基于游说的会计准则变迁研究

会计准则的变迁是一种动态的演化博弈,强调的是一种动态的均衡。会计准则的制定过程实际就是利益各方实现动态均衡的过程。本文探究了我国会计准则变迁过程中游说力度缺乏的内在因素。提出应加大与游说相关的直接利益,从而强化利益相关者对准则制定的游说力度,才能制定出高质量的适合我国国情的会计准则。     

《经济》杂志合作伙伴活动启事

中国欧美同学会商会八月月度国际商务人士之夜8月25日晚,中国欧美同学会商会本年度第六次“月度国际商务人士之夜”在帝景豪廷的缤纷帝豪俱乐部举办。此次的联合举办方为几家南太平洋岛国使馆。欧美同学会商会的“月度商务人士之夜”一般不设主题,意在促进商会会员及各界商务人士之间的交流,同时邀请一些社会名流参加。此次酒会是欧美同学会商会今年与美国商会、英国商会、法国商会合作之后,举办的第六次酒会。酒会不但促进了商会会员之间的交流,加强了商会会员与国内外各界商务人士的联系,而且还密切了商会会员与各国驻华使馆的关系,受到了…     

《经济》杂志合作伙伴活动启事

中国澳大利亚商会中国欧盟商会投资研讨会时间:11月7日6:30-9:00pm地点:北京嘉里中心饭店三层多功能厅费用:会员150元,非会员200元。LowesWealthManagement公司过去一年中的资产投资回报率高达35%。此次研讨会,LowesWealthManagement公司的执行董事JustinLowes将会介绍如何利用一些简单的价值投资技巧来改善您的投资表现。省域矿业投资会议时间:11月13日1:00-9:00pm地点:北京金融街丽思卡尔顿酒店由中国国际矿业工作组(CIMG)和澳大利亚驻华使馆联合组织,主要探讨中国各省份存在的矿业投资机会。目的在于促进在中国的矿业领域的贸易和投…     

时政文体语域特征研究——以《人类减贫的中国实践》白皮书英译本为例

时政文体是书面语体中使用较为广泛的一种文体,主要用来阐述、说明、解释某种观点、理论和政策,达到政治宣传和传达思想的目的。时政文体在选词和句法结构上非常正式,属于“封闭性语域”,导致其语域变体的可预测性较强。以国务院发布的《人类减贫的中国实践》白皮书英译本为语料,在语域理论的指导下,对白皮书的话语范围、话语基调和话语方式进行语篇分析,发现上述三种语境因素在不同的交际场合中,以具体的方式出现,共同作用于语篇情境,制约语篇生成者对词语和语义结构的选择。     

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王亚南首先提出要联系实际建立有中国特色的“中国经济学”概念，并写出了一本中国化的“马克思主义经济学的代表作”，即《中国经济原论》。该书在理论核心、体系、篇章结构及方法上均具有鲜明特色，被称为中国式的《资本论》。时至今日，在我国经济改革和建设过程中仍发挥着理论对实践的指导作用。因此被评为“影响新中国经济建设的10本经济学著作”中唯一一本解放前出版的专著。     

日本企业加大在华投资力度北大核心CSSCISSCI

由＂中国—日本商会＂日前发布的《中国经济与日本企业2012年白皮书》显示,2011年日本企业对华投资同比增长49.6%,其中制造业投资同比增长了78.3%。     

呼唤蓝天、碧水、绿地--中国绿色刊物在行动

我国的绿色期刊,就以往的内容来看,大致可分为以下几类:以展示性为主的有《植物》、《大自然》、《生物圈》、《野生动物》、《中国花卉园艺》等;以介绍科普知识为主的有《地图》、《地理知识》、《中国国家地理》等;从不同侧面反映人与自然关系的有《森林与人类》、《自然与人》、《绿色大世界》、《文明大观》等。在一些发达国家,绿色期刊是出版界的宠儿,如美国的《国家地理》杂志,英国BBC办的《野生动物》杂志,全球发行量均达数百万份。《绿叶》杂志——环境文学成长的重要阵地早在1984年,中国环境科学出版社出版了《中国的环境与发展…     

Fiscal federalism and lobbying

Which government functions should be decentralized (resp. centralized) once lobbying behavior is taken into account? We find that the answer largely depends on how the interests of the regional lobbies are positioned with respect to the function to be decentralized (resp. centralized). When regional lobbies have conflicting interests, then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under centralization than under decentralization. On the contrary, when regional lobbies have aligned interests, then lobbying is less damaging for social welfare under decentralization, provided that policy spillovers on the non-organized groups are not too strong.     

Information transmission and inefficient lobbying

In a seminal paper, Grossman and Helpman (1994) introduced a framework to understand how lobbying influences the choice of import/export tariffs. In this paper we extend their analysis and assume that lobbies have private information to analyze the effects of information transmission in a Grossman and Helpman lobby game. Information transmission leads to two agency costs. One refers to the cost of signaling and the other to the cost of screening the lobby's competitiveness. The signaling cost reduces distortions resulting from the screening cost. On the other hand, distortions from the screening cost enhance the signaling cost. The two combined effects generate more distortions in the political game than each effect separately. Tariff protection and lobbies' rents are lower than those found in Grossman and Helpman's truthful equilibrium. Therefore, information transmission may improve welfare through the reduction of rent-seeking activities.     

