Does comparative advantage explain countries’ diversification level?

This paper analyses whether the products in which a country has comparative advantage can explain its exports’ diversification level. We argue that specialisation endows countries with some specific skills and assets; in some cases those skills and assets can easily be redeployed in other products and facilitate diversification, whereas in other cases skills and assets are more difficult to redeploy and offer scant diversification possibilities. Based on countries’ comparative advantage and an index of product proximity, we construct a metric for countries’ diversification possibilities. Using non-parametric and parametric techniques, we show that this metric is a very strong and robust predictor of countries’ actual diversification level, even when we control for differences in income across countries. These results point out that diversification may not be an automatic outcome of development.     

Discussion of “On the allocation of fixed and variable costs from service departments”

The Balachandran, Li and Magee (1987) (BLM) paper develops a positive purpose for cost allocations within the context of pricing the outputs of a central service facility. The line of argument is that, while the short-run price for a service should equal its short-run variable cost, there is a motivational purpose, relating to capacity acquisition, that can be served by allocating the fixed, or joint, costs of a service facility to its users. The authors establish some initial results and then, arguing that the issues considered in this paper relate to the more general problem of incentive compatibility, they compare their results to two extant models that deal with the topic of incentive compatibility.     

Development of the New Rural Cooperative Medical System in China

Based on a survey conducted by our research team at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the present paper reports on the development of China's new rural cooperative medical system set up in late 2002. The new rural cooperative medical system is different from the old system in that it is organized, guided and supported by the government but that rural residents voluntarily participate in its administration. It is financed by individuals, collectives and the government. The new cooperative medical system focuses on serious disease planning and mutual aid and fraternity between rural residents in health care. The results of our survey indicate that the new rural medical system has been successful up to now but that it also has some problems. China needs to pay more attention to overcoming the difficulties and challenges it faces in terms of future medical needs so that a mechanism for its sustainable development can be established.     

Elasticities of derived demand under different objectives of the firm

Conclusions We have reconciled and generalized earlier comparisons of input demand elasticities under different objective functions of the firm. In general little can be said of the relative magnitudes of the elasticities under different objectives, since different goals usually imply different levels of production and input demand. With some simplifying assumptions about the technology we can conclude that a profit-constrained, utility-maximizing firm tends to have higher input demand elasticities than a profit-maximizing firm facing the same cost and demand functions. This tendency is reinforced by a high profit requirement, decreasing returns to scale and slowly falling demand elasticity for the output. The results may help to explain differences in the stability of employment between industries,. Scherer [1980, pp. 365–67] reports that some studies have found an inverse relation between market concentration and stability of employment, which is contrary to the expected result. One may argue that in concentrated industries the firms are likely to have organizational slack or to face an inelastic product demand curve. Hence demand for factors of production should be less elastic than in more competitive industries. We have shown, however, that deviations from profit maximization may lead to higher input demand elasticities. Since non-profit-maximizing goals are likely to be more common in concentrated industries, the observed instability of employment may be partly due to the high elasticity of derived demand. Although the type of alternative goals studied in this paper may not be realistic in practice, the analysis shows nevertheless that goals of the firm may be one factor in explaining differences in the stability of employment.     

货币政策透明度、通胀偏差与预期成本

由于预期的形成是需要成本的，本文通过建立一个引入预期成本的简单模型，分析可得信息的开发和处理信息成本之间的权衡关系对货币政策博弈的影响。模型得到两个结论：一是提高货币政策的透明度可以降低通货膨胀率；二是在特定的情况下，越“保守的”中央银行可能会导致更高的通货膨胀。因此，为了减少由动态不一致所导致的通胀偏差，中央银行越保守，就应该越透明。     

Factor substitution and factor intensities in models with more factors than goods

This paper considers the commodity prices–factor prices relation in models with more factors than consumption goods. Under some simple factor substitutability assumptions, many results in the   n  ×  n   cases have counterparts in the   l  ×  n   cases. The proportional price changes of the "middle factors" will be trapped between those of the "extreme factors". A weak and a strong Stolper–Samuelson theorem can also be proven. If the numbers of goods and perfectly complementary factors are equal and the production functions have the nested constant elasticity of substitution form, two of the complementary factors would have the most extreme relative price changes, regardless of the factor intensities.     

