What comes after the welfare state?: A post-welfare development path for the UK

One vision of post-industrial society projects a sane, humane, ecological future. Achievement of this requires societal transformation of almost unprecedented dimensions. This paper offers a preliminary exploration of how changing directions to this kind of future would affect social welfare and social services in the UK. Current community activities which may help accelerate change in local futures are outlined.     

Redistributive taxation and social insurance under adverse selection in the insurance market

This paper extends the analysis of optimal income taxation under uncertainty studied by Cremer and Pestieau (International Tax and Public Finance, 3, 281–295, 1996). We introduce asymmetric information in the insurance market whereby private insurance companies cannot identify the risk probability of the agents, and we examine its effect on public policy. We consider the separating equilibrium of Rothschild and Stiglitz (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90, 629–649, 1976) and Riley (Econometrica, 47, 331–359, 1979) where the low risk agent is only partially insured. The presence of the distortion in the insurance market changes the affinity of labor, and in some cases, we show that the scope of redistribution and the resulting social welfare are higher under asymmetric information than under full information. We also show that the increase in social insurance affects the utility and labor incentive of the low risk type by relaxing the self-selection constraint in the insurance market. The policy implications of the redistributive taxation and social insurance are analytically and numerically examined.      

完全信息状态下保险市场主体间的静态博弈研究

保险市场主体的行为以及他们之间的复杂关系直接影响着保险市场的发展,特别是投保人的逆向选择、道德风险和保险代理人的违规操作广泛存在,长期困扰着保险界。本文针对投保人和保险代理人的问题行为,通过建立完全信息静态博弈模型,来深入研究保险人与投保人、保险代理人之间的博弈关系,探讨解决问题的现实对策。     

推进城镇居民社会养老保险制度建设的要点与要领

城镇居民社会养老保险制度的实施具有重大意义。该制度具有广覆盖、自愿参保、政府推进等特点。办好城镇居民社会养老保险应注意：实现养老保险制度的统一性和公平性;增强制度激励,尽快从“制度全覆盖”走到“人群全覆盖”;确保筹资足额到位;处理好制度间的衔接转换问题;确保基金的保值增值。     

Dynamics of analysts' coverage and the firms' information environment

The main goal of this paper is to study analysts' coverage of stocks. Through a series of ordered probit regressions the paper studies the relationship between changes in coverage and the information environment of a firm.Coverage decreases on average with higher errors in estimation. The data also shows that coverage is less likely to decrease for physically large firms, but more likely to decrease for firms with high lagged market value. Higher past revisions to the predictions also decrease coverage, showing a real cost of uncertainty.     

社会保险市场上的逆向选择与公共政策干预:国际研究动态述评

随着社会经济的进步与发展,提供社会保险日益成为现代政府的重要任务,而信息不对称带来的逆向选择这一市场失灵问题是政府提供社会保险的主要经济依据之一。由此,近年来国际学术界涌现出一大批关于社会保险市场上逆向选择与公共政策干预问题的研究文献,在将理论与数据相结合以分析公共政策的福利影响方面出现了很多研究进展。本文就尝试对这一领域的研究进行总结与分析,为国内学术研究的开展与公共经济政策的设计提供有益借鉴。     

The real effects of stock prices: learning,disclosure and corporate social responsibility

This paper develops a tractable model to study the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on real decisions (i.e., production and disclosure decisions) of a firm which can learn from the stock price. Firms with high CSR disclose more precise information, improving the stock liquidity and price efficiency, which also benefit liquidity traders and consumers. Interventions by regulators in firms’ disclosure decisions, such as mandatory disclosure, can improve social welfare, but their effectiveness depends on the degree of CSR. We also discuss the implications of learning from the price.     

Media coverage and investment efficiency

We examine the effect of media coverage on firm-level investment efficiency. We find that media coverage reduces under-investment but increases over-investment. The negative effect of media coverage on under-investment is more pronounced in firms affected by greater information asymmetry and poorer corporate governance. The positive effect of media coverage on over-investment is driven by media-induced CEO overconfidence. Additional results show that both investment- and non-investment-related news coverage decrease under-investment, while non-investment-related news coverage is more influential in increasing over-investment. In general, higher news optimism is associated with less under-investment but more over-investment. Moreover, media coverage affects investment efficiency through its information dissemination rather than information creation function. Collectively, our results suggest that firms’ media visibility promotes more over-investment than under-investment.     

