Privatization in a Small Open Economy with Imperfect Competition

We look at privatization in a general equilibrium model of a small, tariff‐distorted, open economy. There is a differentiated good produced by both private and public sector enterprises. A reduction in government production in order to cut losses from such production raises the returns to capital and increases the tariff revenue, which are welfare‐improving. However, privatization also leads to lower wages and possibly fewer private brands. This lowers workers’ welfare, which may make privatization politically infeasible. Privatization can improve workers’ welfare with complementary reforms, e.g., attracting foreign investment or trade liberalization.     

Social Security Systems,Human Capital,and Growth in a Small Open Economy

We consider a small open economy in which the level of public education funding is determined by popular vote. We show that growth can be enhanced by the introduction of pay‐as‐you‐go pensions even if the growth rate of aggregate wages falls short of the interest rate. The reason is that the pay‐as‐you‐go (PAYG) system allows future retirees to partially internalize positive externalities of public education due to the positive effect of higher future labor productivity on their pension benefits. The majority support for education funding will be especially strong when the PAYG benefit formula is flat, i.e., progressively redistributive. If a flat benefit PAYG pension system is in place then the economy will achieve the highest growth rate relative to the alternative pension system designs. While such PAYG pension system may be opposed by the majority of working individuals due to inferior returns to their pension contributions relative to a funded scheme, it is likely to be politically sustained by a coalition of older individuals and lower income workers.     

Fiscal Policy and Welfare in a Small Open Economy with Imperfect Competition

This paper considers the effects of fiscal policy in a two-sector small open economy, with unionized labour markets, and heterogeneous types of imperfect competition in the product markets. By making the marginal propensity to import endogenous, the paper shows that there is no robust or general relationship between the balanced-budget multiplier and the degree of imperfect competition. The fiscal multiplier with distortionary taxes can be positive or negative, depending on the size of the importables sector and the foreign firm's market share. The normative rule for fiscal policy depends on the size of the fiscal multiplier. An increase in economic activity is insufficient by itself to induce the government to over-supply public goods relative to the Walrasian case.     

Imperfect Capital Mobility and Local Government Behaviour in a Two‐Period Economy

One clear result in the tax competition literature is that, when head taxes on immobile residents are available, the optimal capital tax rate for local government is zero. However, zero tax rate, when resident taxes are available, is incompatible with the phenomenon actually observed. In most countries, local governments use capital taxes as policy variables for choosing a nonzero tax rate. This paper presents a model of a two‐period economy with imperfect mobile capital to explain the behaviour of local government providing capital subsidies on capital. It further examines an equilibrium tax rate where local government’s objectives include Niskanen‐type revenue‐maximizing.     

Capital Taxation and External Accounts in a Small Growing Economy

The effects of capital taxation on external accounts depend on how government allocates the tax revenue. With government debt being endogenous, an increase in either the residential or territorial capital tax rate may decrease net foreign asset holdings. With intergenerational transfers being endogenous, an increase in either the residential or territorial capital tax rate may increase net foreign asset holdings. With government spending being endogenous, an increase in the residential capital tax rate may either deteriorate or have no effect on the external accounts.     

风险资本契约价格与市场均衡理论研究

文章从风险资本价格机制的研究角度,依据契约理论提出了风险资本契约价格概念,并进一步探讨了风险资本市场均衡过程中价格的微观作用机制(价格从非均衡趋向均衡过程中,参与主体的博弈)和宏观作用机制(不同均衡价格水平下,市场总收益的变动趋势).为参与主体面临市场现行价格采取主动应对策略及政府面对市场不同博弈状态制定旨在提高市场总体收益水平和资源配置效率的有效政策制定了具体操作原则.     

中国资本市场在全球经济失衡调整中的机遇与挑战

在未来全球经济失衡的调整过程当中,中国资本市场面临着国际金融资本转移、人民币升值等重大机遇。但监管体系欠发达、资本市场产业基础薄弱等问题也将制约着这些机遇的利用。中国资本市场的发展也可以从提升消费率、促进储蓄转化为投资、提高产业重组效率、改善宏观调控等多方面增强应对全球经济失衡的能力。因此．中国应该通过推进资本项目开放、完善汇率形成机制、做强资本市场产业基础等措施,确保中国资本市场牢牢抓住全球经济失衡给它带来的发展机遇,同时也更好地发挥资本市场在应对全球经济失衡中的作用。     

虚拟经济条件下的资本市场与宏观经济分析

随着20世纪后期以来经济虚拟化进程的加速，需要一种新的宏观分析方法，能够将资本市场理和宏观经济理论更好地结合起来。本文在这方面作了一些尝试。试图将资本市场作为经济中内生的一部分，与居民、企业和银行等经济中其他部门联系起来，从而更好的分析和解释宏观经济波动。     

Targeting Sectors for Foreign Capital Inflow in a Small Developing Economy

We argue, in a model with trade and unemployment, that exogenous inflow of foreign capital may deliver the desired result when it flows to a protected intermediate-goods sector. Whether foreign investment should be directed towards an intermediate-goods sector or to a final-goods sector depends on the technological specifications of either type of goods as well as on the existing set of trade policies.     

Capital Expansion, Endogenous Growth and Equilibrium Unemployment

A model is developed, which captures the interactions of unemployment and economic growth in general equilibrium. The economy evolves along a correct-expectations equilibrium path exhibiting endogenous job rationing, and productivity growth is driven by installation of new capital. Under the maintained hypothesis that the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour is less than unity, unemployment benefits are shown to shift up the whole path of equilibrium unemployment, leaving the economy with a higher natural rate of unemployment and lowering the long-run growth rate permanently. Investment tax credits financed by lump sum taxes on total income are capable of lowering the natural rate and raising the economy's growth rate.     

