ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper has three parts. The first part attempts to analyse the prevailing situation in developing countries. The second part presents a feasible accounting system for such countries, by and large within the framework of the SNA. The third part goes beyond this and tries to obtain a more concise matrix (covering, in concept, those given in the accounting system) furnishing minimal sets of variables and classifications which one has, in any case, to play within the context of policy issues of developing countries. All three authors are jointly responsible for the first part. Uma Datta Roy Choudhury has drafted the second part. The third part has been drafted by the other two authors.     

THE FISCAL POLICY RESPONSE TO PUBLIC DEBT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Theoretical models on fiscal sustainability hypothesize that indebted governments can lower their current debt by generating future primary surpluses, ceteris paribus. While both developed and developing countries struggle with the issue of debt stabilization, the latter, in particular face heightened sensitivity from creditors, which provides them an impetus to respond more strongly to stabilize their debt. Based on a panel of 53 developing countries, we examine the fiscal response of these countries to changes in their debt‐to‐gross domestic product ratio. We find evidence of a positive relationship between the debt and primary surplus and that countries adjust along both the revenue and expenditure margins at roughly the same rate. (JEL E62, H50, O11)     

ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND TRADE PROTECTION: POLICY ISSUES FOR SOUTH ASIAN COUNTRIES

This article shows that economic integration acts as a viable instrument of protection for individual countries, when benefits of discriminatory protectionist policies like the multifiber arrangement are withdrawn. Using United Nations Conference on Trade and Development statistics for 1995–2013 and applying an extended version of the augmented gravity model, we show that the formation of a trade bloc like the South Asian Free Trade Area unambiguously promotes member countries' exports of textile and clothing at both intra‐bloc and extra‐bloc levels. The expansion of south‐south trade is facilitated by the growing intraregional trade in intermediate goods. The creation of a regional value chain can shield the smaller countries in the context of enhanced global competition. (JEL F14, F15, F13)     

PRICE STATISTICS REQUIRED BY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES FOR NATIONAL ACCOUNTING PURPOSES

In both developed and developing countries, the national accounting statistician who wishes to establish a composite set of values in current and base year prices is faced with a series of difficulties arising from a lack of indicators which are adequate for relating quantities and values within the national accounting framework. Consequently, ad hoc solutions are extensively adopted and use is made of price data which in the majority of cases have been collected for completely different purposes. The inter-relationship of prices, quantities and values fundamental to the compatibility of the national accounts can therefore be, and often is, a rather tenuous one. In the case of many developing countries, the situation is accentuated by a very volatile behaviour of prices, a greater impact of price change and a much greater scarcity of useable statistical material. In addition, since structural change is frequently implicit in a development process, the pattern of values and of prices is often variable and irregular—this in turn creates problems in determining relative importance, in assigning weights and in imputing for prices of items not directly entering into the calculation of the indicators.
This paper analyses the series which are most commonly available, it points out the major deficiencies or limitations and it attempts to formulate a few guide-lines for determining priorities called for in an integrated network of price statistics.     

PUBLIC POLICY SUPPORT FOR AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES: AN ORGANIZATIONAL ECONOMICS APPROACH

This paper addresses the issue of whether nontraditional agricultural cooperatives should be eligible for receiving public policy support. We adopt an organizational economics approach that appears to better inform policy design and suggest critical questions that both policy makers and regulators need to address before introducing measures and sanctions. After discussing the introduction of innovative cooperative models characterized by a whole new set of ownership and control rights, we recast vaguely defined property rights problems as attempts to maximize efficiency and avoid organizational decline rather than to take advantage of excessive market power in highly concentrated oligopsonistic/oligopolistic markets.     

LIQUIDITY,MONETARY POLICY,AND UNEMPLOYMENT: A NEW MONETARIST APPROACH

We discover a consumption channel of monetary policy in a model with money and government bonds. When the central bank withdraws government bonds (short‐term or long‐term) through open market operations, it lowers returns on bonds. The lower return has a direct negative impact on consumption by households that hold bonds and an indirect negative impact on consumption by households that hold money. As a result, firms earn less profits from production, which leads to higher unemployment. The existence of such a consumption channel can help us understand the effects of unconventional monetary policy.     

ENDOGENOUS TRADE POLICY: A TIME-SERIES APPROACH*

This paper provides a time-series analysis on the relationship between the extent of endogenous trade policy and both political and economic variables. The chosen trade policy indicator is the number of foreign-trade regulations passed each year for the benefit of a single firm or industry. The data are from Uruguay, 1925–1983. This country, which experienced an impressive economic decline, is an outstanding example of the rent-seeking society. The paper shows that endogenous regulations increased with discretionary policies, with adverse macroeconomic shocks and under dictatorship. It also shows that these regulations had a negative long-run effect on the growth rates of output and exports. The short-run effect was positive however.     

