Resource allocation in a general equilibrium model of production under uncertainty

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of uncertainty for resource allocation, real income, and income distribution in terms of a simple two-sector general equilibrium model of a small country where uncertainty is introduced by assuming that production in one sector occurs in a stochastic environment. Assuming decreasing risk aversion, we show that an increase in uncertainty causes the movement of the resources away from the uncertain sector, a decline in expected real income, and a shift in the distribution of income against the factor employed intensively by the uncertain sector.     

The core of an economy with satiation

Summary. It has long been known that in economies with satiation, the set of competitive equilibria does not coincide with the limiting core of an economy. In dividend equilibria, introduced independently by a number of authors, the budget excess is allowed to be divided among consumers as dividends and equilibrium existence is restored. In this paper a new notion of blocking which leads to core - dividend equilibrium equivalence is introduced. Specifically, it is shown that an allocation is a dividend equilibrium if and only if a corresponding equal treatment allocation of a large economy is in the core.Received: 21 June 2003, Revised: 3 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: D50.Alexander Konovalov: The author would like to thank M. Florig, P. J. J. Herings, V. Marakulin, D. Talman, V. Vasilev, and anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.     

SOCIAL ASSETS*

We present a model incorporating both social and economic components and analyze their interaction. The notion of a social asset, an attribute that has value only because of the social institutions governing society, is introduced. In the basic model, agents match on the basis of income and unproductive attributes. An attribute has value in some equilibrium social institutions (matching patterns), but not in others. We then show that productive attributes (such as education) can have their value increased above their inherent productive value by some social institutions, leading to the notion of the social value of an asset.     

和谐社会视野下中国收入分配制度面临的矛盾及对策

收入差距过大已经影响到中国和谐社会建构的进程。目前,中国收入分配领域存在着要素分配不均、居民整体收入、城乡收入、行业收入、地区收入差距过大以及税收体制等方面对问题。因此,应该坚持以按劳分配为主体、坚持效率与公平的有机统一、实施城乡并重、积极开展垄断行业的革新、完善税务体制、完善社会保障制度体系,以完善中国的收入分配制度。     

The case for international tax co-ordination reconsidered

In a world of high capital mobility, governments may be tempted to undercut each other's capital income taxes to attract capital from abroad. Since such tax competition may have detrimental effects for all countries, European policy makers have debated the introduction of a minimum capital income tax rate within the EU. This paper develops an applied general equilibrium model to estimate the effects of such tax co-ordination on resource allocation, income distribution and social welfare. The model allows for the concern of policy makers that a rise in capital taxes within the EU may cause a capital flight out of Europe. Capital flight will indeed reduce the welfare gain from tax co-ordination within Western Europe, but a positive net gain will remain, although it is likely to be well below 1% of GDP. The gain from co-ordination will be unevenly distributed across European countries, due to differences in economic structures and in the social preference for redistribution. Moreover, even if the median voter's gain from tax co-ordination may be small, the gains for the poorer sections of society may be quite large.     

A Lagrangean approach to the limit theorem on the core of an economy

Conclusion It is shown that an allocation which remains in the core under replication gives rise to an utility allocation with the following property: The utility level of no class can be increased without decreasing the utility level of at least one other class even if the number of consumers is allowed to vary continuously. An examination of the first order conditions the corresponding maximum problem with constraints leads to the conclusion that the allocation can be sustained by a price vector as a competitive equilibrium. This is the limit theorem on the core, proved in this paper with a simple Lagrangean technique.The notion of Pareto efficiency with a variable number of consumers proves useful for other purposes as well. For an extensive discussion of that point the reader is referred to Schweizer (1981).Ours, of course, is not the first calculus approach to the limit theorem [see e. g. L. Johansen (1978)]. But, as far as I know, the method of differentiating the Lagrangean simply with respect to the number of consumers is novel and leads to a straightforward proof of the theorem which can be reproduced in class-rooms even at the undergraduate level.The author wants to thank Joseph Greenberg and Werner Hildenbrand as well as an anonymous referee for helpful comments.     

The problem of order in Austrian economics: Kirzner vs. Lachmann ∗

The current controversy among Austrian economists concerns the precise way in which time and ignorance is to be incorporated into market analysis. While both sides think the market process is fundamentally orderly and coherent, they disagree about how to conceptualize that order. One side, associated mostly with Israel Kirzner, conceives of economic order in the conventional sense of a system converging towards a neoclassical notion of equilibrium. The Austrian contribution to this analysis is to emphasize the important role of entrepreneurial alertness in bringing about convergence towards equilibrium. Kirzner's theory of alertness is able to incorporate partial ignorance into economic analysis, but it does not give a satisfactory account of the consequences of real time.

