The pros and cons of globalization

Analysis suggests that future freer globalized trade will (1) likely benefit both rich and poor regions, (2) probably give measured percentage gains to poor places that exceed those to rich places, (3) possible exacerbate real income inequality between rich and poor, and more certainly (4) bring more lifetime uncertainty along with enlarged material gains. A backlash to freer trade, economic history suggests, will lead to weaker productivity advance, enhanced degree of monopoly, and to aggravated crony-capitalism and plutocratic lobbyist democracy.     

普通职工工薪报酬偏低的危害和对策

企业普通职工工薪报酬偏低是我国收入分配领域存在的一个突出矛盾,它不仅损害了职工权益,而且给经济社会发展带来了极大危害,它使劳动力价值被低估,劳动力再生产萎缩;造成“内需”不足,国内市场疲软;导致贫富差距扩大,激化劳资矛盾;造成对外贸易中摩擦增多,损失增大;还可能造成技术停滞。因此,必须尽快改变职工工薪报酬偏低状况。坚持与落实以人为本和按劳分配为主的分配方式,逐步提高劳动报酬在GDP和国民收入中的比重,提高工资标准与劳动要素的报酬;不断完善劳动力市场、健全工会组织、转变政府职能以及健全由政府行政部门、工会、雇主协会组成的三方利益协调机制和工资集体谈判机制是提高劳动要素的报酬的可行途径。     

Trade developments during the first Lomé Convention

The Lomé Convention signed in 1975 between the European Economic Community (EEC) and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States, was hailed as a model for a New International Economic Order. This article analyses the trade between the two groupings during the five years (1975–1979) of the first Convention, in the context of world trade. In general there was no substantial change in trade flows. Contrary to ACP aspirations for an improvement in their export performance with the Europeans, the EEC share of ACP exports declined. Despite the Convention's provisions, the ACP even failed to maintain their shares of the EEC market, actually faring worse than other non-oil LDCs. Little diversification was achieved in ACP exports. In contrast, the EEC maintained its position in ACP markets.     

中国政治民主化的困境分析

民主化是当前社会发展的一个总体趋势,它在带来一定机遇的同时,也对一些迈向现代化的发展中国家提出了挑战。从民主的条件这一立场出发,在发展民主的过程中,中国需要面对一系列的困境,包括经济上的贫富差距、腐败问题;政治上的合法性与合理性问题;民主政治文化的匮乏以及公民社会培养上的难题。     

美欧经济动荡及其对中国的深远影响

美欧自金融危机爆发延续至今的经济动荡,并非源于偶然的政策失误,也不能归于周期性经济阵痛,实际属于经济模式遭遇的深刻危机,这意味着美国金融霸权主导的国际体系已处于超载状态,世界经济将长期陷于低迷,步入重大动荡期和调整期。为摆脱危机美国的政策调整可能在世界范围产生传导效应甚至危害,对国际战略总体形势以及中国的发展与安全产生重大而深远的影响。中美之间的战略竞争已进入深度互动的关键时期,这一时期将持续十年甚至更长时间。中美之间尤其在亚太地区的战略博弈,不仅具有前所未有的全面性和深刻性,也具有前所未有的复杂性和敏感性。对此中国应充分认识国际体系变迁以及由此带来的国家间关系的复杂化趋势,趋利避害,有效消解战略压力,坚决维护对外关系的总体平衡和稳定,本着冷静观察、充分准备、积极应对的原则,有针对性地投棋布子,积极运筹国际变局,尤其应重点强化经营周边的力度,拓展回旋空间。     

Why do trade costs vary?

As tariffs have fallen, it is apparent that trade costs are a significant obstacle to international trade and that they vary from country to country. The gap between the cif and fob value of a trade flow is a useful measure of aggregate trade costs, but only if the measure is based on a consistent volume of trade; mirror statistics are unsuitable. Using high quality Australian import data disaggregated at the HS 6-digit level, we find large country-by-country variations in trade costs. Distance, weight and size account for part of the variation in trade costs. Indicators of institutional quality pick up some of the variation in trade costs, but the relationship is not uniform across mode of transport and commodities; exporting countries’ institutional quality is more strongly related to trade costs for air freight than sea freight, and the relationship is commodity-specific and strongest for manufactured goods. Country-specific characteristics influencing trade costs provide a link between institutions and economic development.     

