对中小企业地位的再认识

东南亚金融危机爆发后, 以大企业、大集团为基础的韩国经济受到重创, 而以中小企业为主的台湾却安度危机。本文分析了东南亚金融危机给予我们的两点启示： 一是宏观调控不能片面集中在大型企业的发展上; 二是以中小企业为主的经济更具适应性、更具活力。同时指出, 应对中小企业在我国国民经济中的地位和作用进行重新认识。     

The transmission mechanism of Malaysian monetary policy: a time-varying vector autoregression approach

The aim of this paper is to determine whether the propagation and transmission mechanism of Malaysian monetary policy differed during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/1998 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008. The methodology employs a time-varying vector autoregression framework. The primary result is that despite having no evidence of time-variation within the propagation mechanism of Malaysian monetary policy the average contribution of a monetary policy shock to the variability of each macroeconomic variable: real GDP, inflation and the nominal effective exchange rate, differs between the two crises. This finding suggests that despite the propagation mechanism being relatively constant, Malaysia’s monetary policy transmission mechanism evolves over time. We believe that the main mechanism driving this evolution is the time-variation in the variance–covariance matrix of the shocks of the model, not the coefficients. We also find some evidence that the implementation of capital controls reduced the influenceability of monetary policy on the Malaysian economy.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Market Structure and Foreign Trade , by Elhanan Helpman and Paul R. Krugman (Harvester Press, Sussex. 1985)
Industry Assistance: the Inside Story , by A. Rattigan (Melbourne University Press, Carlton. 1986)
The Future of Economic History , edited by Alexander J . Field (Kluwer Nijhoff Publishing, Boston, 1987)
Domesday Economy: A New Approach to Anglo-Norman History . by J. McDonald and G. D. Snooks (Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1986)
An Analysis of Japanese Coking Coal Procurement Policies: The Canadian and Australian Experience , by D. L. Anderson (Centre for Resource Studies. Ontario, 1987)
The Decline of Trade Union Organisation . by P. B. Beaumont (Croom Helm, Kent, 1987)
Migrants. Labour Markets and Training Programs (Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs, Melbourne. 1986)
Wages and Whitlam: The Wages Policy of the Whitlam Government . by P. A. McGavin (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987)
The Australian Labour Market: Perspectives. Issues, and Policies , by Keith Whitfield (Harper & Row, Sydney. 1987)
Money, Accumulation and Crisis , by D. K. Foley, Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics , Vol. 2 (Harwood Academic Publishers, Switzerland, 1986)
The Theory Of Externalities, Public Goods and Club Goods by R. Cornes and T. Sandler (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986)     

Educational opportunity and income inequality

Affordable higher education is, and has been, a key element of social policy in the United States with broad bipartisan support. Financial aid has substantially increased the number of people who complete university—generally thought to be a good thing. We show, however, that making education more affordable can increase income inequality. The mechanism that drives our results is a combination of credit constraints and the ‘signaling’ role of education first explored by Spence [Spence, A. Michael, 1973. Job Market Signalling, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3) Aug., 355–374]. When borrowing for education is difficult, lack of a college education could mean that one is either of low ability or of high ability but with low financial resources. When government programs make borrowing or lower tuition more affordable, high-ability persons become educated and leave the uneducated pool, driving down the wage for unskilled workers and raising the skill premium.     

The Global Governance of Systemic Risk: How Measurement Practices Tame Macroprudential Politics

ABSTRACT

This article explores how systemic risk has been governed at the international level after the financial crisis. While macroprudential ideas have been widely embraced, the policy instruments used to implement them have typically revolved more narrowly around the monitoring of risk posed by discrete ‘systemically important’ entities. This operational focus on individual entities sidelines the more radical implications of macroprudential theory regarding fallacies of composition, fundamental uncertainty and the public control of finance. We explain this tension using a performative understanding of risk as a socio-technical construction, and illustrate its underlying dynamics through case studies of systemic risk governance at the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF or Fund). Drawing on official reports, consultation documents and archival sources, we argue that the FSB’s and IMF’s translations of systemic risk into a measurable and attributable object have undermined the transformative potential of the macroprudential agenda. The two cases illustrate how practices of quantification can make systemic risk seemingly more governable but ultimately more elusive.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
The Incredible Eurodollar: Or Why the World's Money System is Collapsing , by W. P. Hogan and I. F. Pearce
Stagflation Volume 2: Demand Management , by David Vines, Jan Maciejowski and James E. Meade
Exchange Rate Theory and Practice , edited by J. O. Bilson and R. C. Marston
Lectures on Schumpeterian Economics, Schumpeter Centenary Memorial Lectures, Graz 1983, edited by C. Siedl
The Economics of Australian Labour Markets , by Keith Norris
Comparative Industrial Relations , by J. Wilczynski
Submission to Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programmes, Bureau of Labour Market Research, Monograph Series No. 5
How Labour Markets Work: Case Studies in Adjustment, edited by R. Blandy and S. Richardson
Australia and Argentina: On Parallel Paths, by Tim Duncan and John Fogarty     

