论政府供给偏好的短期决定:政治均衡与经济效率

本文以财政支出为主体,研究了我国政府供给偏好(规模与结构)短期决定问题。政治均衡而非经济市场均衡是理解这一问题的关键。在“有管理的竞争性政治市场”和政府追求政治支持最大化等假定下,我们考察了政治均衡决定政府供给偏好的过程及其效率属性,以及“政治价格”在两级“政治市场”上的形成机制。结论表明:政治均衡决定资源配置固有的低效率属性,因政府供给范围的“越位”和“缺位”而加剧。当前改革的重点应是推动经济市场化转轨的完成和公共财政的转型,而非完全的民主化。权威因素对“政治价格”的管理在利益分化严重的当前形势下具有建设性作用。推动渐进民主化,完善权力对等的“二级政治市场”则是长远之策。     

集体主义与中国公共决策模式选择

如何将个人偏好整合为社会偏好,这是公共决策面临的世界性难题。中国公共决策模式的构建,不仅要超越自己的传统模式,而且应该超越西方模式,因为任何模式都存在改进的空间。本文认为,应以集体主义公共决策作为中国公共决策的首选模式,因为这种模式从个人偏好束中的共同偏好入手,能缓解个人偏好与社会偏好的矛盾;从公益性人力资本的配置入手,能降低公共决策的道德风险;将公共决策的内容从资源配置环节深入到人力资本的生产环节,能克服公益性人力资本不足导致的制度供给不足问题。     

政府投资、民间金融和民间投资——不同资本流动状态下的投资博弈模型

我国经济的转型特征表现为市场经济和计划经济并存,计划经济和市场经济两种体制下的资本流动性由于民间金融发育程度的不同而不同,导致两个投资主体即政府投资和民间投资在不同体制下的博弈过程也不同.根据有关政府投资和民间投资效率特征的已有理论,模拟了市场体制和计划体制下政府投资、民间金融和民间投资三者间的两个不同博弈模型.博弈模型均衡分析过程和结果表明,计划经济体制下政府投资的选择决定均衡解的存在性,政府投资的低效率特征和主导地位使社会投资效率低于市场经济体制下的投资效率.主要结论是我国应该改变政府投资主导并带动民间投资的思路,通过政府投资大力发展民间金融,使民间投资占主导地位,充分发挥民间投资的效率优势,从而维持经济长期持续平稳快速增长.     

对公共消费政府供给在转型经济中的思考

公共消费内在地具有平等与效率的双重涵义 ,直接规定着政府的公共供给。鉴于我国传统公共消费下变异的平等和较低的效率所发出的警示 ,以及我国社会主义市场经济目标的确立 ,在转型经济中我国政府应在提供市场经济中的纯粹公共物品与矫正市场扭曲方面有所作为 ,以保证必要的效率和公平 ,在社会效率增进中提高公共消费的供给水平     

公共产品的提供：一个市场经济的视角

一般认为,私人产品只能由私人提供,公共产品只能由政府提供,这一分析结论所包含的政策含义往往导致公共产品供给决策绝对化和“一刀切”的倾向,把许多行业和商品纳入公共产品范畴由政府垄断性供给,由此导致资源配置效率和使用效率较低。文章对公共产品的界定及提供的理论进行了分析列举,从市场经济的视角讨论公共产品的提供问题,认为公共产品应该引入市场机制进行提供,方能更有效地配置资源。     

新农村建设背景下农村公共产品供给策略探究

农村公共产品的供给关系到农业、农村的发展,是国家发展的战略性问题。当前,农村公共产品供给存在着总体供给不足、资源配置效率低下、城乡公共产品供给差距不断拉大、农村公共产品的供求结构失衡等问题。为此,应当完善农村公共产品的财政投入机制,构建政府主导与多元主体相结合的农村公共产品供给结构,改善农村公共产品供给机制,完善农民需求表达机制和农村公共产品供给决策机制。     

政治关联影响资源配置效率的实证研究

利用2003—2012年中国A股上市公司的数据,借鉴Wurgler的资源配置效率估计模型,实证检验了政治关联对市场资源配置效率的影响。研究结果显示:政治关联显著降低了行业投资增长率对其资本产出增长率的灵敏程度,使得市场不能更及时、有效地引导资源从低效率行业向高效率行业转移,从而损害了资源配置效率。研究结果为进一步推动市场化进程、减少政府对经济的过度干预提供了证据,也说明了非正式制度在资源配置方面的低效率。     

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。     

政府供给乡村社区公共产品的动机与行为分析——基于诺思国家模型的理论视角

基于诺思国家模型的理论视角,立足政府的生产性职能,供给决策制度变迁的逻辑思路是实现供给决策的"自下而上",以社区居民需求意愿表达机制的建立为出发点,激励乡村社区居民真实显示消费公共产品偏好,使政府供给乡村社区公共产品的动机与决策行为有机衔接,从而实现供需对接,供求平衡.     

试探公共产品最优供给规模及效率的模型与方法——在测度政府层级条件下

借用分级条件下政府供给公共产品最优规模的模型和政府供给公共产品的数据包络分析（DEA）模型，为量化政府供给公共产品的效率提供理论依据；同时，根据IMD测度政府效率的指标体系和国内相关的研究和实践，政府供给公共产品效率分析应采用DEA的方法。     

Income Distribution, Redistributive Politics, and Economic Growth

This article studies the political economy of inequality and growth by combining the political economy approach with an imperfect capital market assumption. In the present model, there emerges a class of individuals whose members do not invest privately beyond the state-financed schooling, due to their initial wealth constraint. We show that inequality affects private investment not only through the political effect, which relates inequality to private investment negatively, but also through what we call the threshold effect, which associates inequality to private investment positively. In general, private investment and inequality do not show a monotone negative relationship.     

