Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy

A theoretical, representative‐agent economy with a depletable resource stock, polluting emissions and productive capital is used to contrast environmental policy, which internalises externalised environmental values, with sustainability policy, which achieves some form of intergenerational equity. The obvious environmental policy comprises an emissions tax and a resource stock subsidy, each equal to the respective external cost or benefit. Sustainability policy comprises an incentive affecting the choice between consumption and investment, and can be a consumption tax, capital subsidy or investment subsidy, or a combination thereof. Environmental policy can reduce the strength of the sustainability policy needed. More specialised results are derived in a small open economy with no environmental effects on utility.     

货币政策与财政政策的“新共识”

20世纪90年代以来,宏观经济政策领域出现了一种"新共识",近年来得到进一步发展。在"新共识"宏观经济模型中,货币存量不起作用,但货币政策被赋予非常重要的作用,货币政策可以决定通货膨胀;货币政策采用盯住通货膨胀的方式,通过调节利率将通货膨胀控制在一个较低的水平。财政政策在管理总需求水平方面仍然是一个强有力的工具,"新共识"宏观经济学体现了"货币主义与财政主义的综合"。     

贸易政策不确定性与公司现金股利决策

文章以2003-2019年A股制造业上市公司为样本,研究宏观贸易政策不确定性对公司现金股利决策的影响.研究发现:贸易政策不确定性上升时,公司支付现金股利的意愿和水平会明显下降;这种负面影响与公司风险承担能力、内部治理水平均相关,说明行为同时受风险预防动机和代理动机驱动.据此,文章认为,当外部贸易环境较不确定时,既要增强公司产业链上下游协调能力和提升企业家信心,也要加强外部监管、引导公司实施积极平稳的现金股利政策,进而提升资本市场活力和吸引力.     

科技风险决策面临的时代挑战与制度回应

随着社会发展越来越技术化、科学化,如何充分发挥科技的正面价值,同时,最大限度地控制与规避其风险,已经成为现代社会面临的重大挑战。分析了科技风险决策面临的多维度时代挑战,即后常规科学带来本质层面的挑战、风险社会到来带来心理层面抵触、社会化媒体赋权造成风险沟通异化、知识社会带来多方利益的敏感与博弈。据此,提出应该努力建立健全民主协商制度、尝试把公众的风险认知引入科技决策、加强规范媒体的风险沟通功能,从宏观、中观以及微观上进行相应制度回应的建议。     

Policy Forum: Designing a Carbon Price Policy: Empirical Uncertainties in Climate Policy Implementation

Despite the passing of the carbon price legislation, implementation of climate policy must confront a number of challenges. These include the uncertain nature of benefits from the policy, uncertainty surrounding the cost of abatement within Australia, uncertainties about international action and challenges in the interaction between policy instruments (for example, between the carbon price and large subsidies to renewable energy). Each of these issues implies a substantial empirical challenge for the Australian Government and the independent agencies charged with implementation. Effort should be focused on increasing the knowledge base, rather than relying on simplified scenarios from a narrow range of economic models.     

Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy and the Exchange Rate

Domestic fiscal and monetary policy settings can influence the strength of the Australia dollar in a number of different ways.     

Institutional Economics as Theory of Policy Change: Impact of Past Policy Failures on Present Policy

Social scientists have developed several theories for understanding or evaluating policy change over time. Since all costs or benefits are not internalized owing to positive transaction costs, policymaking is always implemented under cost underestimation conditions and, therefore, is imperfect. I call this trait policy failure in this article. Furthermore, I show that a new framework combining the social costs approach and the legal/economic approach in institutional economics is suitable and can be applied to evaluating how past policy failures affect present policy, providing as an example the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.     

实施积极财政政策向可持续财政政策转型的构想

积极财政政策虽然在扩大内需上已经有所作为，但由于其负面作用的存在而不具有可持续性。为实现我国可持续发展的长期战略要求，我们应当适时实施由积极财政政策向可持续财政政策的转变。因此，应当对现行的财政支出政策进行调整，防范直接与间接财政风险的扩大化，完善现行税制，运用财政政策促进人力资本可持续发展。     

论我国财政政策与货币政策的选择

财政政策与货币政策都是有效的。积极的财政政策的负面影响不能低估，财政风险的波及面更大，其影响的深度和广度也较金融风险为甚。治理通缩，货币政策不应是消极和无所作为的，应随宏观经济形势变动而适时调整。特别在积极的财政政策换位时，宽松的货币政策应作为首选，否则，货币政策就会“失职”。     