亚洲金融危机后韩国政府的主要对策、措施及对我们的启示

亚洲金融危机后，韩政府针对危机中暴露的问题，进行了大力度的改革，改革领域涉及经济、科技、产业政策及企业多个方面。韩政府的应对策略对其经济复苏起到了巨大的推动作用。     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed:
Koichi Mera and Bertrand Renaud (eds), Asia's Financial Crisis and the Role of Real Estate
Y. C. Jao, The Asian Financial Crisis and the Ordeal of Hong Kong     

Expressive voting and two-dimensional political competition: an application to law and order policy by New Labour in the UK

There has been much debate regarding the electoral strategy adopted by New Labour in the lead-up to and then during their time in government. This paper addresses the issue from the perspective of left/right and liberal/authoritarian considerations by examining data on individual attitudes from the British Social Attitudes survey between 1986 and 2009. The analysis indicates that New Labour’s move towards the right on economic and public policy was the main driver towards attracting new centrist voters and could thus be labelled ‘broadly’ populist. The move towards a tougher stance on law and order was more ‘narrowly’ populist in that it was used more to minimise the reduction in support from Labour’s traditional base on the left than to attract new votes. The evidence presented provides support for an expressive theory of voting in that law and order policy was arguably used to counter alienation amongst traditional, left-wing Labour supporters.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Tigers in Trouble: Financial Governance, Liberalisation and Crises in East Asia, edited by K.S. Jomo
Southeast Asia's Economic Crisis: Origins, Lessons and the Way Out, edited by H.W. Amdt and Hall Hill
The Keynesian Revolution and its Economic Consequences. Selected Essays, by Peter Clarice
John Maynard Keynes. Keynesianism into the Twenty-First Century, edited by Soumitra Sharma
Making Rural Australia: An Economic History of Technical and Institutional Creativity, 1788–1860, by Geoff Raby
Central Banking in Theory and Practice, by Alan S. Blinder
The Macroeconomics of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, by Roger RA. Farmer, second edition
Unions in a Contrary World: The Future of the Australian Trade Union Movement, by David Peetz
Art and the Market. Roger Fry on Commerce in Art. Selected Writings, edited and with an Interpretation, by Craufurd D. Goodwin
Unit Roots, Cointegration, and Structural Change, by G.S. Maddala and I.M. Kim     

Trading Out of the Global Food Crisis? The World Trade Organization and the Geopolitics of Food Security

The geopolitics of the Global Food Crisis and international trade has received limited scholarly attention, a significant omission given the major roles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in structuring world food production and trade flows and as a principal inter-state governing mechanism of the global agro-food system. Analysing recent international policy actions framing the WTO as a ‘fix’ to the Global Food Crisis, this article points to the value of a critical geopolitics of agro-power sensitive to the spatial reconfiguration of production and power in the global agro-food system, problematising geospatial categories such as ‘North’ and ‘South’, and that takes seriously contests for control of geopolitical agents such as the WTO.     

The symbolic politics of delegation: macroprudential policy and independent regulatory authorities

This paper investigates the motivations that led policy-makers to delegate macroprudential authorities to newly created independent systemic regulatory authorities (SRAs). Three case studies are examined: the US Financial Stability Oversight Council, the European Systemic Risk Board and the UK’s Financial Policy Committee. Policy-makers’ motivations are captured by examining the specific institutional features of the newly created SRAs and by tracing the legislative debates that surrounded their creation. The findings of this empirical analysis call into question several of the conventional claims that are used to justify delegation to technocratic agencies from the functionalist and ideational scholarship. Given the limitations of the explanations based on efficiency considerations and socialisation of welfare losses, this paper suggests that the delegation of powers to SRAs was ultimately motivated by what is referred to as the ‘logic of symbolic politics.’ It is argued that the main motivation that emerges from the legislative debates for delegating this important task is that the SRAs provided a quick institutional ‘fix’ to signal to the public that in the wake of the international crisis of 2007–2009, policy-makers were redressing regulatory mistakes made prior to and during the crisis that had caused a severe deterioration of public’s wealth.     

