风险变动对个人保险需求的影响——基于期望效用与均值-均方差的分析

风险是保险需求存在的前提,风险的变动会引起保险需求的变动.在期望效用(EU)框架下,根据不确定性的一些研究结论推知,风险增加将引起保险需求增加;在均值-均方差方法下,Battermann等人推导了风险增加、风险厌恶弹性和保险需求三者之间的关系,Thomas Eichner和Andreas Wagener证明,在风险分布之间具有线性关系的条件下,Battermann等人的结论在EU方法中也成立.笔者证明,只要随机变量的分布具有二阶占优,则该方法可以完全替代EU方法,从而Battermann等人的结论可以推广到分布族不同的风险决策中.     

基于Copula方法的天气指数保险产品设计——以南通棉花降水指数保险为例

天气指数保险是农业金融重要创新之一。文章致力于运用Copula函数方法研究棉花产量和不同生育期降水之间的非线性关系;利用条件期望求解一定降水量条件下的预期产量水平,最终计算得到天气指数保险的非线性支付函数和保险费率。     

中国农业保险的赔付风险:风险测度与应对策略——基于1984~2012年农业保险与财产保险赔付率的滤波分解与比较

由于农业保险所承保的农业自然灾害具有统计学上的不可预测性,灾害学上的时空延展性和经济学上的不可控性,使得经营农业保险的保险公司面临较高赔付风险. 为测算我国农业保险的赔付风险度,收集整理1984~2012年农业保险与财产保险赔付率数据,采用H-P滤波分解法对其进行长期趋势与短期波动的分解和比较分析. 研究发现:我国农业保险整体赔付水平和赔付的波动幅度远高于财产保险,验证了农业保险具有高风险经营的特性. 但是近年来,农业保险长期赔付趋势呈现平稳略微下降态势,短期波动幅度逐步收敛. 未来随着经营主体的增加,农业保险经营中须把握保险保障度的提升与保险公司经营风险管控的有效平衡;农业保险的适当盈利性与福利改进的有效融合.     

Cross‐Country Income Differences Revisited: Accounting for the Role of Intangible Capital

This paper develops a new intangible investment database that is consistent and internationally comparable for a set of 60 economies over the period 1995–2011. I find that over time a growing share of total investment consists of intangible assets, rather than investment in tangible assets, like machinery and buildings. Across countries, the level of economic development of a country is positively associated with its investment intensity in intangibles. By including intangible capital as an additional production factor, this paper finds that we can account for substantially more of the variation in cross‐country income levels. Depending on the assumptions regarding the output elasticities of factor inputs, the observed differences in intangible capital can account for up to 16 percentage points of the cross‐country income variation.     

Efficiency and Income Shares in High‐Demand Energy Networks: Who Receives the Congestion Rents when a Line is Constrained?

We create an experimental spot market for electricity with demand side bidding, and use experimental methods to study the efficiency of the market and the income shares of the generators, wholesale buyers and transmission line operators. Nodal and line prices are computed on the basis of short run marginal costs, energy losses in transmission, and network opportunity costs when a line is constrained. We find that a traditional, competitive model, which yields congestion rents for the transmission line owners, does not explain the observed bidding behavior; and that subtle differences in institutional rules can cause changes in market efficiency.     

Can Risk‐Averse Households Make Risky Investments? The Role of Trust in Others

In this paper, using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2006 and 2013 waves), we illustrate the link between individuals’ attitudes to financial risk combined with their willingness to trust others, and their investments in risky assets. Individuals who display either risk tolerance alone or – to a lesser extent – risk aversion and trust more frequently decide to buy risky assets. The comparison between Scandinavian and Mediterranean countries indicates that trust plays qualitatively different roles depending on the prevailing combination of risk attitude and trust in the area being studied.     

