Investment scaling up and the role of government

This article studies the fiscal and welfare implications of a scaling up of public investment when the government is subject to inefficiencies on the spending and on the tax collection side. In our simulations, the scaling up of public investments results in higher long-run output and consumption levels but requires a fiscal stabilization package in order to preserve fiscal sustainability. The effects on consumers’ welfare after the fiscal adjustment are nontrivial. Our welfare analysis shows that consumers’ welfare is increased when the government smooths the fiscal adjustment via higher borrowing and not through an increase in taxation. Moreover, the comparison between several stabilization packages via tax adjustment shows that higher welfare is achieved when the government relies mostly on taxation of capital as this allows higher levels of consumption. Lower fiscal costs that do not undermine fiscal sustainability can however be achieved if the government manages to reduce inefficiency in tax collection. Finally, we consider a change in the trade regime that causes a decline in revenues. We find that the higher fiscal burden required to preserve fiscal sustainability would completely wipe out the welfare gain of higher public investments.     

Political agency,government responsiveness and the role of the media

The role of mass media in making governments responsive to the needs of citizens is a relatively neglected area in economics. We sketch a theoretical example with a role for media in enhancing government responsiveness based on asymmetric information between citizens and government. We then use data for the period 1958–1992 on the extent to which Indian state governments responded to food shortages via the public distribution of food, correlating these with proxies of media, political and economic development. We find that states that are more responsive tend to also be those with high levels of newspaper circulation, electoral turnout and literacy. In contrast, richer states do not tend to be more responsive than poorer states.     

Optimal contracts and the role of the government in wage bargaining

This paper introduces a contract between the government and trade unions in a model of strategic wage bargaining à la Lippi (2003). It shows that an optimal contract can be implemented through an appropriately defined inflation target.     

The role of the government in financial sector development

This study examines the impact of two dimensions of the government, namely, size and quality, on two dimensions of the financial sector, size and efficiency, in a cross section of 71 economies. The study finds that increased quality of the government as measured by governance and legal origin positively influences both financial sector size and efficiency. The size of the government proxied by government expenditure and the government ownership of banks has a negative effect on financial sector efficiency, and a positive impact on financial sector size, particularly in the low income economies.     

政府在养老保险基金监管中的定位

社会养老保险基金"养命钱"具有重要性与特殊性,政府是基金监管的主体,但受自身局限性影响,政府监管有必要保持适度性,必须引入其他的监管主体才能有效实现监管目标.我国现行的养老基金监管体制必须进行改革,构建多层次制衡式基金监管模式将是一种可行的选择.     

Fiscal decentralization and government size: The role of democracy

This paper examines how the level of democracy in a country affects the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government size. We argue that political regimes, proxied by their democracy levels, are important for different decentralization theories to predict the impact of fiscal decentralization on government size. We test this argument using panel data from 76 developed and developing countries during 1972–2013. We find strong and robust evidence that fiscal decentralization is negatively associated with government size and that a higher level of democracy tends to mitigate the negative impact of fiscal decentralization. Therefore, our study contributes to the literature by offering a novel insight on mixed results regarding the relationship between fiscal decentralization and government size in the literature.     

小议政府在私立学校发展中的作用

教育是一种准公共品,可以由私人提供。私立学校是对公立学校的有益补充,有其存在的可行性和必要性。目前我国的私立学校正在蓬勃发展。政府应鼓励、支持私立学校的发展,既支持非营利性私立学校,也支持营利性私立学校。私立学校的学费虽高,但市场的供求关系会对其加以调节,无须政府过多干涉。政府应以各种方式鼓励有识之士和广大群众投资教育,并对私立学校提供优惠政策,促进其发展壮大。     

Public spending and growth: The role of government accountability

This paper examines the role of institutions in the nexus between public spending and economic growth. Empirical results based on a newly assembled dataset of 80 countries over the 1970–2010 period suggest that particularly when institutions prompt governments to be accountable to the general citizen does public capital spending promote growth. Taking account of the type of financing for this spending, we show that the growth-promoting effect under an accountable government appears to prevail for various financing sources, including a reallocation from current spending, an increase in revenue, and a rise in the budget deficit. However, government accountability does not seem to play a key role in the growth effects of current spending.     

Economic selection and the role of government: Some lessons from evolutionary biology

The economic system is not divinely ordained. It is the product of human beings and can therefore be questioned and altered if necessary. The Reagan and Bush administrations elevated the status of those extreme right economists who wish to preserve privilege by claiming the divine right of market outcomes. It is the argument of this paper that this divine right has its roots in a Victorian view of natural selection. It is instructive to recognize that this view no longer holds sway in biology. It is even less true in the economic sphere.     

Optimal size of the government: the role of the elasticity of substitution

This paper analyzes the optimal fiscal policy in an endogenous growth model with productive public services. Government expenditure, which may be subject to different degrees of congestion, is financed by distortionary income taxation. The standard result on the equality between the growth-maximizing, welfare-maximizing and first-best income tax rates holds if and only if production is Cobb–Douglas or there is proportional congestion. With non-proportional (or in the absence of) congestion, the first-best income tax is lower than the (second-best) welfare-maximizing income tax which, in turn, is lower than the growth-maximizing income tax if the elasticity of substitution is below unity. Under mild conditions these relations are reversed if the elasticity of substitution is above unity. Intuition on these results is also provided.     