Endogenous trade policy in general equilibrium: An interaction of redistribution rule,trade openness,and labor market condition

Using a general equilibrium framework, the paper derives trade policy endogenously for a small country. It shows that, contrary to the existing literature, a lobbying industry is not guaranteed trade protection; it may even face trade taxes. Besides lobbying, trade policy depends on other factors such as the trade revenue distribution rule, income distribution across groups, trade openness, factor substitutability in production, industry employment size, and labor market flexibility. The paper also shows that the observed phenomenon of government preference for import tariffs over export subsidies—a long overdue puzzle—is an inherent outcome of lobbying equilibrium. It also shows that trade policies such as import tariffs and export taxes that have the same impact on economic market—Lerner symmetry (1936)—are driven by the same forces in the political market.     

Political preference functions,trade wars,and trade negotiations

The integration of elementary political considerations into computable general equilibrium models is considered, and an extended illustration to agricultural trade negotiations provided. The application involves an evaluation of the payoffs of alternative support levels to agricultural and non-agricultural interests in the EC and the US. A government political preference function for each region is calibrated as a CES aggregation of the payoffs to the two interest groups, with weights corresponding to their benchmark political influence. The political preference function is presumed to be employed by each government to determine the level of agricultural support. The analysis illustrates how sensitive such computable general equilibrium models can be to elementary political considerations, mainly due to the flatness of the implied Pareto frontier. It also illustrates how one can modify the traditional political preference function approach to accommodate possible convexities of the Pareto frontier in empirical models.     

中国金融资源城乡配置差异的新政治经济学

本文对中国金融资源配置的城市化倾向和农村金融资源的外流给出了一个政治经济学的解释,认为,中国的金融制度安排是内生于经济转轨时期的政府给予经济改革中的利益受损集团以利益补偿的需要,使得在这种内生性金融制度安排下的金融资源的配置不可避免的具有强烈的政府偏好意愿,导致了金融资源配置的城市化倾向,同时,政府维系的这种金融制度安排所内生出的利率抑制、垄断的银行结构和被抑制的农村金融等特征也必然加剧金融资源配置的城市化倾向和农村金融资源的外流.     

政府换届、经济政策与政治经济周期

在梳理政治经济周期理论的基础上,比较中西方国家该理论前提、内在逻辑的差异,并从实际出发提出相关命题,建立计量模型,运用中国1953年～2008年的年度数据进行实证研究.结果表明,"两会"召开周期 (中央政府换届)与经济波动周期之间存在较显著的相关性;中央政府换届导致地方政府交流周期,政绩考核晋升机制使地方政府产生纵向、横向上的竞争,并形成周期性的经济发展举措,进而加大了对经济周期的影响;中央政府政治周期使财政政策、货币政策具有一定的顺周期特征,地方政府通过财政项目竞争、软预算约束以及货币信贷倒逼机制,扩大了财政政策、货币政策的顺周期性;在受到国际经济危机异常冲击时,我国财政政策、货币政策表现出平稳经济波动的特征.     

Individual self-control and collective outcomes: An examination of cigarette addiction and taxes

Can individual self-control problems affect policy variables? And if so, through what type of channels? Building on recent literature in political economy, we explore a specific channel that allows for links between individual addiction and state taxes. We develop a theoretical lobbying model to explain the role of addiction in the political process of cigarette taxation. Our model shows that equilibrium cigarette taxes are determined by the average addiction level in society, corruption, and their interaction. Our results suggest a potential impact of individual self-control issues in the process of government policy.     

Finite Horizons,Political Economy,and Growth

This paper analyzes the political economy of growth when agents and the government have finite horizons and equilibrium growth is inefficient. A “representative” government (i.e., one whose preferences reflect those of its constituents) endowed merely with the ability to tax and transfer can improve somewhat on the market allocation, but cannot achieve first-best growth. Efficiency requires in addition the ability to bind future governments. We argue that this ability is related to political stability, and we provide empirical evidence that stability and growth-related policies (namely education) are meaningfully related. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D9, H3, O5.     

The political economy of tariff protection in China: evidence from the WTO accession

We analyze China's tariff rates at WTO accession using a political economy approach. A model drawing on Branstetter and Feenstra ( 2002 ) is used to derive an optimal tariff rate for each industry. The model predicts that a government would set a high tariff rate if an industry is of large state‐owned enterprise (SOE) share, multinational share, or small foreign import share. From the model we reveal the Chinese government's preference towards different interest groups under the binding tariff constraint from the WTO commitments. The estimated structural parameters imply that the political weights on both the SOE profits and consumer income diminish with the economic opening. More important, the government still favours SOEs over consumer income. Our findings are consistent with the special features of China's economy.     

Capital Flight, North-South Lending, and Stages of Economic Development

We present a two-country OLG economy in which international capital mobility exists in the presence of moral hazard in financial contracts. The difference in the extent of asymmetric information is a source of capital movement and capital flows from the South to the North. Even though there exists a unique steady state under autarky, multiple locally stable steady states may emerge in a world economy with an integrated capital market. However, the integration may drive the South down to further impoverishment. The South's government therefore should take into account seriously the timing of capital market liberalization as a conduit of economic development.