The United States Boom, 'Clintonomics' and the New Economy Doctrine: A Neo-Gramscian Contribution

The financial crisis that struck South Korea with such ferocity in mid 1997 appeared to take many by surprise. Throughout the 1990s and up until the onset of the crisis, foreign lenders demonstrated their confidence in the Korean economy by literally pouring capital into the country, swelling foreign debt to unprecedented levels. Such confidence was bolstered by the affirmations of international credit rating agencies that attached positive ratings to the Korean economy right up until mid 1997. No one, it seemed, at home or abroad, believed that the Korean star that had risen so quickly and shone so brilliantly could fall as far and as fast as it did. However, barely had the dust settled behind the ‘electronic herd's’ mass exodus when tales of the ‘inherent instabilities’ of the Korean economy began to emerge. The Korean government bore the brunt of heaviest international criticism, its ‘interventionist’ financial policies widely blamed for distorting the market mechanism, leading to the misallocation of economic resources and ultimately precipitating the crisis. Such interpretations of Korea's crisis have, however, since been called into question on numerous grounds.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Griffith-Jones, Stephany and Zdenek Drabek, Financial Reform in Central and Eastern Europe
Jackson, Marvin and Valentijn Bilsen, Company Management and Capital Market Development in the Transition
Cuba in Transition
Csaba, Laszlo, ed., Privatisation, Liberalisation and Destruction: Recreating the Market in Central and Eastern Europe.
Jernek, Anne, Adjusting State and Market in Vietnam     

Resisting Protectionism after the Crisis: Strategic Economic Discourse and the EU–Korea Free Trade Agreement

In 2006 the European Commission announced its Global Europe strategy, which proposed pursuing a series of ambitious Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) premised on exchanging the EU's remaining ‘pockets of protection’ for market access. The first of these agreements was signed with South Korea in October 2010. This article asks how the Commission's Directorate-General (DG) for Trade could successfully conclude this agreement in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis. Given a strong mobilisation of protectionists with access to policy-makers, this liberal policy outcome cannot be explained purely in terms of institutional insulation, as in much of the literature on EU trade policy, nor be simply ‘read off’ from the material interests of societal actors. This article, therefore, develops a constructivist framework which broadens our understanding of the power of strategically invoked economic discourses. By developing a novel analytical strategy to determine the intentional invocation of such discourses, it is able to show how DG Trade constructed an ideational imperative for liberalisation in Global Europe, enabling it to overcome opposition to the EU–Korea FTA. Beyond its contribution to constructivist scholarship, this article draws attention to the neglected dimension of ideas in trade policy and highlights the continued purchase of neoliberalism after the crisis.     

Financial and Economic Crises in Asia

Review of The Asian Financial Crisis: Causes, Contagion and Consequences , edited by Pierre-Richard Agénor, Marcus Miller, David Vines and Axel Weber (1999), and The Indonesian Economy in Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Lessons by Hal Hill (1999).     

The Stagnation Tendencies of Neoliberalism: A Review Essay

In his 2012 book, From Financial Crisis to Stagnation, Thomas Palley argued that the financial crisis of 2008 would be likely to result in a period of long-term stagnation. Both the crisis and the predicted stagnation, Palley argued, were the outcomes of policies pursued since the 1980s; the persistence of those policies explains the stagnation. Underpinning the policies and their consequences are the flaws of the neoliberal macro model and the particular role played by finance in that model. The rejection of Keynesianism meant the abandonment of the commitment to full employment. The neoliberal paradigm rests upon a foundation of ‘bad ideas’ that are located in political philosophy as much as in economic theory. Palley’s argument has a bearing on recent discussions among mainstream macroeconomists, whose interest in secular stagnation has been revived by the ‘ongoing crisis’. These discussions have left mostly unanswered the question of the causes of stagnation. The present essay argues that Palley’s concept of ‘structural Keynesianism’ can benefit from a closer association with the analysis of structural transformation and its effects on policy regimes and stagnation tendencies.     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market. Proceedings of a Conference, edited by Guy Debelle and Jeff Borland
Longrun Dynamics: A General Economic and Political Theory, by Graeme Donald Snooks
Privatization at the End of the Century. edited by Herbert Giersch
Valuation for Sustainable Development: Methods and Policy Indicators, edited by Sylvie Faucheux and Martin O'Connor     

The rise and decay of entrepreneurship: A different perspective

The present article is based on, but different from, another article by the author, “Individual Entrepreneurship and Corporate Entrepreneurship: A Tentative Synthesis,” which is included in Innovation in New Markets: The Impact of Deregulation in Airlines, Financial Markets and Telecommunications, Vol. 2, Gary Libecap (ed.), JAI Press, 1988.     

Reviews

Reviews in this articles:
Living with the Century , by Alec Cairncross
Capital Flows and the International Financial System , Proceedings of a Conference, edited by David Gruen and Luke Gower
Reshaping the Labour Market: Regulation Efficiency and Equality in Australia , edited by Sue Richardson
Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State , by A.B. Atkinson
Trade and Growth: New Theory and the Australian Experience , edited by Satya Paul
How Big Business Performs: Private Performance and Public Policy , edited by Peter Dawkins, Michael Harris and Stephen King
Inflation, Unemployment and Monetary Policy , edited by B.M. Friedman
Productivity Commission, Draft Report into 'Australia's Gambling Industries'
The Return of Depression Economics , Paul Krugman and Allen Lane
Monopolistic Competition and Macroeconomic Theory , by Robert Solow
Regression Analysis of Count Data , by A. Colin Cameron and Pravin K. Trivedi