禀赋来源和框架影响人们的分配行为吗——基于Dictator game的实验研究

文章运用Dictator game将禀赋的来源和不同的框架结合起来,研究这两种因素对人们分配行为的共同影响。禀赋的来源是指通过努力或者运气得到初始禀赋,不同的框架是指根据Dictator分配自己挣得的禀赋或者分配接受者挣得的禀赋,分为给予和拿取两个不同的框架。实验结果表明：1）禀赋的来源对人们的分配行为存在显著的影响;2）在通过努力挣得初始禀赋的情况下,强化了人们应得权利的意识,从而激发了框架对人们分配行为的影响;在靠运气得到初始禀赋的情况下,并没有这种强化作用,从而框架的影响并不显著。实验结果论证了微观行为会受社会情境的影响,即微观个体是受社会因素影响的适度社会化的人。另一方面,实验结果揭示了相对运气挣得的财富,人们更加认可通过努力挣得的财富,即在分配问题上人们更倾向于支持机会平等,更加支持勤劳致富。     

中国产业界所应了解的欧盟对华反倾销的不合理因素

欧盟对华反倾销是长期困扰中欧贸易健康发展的重要问题。饱受反倾销之苦的中国企业在面对欧盟反倾销的许多不公正的待遇时,经常是愤愤不平。但因为不熟知其法律和实践,对其司法问题的公正性缺少深入的研判,而错失许多可能的胜诉的机会。揭示欧盟反倾销法和对华反倾销实践的不公正性,提供对抗这些不公正因素的理由和依据,应该是当前反倾销研究的当务之急。本文的写作正是从这一基点出发,而对欧盟对华反倾销实践的不合理、不公正的问题所进行的揭示,作者期待通过该文的分析,有助于中国企业界了解欧盟对华反倾销法的实体和程序规定中的不合理因素,并根据每案的具体案情,进行有理有据的抗辩。这既是促使这些消极方面发生转变的积极的努力,也是中国企业维护自己尊严和利益、改变自己被动地位的重要的突破口。     

公共住宅秩序与公共住宅政策

文章提出公共住宅秩序的概念,认为公共住宅秩序是利益相关者利益冲突与协调的结果,公共住宅政策有效与否应当针对特定的公共住宅秩序而言.而后,结合人类"知识问题"和有限理性等两方面对公共政策制定进行分析,认为公共政策规则性低效率是客观存在的,并认为提高公共政策效率的途径在于建立一种机制,用以反映动态的公共住宅秩序,用以运用尽可能多的政策相关者的知识.最后对美国和我国的公共政策设计进行比较分析,并提出改进我国公共政策设计效率的措施.     

Outside Blockholders' Monitoring of Management and Debt Financing: An Alternative Perspective

Liao ( 2015 ) argues that the monitoring by large outside shareholders (blockholders) exacerbates the conflict between debt and equity and in turn affects the choice and structure of debt financing. The study contends that private debt is more immune to the increase in debt‐equity conflict. Consistent with this argument, companies with outside blockholders are inclined to issue private debt over public debt. Further, private debt exhibits less price protection but relies on more protective covenants than does public debt. The findings are interesting and intuitive. I evaluate the economic arguments in the paper and discuss some of the challenges that the study faces. My conclusion is that the interpretation of the results is more complex than the one the study presents. I offer a broader framework that can be used to shed light on why the governance structure combines equity blockholders and private debt issuance. I also discuss several questions to be addressed by future research.     

Public expenditure planning in Papua New Guinea: an evaluation of innovation

This paper discusses the problems faced by non-socialist developing countries in evolving successful systems of comprehensive public expenditure planning and makes a series of proposals designed to avoid some of these problems, e.g. by outlining precise processes, mechanisms and institutions which might generate and maintain political and bureaucratic support and correspond to a more realistic view of politics, as well as developing a framework within which public expenditure proposals can be consistently compared. The paper refers throughout to the experience of Papua New Guinea.The evaluation of the approach and processes of public expenditure planning in Papua New Guinea is divided into two parts. The first part assesses the system's achievements, costs and weaknesses and then considers the impact which the system itself has had on framing and developing new policy. In the second part, the general lessons which may be learned from Papua New Guinea's experience are discussed.     

