Economic Coordination across Divergent Institutional Frameworks: Dissolving a Theoretical Antinomy

Economic theory contains a significant theoretical antinomy. Markets are thought to secure coordination in self-organized fashion. In contrast, polities are portrayed as securing coordination through planning and administration. Doing this is to commit what Michael Resnick calls the ‘centralized mindset’, which is to attribute an observed order to some ordering agent. This article seeks to dissolve this theoretical antinomy by explaining how the same coordinative principles are at work throughout a society. All societies operate in generally coordinated fashion, due to the operation of transactional processes within societies. Markets and polities both operate through transactional relationships, though political transactions are constructed somewhat differently than market transactions. This article sets forth an approach to explaining coordination throughout a societal ecology where that coordination is achieved through different forms of transaction.     

Retrogressive regime drift within a theory of emergent order

This paper explores the robustness of systems of political economy from within an emergent perspective. Robustness is a quality of the nexus of relationships that emerge within a political economy, and particular attention is given to processes of regime drift that might generate retrogression within a political economy. The central claim advanced here is that robustness is facilitated through polycentric organizational arrangements that entail high degeneracy, while fragility and the emergence of decadence is facilitated in relatively hierarchical arrangements that possess low degeneracy. JEL Code D02, D78, P16, P48, Z13     

另一只＂看不见的手＂——埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆与＂多中心＂理论

在“多中心”理论之前,社会上主要存在市场秩序和国家主权秩序。多中心的产生源于集体行动理论的局限性,它颠覆了公共财产只有交由中央权威机构管理或完全私有化后才能有效管理的传统观念。本文对当代公共选择学派和公共经济学的代表人物埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆的“多中心”理论做了解读,并从奥斯特罗姆个人学术研究经历出发,追溯多中心思想形成的全过程,最后就“多中心”理论的重要意义与发展方向做了展望。     

China's Foreign Direct Investments:Challenges of Due Diligence and Organizational Integration

This paper critically reviews Chinese companies' foreign direct investment practices of recent years. Using case studies involving overseas Greenfield as well as merger and acquisition(MA) of Chinese enterprises, we aim to draw lessons from these experiences. However, because of increasing importance of outbound acquisitions by Chinese companies, this paper focuses on Chinese MA activities. After presenting the theoretical discussions of post-acquisition organizational integration, this paper identifies factors that have contributed to less than expected performances of Chinese foreign investments. Three main factors are identified as the plausible causes of the less than satisfactory outcomes: inadequate due diligence, not considering political and country risks, and cultural differences. In all cases, inexperience of Chinese enterprises in foreign direct investment, either in Greenfield form or MA, has attributed to the problems. Therefore, summing the experiences of the Chinese enterprises that have foreign direct investment is essential for those Chinese investors that intend to invest overseas. Conduct of meaningful, in-depth due diligence before serious negotiations for investment or acquisition, inclusion of risk premium for political risk in cash flow analysis, and early post-merger integration planning are essential for avoidances of bitter outcomes many Chinese investors experienced overseas.     

Public enterprises,planning and policy adoption: three welfare propositions

Despite widespread privatizations over the last three decades, public enterprises, as production units under government control, are still present in several countries and sectors. While the academic and political debate on the costs and benefits of privatization is vast, a focus on the rationale for public enterprises, from the standpoint of Social Cost Benefit Analysis, is missing. This paper aims at filling this gap and provides a normative discussion on public enterprises in a general equilibrium setting. The conditions under which public provision may be beneficial and the metrics for evaluating polices and projects under (a)symmetric information and (non)benevolent governments are presented in three welfare propositions. The main policy message points to the overall quality of institutions as a necessary pre-condition for socially desirable public enterprises. A sound institutional environment provides policy-makers with the correct incentives to design and implement meaningful policies even if public administrators adopt sub-optimal plans. Institutions should constrain self-interested policy-makers from disrupting the key welfare signals for policy adoption as well as for project appraisal, while bias in management is a relatively less important concern.     

