重庆市城市用地供需状况研究

首先从供给数量和供给质量两方面,分析了重庆市区城市建设用地的供给状况。耕地在重庆市城市建设用地的供给来源中占有重要地位,但供给数量有限;受重庆市区自然条件的限制,城市建设用地的质量较差,表现在坡地多、平地少,冲沟多、地块小,难建地多、宜建地少,所以,重庆市城市建设用地的供给能力相当有限。其次,分析了重庆市区城市建设用地的需求状况。从城市GDP的增长、重点建设项目和城市人均用地水平的提高这三个方面分析了城市建设用地的未来需求趋势。结论是：重庆城市建设用地的供给相当有限,而需求量很大;随着未来重庆市经济社会的发展,城市用地的供需矛盾将成为城市发展中面临的一个重大问题。从合理利用和保护土地资源,为重庆的经济发展提供用地支持和保障的角度出发,文章就此问题提出了对策和建议。     

OUTPUT GROWTH AND STRUCTURAL REFORM IN LATIN AMERICA: HAVE BUSINESS CYCLES CHANGED?

This paper documents important changes in real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of six large Latin American countries. The main results can be summarized as follows. First, there is evidence of a structural break in real GDP toward stronger mean growth and a substantial reduction in volatility. Second, the timing of the breaks suggests that the important changes in economic policies of the 1980s and 1990s have been effective in permanently improving economic growth in the region. These changes in the growth processes imply recessions that are shorter in duration and milder in amplitude. The sustained increase in commodity prices observed in recent years explains an important share of growth in the region since 2003. But after accounting for the effect of commodity prices, there is even stronger evidence of a structural break in real GDP growth. (JEL E32)     

The U-shape of happiness in Scotland

We examine well-being in Scotland using micro data from the Scottish Health Survey and the UK Annual Population Surveys. We find evidence of a midlife nadir or zenith in Scotland in well-being at around age 50 using a variety of measures of both happiness and unhappiness. We confirm that higher consumption of fruit and vegetables is associated with higher levels of happiness in Scotland. We compare this with evidence for England from the Health Survey of England. The decline in well-being between youth and midlife is comparable in size to the loss of a spouse or of a job and around half of the fall in well-being in the COVID-19 lockdown. We also find a midlife peak in suicides in Scotland. Despite higher mortality and suicide rates in Scotland than in England, paradoxically we find that the Scots are happier than the English. Northern Ireland is the happiest of the four home countries. We also find evidence of U-shapes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in the mid to late forties.     

Determinants of age at marriage in Karnataka during 1971-1981: a district level analysis

"In this paper we examined the interdistrict variations in mean age at marriage of males and females in Karnataka [India] in two points of time, 1971 and 1981, and also the possible factors influencing this variation....A multivariate analysis of the determinants of mean age at marriage in Karnataka showed that literacy rate, sex ratio of the population and percentage of villages electrified are important in explaining the regional and time variation in age at marriage of both sexes.... Our regression results indicated that a 10 per cent increase in female literacy rate is associated with approximately one-year increase in female age at marriage. However, neither the increase in female literacy nor the changes in the sex ratio of the population could explain all the increase in female age at marriage during 1971-81. This indirectly suggests that there was an increase in female age at marriage among all socio-economic groups."     

Biodiversity conservation, loss of natural capital and interest rates

It is argued that there is neither regular relationship between changes in the level of the market rate of interest and variations in the rate of biodiversity loss nor does such a regular relationship occur between alterations in the market rate of interest and changes in the rate of natural resource extraction. However, some texts suggest otherwise. Microeconomic examples are given in which a rise in the market rate of interest results in increased biodiversity loss and others in which it does not. It is also posited that the rate of biodiversity loss (as well as the rate of natural resource extraction) tends to rise with the level of aggregate investment and aggregate economic activity. It is demonstrated, using macroeconomic models, that the market rate of interest can increase or decrease with a rise in aggregate investment and also with an increase in the level of aggregate economic activity. Therefore, changes in biodiversity loss (and in the rate of natural resource extraction) are independent of variations in the market rate of interest in macroeconomic models.     

THE COST OF INCOME REDISTRIBUTION IN AUSTRALIA*

This paper analyses the effect of raising effective marginal tax rates on the income of the representative household in each gross income decile in Australia by one percentage point, and distributing the proceeds of the tax increase either in the form of an equal per capita grant, or as an equal payment to members of households in the lower half of the income distribution. The effectiveness of the program in redistributing income is measured as the ratio of total gains in disposable income to households in target deciles to losses in non-target groups, or as the proportional reduction in the poverty gap. The cost is measured as the ratio of the sum of the income-equivalent of changes in the welfare of non-target groups to those of target groups, or as the ratio of income-equivalent losses to gains.     

