sector (e.g. various forms of pension entitlement and life assurance). The relevance of marketability is considered as is the possibility of attempting to identify a separate domestic households sub-sector. The other main topic considered in relation to financial balance sheets is the relevance of adopting a single approach to valuation; alternatives are considered in relation to the stock of public sector debt.
So far as non-financial assets are concerned, difficulties arise with the national accounting practice of treating the acquisition of consumer durables and military assets as current expenditure. While it is considered, on balance, best to continue to treat the purchase of consumer durables as current expenditure, though recording the value of the stock of durables outside the main body of balance sheets, it is recommended that "non-fighting" assets such as transport ships and aircraft and hospitals should be treated as capital assets. The treatment of sub-soil assets and the valuation of fixed assets is also discussed.
Reconciling balance sheets with flows data is an essential step if balance sheets are to be fully exploited; some comments are offered on the UN guidelines on this topic.     

Can market power sustain endogenous growth in overlapping-generations economies?

Summary. Sustained endogenous growth is known to be impossible in OLG one-sector models without non-convexities and externalities, unless income is redistributed to the young generation. No redistribution proper is however necessary, as shown in two simple examples, if positive profits accruing to young monopolistic entrepreneurs can be sustained in equilibrium, and/or if young unionised workers can guarantee a non-vanishing share of aggregate income. In this context, market power appears, in two different forms, as a significant source of sustained endogenous growth. Received: October 3, 2000; revised version: March 9, 2001     

Industrial Policy and Islamic Finance

Debates on industrial policy have typically focused on interventions in the ‘real’ sector to facilitate the transformation of a resources-based economy to one that is based on manufacturing. Although the financial sector has always figured strongly in these discussions, its development, or rather repression, is almost always considered in the context of serving the ‘real’ sector. In contrast, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on government policies to develop financial sectors into independent and internationally competitive sources of economic growth on their own right through an analysis of the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia. The paper argues that the emergence of Islamic finance in Malaysia, and the country's evolution into a key player of the sector in the global market, can be attributed to developmental efforts or industrial policies adopted by the government. The case of Islamic finance in Malaysia suggests the continuing relevance of industrial policy for developmental purposes. More importantly, it demonstrates that developing countries can chart a path towards services-led growth, the next frontier in economic development.     

Remittances and financial development in Latin America and the Caribbean countries: A dynamic approach

Despite the importance of remittances in total international flows, the conclusion of the studies on the relationship between remittances and financial development, is still not completely unanimous, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, financial development matters for growth and poverty alleviation and financial inclusion have many beneficial effects for households. We examine the relationship between remittances and financial sector development with several dynamic panel data methods. We find a positive, significant, and robust bidirectional link between remittances and financial development for the panel of 32 countries.     

A reconsideration of the public sector's contribution to growth

A recent development in macroeconomic theory suggests that public investmentper se is relevant to economic growth, without regard to the means of financing government activity. This study undertakes an empirical investigation of this proposition, comparing two subperiods of the manufacturing sector's performance in Greece. Our test results support the conventional view that the size of public capital formation and the real intertemporal allocation of public sector may be important for determining manufacturing costs and profits but public deficits are likely to be of comparable or even dominating importance in determining manufacturing output. The emphasis on the financial as opposed to the real aspects of the government's decisions allows the establishment of a benchmark model as an appealing alternative to the newclassical analysis.     

Leading by numbers

We measure to determine where we stand financially or in our quality outcomes. As people see the connection of measures and the success of the company, everything makes more sense. Izzo (2005) writes that profits/net margins are important to an organization and are like oxygen to a person. If we have oxygen, we can focus on the important things in life; if we don't we are preoccupied with gasping for air. Organizations are the same way. With the oxygen of profits, organizations can focus on those things that matter most to the staff and the customer. But when the search for profits becomes obsessive because of greed for excess profits or impending financial doom, everybody loses. Izzo (2005) reminds us that organizations shouldn't exist for only profit, just as people don't exist for only oxygen. Oxygen is merely an enabler for us to do the work of living. Measurement and numbers are the oxygen needed to achieve excellence. As people in organizations use numbers as their servants rather than being slaves to numbers, everyone will succeed. If the use of measurement is seen as punitive, and not a system of serving people to attain that zest for business and a higher mission, we will not achieve the level of excellence our people, patients, and communities deserve.     