物流的角色定位及政府的作用

近两年来，物流热波及企业、社团和政府部门，闻者无不欣然接受，积极投入。如果说前两年大家还停留在对物流概念的争执、对物流基本知识的普及阶段，现时对物流是什么大家已有大致相同的意见，物流中心、配送中心纷纷上马，大量的人、财、物开始投入。笔者认为，目前大家需要冷静地思考一下，在实践中进行科学的反思，物流在国民经济运行中到底扮演什么样的角色，是否是新的经济增长点，是否已形成或将形成一个产业，政府在其间又将扮演什么样的角色。物流的角色定位 首先要确定的是，物流是否是一个行业或产业。目前这是有争议的，很多方…     

The role of ageing in the growth of government and social welfare spending in the OECD

Government expenditure as a share of GDP in the OECD rose at an annual growth rate of 1.02% in the period between 1970 and 1997. Government spending has increased most on functions particularly demanded by elderly population: social welfare, health and defence. Ageing is the main driving force of the growth of government spending, followed by relative prices and population. However, we also find that the other age groups react to ageing, thereby preventing increases in benefits per retired persons and that institutional reforms have been successful at reducing the impact of ageing on pensions in recent years.     

In government we trust: The role of fiscal decentralization

This paper looks whether fiscal decentralization is associated with trust of citizens in government related institutions. We expect a positive relationship based on the argument of governments' improved responsiveness to preferences of citizens that is perceived to result from more decentralized fiscal systems. Survey data from up to 42 countries over the period 1994–2007 confirm this positive relationship. It is robust to controlling for unobserved country heterogeneity and a wide array of other explanatory variables that are associated with trust in government related institutions. Moreover, we do not find that the positive association with fiscal decentralization extends to other, non-government related institutions.     

充分发挥政府在优化营商环境中的重要作用

营商环境是国内外企业投资决策的重要因素,是一个国家或地区开展国际交流与合作、参与国际竞争的重要背景环境。本文在阐述营商环境基本含义的基础上,探讨了我国政府在优化营商环境中的地位和作用,发现政府作为市场经济的参与主体之一,对营商环境的优劣具有重要影响,优化营商环境离不开政府的作用,分析在"放改服"改革实施以来,我国政府关于优化营商环境的工作所取得的成效。在此基础上,为进一步发挥好政府在优化营商环境中重要作用,提出相应的政策建议。     

Short- and long-term relation between economic development and government spending: the role of quality of institutions

ABSTRACT

This paper tests the Wagner’s assumption of the one-sided directional flow moving from economic growth to public spending considering an international database over the 1996–2012 period. By using indicators on the level of country control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability, rule of law, regulatory quality and voice and accountability, the paper analyses the economic performance-public spending nexus controlling for the quality of the institutions. The empirical evidence supports the existence of the Wagner’s law, showing that, in the short-run, public spending positively reacts to a positive shock in national income, with a lower magnitude for democratic countries. In the long run, the error-correction model shows the convergence between public spending and national output occurring less quickly for non-democratic, low-income and to a smaller extent for non-OECD countries. Institutional quality, such as effort in controlling corruption and the presence of regulations that permit and promote private sector development, may help reducing the amount of per capita public spending and making it more productive. Higher expenses in compositional amenities such as public services for the elderly may explain why public spending per capita will increase the most in economies with a higher share of the population that need healthcare facilities.     

Economic fluctuations,volatility changes and the role of government spending in China: A structural analysis

We study the economic fluctuations in China by using a standard neoclassical general equilibrium model to provide a structural analysis. We have carefully constructed measurements for economic variables from Chinese data to be consistent with the literature. We show that the government spending behaviour plays an important role in accounting for the changes in the pattern of both absolute and relative volatilities. Although we find that a general moderation in economic fluctuations after 1978 can be largely explained by the total factor productivity (TFP) process, TFP itself cannot explain the change in the pattern of relative volatilities. We show that policy changes in government spending can account for the relative volatility divergency. Counterfactual experiments are also provided to discover the role of each factor in explaining the economic fluctuations in China.     

Promoting sustainable public finances in the European Union: The role of fiscal rules and government efficiency

New indices of fiscal rule strength are constructed and, using a dynamic panel econometric model for 27 EU countries over the period 1990–2012, we assess whether national fiscal rules alone help to promote sustainable public finances in the EU or whether they must be supported by good governance in order to be effective. We find that fiscal rules are effective in reducing structural primary deficits at all levels of government efficiency. However, the effect is smaller as government efficiency increases, indicating that fiscal rules and government efficiency are institutional substitutes in terms of promoting fiscal sustainability. We also find that balanced budget rules are the most effective form of fiscal rules. Multiple fiscal rules are found to enhance fiscal solvency. Other institutional features that enhance the effectiveness of fiscal rules are transparency of policies and commitment to implementation of fiscal programs. Supranational rules, however, do not affect the effectiveness of national fiscal rules in reducing the deficit bias. Our results are robust to alternative estimation methods and endogeneity assumptions.     

Fractionalization and the size of government

I study the effect of voters with a group-based social conscience. Voters care more about the well-being of those belonging to their own group than the rest of the population. Within a model of political tax determination, both fractionalization and group antagonism reduce the support for redistribution. Whereas within group inequality increases support for redistribution, inequality between groups has the opposite effect. These results hold even if a poor group forms a majority. Using a panel constructed from US micro data, I find support for the hypothesis that within race inequality increases redistribution while between race inequality decreases redistribution.