FACTORS IN CANADA-UNITED STATES REAL INCOME DIFFERENCES

This paper is a part of a larger study of economic growth in Canada, following the methods developed by Edward Denison in his book The Sources of Economic Growth in the United States and the publication Why Growth Rates Differ. The new material in this paper relates to Canada and the Canadian/U.S. comparison, while the material on Northwest Europe is drawn from the Brookings study. The present paper sets out the results to date on the differences in real output per employed person between Canada and the United States for one year, 1960. At this stage in our research the results indicate that the level of real output per employed person in Canada was about 20 per cent lower than in the United States in that year. On the basis of historical output data, it would appear that this margin of difference in Canadian/U.S. product levels has persisted throughout the present century. The central part of this paper examines the significance of differences in factor inputs in Canada and the United States and their contribution to the difference in income. The level of inputs per employed person in Canada accounts for only about 2 percentage points of the income difference between Canada and the United States. These results indicate that the overwhelming part of the difference in output per employed person between the two countries reflects the differences in output in relation to total factor inputs, rather than the magnitude of other factor inputs used in combination with labour. This result is consistent with earlier studies by Denison and others which have indicated the crucial importance of output in relation to total factor inputs, both in output growth over time and intercountry comparisons of output level. The body of the paper can give only brief attention to the numerous conceptual and statistical questions that arise in such a wide-ranging study, and the authors do not pretend to have tackled, let alone resolved, all of the wide range of problems related to this study. Nor do they claim any high degree of precision for the results, especially in the light of the statistical limitations of the basic data.     

A look at jobless recoveries in G7 countries

We study changes in the plucking behavior of employment growth, as well as changes in its relationship with the output cycle in the G7 countries. Using both revised and real-time data, we consider several popular measures of the output cycle. For most countries, we see significant evidence in favor of structural changes in the response coefficients of employment growth to its own gap, suggesting much slower recoveries in labor markets, consistent with the jobless recoveries hypothesis. However, we also find evidence in favor of heterogeneity across countries, both in the responses of employment to employment gaps and in the responses of employment to the output cycle.     

长江三角洲都市圈老人乡村休闲养老研究

近年来,长江三角洲都市圈越来越多的老人选择季节性移居乡村休闲养老,这种发展趋势是老龄化程度不断加深、城市养老资源不足和乡村休闲旅游快速发展共同作用的结果。通过对两个乡村休闲养老目的地的调查研究,结果表明：休闲养老目的地的形成可以分为在乡村旅游发展基础上的自发模式和企业投资促成的“联众模式”两种;乡村休闲养老者群体主要是低龄老人,选择乡村休闲养老目的地时主要受目的地自然环境、人文环境、休闲养老配套设施、生活基础设施、管理服务和目的地形象等因素的影响。季节性移居乡村休闲养老不仅可以缓解老龄化背景下都市圈不断增大的养老压力,而且可以解决乡村休闲旅游设施淡季的闲置问题,推动乡村环境的改善,促进当地村民的就业致富和城乡文明的交融与传播。都市圈具备条件的乡村可以把满足周边城市乡村休闲养老需求作为未来经济转型发展的一个方向。     

Nonperforming Loans and Purchase of Loans by Public Asset Management Companies in Malaysia and Thailand

This paper explores the factors which eliminated the nonperforming loan (NPL) problem in Malaysia and Thailand following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The number of NPL, which expanded in the aftermath of the crisis, has since declined in most South‐East Asian countries. Although previous studies have explored the causes of the increase in NPL numbers, few have analysed the factors that contributed to the reduction in their number in Asia. In Malaysia and Thailand, authorities put in place several measures to manage NPL. As a vehicle to acquire NPL from banks, Malaysia established the Pengurusan Danaharta Nasional Berhad (Danaharta) in 1998, while Thailand established the Thai Asset Management Corporation (TAMC) in 2001. We analyse whether the characteristic features of banks, improvements in macroeconomic conditions, and facilities for purchasing loans caused a reduction in the number of NPL in Malaysia and Thailand. The results suggest that selling loans to a public asset management company was effective in reducing the number of NPL in Thailand. While macroeconomic conditions influenced the decline in NPL ratios in Thailand, in Malaysia, well performing commercial banks and large commercial and investment banks generally had smaller NPL ratios throughout and following the crisis.     

CYCLICAL FLUCTUATIONS IN FACTOR SHARES AND THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME

The way in which cyclical fluctuations in activity in the U.K. economy affect factor income shares and the channels through which these effects work through to the size distribution of income are traced. Using National Accounts data, the impact of an upturn in activity in increasing the shares of profits and self-employment income in factor incomes, and of self-employment and rent, interest and dividends in personal incomes, is quantified. Using Family Expenditure Survey micro-data, the resulting shift in decile shares in personal income, which is towards the top of the size distribution, is estimated.     

Employment effects of foreign acquisition

This paper investigates the employment effects of foreign acquisitions in acquired firms in Swedish manufacturing during the 1990s; a period characterized by a dramatic increase in foreign ownership. We find some evidence of positive employment effects in acquired firms and it seems that the employment of skilled labor increases more than that of less-skilled labor. Our results indicate that the positive employment effects are more pronounced in acquired non-MNEs than in Swedish MNEs. Furthermore, we observe shifts in skill intensities toward higher shares of skilled labor in non-MNEs taken over by foreign MNEs, but not in acquired Swedish MNEs.     