The other side, following Ludwig Lachmann, argues that a full appreciation of the implications of time and ignorance in economics forces us to abandon conventional notions of equilibrium and instead formulate a theory of the ‘kaleidic society’. Lachmann makes a convincing case for the inappropriateness of conventional notions of equilibrium, but fails to weave his critiques into a theory of social order.     

Public good provision rules and income distribution: Some general equilibrium calculations

A central issue in the analysis of public goods is the relationship between the optimal provision level and the distribution of income. Theoretical research has stressed the conditions under which the optimum is independent of the distribution of income. Here we focus on numerical analysis of more policy-relevant concerns. Specifically, to what extent is a given redistribution of income likely to affect the optimal level of public good supply? And how significant are the welfare costs of not adjusting public good supply when income distribution changes? We use an applied general equilibrium (AGE) model of the Australian economy and public sector to generate numerical estimates of the impacts of redistributive policies on these variables. Results suggest that the traditional separation of allocation and distribution in determining the level of public good supply may be a justifiable empirical simplification, except where very dramatic redistributions are involved.     

Pigouvian Taxes in General Equilibrium with a Fixed Tax Redistribution Rule

This paper establishes existence of a first-best emission tax in a general equilibrium model with pollution, when the redistribution rule of the tax income is chosen fixed and independently of the Pigouvian tax rate. It is known that under standard convexity assumptions each Pareto efficient allocation can be implemented by simultaneously choosing a Pigouvian tax rate and an appropriate lump sum redistribution of income. In real politics, however, tax redistribution schemes are often restricted to a small feasible set. Nonetheless we show that for any given lump sum redistribution rule, being continuous in overall tax income, an emission tax rate exists that leads to a Pareto efficient equilibrium.     

中产阶层与分配正义

中等财产拥有者,是中产阶层的经济标识和首要特征。中产阶层研究最核心的问题应是中产阶层与社会正义或分配正义关系的问题,即中产阶层的财产来路是否合理,中产阶层的产生与发展是否符合分配正义,中产阶层社会是否是社会财富分配合理的正义的社会。中产阶层是分配正义的产物,中产阶层的发展壮大是社会财富分配公正的体现。中产阶层缺乏的社会必定是社会分化不完整或是贫富过分分化的社会,必定是分配正义缺失的社会。     

论收入差度与分配和谐

收入差距和贫富差距是当前人类社会客观存在的必然现象,将其控制在和谐适度状态应当是收入分配要达到的最高境界.那么怎样的收入差距为和谐适度,用怎样的标准来衡量,除国际社会常用的基尼系数外,能否找到更简明、直观、科学的标尺,是文章研究的核心.文章首次用"差度"作为衡量差距的尺度,在对世界121个经济体的时序和截面收入差距实证研究的基础上,提出了和谐收入差度评判标准;进而提出确立收入差度控制目标,建立收入差度预警机制,构建和谐收入分配体系的思路与建议.     

Optimal jurisdictional fragmentation and mobility

Tiebout's hypothesis is examined in a model with the continuum of income classes and no economies of scale of population in public output provision. Any efficient allocation of resources can be achieved in this model by a system of jurisdictions, each containing a separate income class, and each using a local property tax to finance local public output. However, in general at most one such allocation will be an equilibrium if residents can ‘vote with their feet’. Conditions are derived under which higher-income residents will locate in jurisdictions providing a higher level of public output. These are shown necessary, given a separable utility function, for any optimal allocation to be sustainable as an equilibrium when residents are mobile.     

Increasing risk and equilibrium under uncertainty

The impact of increasing risk on social welfare and resource allocation is analysed in a general equilibrium model with endowment uncertainty. It is shown that the equilibrium allocation of resources is affected only by an increase in those risks which are important for society as a whole. In contrast, increases in purely individual risk do not influence achievable social welfare and have no effect on the utility of traders in a competitive market.     

