Wealth Accounting,Exhaustible Resources and Social Welfare

The empirical literature on natural resource accounting uses methods which implicitly or explicitly entail measuring changes in total resource asset value when an exhaustible resource is depleted. In contrast, the growth theoretic literature on saving, social welfare and sustainable development is built upon a central finding, that the change in real wealth (as measured by net or ‘genuine’ saving) is proportional to the change in social welfare. We show that the change in total wealth exceeds the change in real wealth in optimal and non-optimal models of resource-extracting economies. This suggests that the change in social welfare is over-estimated when the change in total resource asset value is used as the measure of depletion. A simple empirical exercise, using World Bank data on ‘adjusted net saving’, reinforces the results from theory.     

Social Security Reform and National Wealth

Recent trends in common stock prices suggest a distinction between increases in national net worth and flows of physical investment. In this paper we present a simple overlapping generations model in which such differences can arise: technological progress occurs exogenously, yet firms own new technologies for a time. We examine possible consequences for social security reform. Reform which increases private saving depletes part of its force raising the (capitalized) price of proprietary technologies. A calibrated example suggests an increase in physical capital one-third smaller than without inelastic factors. Both steady states and transition paths are considered.     

完善社会保障促进居民消费

一、社会保障体系不健全导致消费需求不足中国的社会保障体系已建立了几十年,这套保障体系社会覆盖面小,保障功能欠缺,还带有计划经济的烙印,难以适应市场经济的需要。第一,它是“单位保险”。除了国家预算的抚恤和社会救济支出外,绝大部分社会保障费用都是由单位掌握,由单位向本单位职工提供福利补助津贴。这使筹集社会保障基金的压力几乎全部落到企业头上,大大加重了企业的负担。特别是老企业,离退休职工多,养老金和医疗费用支出大,负担加重,失去了社会保险应有的调剂功能。如果企业经营不善,一旦破产倒闭,不仅在职职工失业…     

个体理性、风险偏好、社会地位与我国消费增长--基于跨期替代资产选择理论模型的研究

文章基于跨期替代资产选择理论,建立了一个较符合我国实际的模型,并结合相关经济数据,将其用以分析我国消费增长问题.研究结果发现:(1)提高跨期替代弹性是解决我国消费不足问题的关键;(2)通过减少个体风险偏好或提高其对社会地位的重视程度来增加消费的方法在理论上并不可行;(3)通过减少贫富差距来减少社会地位因素的受重视程度,可能对刺激消费有一定作用.     

The Consumption/Wealth and Book/Market Ratios in a Dynamic Asset Pricing Contex

This paper addresses new insights into the predictability of financial returns. In particular, we analyze two aspects of the controversial forecasting literature. On the one hand, we demonstrate a positive and contemporaneous link between aggregate book/market and consumption/wealth ratios. On the other hand, we show that real estate and human capital, as the present value of all future salaries, are key components of the consumption/wealth ratio in Spain. Specifically, we find that the cointegrating residuals of consumption, asset holdings, real estate holdings, and our measure of human capital provide a better forecast of future returns than does the standard proxy of the consumption/wealth ratio. This result is important because it clarifies the importance of country-specific components of wealth for cases in which the consumption/wealth ratio is employed as an instrument in conditional asset pricing models.Belén Nieto: Financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología grant SEJ2005-09372 is gratefully acknowledged.Rosa Rodríguez: Financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología grant SEC2003-06457 is gratefully acknowledged.     

资本主义、社会民主主义和福利国家

在资本主义市场经济发展的进程中，产生了福利国家。工业主义理论家从工业化的视角把福利国家的发展看作是工业化发展的水平的结果；社会民主主义者把福利国家看作是实现社会主义经济发展的必要步骤，并借助干凯恩斯主义的福利国家来推行其福利国家的发展战略；一些从资本主义发展的角度认识福利国家原因的理论家，则把福利国家的出现看作是资本主义市场经济发展的产物，并分析了福利国家中的阶级利益的对立。     

Consumption, Wealth, and Indebtedness in the Context of Uncertainty: The Consumption Function Meets Portfolio Theory

The objective of this paper is to provide a sound theoretical framework for the empirical analysis of consumer indebtedness, by integrating Portfolio theory with the Life-Cycle hypothesis (LCH) model of consumption. Modern versions of this LCH theory almost always assume that utility is additive over time, but in this study, the multiplicative Cobb–Douglas function is used. The new synthesis also explains the stochastic properties of consumption more fully and clearly than previous studies, in particular the uncertainty arising from rates of return on risky assets. The new theory will also help to improve the explanation of the surprise changes in consumption because these sources of risk are incorporated explicitly into the analysis.     