TAX COMPETITION,RELATIVE PERFORMANCE,AND POLICY IMITATION

Rather than about their absolute payoffs, governments in fiscal competition often seem to care about their performance relative to other governments. Moreover, they often appear to mimic policies observed elsewhere. I study such behavior in a standard tax competition game. Both with relative payoff concerns and for imitative policies, evolutionary stability for games with finitely many players is the appropriate solution concept. Independently of the number of jurisdictions involved, an evolutionarily stable tax policy coincides with the competitive outcome of a tax competition game with infinitely many players. It, thus, involves drastic efficiency losses.     

POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS,GOVERNANCE, AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

This article aims at identifying the determinants of government expenditures of developing countries by placing emphasis on the political institutions and governance variables, which have not been addressed so much in the previous literature. Using a panel data analysis for 97 developing countries from the period 1984 to 2004, this study finds evidence that controlling for economic, social, and demographical factors, political institutional and governance variables significantly influence the consumption expenditure in developing countries. Political institutional variables such as the type of political ruling and political power in the parliament positively influence consumption expenditure; on the contrary, governance variables such as corruption influence negatively. Furthermore, we find that autocratic governments with military ruling are not particularly accommodative toward consumption expenditures as the public spending significantly shrinks under military dictatorship compared with other forms of governance. In order to check consistency of our findings, we ran alternative specifications as well as conducted extreme bound tests. Our results largely survived these tests showing robustness of our findings. (JEL E01, E02, E61, E62, H2, H4, H5, H6, O11, O5)     

关于发展创新型产业集群的政策建议

文章明确界定了产业集群的概念,阐述了集群的创新型和低成本型两种发展道路,并尽可能全面地提供了认识集群的多个视角——全球化、产业组织、技术创新、区域发展等,从而说明产业集群的健康发展,对于提高企业的竞争力,使企业在全球价值链的竞争中不断创新和学习,起着关键的作用。最后对我国走新型工业化道路提出了发展创新型产业集群的若干政策建议。     

适宜技术、技术选择和发展中国家的经济增长

在本文中,我们认为一个国家最适宜(优)的技术结构内生决定于这个国家的要素禀赋结构。如果一个发展中国家选择与其要素禀赋结构相一致的技术结构,那么这个发展中国家和发达国家之间在全要素生产率以及每个劳动力的人均产出上的差异就会变得最小。进一步地,如果发展中国家选择最适宜的技术,那么由于发展中国家在技术变迁的成本上比发达国家低,因此,发展中国家的经济增长速度可以超过发达国家的经济增长速度,从而,我们可以得出发展中国家可以收敛到发达国家的结论。     

SATISFICING AND SEQUENTIAL TARGETS IN ECONOMIC POLICY: A POLITICO-ECONOMIC APPROACH

The standard optimising framework has difficulties in explainingmacroeconomic policy phenomena in some countries, such as long-termspiralling public debts and sequential setting of policy targets.Moreover, it has not responded convincingly to some common criticisms,such as the question of symmetry, and the failure to accountfor the existence of policy-lobbying groups. This paper suggeststhat a satisficing approach to economic policy is a possibleway of accommodating all the above. This approach combined withpriority target setting has been used in other social sciences.It concentrates on the concepts of sequential attention to policyobjectives and ‘satisfactory’ macroeconomic targets.It also provides a choice theoretical framework as a foundationof the satisficing approach to economic policy. A simple exampleof a satisficing sequential target model is presented. Thereis also an attempt to link other alternative approaches, suchas politico-economic models, with this framework.     

CREDIT RATIONING,RISK AVERSION,AND INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Relative to their counterparts in high‐income regions, entrepreneurs in developing countries face less efficient financial markets, more volatile macroeconomic conditions, and higher entry costs. This article develops a dynamic empirical model that links these features of the business environment to cross‐firm productivity distributions, entrepreneurs’ welfare, and patterns of industrial evolution. Fit to panel data on Colombian apparel producers, the model yields estimates of a credit market imperfection index, the sunk costs of creating a new business, and various technology parameters. Model‐based counterfactual experiments suggest that improved intermediation could dramatically increase the return on assets for entrepreneurial households with modest wealth.     

理性泡沫与内生货币供给下的恶性通货膨胀:中国1945—1949

以银行效用为中心的存款保险制度在一个转型的社会制度中具备存在的条件,本文论证了这种可能性;同时,文章首次讨论了银行导向的存款保险制度的构建,提出了银行导向的存款保险下最优存款保险费率、最优存款保险的总量范围、最优存款保险的种类安排等的决定方法,构建了银行导向的存款保险的实施框架。