论新《保险法》中行业协会的法律定位

2009年2月28日,全国人大常委会审议通过了修订后的《保险法》,首次增加了保险行业协会条款。本文首先阐述了上述立法规定的背景和意义,并解释了行业协会作为自律性组织而存在的经济原因,新《保险法》中没有明确行业协会的职能,本文区分了其一般性职能和特殊职能,探讨了国际上关于保险行业协会职能的立法及实践,最后针对中国保险行业协会在履行职能时遇到的问题,提出几点立法建议。     

The welfare effects of a subsidy to Multiple Listing Services

We show that the gain in consumer surplus resulting from subsidizing a Multiple Listing Service may exceed the cost of the subsidy. Thus a subsidy financed by taxing the consumer may be Pareto-improving. We give general conditions for this to hold.     

FT coverage and UK target price run-ups

We focus on the market expectation hypothesis to explain the increase in share prices and trading volume of target firms before their merger announcements that have conventionally been attributed to either insider trading or market expectation. We use Financial Times (FT) coverage as a proxy of merger expectation and search for relevant articles for 783 UK target firms between 1998 and 2010. We identify a total of 1049 rumour articles and find that the FT market expectation proxy explains a small percentage of the target price run-ups. Results are strong during the sample period, even though the magnitude for both returns and trading volume tends to decrease within recent years. There is also a strong contemporaneous relation between abnormal returns and trading volume. Unexplained increases in target prices and trading volume may be attributed to insider trading.     

New approaches to measuring welfare

Economics has traditionally understood ‘welfare’ (what makes a life go well) as the satisfaction of preference. This conceptualisation of welfare is typically measured using revealed preferences, proxied through income and prices or stated in willingness-to-pay surveys. Recent decades have seen growing challenges to this paradigm. The climate crisis, among other phenomena, has called into question whether income and price data effectively proxy preferences, and willingness-to-pay surveys continue to struggle with accurately pricing important items such as biodiversity, digital goods, privacy and social connections. Preference satisfaction as a welfare criterion has also been challenged conceptually by psychologists and scholars working in the development space, among others. In this article, we review recent innovations in alternate ways of conceptualising and measuring welfare for the purposes of economic welfare analysis. We focus on using stated preferences over aspects of well-being, life-satisfaction scales and the WELLBY approach, and well-being frameworks such as Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index. While not without weaknesses, these approaches also have marked strengths relative to the traditional approach.     

The coverage assignments of financial analysts

Previous studies document that forecast accuracy impacts analyst career outcomes. This paper investigates the influence of forecast accuracy on coverage assignments. I show that brokerage houses reward accurate analysts by assigning them to high-profile firms and penalise analysts exhibiting poor accuracy by assigning them to smaller firms. The coverage of high-profile firms increases the potential for future compensation linked to investment banking and trading commissions. In addition, covering such firms increases analysts' recognition from buy-side investors, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of obtaining broker votes and votes for the Institutional Investor star ranking. Overall, my results indicate that high forecast accuracy leads to increased future compensation.     

Information accuracy and social welfare under homogeneous beliefs

This paper examines the ‘accuracy’ of information and its effect on social welfare. Information is defined to be more accurate than the existing information if individuals are willing to revise their subjective, homogeneous beliefs based on the new information. In a pure exchange economy where individuals may differ in endowments and tastes, it is shown that, for all utility functions satisfying risk aversion and non-satiation, the receipt of more accurate information does not increase social welfare (in terms of ex-ante Pareto-optimality) even when such information production is costless. This represents a more rigorous analysis on several issues that are not clear in the Marshall (1974) paper. Using the HARA class of utility functions, this paper also addresses the relationship between information and borrowing and lending, and the effect of information on the risk-free rate of interest.     