Technology and the firm

The globalization of the economy is a process driven by the enterprise. As enterprises form networks of alliances they tend to create huge oligopolistic structures on a global scale. Although these global enterprises are not subject to national norms, it is evident that a new alliance is growing up between the enterprise and the state. In the context of fierce international competition, enterprises need the support of the state, which is able to ensure that its 'national champions' enjoy optimum conditions for development; in return, successful enterprises are the state's best guarantee of national independence. But through this alliance the enterprise has acquired a totally new legitimacy, approaching that formerly reserved for the state, while the state finds itself engaged in global economic competition, which lacks adequate regulatory procedures. There is also a growing disassociation between globalized economic power on one hand, and political power conjned within national borders, on the other. There is a need to formulate a new regulatory framework, in order to overcome a situation where actors representing particular interests impose their own rules on actors representing the public interest. Such a framework would encourage the emergence of a transnational civilian society able to mobilize itself in the face of global economic, technological and environmental problems.     

企业家出身造成了产能过剩吗*——来自中国企业—劳动力匹配调查（CEES）的经验证据

多年来,产能过剩一直是制约我国经济迈向高质量发展的重要障碍。与现有文献多从宏观产业政策层面研究上述问题有所不同,本文选取企业家公共部门出身这一微观视角,运用政治关联理论,就企业家出身造成我国企业产能过剩的微观机理进行了创新性的实证解释。运用“中国企业—劳动力匹配调查”（CEES）数据,本文的基准回归表明,为获取政治关联所带来的非市场回报,在其他因素既定的前提下,对于出身公共部门的企业家而言,其所在企业的产能过剩程度平均偏高139%,出现产能过剩问题的边际概率则平均偏高53%。内生性检验、中介效应模型的估计结果发现,与宏观产业政策相比,企业家公共部门出身对于产能过剩的影响效应具有更高的经济显著性,而过度投资则是其中的重要影响途径。运用上市公司的微观面板数据,同源性误差检验进一步支持了本文的主要实证 发现。为此,本文的政策建议是：政府应该将政策重心从产业政策转向竞争性政策,通过构建公平竞争的市场环境,厘清政府与市场二者的边界,避免企业家依靠政治关联对政府资源的“俘获”。只有构建公平竞争的市场经济秩序,企业家的创新潜能才能得到充分释放,并从微观机理上解决我国的产能过剩问题。     

The Political Economy of Tax-Based Incomes Policy: Wealth Effects of Post Keynesian TIP

This paper explores the economics of electoral democracy, an almost entirely neglected subject. Running for office necessitates resources. But students of democracy have had almost nothing to say about how much money should be spent by candidates or where that money should come from. As a result, there is a gaping void in the theory of democracy. Joseph A. Schumpeter used a market analogy in his discussion of the electoral process, but even he did not discuss how electoral campaigns are to be paid for. In fact, the few citizens who largely fund campaigns for office in the United States purchase non-rivalrous influence. They obtain the ability to shape the policies that affect all citizens. In this way, political equality is undermined. The paper concludes that achieving a more representative political system can best be attained by treating political campaigns as a public good.     

James Buchanan’s theory of federalism: from fiscal equity to the ideal political order

The distinct characteristic in James Buchanan’s thinking about federalism in contrast to the traditional theory of fiscal federalism is his view about fiscal competition. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this thinking went through three stages. From the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, his analyses were well embedded in the traditional fiscal federalism literature and concerned with equity and efficiency issues. In the Leviathan approach starting from the mid-seventies, he considered competition between jurisdictions as a means to restrict Leviathan governments. In his interpretation of federalism as an ideal political order, Buchanan binds these perspectives together and adds a procedural view: Federalism enables citizens to exert political control, it raises their interest in politics because one vote has more influence, and it facilitates to act morally within their moral capacity.     