Public trust and corruption perception: disaster relief

Public trust in government and nongovernment organizations is essential to the public’s willingness to donate and to support those organizations. We measure public trust in disaster aid using people’s perception of these organizations’ effectiveness in delivering aid relief to the victims of two recent major earthquakes in China. Based on the survey data collected in 2013 from about 2100 residents in Hong Kong, we document the vulnerability of these residents’ trust perceptions in aid delivery. We find that the sharp decline in trust perception is highly negatively correlated with their perception of corruption of local governments in China.     

Productivity change in Canadian mining 1957–1979

This paper calculates multifactor productivity trends in seven Canadian mining industries and relates changes in productivity to various factors, including changes in output and factor prices and the decline in the quality of the ore being mined. It is found that productivity decline in mining has been pronounced and tended to predate that of manufacturing by several years. There are indications that the most important factors in the decline have been the fall in mineral grade, contraction of output, increases in interest rates and an apparent decline in the rate of technical innovation.     

开放条件下中国工业能源强度的影响因素分析——基于31个行业面板数据的实证分析

本文运用中国工业31个行业1998年-2004年的面板数据,分析了能源价格、FDI的进入程度、进出口商品结构、工业内部的行业结构和R＆D投资强度对中国工业能源强度的影响。研究发现,能源价格的上涨对提高工业能源利用效率有显著的促进作用;降低FDI的进入程度与R＆D投资强度都有助于降低工业特别是高能源强度行业的能源强度;降低高能源强度行业的出口额在工业出口总额中的比重,有利于降低高能源强度行业的能源强度,进口商品结构变化对工业能源强度没有显著影响;降低高能源强度行业的工业增加值在整个工业增加值中的比重,有助于降低全工业行业和低能源强度行业的能源强度。     

Institutions and concentration

In a new dataset of 1.3 million firms from over 100 countries, I establish a number of regularities in cross-country differences in economic concentration. Concentration of sales and employment is substantially higher in smaller countries and in less-developed countries; these two factors alone explain roughly half the cross-country variation in concentration. Nevertheless, a number of institutional factors offer additional explanatory power for concentration. Concentration is higher in countries with higher entry costs for new firms, in countries with weaker antitrust policy, in countries with less financial development, in countries with weaker rule of law, and in countries with more burdensome regulation. Weak institutions are associated with higher concentration especially in industries that do not have naturally high levels of concentration. In addition, the relationships between institutions and concentration are more pronounced in nontradable and investment-intensive industries, suggesting that natural barriers to competition facilitate the monopolization of sectors especially when institutions are weak.     

Carbon pricing and terms of trade effects for China and India: A general equilibrium analysis

Using country-specific dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, this paper estimates carbon prices in China and India, and compares the effects of carbon pricing policies under terms of trade effects. Estimated carbon prices are higher in China due to differences in emission intensity and in the rate of deployment of new technologies in the models. Differences in carbon prices open up the possibility of carbon trading between the two countries to achieve mitigation objectives. Further, under assumptions about different exchange rate regimes and international fossil fuel prices, the effects of carbon pricing policies on the two economies are mostly similar in terms of direction but, expectedly, different in terms of magnitude. Terms of trade effects could exacerbate carbon pricing effects to a greater degree in China as the country is significantly more dependent than India on external trade and investment. Policymakers should factor in terms of trade effects while designing or evaluating carbon pricing policies in the two countries.     

Nonlinearities in emerging stock markets: evidence from Europe's two largest emerging markets

Recent developments in time series analysis allow proper modelling of nonlinearities in economic and financial variables. A growing body of research was dedicated to investigation of potential nonlinearities in conditional mean of many economic and financial variables, mainly concentrating in developed economies. However, nonlinearities in financial variables in developing economies have not been fully examined yet. In this article we investigate potential nonlinearity and cyclical behaviour of stock returns in Europe's two largest emerging stock markets, mainly in the Greek and Turkish stock markets. Specifically, we use STAR family models, which allow to model nonlinearities in the conditional mean, for modelling monthly returns on stock exchange indices of the Athens Stock Exchange and Istanbul Stock Exchange. Although we find no nonlinearity in conditional variance, we do find strong evidence in favour of nonlinear adjustment of stock returns. It is found that allowing for nonlinearity in conditional mean results in a superior model and provides good out-of-sample forecasts, which contradicts to efficient market hypothesis.     

Growth still is good for the poor

Average incomes in the poorest two quintiles on average increase at the same rate as overall average incomes. This is because, in a global dataset spanning 121 countries over the past four decades, changes in the share of income of the poorest quintiles are uncorrelated with changes in average income. The variation in changes in quintile shares is also small relative to the variation in growth in average incomes, implying that the latter accounts for most of the variation in income growth in the poorest quintiles. In addition, we find little evidence that changes in the bottom quintile shares are correlated with country-level factors that are typically considered as important determinants for growth in average incomes or for changes in inequality. This evidence confirms the central importance of economic growth for improvements in living standards at the low end of the income distribution. It also illustrates the difficulty of identifying specific macroeconomic policies that are significantly associated with the growth rates of those in the poorest quintiles relative to everyone else.