Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue. JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.     

制度变迁理论及其在中国的修正

在经济学领域,关于制度变迁问题的研究已经吸引了国内外一大批著名学者的长期关注。但是,现有的文献大多只是对制度变迁的某些方面作局部的研究,还没有形成可以理解该课题的各个方面相关问题的一以贯之的研究范式。因此,有必要通过回顾和梳理制度变迁经济学研究中的一般性理论演进历程及其在中国的应用和产权管制放松等文献成果,把相对独立的几个话题统一在一个范式下,以厘清争论的焦点、形成线索,为下一步讨论提供清晰的理论框架与研究纲领。尤其是,在研究内容、理论创新和方法论这三个方面还需进一步拓展。     

Constitutional Design for a Rent Seeking Society: The Voting Rule Choice Revisited

Buchanan and Tullock's original trade-off model of constitutional design is used to analyze how constitutional design affects post-constitutional rent seeking, and, in turn, how the anticipation of post-constitution rent seeking should lead to modification of constitutional design — specifically with respect to imposing and maintaining effective (composite) supermajority decision rules.     

市场交易:资源产权改革的出路

在中国,虽然通过承包制等改革手段划分了资源产权的权属,但因未明确赋予产权行使者对所承包资源实施市场交易的权利,影响了产权功能的发挥和资源的可持续开发与有效利用.本文在分析产权与市场交易关系的基础上,提出市场交易是产权的一项根本内涵,是产权的资源配置功能得以实现的重要条件,并结合牧场等资源产权改革的问题与困境,提出实现市场交易是资源产权改革的最终出路.     

产权管制放松与中国经济转轨绩效

基于信息成本约束的政府放松对分散决策单位的产权管制会带来资源配置的激励机制和行为角色的重大变化。由于市场分散性决策的信息成本过高成为政府资源权利配置的约束条件,所以政府应逐渐放松对配置资源权利管制的范围,并让位于分散决策单位进行产权运用和调配。产权管制放松对经济转轨绩效的影响显著,是提高中国经济绩效的关键因素。     

Induced Institutional Innovation and Transaction Costs: The Case of the Australian National Native Title Tribunal

The theory of induced innovation says that technological innovations which economize on relatively scarce inputs will be invented and adopted. Hayami and Ruttan have hypothesized that this model also holds for institutional innovations. Coase and Williamson suggest that economic organization, such as vertical integration, is the result of transaction cost minimization. Coase discusses the transaction costs of negotiation versus other alternatives for solving externality problems. This paper brings these previously unconnected threads of the literature together and incorporates transaction costs in an induced institutional innovation model.

This conceptual model is brought to bear on the issue of institutional innovations over time in relation to the National Native Title Tribunal. In addition to the reductions in transaction costs from a negotiated settlement rather than litigation, there are other advantages of negotiation. These may include improved “quality” of settlements, improved relations between the negotiating parties, and more timely resolution.     

Deregulation and Productivity: The Case of Spanish Banks

This paper deals with measuring total factor productivity (TFP) growth of financial institutions incorporating different types of deregulatory measures. TFP growth is decomposed into external, scale, and markup components. The external component is further dissected into deregulation and technical change components. The TFP growth relationship is included as an additional equation in estimating the cost system. The empirical model uses panel data on Spanish banks (savings and commercial banks). We find that deregulations contributed positively to TFP growth for both savings and commercial banks. Furthermore, domestic (European) deregulations had a greater effect on TFP growth of savings (commercial) banks. JEL Classification: D24, D40, G21Lozano-Vivas acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and FEDER grant n° BEC2002-02852. The authors thank an anonymous referee, the editor of the JRE and seminar participants at the XI International Tor Vergata Conference on Banking and Finance: Monetary Integration, Markets and Regulation (Rome, Italy) and at the Asian Pacific Productivity and Efficiency Conference (Taipei, Taiwan) for numerous suggestions. A previous version of this paper was distributed as working paper E2004/24, CentrA.     

建立现代产权制度,解决消费需求不足

产权制度经历了从古典产权制度到现代产权制度的演进.受古典产权制度的制约,我国劳动力市场所具有的两个特点决定了工资的市场定价必然将工资定位在低点,它导致了相当一部分就业人口长期的低收入,从而产生收入分配差距偏大和总消费需求不足.因此,必须建立现代产权制度,才能够解决收入分配差距偏大和总消费需求不足的问题.现代产权制度是构建和谐社会的经济基础.     

公司多元化折价:寻租与投资偏差

相对于业务集中的企业来说,多元化公司往往出现市场价值贬损,尽管造成这一现象的原因多种多样,但部门经理寻租引致公司经理配置资源出现偏差,则是产生公司多元化折价的重要根源之一.文章基于这一思想,通过建立模型进行了深入分析,得出多元化公司往往出现折价并给出了影响折价的一些重要因素.     

Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments: Comment

In this comment, I analyze Damania's political economy model (Environmental and Resource Economics 13: 415–433, 1999), correcting some flaws and clarifying some ambiguities. I arguethat the political parties are identical at the outset of the game. Onlyafter the parties have chosen the instrument (standards or taxation) and thestrictness of environmental policy do the environmentalists and thepolluting firms know which party to support in the election campaign. Inequilibrium, both parties choose the same platform, so that both have anequal probability of winning the election.     