财政政策与货币政策有效性实证分析

从2003年下半年开始,物价水平持续上升,中国凸现通货膨胀迹象。经济发展过热,特别是固定资产投资恶性扩张,成为当前中国经济最突出的问题。为遏制投资过热,中国政府采取财政政策和货币政策来调整投资规模,本文运用协整检验和误差修正模型分析两个经济政策在调节固定资产投资规模上的有效性,为合理使用这两种政策提供理论和实证依据。     

On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy and of Fiscal Policy

There has been a major shift within macroeconomic policy over the past two decades or so in terms of the relative importance given to monetary policy and to fiscal policy in both policy and theoretical terms. The former has gained considerably in importance, with the latter being rarely mentioned. Furthermore, the nature of monetary policy has shifted away from any attempt to control some monetary aggregate (prevalent in the first half of the 1980s), and instead monetary policy has focused on the setting of interest rates as the key policy instrument. There has also been a general shift towards the adoption of inflation targets and the use of monetary policy to target inflation. This paper considers the significance of this shift in the nature of monetary policy. This enables us to question the effectiveness of monetary policy, and to explore the role of fiscal policy. We examine these questions from the point of view of the "new consensus" in monetary economics and suggest that it is rather limited in its analysis. When the analysis is broadened out to embrace empirical issues and evidence the clear conclusion emerges that monetary policy is relatively impotent. The role of fiscal policy is also considered, and we argue that fiscal policy (under specified conditions) remains a powerful tool for macroeconomic policy. This is particularly an apt conclusion under current economic conditions.     

美国政府的科技补贴政策及对我国的政策启示

科技补贴是政府应对市场对产业R&D投入不足的有效措施.通过对美国政府科技补贴政策的历史回顾,分析了美国科技补贴政策与WTO<补贴与反补贴措施协议>的适应性与冲突性,提出了对我国制定科技补贴政策的几点启示.     

当前我国货币政策的两难选择及政策建议

通过对1990-2009年的中国经济数据进行实证分析,考察了货币政策对通货膨胀的影响.针对实证分析的结果及目前我国经济实际运行的状况,本文认为货币当局在维持宽松货币政策的同时,应该主要依靠公开市场手段,防止流动性泛滥;应密切关注资产价格,侧重引导市场预期;进行窗口指导,调整产业结构;维持汇率稳定,增强产品出口竞争力.     

Thailand's Policy Challenges

Thailand's real gross domestic product growth has fallen to a permanently lower trend, making it the worst performer in the Southeastern Asian region. The export sector, the country's long‐standing growth engine, has sputtered due to the declining competitiveness of the manufacturing sector. Chronic political instability during the last two decades has resulted in the adoption of short‐sighted policies, in particular, populist policies designed specifically to garner votes rather than improve the long‐term productivity of the business sector. The military coup was expected to restore political stability and end costly populist policies introduced by elected civil governments. Unfortunately, as the military government develops its long‐term political aspirations, it, too, seeks the assistance of populist policies to ensure its political success. Thailand has promulgated laws and regulations to ensure fiscal discipline, but it has yet to be seen whether the letter of the law can help prevent such populist policies in practice.     

Comparative Trade Policy

Current research has found ambiguous theoretical and empirical results with respect to the effects of the type of electoral regime on trade policy. The present paper aims to reconcile the different views within a theoretical model. It is shown that the equilibrium level of trade protection can be relatively higher, as well as lower, under a majoritarian electoral rule compared with proportional representation. Trade policy is more (less) protectionist under proportional electoral regimes, as compared with majoritarian institutions, if swing districts are populated by relatively more (less) factor owners with stakes in the exporting sector. It is also shown that politicians optimally apply a lower (higher) level of rent seeking under the majoritarian electoral rule if there are relatively more factor owners in the swing districts with stakes in the exporting (import‐competing) sector.     

Time-Consistent Public Policy

In this paper we study how a benevolent government that cannot commit to future policy should trade off the costs and benefits of public expenditure. We characterize and solve for Markov-perfect equilibria of the dynamic game between successive governments. The characterization consists of an inter-temporal first-order condition (a "generalized Euler equation") for the government, and we use it both to gain insight into the nature of the equilibrium and as a basis for computations. For a calibrated economy, we find that when the only tax base available to the government is capital income—an inelastic source of funds at any point in time—the government still refrains from taxing at confiscatory rates. We also find that when the only tax base is labour income the Markov equilibrium features less public expenditure and lower tax rates than the Ramsey equilibrium.