The impact of foreign direct investment on export structure and employment generation

The literature on foreign direct investment often treats its determinants and consequences independently. This is particularly so for empirical studies. The purpose of this paper is to consider both aspects simultaneously and to provide some empirical evidence on the nature of foreign investment and its impact on export structure and employment generation. The method consists of a model which includes both industry-specific and location-specific determinants of foreign direct investment in the export sector and their effects on the employment generating capacity of individual manufacturing industries. It is estimated for three-digit S.I.C. industries in Puerto Rico in 1979. The results suggest that Puerto Rico's export sector consists of US based firms producing on a large scale. These firms are primarily attracted to the island by relatively higher profits than on the mainland. Low wage labor is not considered an important inducement to foreign investment in Puerto Rico. The labor intensity of the island's export sector lags behind that of comparable countries due to the capital-intensive nature of its principal exports. The island's manufacturing employment can be more effectively increased by altering the composition of exports than by inducing present firms to hire more workers.     

Corruption and firm growth: Evidence from China

Corruption is one of the most pervasive obstacles to economic and social development. However, in the existing literature it appears that corruption seems to be less harmful in some countries than in others. The most striking examples are well known as the “East Asian paradox”: countries displaying exceptional growth records despite having thriving corruption cultures. The aim of this paper is to explain the high corruption but fast economic growth puzzle in China by providing firm-level evidence of the relation between corruption and growth and investigating how financial development influences the former relationship. Our empirical results show that corruption is likely to contribute to firms' growth. We further highlight the substitution relationship between corruption and financial development on firm growth. This means that corruption appears not to be a vital constraint on firm growth if financial markets are underdeveloped. However, pervasive corruption deters firm growth where there are more developed financial markets. This implies that fast firm growth will not be observed until a later stage of China's development when financial markets are well-functioning and corruption is under control. Furthermore, the substitution relationship exists in the private and state-owned firms. Geographically, similar results can be seen in the Southeast and Central regions.     

Tests of microeconomic foundations of Asian common currency areas

The formation of the euro bloc sparked renewed interest in other potential common currency areas. Swofford [Swofford, J. L. (2000). Microeconomic foundations of an optimal currency area. Review of Financial Economics, 9, 121–128] set forth some microeconomic foundations for a common currency area. In this paper, some results from tests of these microeconomic foundations for various hypothesized Asian common currency areas are presented. These results can be viewed as broadly favorable for the formation of some Asian common currency areas.     

价值链分工与发展中国家就业利益及风险分析

目前鲜有对“价值链分工对发展中国家的就业影响”进行系统性研究,尤其关于就业风险方面.此种研究对发展中国家充分利用价值链分工,获取最大就业利益具有重要理论和实践意义.文章利用历史经验分析,提出价值链分工给发展中参与国带来就业数量的增加、就业结构的改善和就业质量的提升等就业利益;但同时,价值链分工也可能带来就业的挤出、对本土竞争企业的人为资本争夺、低成本就业难以持续及就业的外部冲击等风险.     

Monetary targeting for price stability in Bangladesh: How stable is its money demand function and the linkage between money supply growth and inflation?

Since the mid-1980s Bangladesh has implemented a loose form of monetary targeting under two exchange-rate régimes: a pegged system until May 2003 and a ‘managed floating’ exchange-rate system. Under both régimes, broad money has been used as an intermediate target to maintain price stability, which implies as the ultimate goal a relatively low and stable rate of inflation. Inflation in this country has, however, remained moderately high and volatile, especially during the 1970s under the pegged exchange-rate system. With the apparent ineffectiveness of the monetary-targeting system in achieving price stability, even following the 2003 ‘managed float’ of the currency, there has been some suggestion that it should be replaced by, say, inflation targeting. This paper forms an element of a fuller study of the issue. It investigates the behaviour of broad money demand in Bangladesh using annual data over the period 1973–2008. Empirical results suggest that an open-economy broad money demand function has remained stable in Bangladesh since the early 2000s. Empirical results also suggest the existence of a causal relationship between money supply growth and inflation. The paper concludes that, although monetary targeting remains appropriate for Bangladesh, its implementation can be made more effective in stabilising the price level if the Bangladesh Bank enhances its control over the money supply by eschewing nominal exchange-rate stabilisation through foreign exchange market interventions.     