政治关联、慈善捐赠与政府补助*--来自中国亏损上市公司的经验证据

文章以2009－2012年中国亏损上市公司作为研究样本,运用社会网络理论,分析和检验了高管的政治关联对亏损企业通过慈善捐赠行为获得政府补助的影响。研究结果表明：第一,有政治关联的亏损企业比无政治关联的亏损企业更容易出于获取政府支持而进行慈善捐赠,高管的政治关联广度相对于其政治关联深度对亏损企业慈善捐赠的正向影响更大,同时高管的地方政治关联相对于其中央政治关联对亏损企业慈善捐赠的正向影响也更大;第二,基于“利益互惠”的原则以及对企业积极履行社会责任的鼓励,政府通常会倾向于对进行慈善捐赠的企业给予更多的补助;第三,相对于无政治关联的亏损企业,有政治关联的亏损企业的慈善捐赠能够帮助其获得更多的政府补助,相对于中央政治关联,地方政治关联对亏损企业通过慈善捐赠获得政府补助的“支持效应”更加明显,同时政治关联广度更宽的亏损企业也通过慈善捐赠获得了更多的政府补助。文章的研究结论深化了对中国亏损上市公司慈善捐赠的动机及其经济后果的认识,为相关部门规范企业慈善行为也提供了有益的启示。     

产业政策对企业间工资差距的影响—来自中国工业企业的经验证据

中国产业政策的执行对企业间工资差距有何影响?文章首先考虑加入了产业政策因素的异质性企业模型,从理论上将产业政策对企业工资影响分解为补贴转移效应与竞争效应两种机制,并提出如下假说:企业将部分政策补助用于生产,此时支付的更多工资等同于财政的直接补贴;同时,企业工资水平也取决于企业的生产效率,产业政策通过促进或抑制行业竞争改变企业效率,从而对企业的工资水平产生一种间接影响,即竞争效应.使用1998?2007年中国工业规模以上企业数据对理论假说进行实证检验,可以发现:"中国式"产业政策抑制企业效率带来的负向竞争效应超过了正向的补贴转移效应,最终造成了企业工资水平下降;然而,一旦产业政策的施行促进了行业竞争,竞争效应则为正,那么企业的工资水平也会随之提高.文章研究的结论有助于理解经济改革过程中产业政策对企业工资的影响,对推进企业工资体制改革也具有启示意义.     

中国制造业劳动力效率损失及其分解:理论与实证

现有文献在计算中国制造业劳动力配置扭曲所导致的TFP损失时,均没有剔除外部因素的扰动,从而高估了该损失.文章在Hsieh和Klenow(2009)理论模型的基础上,重新定义劳动力配置扭曲导致的TFP损失,在剔除外部因素扰动后,估算出劳动力配置扭曲导致的TFP损失从1998年的9.00%逐渐减少到2007年的7.39%.而现有文献也缺少在企业异质性模型下对TFP损失进行分解,文章将企业按特征进行分组,建立了分组之后TFP损失分解的理论.TFP损失的分解有利于分析TFP损失的构成,为制定相关政策提供参考,该理论不仅适用于制造业还适用于农业和服务业等,具有很强的适用性.文章最后以所有权分组为例分析了我国制造业1998-2007年劳动力配置扭曲TFP损失的构成.研究表明:(1)每个行业的劳动力配置扭曲导致的TFP损失是该行业的劳动力份额、产品替代弹性和劳动力成本产出比对数方差的增函数;(2)行业内各组之间不存在劳动力配置扭曲的条件为行业内各组企业的劳动力配置扭曲程度均值相等;(3)企业按所有权分组后,我国1998-2007年由劳动力配置扭曲导致的制造业TFP损失主要来自于组内,并且该损失在此时间段已经由国有企业和集体企业为主体变成了以其他企业为主体.     

价格联盟博弈分析

随着市场竞争日益激烈，降价成为企业在竞争中常用的手段之一，竞相降价导致企业利润不断下滑，甚至引发整个行业亏损。为了避免恶性价格竞争，同行企业希望通过建立价格联盟，共同执行协议价格来阻止利润下滑。本文从博弈论的角度分析了价格联盟形成的动因、效用和解散等问题，并提出了政策建议。     

企业网络、大数据能力与商业模式创新机制研究——基于fsQCA方法的实证分析

商业模式创新是企业竞争优势的重要来源,在当前激烈竞争的环境下,企业间竞争不仅是产品竞争,更是商业模式竞争。基于组态视角和集合论思想,从企业网络与大数据能力匹配视角,运用模糊集定性比较分析fsQCA方法,对15家新零售企业商业模式创新案例进行研究,构建新零售企业商业模式创新匹配模型。结果发现,有4类促进新零售企业商业模式创新的牵引条件构型：网络体系建立助力型、资源整合能力促进型、深度分析能力弥补型和信息资源共享推动型,且每条路径间存在等效性。结论丰富了商业模式创新领域研究,可为企业实施商业模式创新提供理论支持和借鉴。     

