Reconsidering Wagner’s law: evidence from the functions of the government

We revisit Wagner’s law by function of government expenditure. Using data of 14 European countries between 1996 and 2013, we apply panel data and SUR methods to assess public expenditure–income elasticities. We find that some functions of government spending for a few countries (e.g. Austria, France, the Netherlands and Portugal) validate Wagner’s law. For the Netherlands, expenditures with environment protection increase more than proportionately to economic growth, and for France that is the case of spending in housing and community amenities. In addition, Greece is the only country where two public spending items react more than one to one to growth.     

2011-2012年中国货币政策分析与展望

本文回顾了2011年中国货币政策操作的主要措施和金融运行情况,分析了2012年货币政策运行环境,提出了货币政策建议。本文认为,2011年,面对不断上升的通货膨胀压力,中国人民银行实行了稳健的货币政策,货币信贷条件向常态水平回归,有效遏制了物价过快上涨的势头。2012年,在经济增长下行压力和物价上涨压力并存的局面下,中国人民银行需要继续实施稳健的货币政策,进一步增强货币政策的针对性、灵活性和前瞻性,根据经济形势的变化,适时适度进行预调微调,保持货币信贷总量和社会融资规模的合理适度增长,更好地服务于实体经济发展。     

Two Models of the Relationship Between Money and Sovereignty: An Interpretation Based on John R. Commons’s Institutionalism

We present a theoretical analysis of monetary sovereignty based on John R. Commons’s main works. Commons wrote extensively on money and sovereignty, but he did not provide an explicit analysis of their relationship. Through the reconstruction and interpretation of his work, we propose two models of the relationship between money and sovereignty. In the first model, monetary sovereignty is owned by private banks and is potentially in competition with political sovereignty. In the second model, money can be viewed as an agent of political sovereignty, which shares some similarities with the law as an institution of sovereignty in the modern state.     

Fiscal Consolidations: A Theoretical Essay with a Heterogeneous-Agent Model

Since the emergence of the financial crisis, most of the EU countries have promoted impressive public interventions to support financial institutions, contributing to a significant rise in general government gross debt-to-GDP ratios. As such, the issue of how to best pursue a fiscal consolidation will become crucial regarding the fiscal policy stance. This paper aims at characterizing four different stylized debt consolidation strategies extensively identified in the literature (one pure revenue-based and three expenditure-based) in order to assess welfare affects and, in particular, the inequality effects involved. For this purpose, we built a general equilibrium heterogeneous-agent model capable of exploring the relationship between fiscal policy and the endogenous cross-section distribution of income and wealth. Moreover, we decompose the impacts on welfare criteria in order to distinguish pure efficiency effects from insurance and inequality effects. According to our simulations, the adjustment based on the reduction of unproductive expenditures came out to be the most welfare-enhancing compared to those based on tax increases or on social transfer reductions.     

增长极战略的实现机制与中国实践模式的重构

增长极理论是20世纪50年代新古典区域均衡发展理论遭遇危机之后的新选择,但自其诞生以来由于缺乏成功案例的支持而备受争议。我国区域非均质、不平衡使得增长极模式备受推崇,但在发展中同样遭遇困境。鉴于理论与现实鲜明的反差,以增长极的实现机制为切入点剖析了该理论的不足,指出我国三大增长极在实践中存在政府依赖刚性、自我发展能力弱、关联效应差等问题,认为完整的增长极实现机制应包括形成机制、运行机制和扩散机制,并从这三大机制入手重构了中国增长极的实践模式,提出相关政策建议。     

What level of decentralization is better in an environmental context? An application to water policies

This paper analyses the optimal division of environmental policymaking functions among the different levels of government. Using fiscal federalism theory, we identify the most appropriate level of decentralization in each case. The paper focuses on water resources policies, with an application to Spanish regions during the 1996–2001 period. A simulation allows the implementation of more efficient policies in the context of water resources. The results of the empirical exercise show that a decentralized scenario is preferred under strong differences among preferences.      

Asymmetric information, signaling and environmental taxes in oligopoly

This paper examines the effects of signaling on environmental taxation in a two-period oligopoly model in which each firm privately knows whether its technology is clean or dirty, while third parties (the rival firms and the regulator) have only a subjective perception about this fact. Consequently, there are both horizontal and vertical asymmetric information, and each firm can strategically manipulate both, the competitor's and the regulator's priors. In this context, we find that each firm wishes to be perceived as a technologically clean firm in period 2 whenever the regulator's ecological conscience is sufficiently high. We also show that taxes under symmetric information are always positive, but under asymmetric information and signaling they may be negative (subsidies) and lower or greater than in the symmetric information case, depending on the ecological conscience of the regulator and the probability of firms being dirty. Finally, taxes are below environmental marginal damage, both under symmetric and asymmetric information, and signaling reinforces such under-taxation.     

中国货币政策传导机制分析——利率渠道的实证分析

市场经济条件下，在发达的货币市场和有效的金融机制基础上，货币政策主要通过利率、汇率、非货币资产和信贷传播四条途径影响宏观经济总量。本文重点通过对利率传导渠道的实证分析，说明中国由于利率管制等方面对货币政策传导的阻滞作用，中央银行的货币政策意图不能有效地指导实体经济，进而对疏导货币政策的传导机制提出对策建议。     

我国货币政策自主性的实证研究

基于货币目标区模型、货币政策反应方程以及外汇储备与基础货币之间的关系方程,对2005年7月汇改前后我国货币政策自主性变化情况进行的实证研究结果表明,汇改后我国的利率政策自主性较汇改前增强,但货币数量政策则由汇改前的具备自主性变为汇改后的缺乏自主性;在我国,通过增强汇率制度弹性以提高利率政策自主性是可行的,但对货币数量政策并不成立。研究结果还表明,我国应以利率作为货币政策中介目标。     

财政均等化:模式选择与真实度量

财政均等化一般有水平公平均等化与财政能力均等化两种模式,而中国在特殊国情约束下应选择财政能力均等化作为财政均等化的模式。以此为基础,度量中国财政均等化的真实水平,发现省际间与上下级政府间财力分配不均衡显著,主要原因是转移支付的财力均等化效果不理想。据此,提升财政均等化水平,促进公共服务均等化的政策建议为:改革现行转移支付的类型结构和地区分配结构;明确各级政府的均等化公共服务责任;构建各级政府的均等化财力分配格局。     

我国货币政策传导途径的实证研究

为制定切实可行的货币调控政策,货币当局必须了解和把握货币政策在实体经济中的传导途径,本文从实证的角度出发,采用协整检验和Ｇｒａｎｇｅｒ因果检验方法,对我国货币政策传导途径进行分析研究。本文的实证结论是：无论是在８０年代还是在９０年代,信用渠道都是我国货币政策的主要传导途径。这对我国货币政策中介目标的选取以及在当前形势下如何利用货币政策有效促进经济发展均具重要的指导意义。     

Optimal public policy with endogenous mortality

We analyze the welfare‐maximizing policy mix between explicit and implicit taxation, where the probability of survival of the young agents depends upon the share of government expenditure on health, education and infrastructure. We show that increases in the survival probability lead to an increase in the reliance on seigniorage as a welfare maximizing outcome. However, the seigniorage tax base must be large enough for the benevolent planner to use the inflation tax.