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。     

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.     

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.     

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＂。     

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。     

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     

Homeownership and the scarcity of rentals

The provision of owner-occupied versus rental houses is modeled as a competitive search economy where households have private information over their expected duration. With public information, households with low vacancy hazard rates pay lower rents and search in thicker rental markets. With private information, rentals are under-provided to long-duration households to discourage short-duration households from searching there. Ownership is attractive in part because it cures the private information problem. Using a novel data set of rental listings, we show that homeownership rates are high where rent-to-price ratios are low but rentals are scarce and that long-duration households sort into scarce rental markets. These patterns are consistent with the model only under private information.     

Corporate social responsibility and social capital

When corporations make an effort to be socially responsible beyond what is required by the law, this effort is often described as strategic—made mainly for the shareholders’ or managers’ benefit. A large body of literature corroborates this belief. But, could the incentives for corporate social responsibility (CSR) come from an altruistic inclination fostered by the social capital of the region in which the firm is headquartered? We investigate whether this phenomenon exists by examining the association between the social capital in the region and the firm’s CSR. We find that a firm from a high social capital region exhibits higher CSR. This result suggests that the self-interest of shareholders or mangers does not explain all of the firm’s CSR, but the altruistic inclination from the region might also play a role.     

Quantifying the risk-sharing welfare gains of social security

The welfare effects of intergenerational risk sharing through a pay-as-you-go social security system that is efficiently indexed to wages or interest rates are quantified. Comparing steady states, there are large welfare gains of being born into an economy with efficient risk sharing as compared to the current U.S. system. Efficient policy involves an increasingly risky net of tax income over the life cycle. When adjustment to steady state is taken into account, the welfare gains largely turn negative. The results are also compared and contrasted to the first best allocation.     

Tourism, globalization, social externalities, and domestic welfare

One of the impacts of globalisation has been the growth in tourism and mobility of capital. This paper examines the welfare effect of tourism on the host economy with imperfect competition. Three channels that affects domestic welfare by tourism are: social externalities accompanied with tourists, the terms of trade effect via rises in the non-tradable prices, and the resource movement effect to the manufacturing sector. Owing to the positive terms-of-trade effect and/or the beneficial resource movement effect, the optimal levels of tourism occur at the situations that tourists bring negative social externalities to the economy.     

Redistribution as Social Insurance and Capital Market Integration

In this paper we claim that enhanced economic integration can call for an increase in redistribution among workers. When individuals are risk averse and no human capital insurance is available, the share of workers who choose to invest in specific human capital will be inefficiently low. Redistribution among workers plays the role of the missing insurance market by making the investment in the specific skills more attractive. Capital market integration has two different effects. On the one hand it makes labour income taxation more distortionary, therefore reducing the optimal tax rate on labour. On the other hand, it increases the variance of specific labour wage and widens the scope for risk protection of specific human capital through the redistribution implemented by a labour income tax. We show that the insurance effect of redistribution can be stronger than the distortionary effect, so that the optimal tax rate on labour income can increase when capital markets become more integrated.     

Influence of media coverage and sentiment on seasoned equity offerings

This article examines the role of media in seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) price and market reactions on SEO announcements. Using a sample of SEO deals in UK, we find that media coverage is significantly and negatively related to SEO price discounts and market returns around SEO announcements. Moreover, we document that more pessimistic media sentiment predicts larger SEO price discounts and more negative market reactions to SEO announcements. In summary, both media coverage and media sentiment influence investor decisions in SEOs, but through different mechanisms.     

社会保障概念再思考

当前我国对于社会保障概念的理解存在泛化倾向,社会保障是旨在抵御各种风险,保障国民基本生活,维持社会安全的制度安排,主要包括社会保险和社会救助两部分内容。社会福利是比社会保障内涵更为丰富的概念;社会保障包括在社会福利之中,是社会福利的基础部分和初级阶段。