Ethics and Banking

Usually moral conscience has been forgotten after the individualist and utilitarian analysis. However, many people guide their behavior by a value system that is sensitive to social problems, such as equilibrium with nature, respect of human rights, and the equality of opportunities. People have the power to change the society: As consumers and as savers. As savers, people have the opportunity to choose, in financial markets, between institutions and products. In this paper, we will summarize the economic trends that observe a moral conscience in humans. Then, we will analyze if this moral conscience can have a translation in the financial sector. Can ethical banks and investment funds survive in the competitive financial sector? Can moral conscience be incorporated into financial business?     

The Image of Australia. Perceptions of the Australian Economy from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

Recent institutionalist and post-Keynesian work on business cycles continues with the traditional institutionalist supposition that financial bubbles drive cycles; however there has been a growing sense in the literature that household consumption, not business investment, has become the key variable. This paper will show how this is a change from historical institutional theory and it will then discuss how this change pushes income distribution toward a more central role in explaining current cycle dynamics. Specifically, this paper argues that much of the economic growth over the last two decades can be attributed to the top two quintiles borrowing more and the current slow growth can be attributed to high quintile households increasing their consumption while middle income households are continuing to deleverage.     

Balance sheet changes and the impact of financial sector risk-taking on fiscal multipliers

We analyse implications of financial sector dynamics for fiscal expenditure multipliers in recessionary conditions. A new stock-flow consistent model is developed in which a financial sector with four financial instruments is integrated with the real sector. The transmission of policy innovations occurs through balance sheet effects. Higher government expenditure increases aggregate demand in the economy. This reduces the perceived probability of default on financial institutions’ loans, increases asset valuations, and leads financial institutions to reduce interest rate spreads. Expectations of higher future wealth and a reduction in credit constraints supports consumption growth. Stronger balance sheets across institutions and lower interest rates increase investment. The interaction between growth and balance sheet valuations creates financial accelerator effects though its impact on financial sector risk-taking. Inflows of foreign savings can increase the multiplier further than would be the case in a closed economy constrained by domestic savings. The results show that fully modelling interactions between real and financial sectors generates fiscal multipliers higher than have been found for South Africa in other types of model.     

Multi‐asset Deprivation and Pro‐poor Growth in Cameroon

This article analyzes pro‐poor growth of multiple dimensions of household well‐being by sector of activity in Cameroon. It uses (1) a polychoric principal component analysis to construct indicators of household asset endowments, (2) the growth incidence curve to analyze the pro‐poorness of the different assets, and (3) a Shapley value framework decomposition to account for changes in deprivation in terms of within‐sector growth and changes in within‐sector inequality. Data is sourced from the second and third Cameroon household consumption surveys. Results show that: (a) pro‐poor growth is not observed for all assets and households at the bottom of the distribution of the different assets experienced an increase in inequality; (b) for all asset endowments, overall deprivation worsened between 2001 and 2007; (c) whereas the growth component mitigated the worsening incidence, depth and severity of human asset deprivation, both growth and redistribution components accounted for the worsening physical, financial and social asset deprivations; (d) while the tertiary sectors of activity benefited some human asset poverty reduction, all sectors suffered from worsening financial and social asset deprivation. These results have implications for promoting growth and improving the allocation of household assets.     

Why has US monetary policy become ineffective lately?

Some recent studies show that US monetary policy has lost its stimulative traction, especially since the early 1980s. They argue that the Fed’s forward guidance has enabled economic agents to anticipate the changes in interest rates more accurately. As a result, it is harder to find truly exogenous monetary policy shocks, which has made monetary policy ineffective. In this article, we find that anomalous economic behaviours of financial institutions might be the true reason for the ineffective monetary policy. Our structural vector autoregressive model shows that increases in the US money supply mostly flowed into the financial sector to increase its profits instead of stimulating the real sector of the economy through business investment.