The Incidence of Social Security Contributions in the United Kingdom: Evidence from Discontinuities at Contribution Ceilings

This paper investigates the incidence of National Insurance contributions (NICs) in the UK, exploiting the ceiling that applied to employee and employer contributions between 1975 and 1985 and to employee contributions only between 1986 and 2007. Using data from the New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset, a mandatory survey of British employers’ payroll records, we show there was no dip in the earnings density at the ceiling in either period, suggesting that the earnings of those near the ceiling were unresponsive to the change in tax rates. The absence of such a dip allows us to test which of labour cost, gross earnings or net earnings are smooth around the threshold. As shown by Alvaredo et al. (De Econ, 2017. doi: 10.1007/s10645-017-9294-7), this is informative about the incidence of the change in tax rates at the threshold on those located nearby. We cannot reject the hypothesis that it is gross earnings that are smooth around the threshold, which may reflect a substantive role for statutory incidence in determining economic incidence. However, a lack of statistical power means that, while in some cases we can reject the hypotheses that the full economic incidence of NICs are borne by one side of the market, our results taken alone are also consistent with a wide range of less extreme incidence shares.     

Early Experience and Later Outcomes of Education: Schooling Transition Evidence from Indonesia

This paper investigates the effect of early school experience on later educational attainment. Using the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), we find that students who repeat a grade at primary school are less likely to progress to junior high school. We also find that grade retention is associated with lower rates of transition from junior high school to senior high school. The relationship persists across years and samples. Meanwhile, the age of students when starting school and the hours they spend there have limited effects on whether they continue their schooling. We also observe that the effects of parental education and household income on the transition of students from primary school to junior high school are weakening. Given the long-term impact of grade retention, policymakers should be cautious when recommending it for underachieving children and should look for alternatives.     

The costs of non-tariff barriers to trade: Evidence from New Zealand

The Costs of Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade: Evidence from New Zealand. — Recent work on trade policy with imperfect competition indicates that the adverse effects of non-tariff barriers to trade exceed those suggested by traditional theory. With market power in foreign supply, setting a restrictive non-tariff barrier will induce foreign exporters to raise their supply prices. The authors use the experiment provided by the comprehensive New Zealand economic reforms of the mid-1980s. Using panel data on export unit values from Germany and the United States to several destinations including New Zealand, they find some evidence for decreased export prices to New Zealand as a result of the dismantling of non-tariff barriers to trade.     

Healthcare Utilization and Healthy Lifestyles among Elderly People Living in Southern Europe: Recent Evidence from the SHARE

Recent demographic and economic research has analyzed the expected increase in the proportion of the population who are elderly. One consequence of an increasing elderly population is expansion in health care utilization, hence funding problems may arise.. European institutions encourage member states to promote good health among their citizens to mitigate the ageing effects on the health care system. Our objective was to examine the effect of healthy lifestyles among Southern European older adults on health care utilization by focusing on the number of outpatient doctor visits (ODV) and nights hospitalized (NH). Negative binominal regressions were conducted using a panel data set consisting of five waves (2004–2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Our results add new empirical evidence on the effect of Southern European older adults’ lifestyles on their health care utilization. Engaging in vigorous physical activities reduces the number of ODV visits and NH by 7.8% and 28.25%, respectively. Moreover, smoking increases NH by 14.22%. Member states should establish policies to promote healthy lifestyles, with vigorous physical activities playing a key role, to reduce health services utilization.

     

抗日初期黑河的历史地位与作用

1931年爆发了九·一八事变,黑河率先掀起了抗日斗争。以有中共党员加入的马占山部为主力的抗日队伍先后迎战、发起了江桥战役、胡家柈子场战役等一系列抗击日本侵略者的军事行动,从而使黑河这个东北边陲重镇在抗日初期逐步形成了国共合作抗日的萌芽地、抗日统一战线的初始地、红色抗日队伍的雏形地、东北抗日联军的摇篮地。     

自主研发的社会收益率——中国大中型外资和国有企业的经验证据

已有文献对研发收益的研究主要从产出弹性角度入手,但对研发活动的全面认识需要综合考虑产出弹性和研发收益率两个方面.本文在规模报酬不变和可变假设下分别估计了研发收益率,发现全部大中型企业和外资大中型企业的研发收益率估计值并不显著,国有大中型企业则显著为负;即使考虑低估因素,修正的国有大中型研发收益率还是为负.该结论表明在研发产出弹性显著为正的情况下,考虑研发成本后研发收益率可能并不显著异于零;在研发产出弹性不显著的情况下,研发收益率可能显著为负.     