Disasters,Household Decisions,and Insurance Mechanisms: A Review of Evidence and a Case Study from a Developing Country in Asia

This article investigates whether and how Asian people's exposure to a variety of disasters undermine their decisions and welfare. Our case study from Vietnam, based on household panel data, shows that households adopt a variety of coping strategies against the damages caused by disasters especially through credit and labor markets. While the consumption risk sharing networks function effectively at the commune level, market and non‐market insurance mechanisms are not sufficient, especially at the regional, national, and international levels. Hence, it is imperative to strengthen market, government, and community based insurance mechanisms to diversify aggregate disaster risks at the individual, national, and regional levels in Asia.     

Export Destination,Product Quality and Wages in a Middle‐Income Country. The Case of South Africa

A robust finding in the firm‐level literature is that exporting firms pay higher wages. Using South African data this paper investigates the relationship between export destination and wages at a worker level. South Africa, a middle‐income country, has two distinct main export markets—a regional market where per capita incomes are lower than at home, and an international market with higher per capita incomes. Our estimates show that workers in firms that export to the region earn less than those that produce for the domestic market. Those in firms that export outside the region earn more than either domestic producers or region‐only exporters. Much of this difference in wages can be explained by the premium the different types of exporters pay for skills. These results support previous studies which suggest that export destination is related to product quality which in turn is related to worker quality and therefore wages.     

外部冲击视角下的中国寿险需求分析——基于向量自回归模型及脉冲响应函数的动态计量检验

使用VAR模型和脉冲响应函数,从外部冲击视角分析显示:农民收入以及社会保障体系是影响中国寿险需求的主要因素.一般而言,社保和商业寿险呈替代关系,但本文的实证结果意外证明了两者具有长期互补性.由此,作者衍生的政策建议是把增加农民收入作为拉动寿险需求的长期政策,不断完善社保机制,实现社保与寿险的良性互动.     

Persistent income gaps in an occupational choice model with multi‐goods

In this study, we propose a theory to explain why income gaps persist. We model a simple overlapping‐generations economy with three consumption goods and two types of workers. We find that high‐skilled workers have comparative advantage in skill‐intensive jobs and low‐skilled workers in less skill‐intensive jobs. This pattern of comparative advantage determines occupational choices by workers. Combined with human capital accumulation, the occupational choices widen income gaps between families. At the same time, the relative price of skill‐intensive goods declines owing to productivity improvement. The decline holds back income gaps from exploding. The implications of skill‐biased technological change are also examined.     

Gender gap in self‐employment: The role of risk attitudes

This paper examines the link between the willingness to take risk and the gender gap in self‐employment in the transition economy, where for decades entrepreneurship was considered a crime. Using rich data on risk preferences and entrepreneurial activities, we show that male–female risk tolerance differential is the main determinant of the gender gap in self‐employment in Ukraine. The decomposition results indicate that up to 38% of the gap can be attributed to this factor. Robustness tests support the validity of the baseline findings by suggesting that the results are not confounded by such factors as being unemployed before starting a current job, having a self‐employed household member, or living in a relatively wealthy household before transitioning to self‐employment.     

Post‐Laspeyres: The Case for a New Formula for Compiling Consumer Price Indexes

Consumer price indexes (CPIs) are commonly compiled at the higher (weighted) level using Laspeyres‐type arithmetic averages. This paper questions the suitability of such formulas and considers two counterpart alternatives that use geometric averaging, the Geometric Young and the (price‐updated) Geometric Lowe. The paper provides a formal decomposition and understanding of the differences between the two. Empirical results are provided using United States CPI data. The findings lead to an advocacy of quite simple variants of a hybrid formula suggested by Lent and Dorfman that use the same data as Laspeyres‐type indexes but substantially reduce their bias.     

How Much is Transfer and How Much is Insurance in a Pay‐as‐you‐go System? The German Case

Pay-as-you-go pension systems provide insurance against longevity-related old-age poverty and related risks. They are commonly also used as instruments for redistribution. This paper provides several estimates of the insurance and transfer share of the German public pension system. Estimating these shares is important because they are indicative of taxation-related deadweight losses and influence public acceptance of the pension system. We also disentangle intragenerational from intergenerational transfers. Although our estimate of intragenerational transfers is smaller than recent semi-official estimations, such transfers create substantial deadweight losses. Intergenerational transfers are much larger, thereby contributing to strong negative participation incentives for the younger generation.
JEL classification : H 55; J 26     