International Trade and the Equilibrium Rate of Unemployment in a Heckscher-Ohlin World Economy

This paper develops a (stylized Asia-America) Heckscher-Ohlin world economy in which the equilibrium rate of unemployment is endogenous. We examine the impact of various economic shocks on unemployment in the global economy. Harrod-neutral or Hicks-neutral technical progress across all industries in Asia leads to a terms of trade improvement for America but raises America's unemployment rate. Introducing a third country such as the block of former socialist economies results in higher unemployment for both Asia and America. Protection in America lowers American equilibrium unemployment but raises Asia's unemployment. [E24]     

Growth and the Current Account in a Small Open Economy

The authors provide a framework with which to analyze growth in a small economy with perfect capital mobility. The framework provides a diagrammatic representation of steady states that differs in interesting and important ways from the usual closed-economy Solow-Swan diagram. The authors use the key diagrams to illustrate the effects of changes in parameters such as the saving rate and productivity growth on steady-state values of macroeconomic aggregates. They compare the steady-state results for the open economy with those obtained using the more familiar closed-economy model. They illustrate the possibility of endogenous income growth.     

Migration Policy in a Small Open Economy with a Dual Labor Market

The paper uses a two–sector efficiency–wage model to analyze the consequences of immigration for a small open economy with a dual labor market. Immigrants are characterized by an (exogenous) return probability. Legal regulations impose preferential hiring of natives or "old" immigrants. As a result, there is sectoral segregation between natives and immigrants, leading to discrimination of the type equal pay for equal work,but unequal "work." In the short run (with sector–specific capital), immigration has a positive first–order impact on natives' welfare if migration policy favors segregation through high return rates or restrictive hiring practices ("guest–worker system"). In the long run, its effect is only determined by factor intensities (2 ¥ 2 model). Finally, the improved integration of migrants yields efficiency gains and improves aggregate welfare of all residents.     

R&D, Imperfect Competition and Growth with Human Capital Accumulation

This paper studies the long‐run consequences of imperfect competition on growth and the sectoral distribution of skills within an R&D‐based growth model with human capital accumulation. We find that steady‐state growth is driven only by incentives to accumulate skills. In the model imperfect competition has a positive growth effect, while influencing the allocation of human capital to the different economic activities employing this factor input. Contrary to general wisdom, the share of resources invested in R&D turns out not to be monotonically increasing in the product market power and its correlation with the equilibrium output growth rate is not unambiguous.     

Equilibrium in a Market Game

This paper studies the equilibrium of an exchange economy with the same number of agents and commodities. It is shown that under rather mild conditions on demand the market have a price equilibrium—independently of the divisibility of the commodities. The result extends Gale’s equilibrium theorem for indivisible commodities to the case where some commodities are perfectly divisible. The proof is based on a topological lemma contained in previous paper of one of the authors.     

资本资产定价理论与市场经济

资本资产定价模型(CAPM)是威廉·夏普于1964年在马克威茨的资产组合理论和托宾分离定理的基础上通过增加一些条件而建立起来的资本市场均衡定价模型。在CAPM的假设前提下,资本市场被带入一种所有的投资者持有相同风险资产市场组合的均衡状态,在这种状态下经济中所有的风险资产特别是企业资产都具有完全相同的所有权结构。从而将经济带入一种所有企业之间不存在利益冲突的"准公有制"状态,市场经济制度也将不复存在。如果我们认为这一结论是荒谬的,那问题一定出在CAPM的假设条件以及由此假设条件所推出的市场均衡,自然,建立在这种均衡状态下的资本资产定价模型的现实性也是成问题的。     

Modelling Policy Issues in a World of Imperfect Competition

General equilibrium theory constitutes a sound basis for the discussion of policy issues if firms do not have market power. However, if firms influence prices strategically, the concept of profits loses its meaning due to the price normalization problem. Hence, it is unclear how to model the behavior of oligopolistic firms. In order to provide a conceptual foundation for the analysis of policy issues in the case of imperfect competition, we discuss ways to formulate the objective of a strategic firm. In particular, we investigate the concept of real wealth maximization that is based on profits as well as on shareholders' aggregate demand.     

Green Accounting in Imperfect Market Economies

The idea of measuring the national welfare level by using the green NNP (net national product) has gained much attention lately. This paper summarizes the research on social accounting in imperfect market economies by putting the results into a unified framework. The main contribution of the paper is to relate the form of the national welfare measure to the functioning of the economic system and, therefore, to explicitly address the informational requirements implicit in social accounting.     

Pareto-improving Immigration in an Economy with Equilibrium Unemployment

A dynamic two-country labour matching economy is presented. Workers decide whether to search in their native country or look for a job abroad (bearing an additional cost). The number of vacancies posted by firms in each country depends on the average characteristics of the workers searching inside that country. Wages are determined in an individual Nash bargain. We show the existence of multiple steady-state equilibria: one no-migration equilibrium and two migration equilibria. The multiplicity of equilibria is due to a self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon linking average wages and incentives to migrate. The equilibria are Pareto-ranked, with migration-equilibria dominating no-migration.     

Tariff Revenue, Government Expenditure and Growth in a Small Open Economy

I develop a small open endogenous growth model with domestic and foreign intermediate goods. The Marshallian external economies in the domestic intermediate goods sector work as the engine of sustained growth. The model offers two arguments. First, imposing a trade distortion is growth- and welfare-improving if the government uses the tariff revenue for correcting the domestic distortion. Second, comparing the tariff with a lump-sum tax as a financing device, the former is certainly worse than the latter with respect to both growth and welfare if the two intermediate goods are substitutes.
JEL Classification Numbers: F43, H20.