Rethinking Industrial Policy for Low Income Countries

Abstract: The governments of low income countries should be giving more attention to ‘industrial policy’ than they and the aid donors have given in the past quarter century. (‘Industrial policy’ means any sectorally or activity‐targeted interventions, including in agriculture and services.) The first step is to discard the common assumption that industrial policy is about ‘picking winners’. The second step is to realize that industrial policy can be done ‘big’ or ‘small’, and by ‘leading the market’ or by ‘following the market’. It can be tailored to the available resources and state capacity. The third step is to see that the key issues of industrial policy are less to do with ‘what activities should be encouraged?’, or ‘what sorts of policy instruments are best?’, and more to do with, ‘how do we organize a process of discovery of sensible objectives and policies?’, and ‘how do we organize a constant nudging of producers to upgrade, diversify, link up with foreign firms?’ (where the nudging effort has to be targeted at some activities and sectors more than others). The paper illustrates with East Asian examples. One of the good effects of the current global crisis is that it has shaken confidence in the virtues of lightly regulated markets and free capital movements, and opened the way to a less ideologically charged debate about the role of the state in development—in which thinking is not precluded by easy jeers like ‘governments can't pick winners’ or ‘maybe the East Asians can do it but you can’t, so you have nothing to learn about industrial policy from them’.     

Exclusive Dealing through Resellers in Auctions with Stochastic Bidder Participation

This paper demonstrates that a seller prefers to exclude final consumers from an auction and sell only to resellers when these resellers can gain access, at a cost, to a sufficiently bigger market than the seller himself. The intuition is that resellers recoup their expenses for marketing the item by reselling it to final consumers. If some consumers participate in the first auction and are outbid by the resellers, then their values for the item are relatively low. Outbidding part of their customer base is “bad news” for the resellers, and this depresses their bids when consumers compete with them. The socially optimal and revenue-maximizing choices of auction format may not coincide: Restricting participation of consumers may be socially optimal but privately suboptimal and vice-versa. The results suggest that (i) the exclusion of final consumers in some auctions may not be driven by transaction cost considerations, and (ii) sellers should not necessarily sell directly to consumers, even though new technologies allow them to do so at essentially zero cost, unless they can access a sufficiently large portion of the market.     

基于公共事件社会负面效应测度的企业社会责任问题研究

文章运用事件研究法分析铬超标胶囊事件本身及事件后的多次曝光对相关涉事企业及同行业公司股价的影响,以探讨不同类型社会责任事件产生的不同市场效应。实证结果表明,投资者的投资决策一定程度上受到上市公司社会责任履行绩效的影响。对重大事故尤其是行业性事故A股市场能够做出显著负面反应;但是对政府处罚、责任诉讼等负面事件A股市场则基本不能做出有效反应;投资者能够识别不同类型事件的信息含量,与企业的社会责任相比,他们更多关注与企业经营业绩相关的信息,而不是与企业治理和企业价值相关的责任信息。总之,在此次事件中,我国新兴资本市场尚未发挥出对企业社会责任事件的经济惩罚作用。在市场负面效应测度的基础上,文章将利益相关者理论引入到药企社会责任研究中,指出只有企业内部和外部利益相关者共同作用,才能促进医药企业社会责任良性循环发展。     

China's Anti‐dumping Problems and Mitigation through Regional Trade Agreements

The present paper explores the opportunities for China's regional trade agreement (RTA) initiatives to mitigate its anti‐dumping problems. The paper highlights the severity and discriminatory nature of China's anti‐dumping problems. The high concentration of the share of anti‐dumping actions taken by the top 4 and top 8 anti‐dumping initiators is noted. Our finding of a weak effect of existing RTAs on mitigating China's anti‐dumping problems supports the argument that China could become more active in mitigating anti‐dumping problems through RTA negotiations. An RTA can include a higher level of openness in exchange for an improvement in regional anti‐dumping provisions. Case studies on RTAs involving the EU, the USA and India offer some precedents for offering inducements and modifying regional anti‐dumping provisions. The approaches for China may lie in obtaining market economy status from intensive anti‐dumping initiators at RTA levels and also altering regional anti‐dumping provisions that could be put in place in exchange for some potential concessions.