河北省环京津地区贫富差距的政治分析

在市场经济社会,随着经济活动向纵深发展,贫富分化也必然发生,这可以说是一种"合理化"的现象。这说明市场经济只能解决效率问题,而不能解决贫富差距问题。认识河北省环京津地区贫富差距问题必须深入中国社会的深处,从政治的角度进行剖析,才能进一步理解其背后的复杂原因,探索与拓展破解之道。     

Stabex: An evalution of the economic impact over the first five years

The shortfall in funding to meet current claims on the EEC's export earnings stabilization scheme (Stabex) has diverted attention from the operations of the scheme and its merits and shortcomings in providing developing countries with compensatory finance. This paper takes a sample of 10 ACP recipients of Stabex, which together drew over half ($200m) of the Stabex transfers under Lomé I and evaluates the stabilization effects of the transfers at macroeconomic and sectoral level. It concludes that Stabex has proved to be a useful balance-of-payments support mechanism, albeit inequality distributed due to quirks in its rules of operation, although it was designed as a scheme to support smallholder export crop producers. In the light of this evidence, the future form of Stabex under a re-negotiated Lomé Convention is considered.     

2015年东盟经济共同体:发展进程、机遇与存在的问题

2015年建成的东盟共同体将主要由政治安全共同体、经济共同体和社会文化共同体三大部分组成。迄今,东盟经济共同体推进势头良好,其发展无疑对中国的"走出去"战略是一个新的机遇。随着形势的发展,中国与东盟的经济合作将越来越广泛和深入。本文分析了东盟经济共同体的发展态势,认为在未来3年里建立一个具有雏形意义的经济共同体是可能的,它将从自由贸易区的升级版开始,即在贸易关税削减为零的基础上,形成货物、服务、投资和技术工人的较低程度的自由流动,并最终形成单一市场和生产基地。东盟经济共同体的成功之路除了需要处理好与10+3和10+1的关系、与"环太平洋经济伙伴关系协定"(TPP)的关系,与APEC的关系这三对矛盾外,还取决于缩小富国和穷国的差距、实现单一的大市场和产品基地、培育东盟共同的价值观、增强东盟共同体的认同感等。     

减少农村贫困,缩小贫富差距

社会和谐是中国特色社会主义的本质属性。农村贫困人口的存在,既遏制了贫困地区经济社会的发展,也拉大了贫富差距和城乡差距,对构建和谐社会是一个极大的障碍。现阶段,我国农村贫困出现了一些新的特征。根据新情况,反贫困措施主要有:一是通过教育和培训,提高贫困人口的质量、增强他们自我发展的能力;二是实现开发式扶贫和救助式扶贫并重;三充分发挥经济政策对消除贫困的作用;四是改变国家扶贫资金的瞄准机制,改革扶贫资金管理体制。     

Inter-country comparison of ‘real’ (PPP) incomes: Revised estimates and unresolved questions

Adjusting for purchasing power parities of national currencies makes a significant difference to inter-country income comparisons. However, PPP estimates require detailed price data which are not readily available for most countries. Kravis, Heston and Summers have used regression analysis to extend their PPP estimates from the 16 countries for which they have detailed prices to any country for which data are available on the share of trade in GDP and on inflation. The first part of this paper argues that a variant of this ‘short-cut’ approach, one which relies on measures of human-resource development rather than on trade and inflation, is preferable on theoretical and statistical grounds. The second part of the paper raises a more fundamental issue. It argues that the treatment of services in their detailed analysis, and hence in any short-cut approach derived from it, is biased. This bias tends to exaggerate the PPP incomes of countries with relatively good human-resource development, and so produces misleading estimates of relative incomes among poor countries and of the gap between poor and rich countries.     

Does the internet generate economic growth,international trade,or both?

Recent cross country panel data studies find a positive impact of internet use on economic growth and a positive impact of internet use on trade. The present study challenges the first finding by showing that internet use does not explain economic growth directly in a fully specified growth model. In particular openness to international trade variables seem to be highly correlated with internet use and the findings in the literature that internet use causes trade is confirmed here suggesting that internet use impacts trade and that trade impacts economic growth. A simultaneous equations model confirms the positive and significant role of internet use to openness and the importance of openness to economic growth. Internet use shows to be more impacting trade in non-high income countries than in high income countries whereas the impact of trade on economic growth is the same for both income groups.     