心理会计、公共福利保障与居民消费

消费需求不足是我国经济快速增长过程中的一个突出问题。考虑到经典理论的局限性,我们提出了基于心理会计的消费行为假说,并对假说的真实性进行了验证。研究发现,居民心理会计账户结构的变化是当前制约我国消费需求增长的根本原因,而改革进程中出现的一些制度结构的失衡是问题的根源。据此我们指出,通过提高公共福利和社会保障水平,降低经济发展过程中的不确定性进而调整居民心理会计账户的结构,与单纯增加居民收入相比能够更加有效地促进消费的增长。     

试析社会保障对中国农村居民消费的影响

完善农村社会保障体系,促进农民收入增长,是解决三农问题的关键。影响中国农村居民消费的最为直接的仍然是收入问题,然农村社会保障体系的建立对于化解农村居民所面临的来自于自然、社会、市场等等风险,缓解收入不确定性的作用日益凸显,成为继收入之后影响农村居民消费的最重要因素,随着社会前进经济的日益发展,社会保障对农村居民消费的影响作用必将进一步彰显。     

Wealth Effects, Incentives, and Productivity

Comparative static effects of varying the wealth level of a risk-averse agent in a moral hazard setting with limited liability constraints are investigated. There are two principal opposing effects of increasing wealth: the incentive effect, which allows stronger punishments for poor performance, thereby encouraging higher effort; and the preference effect, which reduces the agent's effort incentives owing to income effects in the demand for leisure. It is shown that optimal effort levels are initially constant, subsequently increasing and eventually decreasing in wealth. Hence agents with intermediate wealth levels are the most productive.     

股票财富、信号传递与中国城镇居民消费

本文尝试在消费者最优选择模型基础上,通过引入居民的借贷约束和预防性储蓄,推导出能够检验股市的财富效应、信号传递效应和不对称效应的实证分析框架,并利用中国的季度数据考察中国股市变动对居民消费的影响。与国内相关文献所得结论不同,本文的研究表明:如果不仅考虑股票价格变动的财富效应,而且考虑其信号传递效应,那么中国股票市场对城镇居民消费存在着较为明显的影响。分析也表明,如果用工资而不是人均可支配收入度量人力资本回报,中国股票市场同样存在正的财富效应,且这种财富效应具有明显的不对称性,反映经济基本面变化的股价变动对中国居民消费具有长期影响,投机因素引起的股价变动对中国居民消费的影响甚微。     

Health, Health Care and Social Welfare

This paper reviews the conceptualisation of social welfare in the health economics literature, and the contribution of health and health care to social welfare.     

Individual Decision Making and Investor Welfare

This article analyses and quantifies the costs of suboptimal decision making for an investor with a multi-period horizon. In light of the empirical evidence that investors are too conservative and hold portfolios that are insufficiently diversified, we evaluate the costs of suboptimal equity participation both analytically and using simulation, and also estimate the costs of suboptimal diversification using simulation. We find that suboptimal leverage imposes only modest costs on the investor for reasonable parameter values. While the costs of inadequate diversification can be very high, we find that, because of the higher returns on small firms, an equally weighted portfolio of as few as five randomly chosen firms can provide the same level of expected utility as the value weighted market portfolio.
(J.E.L.: G11, G18, G23).     

The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour

This paper estimates a life cycle model of labour supply, retirement, and savings behaviour in which future health status and wages are uncertain. Individuals face a fixed cost of work and cannot borrow against future labour, pension, or Social Security income. The method of simulated moments is used to match the life cycle profiles of labour force participation, hours worked, and assets that are estimated from the data to those that are generated by the model. The model establishes that the tax structure of the Social Security system and pensions are key determinants of the high observed job exit rates at ages 62 and 65. Removing the tax wedge embedded in the Social Security earnings test for individuals aged 65 and older would delay job exit by almost one year. By contrast, Social Security benefit levels, health, and borrowing constraints are less important determinants of job exit at older ages. For example, reducing Social Security benefits by 20% would cause workers to delay exit from the labour force by only three months.     

公民社会保障权与农村社会保障制度

构建农村社会保障制度,应以宪法赋予农村居民的社会保障权为依据,以实现城乡社会保障体系一体化为目标,加大中央政府资助力度,从完善社会救济制度起步,并着力于在农村建立重大公共传染性疾病的防治保障制度,同时还应在对城市居民养老保险和医疗保险实行"统账分离"的基础上,分步骤为农村居民提供社会统筹养老保险和医疗保险.     

房价收入比与家庭消费——基于房产财富效应的视角

运用中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)2011年、2013年和2015年数据,基于调查数据构建和计算城市房价收入比,分析房价收入比对家庭消费房产财富效应的影响,并进一步考察房价收入比对拥有两套及以上住房、有房出租、拥有大小产权房和不同收入阶层家庭消费房产财富效应的影响差异。研究发现:房价收入比高时家庭消费水平也相应较高,但房价收入比高却显著降低了家庭消费的房产财富弹性;拥有两套及以上住房、有房出租家庭消费的房产财富效应受房价收入比高的弱化影响更小,拥有大产权比小产权房更能抵御房价收入比高对消费房产财富效应的弱化影响,高收入家庭的抵御能力更强。