Creditors’ and Shareholders’ Reporting Demands in Public Versus Private Firms: Evidence from Europe*

In this study we investigate whether the importance of accounting information in contracting and communication with shareholders and creditors affects earnings timeliness in publicly disclosed general‐purpose financial statements. To operationalize the relationship between timeliness demands and the importance of accounting information to shareholders and creditors, we compare the (asymmetry in) earnings timeliness of public firms with that of private firms. We attribute public versus private firm differences in timeliness to shareholders’ demands when a country’s institutions provide strong investor protection. Similarly, we attribute these differences to creditors’ demands when the institutions provide strong creditor protection. Our analysis of public and private firms in 13 Western European countries suggests that creditors and shareholders have different timeliness demands. In particular, we find that the public versus private firm difference in asymmetric timeliness is not associated with a country’s degree of investor protection but positively associated with a country’s degree of creditor protection. The results further suggest that shareholders demand symmetric rather than asymmetric timeliness. An important implication of our study is that general‐purpose financial statements are responsive to creditors’ reporting demands, which contrasts with the idea that these — primarily private — creditors would use special‐purpose reports.     

The determinants of capital structure: Evidence from China

This paper employs a new database containing the market and accounting data (from 1994 to 2003) from more than 1200 Chinese-listed companies to document their capital structure characteristics. As in other countries, leverage in Chinese firms increases with firm size and fixed assets, and decreases with profitability, non-debt tax shields, growth opportunity, managerial shareholdings and correlates with industries. We also find that state ownership or institutional ownership has no significant impact on capital structure and Chinese companies consider tax effect in long-term debt financing. Different from those in other countries, Chinese firms tend to have much lower long-term debt.     

The role of FDI in domestic exporting: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of FDI on domestic exporting firms. We show that domestic firms respond to an increase in the presence of FDI by increasing their exports even though the increase in foreign presence can drive up production costs and make the domestic market more profitable. Our test case for this hypothesis is China, where we confirm the significant positive impact of FDI on domestic firms’ exports. This finding sheds light on the massive exports and rapid inflow of foreign investment that have been observed in China in the past three decades.     

外商投资的技术溢出效应：基于企业特征视角的考察——以江苏为例

引进跨国公司先进技术和管理经验是中国吸收FDI主要目的之一。本文运用1990-2003年江苏制造业数据．实证检验企业外商所有权份额、内外资企业技术差距、内资企业规模及资本密集度与FDI溢出效应的关系，并对回归结果进行分析。结果显示，FDI存在着对内资企业正的溢出效应．但溢出规模并不是在任何情况下总是相等。溢出规模既取决于外商所有权份额、内外资企业技术差距，又与内资企业规模、资本密集度有关。防范外商行业垄断，形成有效的竞争市场；加速内资企业发展．提高对新技术的识别、模仿及自主创新能力；促使内外资企业人员双向流动，能够有效地发挥FDI对中国经济的促进作用。     

The Role of Human Capital in Economic Development: Evidence from Taiwan

The use of Taiwanese industrial data to investigate two potentially important roles of human capital on long-run economic growth (i.e. factor accumulation and technology progress), we find that human capital accounts for 46% of output growth in aggregate manufacturing industry and from 23 to 84% in two-digit industries. Significant knowledge spillover effects were found within Taiwan's manufacturing sector. For aggregate manufacturing, a roughly 29% of total rate of return to education gives a private return of 7% while the external knowledge spillover effect is 22%. For the two-digit industries, the inter-industry effect of education measures two to three times its intra-industry effect. Contrary to the Lau-Young proposition, we find that technology change in terms of knowledge spillover contributes 39% to the output growth of Taiwan's aggregate manufacturing and from 12 to 42% to that of the two-digit industries. Our results also suggest that, in the presence of externalities, growth accounting based on macro data may be misleading in interpreting the sources of growth.
In addition, the case study of Taiwan suggests that opening trade broadens opportunities, and hence increases the return on human-capital investment. However, our estimation results also suggest that in terms of capturing the growth benefits from trade, threshold levels of human capital exist in most industries.     

FDI在中国的技术外溢效应:基于面板数据的考察

通过使用1994～2006年的中国省际面板数据,分析了FDI对中国的技术外溢效应,并进一步实证考察了人力资本在FDI技术外溢中所起的作用。结果表明,缺乏经验证据支持FDI的正向技术外溢效应,但发现人力资本有利于促进FDI技术外溢效应作用的发挥。因此,在吸引外商直接投资的同时,要进一步思考如何有效利用和发挥其外溢效应,注重与国内的技术和人力资本的积累相结合,挖掘各区域对FDI技术外溢效应的吸收能力,弥合区域间发展的不平衡。