破解中国经济高增长与居民低消费并存的困境

我国经济多年保持高速增长,但居民消费水平并没有同步提高。本文认为长期贸易顺差推动了我国经济快速增长和外汇储备的增加,却并未提高国内居民的福利水平。并且,外向型经济增长加剧我国贫富分化,抑制国内需求,不能保持经济长期的高增长率。我国应调整外汇储备策略,将外汇储备内生化为国民经济发展的助推器,并合理推进人民币国际化进程。此外,在促进国际贸易收支基本平衡的同时,扩大国内消费需求,提高居民消费水平。     

Trade, convergence, and globalisation: The dynamics of the international income distribution, 1950-1998

This paper investigates the evidence for convergence in per capita incomes across 115 economies during the period 1950-1998 and examines the impact that international trade had on this process. Drawing on trade-conditioning within a distribution dynamics framework, that explicitly models frequency distributions of the cross sections of economies over time, this study suggests that trade patterns in the Golden Age were conducive to the formation of middle and high income groups or clubs of economies, but similar trade patterns (dominated by the rich economies) do not seem to explain the perpetuation of these group formations in the post-Golden Age period. If foreign trade is a key aspect of globalisation, why does it matter in accounting for the observed dynamics of the international income distribution during the Golden Age, but not during the decades since the first oil-shock? Further, the evidence from the ergodic (long-run equilibrium) distribution suggests that in the long term the established trade patterns favoured the growth of the rich at the expense of the poor economies across the world.     

中国当前FTA贸易效应分析与比较

根据2002-2010年中国进出口数据,利用混合效应面板数据模型,考察中国当前FTA的贸易创造效应和贸易转移效应,得出如下结论:中国参与FTA产生的贸易创造效应明显,而贸易转移效应较少;中国参与FTA明显推动了中国出口,而对进口影响因伙伴国不同而有所差异;FTA成立时间越长,体现出的贸易创造和贸易转移效应越明显;FTA的贸易效应与伙伴国经济发展水平密切相关;FTA伙伴国地理距离越近,贸易效应越明显。中国应选择经济互补性强、资源丰富、市场潜力大的国家缔结FTA,逐步扩大区域经济合作的地域范围,建立更广泛的区域经济合作伙伴关系。     

我国加工贸易转型升级的策略思考

面临经济全球化和世界范围产业结构调整的机遇以及贸易摩擦日趋频繁的威胁,更好利用我国成本低、社会投资环境优越的内在优势,克服产业发展不均衡、企业自主研发及市场行销能力薄弱、管理制度不健全、物流瓶颈制约等劣势,文章分析了加工贸易转型升级的方向,并提出了相应策略:1     

Mercantilism and urban inequalities in eighteenth-century Sweden

Abstract

It is sometimes argued that inequality promotes growth. If savings are the key to economic growth and the marginal propensity to save rises with income, a more unequal society will save more and grow faster. Thus, by sacrificing equality and concentrating income and wealth in the hands on the entrepreneurial class, society might enjoy higher economic growth. The economic policies taken by the Swedish state during the eighteenth century had the explicit goal of concentrating trade and opportunities for income formation and capital accumulation in the hands of the merchant class. Both an older tradition as well as recent research have emphasised the positive sides of these policies, as the privileged merchants are depicted as dynamic engines of growth and an important factor in the process of capital accumulation. However, in this paper it is argued that this assertion is not warranted. The mercantilist policies resulted in neither measurable per capita growth nor dynamic transformation but in institutional rigidities and the enrichment of the rich and impoverishment of the poor, leading to increasing urban inequalities.     

东亚的美元本位:影响和汇率协调及我国的对策

在以美元为主导的国际货币体系框架下,东亚地区事实上处于美元区内,没有自己的货币定价权。为了克服美元本位制度的弊端和对美元依赖造成的负面影响,东亚地区需要积极开展汇率协调或汇率合作,为本地区的经济发展营造良好稳定的宏观环境。我国应该积极参与东亚外汇储备库的建设,稳步推进人民币的区域化和国际化的步伐,以积极主动的姿态,参与东亚国家的汇率协调与合作。     

中日经贸合作的态势与展望

中日经贸关系是中日关系的重要组成部分,经贸合作是两国友好关系的基础.中国改革开放二十多年来,中日经贸在双边贸易、直接投资和政府间资金合作等方面都取得了长足的发展,已逐步形成了一种多层次、多领域、优势互补、形式多样的合作框架.中国经济的持续高速增长和对外开放的不断扩大为中日经贸合作带来更多的机遇,中日经贸合作将会继续发展和扩大.     

效率与公平之我见

现阶段我国贫富差距、收入不平衡有加大、加重的趋势,本文从科学理解效率与公平的含义,及相互的关系出发,探究产生这一现象的主要原因——实现公平的机制滞后于效率的发展。因此,要建立起社会主义效率公平的框架,在制度、体制上建立效率与公平的长效机制,使我们的经济社会更稳步、高效地发展,使社会更加和谐。