Competition, knowledge, and local government

This paper applies the insights of Austrian economics to an important issue in local political economy. Basic economic theory holds that greater competition produces superior outcomes in private goods markets. The same should be true in the ??markets?? for the output of local government. Brennan and Buchanan (1977, 1980) show that interjurisdictional competition may serve as a potential restraint on the monopoly powers of local Leviathan and Tiebout (1956) shows that it may help lead to the production of efficient quantities of local public goods. However, other potential virtues of competition in the market for local collective goods have been largely ignored. This paper explores those other virtues as well as the neoclassical theoretical foundations of the Tiebout (1956) model, upon which much of this literature is based. This has public policy implications for local governments, which have taken on increased importance given the recent global movement towards more decentralized government.     

Preemptive Competition in City Development

The rise of decentralization and polycentrism in cities raises questions of optimality. This paper proposes a model of two competing developers that generates new development prior to the optimal time. If demand is growing for new developments, the development built later will have potentially lower present value profitability, due to discounting, when compared to the earlier development. Both developers compete to gain the “first‐mover advantage” to build the first of the two developments, and developing sooner than what is optimal achieves this goal. This preemptive theory of competition offers a result that cities are more decentralized and polycentric than what is optimal.     

Property rights protection and access to bank loans

Poor protection of private property has limited the access to bank loans by private enterprises in developing and transition economies. Under those circumstances, private entrepreneurs have resorted to various ways of enhancing the de facto protection of private property. Using a dataset of 3,073 private enterprises in China, this paper empirically investigates the impact of political participation and philanthropic activities – informal substitutes for the lack of formal protection of private property – on the access to bank loans.     

金字塔层级降低了国有企业的政治成本吗?--基于经理激励视角的研究

文章使用2004－2013年我国国有上市公司数据,考察了国有企业金字塔层级如何影响经理激励契约,以及这种影响在不同政治关联的情况下是否存在差异。研究发现,国有企业的金字塔层级越长,经理薪酬与会计业绩的相关性越强,经理更可能因糟糕的会计业绩而被更换;同时,在经理没有政治关联的样本中,上述现象更加明显。上述结果说明,国有企业金字塔结构是政府放权的一种制度安排,降低了国有企业面临的政治成本。但文章也发现,对于业绩良好的企业,金字塔层级过长可能导致经理拥有过度权力,从而出现操纵薪酬的现象。文章的发现对于深化国有企业改革具有重要的政策含义。     

Constitutional craftsmanship and the rule of law

Is “rule of law” anything more than a fictional allusion? After all, “law” is an abstract noun, and abstract nouns can’t rule. Only people can rule. The conceptual framework of constitutional political economy invokes a central distinction between choosing rules and playing within those rules. Claims on behalf of a rule of law require a sharp distinction between the enforcement of agreed-upon rules and arbitrary changes in those rules. This paper explores whether there are constitutional arrangements under which it could reasonably be claimed that governance reflects a deep level operation of a rule of law despite the surface level recognition that it is men who rule. With the exercise of rulership being a social process and not a matter of individual action, the network pattern through which rules are enforced takes on particular significance. In particular, polycentric architectures are generally more consistent with rule of law than monocentric architectures.     

专利联盟成员技术竞合对成员创新绩效的影响

专利联盟存在竞合现象，联盟成员技术竞合究竟是阻碍创新还是激励创新？着眼于专利联盟成员竞合网络，将技术合作划分为探索式合作和利用式合作，将技术竞争划分为学习型竞争和诉讼型竞争，以2006—2019年MPEGLA公司12个专利联盟的76个成员为研究样本，运用负二项回归实证检验专利联盟成员技术竞合对联盟成员创新绩效的影响。研究发现：探索式合作、利用式合作和学习型竞争有利于成员创新绩效提升，而诉讼型竞争不利于成员创新绩效提升；学习型竞争和诉讼型竞争对双元合作的创新激励效应均具有显著负向调节作用。