Dynamic lobbying: Evidence from foreign lobbying in the U.S. Congress

How do interest groups decide which member of Congress to target when decisions are made collectively? Do lobbying strategies change as legislation advances? Answering these questions is challenging due to a lack of systematic observations of lobbying contacts. I answer these questions using a novel data set constructed from reports submitted by lobbyists on behalf of South Korea regarding its free trade agreement with the United States for 10 years. I show that a diverse set of politicians are contacted but the timing, intensity, and strategy of lobbying contacts vary by politicians' institutional positions as well as their predisposed preferences for free trade.     

Lobbying against environmental regulation vs. lobbying for loopholes

We analyze the determinants of environmental policy when two industry lobbies can seek a laxer policy that would apply to both industries and loophole lobbying that provides benefits specific to one industry. We determine the properties of the lobbying equilibrium, including the resulting emissions level. In many cases, higher effectiveness of loophole lobbying is detrimental for industries and beneficial for environmental quality, as it exacerbates the free-rider problem in the provision of general lobbying by inducing industries to turn towards loophole lobbying.     

Informational lobbying and political contributions

Interest groups can potentially influence political decision-makers by offering contributions and by providing relevant information that sways the decision in the group's favor. What mix of these two instruments should an interest group choose, and how does the use of one instrument affect the effectiveness of the other? In this paper we identify an information externality that raises the cost of offering contributions and show that this indirect search cost reduces the group's incentive to gather information when contributions are allowed. Furthermore, we analyze how competition among lobby groups as providers of information and contributions affect the choice and effectiveness of the instruments. We show that the information externality rewards the group that can abstain from information search and focus its influence on contributions.     

Collective vs. individual lobbying

This paper presents a menu-auction model in which firms lobby the government to make an environmental regulation less burdensome. In this lobbying game, industrial interests are opposed by an environmental interest group. We compare political outcomes under two institutional arrangements. In the first, firms must join an organization that represents the interests of the industry. In the second, firms would lobby the government individually. The two arrangements result in strikingly different equilibrium outcomes. Only a small fraction of firms join the lobby group under collective lobbying, but all firms participate in lobbying activities when there is no such group. Thus, an attempt by firms to solve the apparent collective action problem through coordination would effectively backfire. The reason is that coordination among firms would increase the leverage available to the government, to demand high political contributions. We also evaluate the desirability of the two lobbying regimes from the private perspective of individual firms, and from the perspective of society as a whole. This permits us to evaluate possible restrictions on lobbying activities.     

Inefficient lobbying,populism and oligarchy

This paper analyzes the efficiency consequences of lobbying in a production economy with imperfect commitment. We first show that the Pareto efficiency result found for truthful equilibria of common agency games in static exchange economies no longer holds under these more general conditions. We construct a model of pressure groups where the set of efficient truthful common agency equilibria has measure zero. Second, we show that, under fairly general assumptions, the equilibrium will be biased against the group with the highest productivity of private capital, reflecting the fact that, on the margin, less productive groups find lobbying relatively more rewarding. Finally, as an application, if lobbies representing the “poor” and the “rich” have identical organizational capacities, we show that the equilibrium is biased towards the poor, who have a comparative advantage in politics, rather than in production. If the pressure groups differ in their organizational capacity, both pro-rich (oligarchic) and pro-poor (populist) equilibria may arise, all of which are inefficient with respect to the constrained optimum.     

Symmetric tax competition and lobbying within federations

The present paper deals with the question of whether tax harmonization and federal taxation increase welfare in a symmetric tax competition framework with heterogeneous individuals and lobbying. A model closely related to the approach of Lai (2010) is linked to externalities that are familiar from conventional public finance. The observed deviations from efficient taxation are derived from the interplay of four externalities, which can be divided into two groups: externalities occurring due to tax competition and externalities which are caused by lobbying. Whether or not the centralization of tax competences is useful depends mainly on the relative sizes of the competition-induced and lobbying-induced externalities.     

Common agency lobbying over coalitions and policy

This paper presents a theory of common agency lobbying in which policy-interested lobbies can first influence the choice of a proto-coalition and then influence the legislative bargaining over policy within that coalition. The equilibrium policy in the legislative bargaining stage maximizes the aggregate policy utility of the coalition members and the lobbies, but lobbying can also lead to the preservation of the status quo and lobby-induced gridlock. When the status quo does not persist, the policy outcome is largely determined by the selection of a coalition, since legislative bargaining under unanimity within the coalition leads to a coalition-efficient policy regardless of the identity of the proposer. An example is presented to identify the types of equilibria and provide a full characterization of an equilibrium.     

Trade policy & lobbying effectiveness: Theory and evidence for India

How do we understand differences in effectiveness in lobbying for trade policy? To explain lobbying effectiveness, I introduce a new measure into Grossman and Helpman's (1994, American Economic Review 84: 833–850) model of protection-for-sale (PFS). Differences in effectiveness are explained on the basis that some groups make a better case for protection by sending a signal regarding information they possess and that is considered by policy makers before setting trade policies. I begin by estimating a standard PFS model for India using a measure of political organization, a common approach in the empirical literature on PFS. To overcome the need to define such a binary political organization variable, I then use panel data to estimate the new measure of relative lobbying effectiveness. For the most effective sectors, a high output to import ratio translates into higher trade protection; for the least effective sectors, higher output to import ratio translates into lower trade protection. Examining some of the political economy influences on lobbying effectiveness, I find that producing similar goods reduces the positive effect of geographical proximity on effectiveness. Hence, within a sector, firms in close proximity and producing similar goods compete to lobby rather than cooperating or free-riding.