Banks,financial markets,and social welfare

This paper constructs a general equilibrium model of banking and financial markets. The model allows to compare financial systems in which banks have access to financial markets with financial systems in which banks do not have access to financial markets. Allen and Gale [A welfare comparison of intermediaries and financial markets in Germany and the US. European Economic Review 39 (1995) 179–209] find that the Anglo-Saxon model of financial intermediation in which financial markets play a dominant role does not necessarily improve social welfare in comparison with the German model in which banks dominate. Our model provides a theoretical foundation for this view.     

Gender implications of current social security reforms

This paper examines some current reforms to social security benefits / tax credits and changes to employment provisions from a gender perspective. It analyses tensions between the trend towards ‘individualisation’ and growing emphasis on the couple/household as a policy focus. New tax credits change the distribution of resources within many couples. Incentives to work for some second earners should improve; but extending in‐work subsidies to childless couples raises questions. Payment of child tax credit to the ‘main carer’ has been welcomed, though the implications of joint ownership of tax credits are unclear, and joint assessment will be extended. Many claimants' partners can now access employment services. However, this is aimed at reducing the number of workless households rather than expanding individuals' opportunities. Joint claims for jobseeker's allowance, and work‐focused interviews, involve increased responsibilities for partners but no right of access to individual income. A more consistent critical analysis of reform from a gender perspective is required.     

新型农村养老保险制度的财政负担测算——兼论“十二五”期间实现全覆盖的可行性

本研究对新型农村养老保险制度的财政负担进行了测算,研究表明：在低水平、全覆盖目标下,到2020年各级财政累计总投入可以控制在9000亿元左右,中央财政投入占到70%以上;若＂十二五＂期间提前实现全覆盖,到2015年中央财政累计投入将不超过3000亿元,地方财政累计投入将不超过1200亿元;全覆盖实现后中央财政每年投入约700亿元可以保障新农保制度运行;提前实现全覆盖不会大幅度增加未来10年财政总投入,而主要对今后几年的财政投入提出相对更高要求。＂十二五＂期间实现全覆盖总体上不会对中央和地方财政造成太大负担,但是,经济欠发达地区地方财政（尤其县级财政）分担压力不容忽视。全覆盖目标的提前实现要求＂十二五＂期间加大中央财政投入,以递增的速度提高新农保覆盖率,加大对中西部地区政策倾斜力度,引导地方政府积极配合。     

试论中国福利社会与西方福利国家的区别

建设福利社会是我国社会福利体系建设的长远目标,但建设福利社会不是把中国发展为西方式的福利国家,二者之间存在着根本差异。西方福利国家已有60余年历史,中国福利社会刚刚起步;西方福利国家归根结底是资本主义国家,中国福利社会则是中国特色社会主义的社会形态;西方福利国家的意识形态是多元化的,中国福利社会则坚持一元化的马克思主义;西方福利国家充满着国内外的政治算计,中国福利社会旨在增进全体人民的福祉;西方福利国家更多地追求＂高福利＂,中国福利社会则强调＂福利适度化＂。     

Insurance and opportunities: A welfare analysis of labor market risk

Using a model with constant relative risk-aversion preferences, endogenous labor supply and partial insurance against idiosyncratic wage risk, this paper provides an analytical characterization of three welfare effects: (a) the welfare effect of a rise in wage dispersion, (b) the welfare gain from completing markets, and (c) the welfare effect from eliminating risk. The analysis reveals an important trade-off for these welfare calculations. On the one hand, higher wage uncertainty increases the cost associated with missing insurance markets. On the other hand, greater wage dispersion presents opportunities to raise aggregate productivity by concentrating market work among more productive workers. Welfare effects can be expressed in terms of the underlying parameters defining preferences and wage risk or, alternatively, in terms of changes in observable second moments of the joint distribution over individual wages, consumption and hours.     

Media coverage,board structure and CEO compensation: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the relationship between CEO cash compensation and media coverage of firms, analyst forecasts and board structure using data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. We find that, other things being equal, CEO cash compensation is much higher for firms with greater media coverage, firms with more positive news, firms with more analyst forecasts, and firms with larger institutional holdings. There is little evidence that board size and board independence affect CEO cash compensation, and CEO duality is negatively associated with CEO cash compensation