Value Cores for Finite Agents*

The standard definition of the competitive equilibrium, at given prices, presents the difficulty that finite agents (i.e. agents with finite budget and production sets), and a fortiori coalitions of such agents, need not be price takers and will upset the equilibrium. Since 1963 an extensive literature has sprung up, which has dealt with the problem, essentially by considering infinite numbers of infinitesimal agents. The present article outlines two alternative approaches to deal with this problem, both of which, realistically, admit (a finite number of) finite agents and redefine the core in terms of the value structure of the economy, viz. prices in the presence of controls, and cost and revenue functions in their absence. It is shown that the notion of value core, here introduced, coincides with that of competitive equilibrium, which is formulated as a characteristic-function game.     

Symmetrically pairwise-bargained allocations in an assignment market

Consider an assignment game with transferable utility where the optimally assigned partners engage in bargaining of the sort modelled by Nash, using as their threats the maximum they could receive in an alternative match. A symmetrically pairwise-bargained (SPB) allocation is a core allocation such that all partners are in bargained equilibrium. It is shown that an SPB allocation always exists, that the set of SPB allocations coincides with the intersection of the kernel and the core, and that there is a rebargaining process which converges to an SPB allocation if it begins at a “distinguished point” in the core.     

政府供给界限的均衡分析

政府与市场是两种不同的社会资源配置运作体系或制度安排。但是 ,制约它们运作的机制应该是相同 ,也就是成本与收益的比较。对政府供给的均衡分析尝试建立政府与市场的均衡模型 ,以此来界定政府在何种层面、何种程度上更有利于资源配置 ,以实现资源配置效率的最优化。     

Internal bargaining and strategic innovation in the theory of the firm

The transaction cost analysis of the firm has identified asset idiosyncrasy and the risk of ex post opportunism as key determinants of organizational form. Simultaneously, several writers have modeled the distribution of quasi-rents among input suppliers as a bargaining game. These complementary ideas are used to formalize the notion of strategic innovation, where capital and labor attempt to redistribute firm income after specialized assets are in place, through unilateral modifications in production technology. Because strategic behavior can enlarge the quasi-rent component of fifirm income, this process may persist in equilibrium. Asset idiosyncrasy therefore creates room for an autonomous theory of organizational dynamics, partially insulated from events at the market level of analysis.     

马克思分配理论及其中国化的创新成果

马克思以所有制与分配的关系分析为前提,以社会再生产过程中生产与分配的关系分析为基础,研究了个人消费品的分配问题,在揭示特定社会条件下收入分配特殊规律的同时,也分析了人类社会收入分配的一般规律。马克思分配理论的核心要义,奠定了我们深入认识和研究中国现行分配问题的理论基础。新中国成立以来,中国共产党人坚持把马克思分配理论与中国的具体国情相结合,致力于马克思分配理论的中国化实践,取得了一个又一个新的理论成果。从新民主主义分配制度的确立,到按劳分配制度的形成,再到中国特色社会主义分配制度的形成,凸显了不同历史时期形成的毛泽东分配思想、中国特色社会主义分配理论、习近平分配理论等马克思分配理论中国化的创新性成果。     

国内外隐性收入比较研究及范式创新

隐性收入是商品经济发展的产物,是世界各国共同存在的问题。当前我国社会中存在大量的非公开隐性收入,但无法反映在调查数据中,结果是显著扩大了收入差距,扭曲了国民收入分配。巨额隐性收入的"灰色效应"包括经济失衡效应、社会矛盾效应、政治风险效应、学术失真效应。必须坚决治理隐性收入、调节社会分配差距,才能消除上述"灰色效应"。因此,构建一个较系统、全面的隐性收入分析框架,具有重要的理论和现实意义。博弈论是分析人与人之间的关系和行为的理论,而隐性收入亦是由不同利益关系的个人和群体的交易行为所产生。博弈论可以作为分析社会隐性收入的分析工具。因此,可以构建交叉学科研究的新范式,运用经济博弈论来剖析隐性收入成因,建立系统的隐性收入分析框架,为治理隐性收入提供理论参考。     

Spontaneous economic order

This paper provides attempts to formalize Hayek’s notion of spontaneous order within the framework of an Arrow-Debreu economy. Our study shows that, if a competitive economy is sufficiently fair and free, a spontaneous economic order will emerge in long-run competitive equilibria so that social members spontaneously occupy an unplanned distribution of income. Despite this, the spontaneous order may degenerate in the form of economic crises whenever an equilibrium economy approaches the extreme competition. Remarkably, such a theoretical framework of spontaneous order provides a bridge linking Austrian economics and neoclassical economics, where a truth begins to emerge: “Freedom promotes technological progress”.