Rudderless in a Sea of Yellow: The European Political Economy Impasse for Renewable Transport Energy

Faced with the twin challenges of anthropogenic climate change and ‘peak oil’, the need for an urgent and radical transformation of transport energy has been widely recognised. Adopting a neo-Polanyian economic sociology approach, this article asks what conditions European governance capacity to respond to these challenges, at either national or regional levels, using biofuels as a case study. It asks if the complexity of its political institutions, and the heterogeneity of interests and economic organisations, present ‘the biggest obstacle of all’ (Cohen 2007 Cohen, B. J. 2007. Enlargement and the International Role of the Euro. Review of International Political Economy, 14: 746–73. (doi:10.1080/09692290701642630)[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to reduce fossil fuel dependency. By examining the European Commission level and comparing five countries, evidence is produced for a political failure in terms of continued fossil fuel dependency. Incumbent interests in the agricultural sector and a distinctively European legacy of a transport fleet dependent on fossil diesel, have led to a marriage of convenience between rapeseed farmers and vehicle manufacturers. As a consequence, rather than escaping from the path dependency on fossil fuels (Unruh 2000 Unruh, G. C. 2000. Understanding Carbon Lock-in. Energy Policy, 28(12): 817–30. (doi:10.1016/S0301-4215(00)00070-7)[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Europe has gone down a cul-de-sac of rapeseed biodiesel inherently limited in scope, and with the low levels of greenhouse gas emissions savings. Ironically this outcome is in part an unintended consequence of opposition to biofuels from environmentalist groups and politics.     

Do bank activities and funding strategies of foreign and state‐owned banks have a differential effect on risk‐taking in Central and Eastern Europe?

This paper explores the differential effects of the activity and funding strategies of foreign and state‐owned banks in Central and Eastern European countries on risk‐taking. Due to potentially beneficial external support, the disciplinary role of non‐deposit funding is completely ineffective for both foreign and state‐owned banks. Most likely, because of survival beliefs, non‐deposit financiers deposit their money even when state‐owned banks become riskier. Involvement in non‐interest‐income activities has no impact on the risk‐taking of foreign banks and worsens the risk of state‐owned institutions. However, both types of banks are risky when involved in trading, insurance income, rental and other non‐banking businesses.     

The Implications for Health,Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper uses an exogenous increase in income for a specific subgroup to explore the extent to which higher income leads to higher levels of health and well-being. In 1995, the Taiwanese government implemented the Senior Farmer Welfare Benefit Interim Regulation (SFWBIR) that was a pure cash injection to senior farmers. A difference-in-differences (DiD) approach is used on survey data from the Taiwanese Health and Living Status of Elderly in 1989 and 1996 to evaluate the short-term effect of the SFWBIR on self-assessed health, depression, and life satisfaction (LS). Senior manufacturing workers are employed as a comparison group for senior farmers in the natural experiment. This paper provides evidence that the increase in income caused by this pension reform significantly improved the mental health of senior farmers by reducing 1.697 points of the depression scale in DiD and 2.178 points in the robust estimation; however, it had no significant short-term impact on self-assessed health or LS.     

A Framework for the Simultaneous Measurement of Spatial Variation and Temporal Movement in Prices in a Heterogeneous Country: The Dynamic Household Regional Product Dummy Model

This paper contributes to the growing literature on spatial prices in large heterogeneous countries. While the literatures on spatial variation and temporal movement in prices have grown in parallel, this study marks a departure by providing a unified treatment and proposing a comprehensive framework that allows both approaches. The proposed model is based on twin extensions of the household version of the “country product dummy model” by allowing for a dynamic stochastic specification and interdependence of spatial prices of geographically adjacent regions. Tests of temporal stability and regional independence of the estimated spatial prices are proposed and applied in this paper. The paper shows that the introduction of an autoregressive error process of order one, AR(1), improves the efficiency of the estimates of parameters, urban‐rural and temporal price indices under certain conditions. The Indian application points to a rich potential for using the proposed framework in cross country comparisons such as the International Comparison Program (ICP) exercises.