产权改革社会化趋势的理论分析

经济体制转型国家的产权制度改革往往与经济市场化密切相关,在这一过程中,社会生产方式从封闭走向开放化、社会化,一切生产要素都要通过市场为全社会所用。产权的社会化,实现了资本的社会运营,形成了财产权利的社会分解、经济利益的社会分享和风险责任的社会分担,这是现代市场经济发展的必然要求。     

The Financing of Regulatory Agencies

This paper examines the financing of monitoring agencies deriving the welfare-improving combinations of public revenue, industry fees, and penalties that should be used to finance quality regulations. The model shows that if some firms are not expected to comply with quality standards, penalties are optimal to cover the agencys regulatory exposure though these need to be augmented with other instruments as monitoring costs increase. If all firms are expected to comply with the quality standards, a per-firm fee is the optimal method of regulatory financing but needs to be augmented with a lump-sum tax as monitoring costs increase.Jel classification: H21, L51The authors extend their thanks to Editor Michael Crew and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are ours.     

我国旅游资源产权安排:一个新的分析框架

随着旅游产业的发展,旅游资源的外延逐渐扩大,旅游资源产权问题越发复杂.如果依然笼统地实行僵化的旅游资源管理模式,不但会使资源的利用效率降低,而且会对资源本身造成极大的危害.本文基于产权的角度,在对旅游资源重新进行分类的基础上,构建新的旅游资源产权体系,进而根据不同产权的有效性条件,提出了调整旅游资源的具体管理、运行制度的思路.     

The Financial and Operational Impacts of FERC Order 636 on the Interstate Natural Gas Pipeline Industry

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Order 636 fundamentally altered the regulatory and operational environment of the natural gas industry in 1992, as the culmination of several directives aimed at relaxing regulation and fostering competition. We hypothesize that gas pipeline firms subsequently changed their operational and financial behavior in ways consistent with reduced balkanization, increased competition, and reduced expense preference behavior. Our results indicate that these firms have become more homogeneous financially but less so operationally. We find evidence that the marginal profitability of various pipeline activities has responded more to financial market conditions than to the regulatory environment.     

Price-Cost Margins and Profit Rates in New Zealand Electricity Distribution Networks Since 1994: the Cost of Light Handed Regulation

From 1994 to 2003, New Zealands corporatized electricity lines networks operated with no industry regulator, but under the spotlight of mandatory information disclosure. As a result there exists a large body of detailed, audited and publicly available accounting data on the financial performance of these businesses. Using that data, this paper finds that price-cost margins have widened substantially since deregulation. We estimate the extent to which light-handed regulation has allowed profits to exceed the levels which would have been acceptable under the old rate-of-return regulatory framework, and find that the answer is about $200 million per year, on an ongoing basis.We thank colleagues at Victoria University, and two anonymous referees for this journal, for constructive comments on this paper. Any remaining errors are entirely our responsibility.JEL classification: D21; K23; L11; L43; L51     

金融监管效率的基石:激励相容的监管机制

本文通过金融监管过程中的博弈分析,揭示了当前的金融监管制度安排在信息不对称条件下导致的监管当局提供有效监管激励的缺失及金融机构普遍的道德风险是造成金融监管失灵的主要原因.因而解决金融监管低效率或失灵问题的关键,在于通过金融市场透明度建设、监管制度安排的合理设计及金融机构治理结构的完善,实现社会公众、监管当局、金融机构之间的激励相容.     

产权管制放松与制度绩效变迁——来自广东经济非均衡转轨的证据

过去大量的研究强调政策、区域、禀赋等对广东经济转轨绩效的影响,论文从产权管制放松的角度出发,构建了一个简单的博弈论模型,旨在分析广东政府放松对资源配置权利的管制对经济转轨产生的制度效应。研究发现,广东各级地方政府放松对资源配置权利的管制,大幅节约了租金耗散,并衍生出更多给予经济个体发挥比较优势的获利空间,扩展了市场范围,从而促进了地区经济均衡转轨。论文对于理解广东经济转轨问题提供了一个新的视角和框架,它尤其有助于揭示产权管制放松与经济绩效变迁二者之间的内在机理和制度逻辑。     

Dimensions and Determinants of Financialisation: Comparing OECD Countries since 1997

ABSTRACT

The financialisation literature has grown over the past decades. Despite a generally accepted definition, financialisation has been used to describe different phenomena. We distinguish between financialisation of non-financial companies, households and the financial sector and use activity and vulnerability measures. We identify seven financialisation hypotheses in the literature and empirically investigate them in a cross-country analysis for 17 OECD countries and two time periods, 1997–2007 as well as 2008–17. We find different financialisation measures are only weakly correlated, suggesting the existence of distinct financialisation processes. There is strong evidence that financialisation is linked to asset price inflation and correlated with a debt-driven demand regime. Financial deregulation encourages financialisation. There is limited evidence that market-based financial systems are more financialised. Foreign financial inflows do not seem a main driver. We do not find indication that an investment slowdown precedes financialisation. Our findings suggest financialisation should be understood as a variegated process, playing out differently across economic sectors and countries.     

Political Competition, Rent Seeking and the Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments

This paper investigates the impact of political lobbying on the choice of environmental policy instruments. It is argued that the prevalence of pollution emission standards over more efficient policy instruments may result from rent seeking behaviour. The model further predicts that when an emission standard is used to control pollution, rival political parties have an incentive to set the same standard. There is therefore a convergence of policies. Moreover, it is shown that emission taxes are more likely to be supported and proposed by political parties which represent environmental interest groups. This feature appears to accord with the observed support for environmental taxes by Green parties in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.     

内生金融发展:理论与中国的经验证据

本文运用内生金融发展理论这一新的理论框架来理解中国的金融发展.我们利用中国1978年以来的数据,通过计量研究发现,产权改革、法治水平的提高以及金融的自由化,将有利于增加私人信贷,但对整体信贷量以及金融深化并无显著的作用.城市化水平的提高,不仅有利于提高私人信贷水平,而且对于整体信贷量的提高以及金融深化都有显著的作用.本文的结论是:构建合理的制度体系是中国金融未来发展的关键所在.