Welfare Implications of Non‐scale R&D‐based Growth Models

Non‐scale R&D‐based growth models imply that the decentral and the socially optimal long‐run growth rate coincide. Nonetheless, the distortions inherent in a market economy bias both the R&D investment share and the saving rate. As a result, the level of the balanced growth path may differ substantially between the two types of solution, implying a dramatic loss in welfare. The present paper explores the sources and magnitude of this gap. In addition, the consequences of public policies are examined, distinguishing between isolated policy measures from an overall policy programme.     

Inflation and Openness with Non‐Atomistic Wage Setters

This paper analyses the impact of trade openness on inflation in a strategic framework characterised by monopolistic production in the domestic sector and unionised labour markets. By stressing the interplay between internal and external sources of economic distortion, we show that the economy's inflationary bias reduces up to a critical level of trade openness. Beyond this threshold, wage setters may be induced to behave more aggressively in open economies, leading to higher equilibrium inflation. Based on a regression analysis that investigates the combined effect of labour market institutions and openness on inflation across nineteen OECD economies, we show that inflation is negatively related to openness when wage bargaining is decentralised, while there is virtually no link between openness and inflation at higher levels of wage centralisation.     

Efficiency and Productivity Change of Non‐Life Insurance Companies in Japan

In a book published in 1994, Production Frontiers , Färe and colleagues developed an output‐based DEA (data envelopment analysis) technique to compute productivity change. The technique constructs the Malmquist index using Farrell measures of efficiency. The Farrell efficiency measures are derived from linear programming problems which allow slack in output constraints. The possible existence of output slack is less than desirable in the computation of efficiency. Therefore, the present paper constructs also the Russell and Zieschang measures of efficiency, which disallow output slack and compares them with the Farrell measures. The analysis uses data on Japanese non‐life insurance firms during the period 1983–94.     

Russian Railways Reform and the Problem of Non‐discriminatory Access to Infrastructure

Abstract Restructuring of the Russian railways system is well under way. Among the policies just now coming into practice are two that are standard in railways restructuring in other countries: the provision of access to the infrastructure by independent train operating companies, and assurances of non‐discriminatory access terms for such companies. However, 'discrimination'– in the traditional economic sense – is a standard and often welfare‐enhancing pricing strategy for the recovery of fixed costs in a sector, like railways, with declining average costs. If competition regulators are unable to distinguish between discrimination that harms competition and discrimination designed only to recover fixed costs, policy makers in Russia and elsewhere will face a choice between large government subsidies and large welfare losses. In these circumstances, other restructuring models should be considered.     

An Empirical Analysis of Cost Efficiency in Non‐profit and Public Nursing Homes

Abstract *** :  This paper examines the issue of cost‐efficiency in Switzerland's nursing homes, an issue of concern to policy makers because of the rapid growth of elderly care expenditure and the aging of the population. The fact that nursing homes in Switzerland exist in different institutional forms, private for‐profit, government and non‐profit status, raises the issue of their relative cost efficiency. A panel data of 17 public and 19 nonprofit nursing homes operating over the 9‐year period from 1993 to 2001, in one of the 26 Swiss cantons, Ticino, is studied. Ticino's nursing homes are heavily regulated and monitored by the canton's authorities. However, given that in public firms there are more bureaucratic constraints and agency problems, one can expect a relatively low level of cost‐efficiency. In this paper the effect of institutional form on efficiency is studied using a translog stochastic cost‐frontier model. Several specifications are used to study the robustness of the results. The results suggest that the institutional form influences the efficiency of the studied nursing homes in that non‐profit foundations are likely to be more cost‐efficient than the nursing homes operated by government administration. The results also suggest that a great majority of the nursing homes in the sample do not fully benefit from scale economies. This implies that efficiency gains can be obtained with larger capacities or joint operations .     

Decreasing Impatience: A Criterion for Non‐stationary Time Preference and "Hyperbolic" Discounting

Despite recent interest in hyperbolic discounting, there has been little discussion of exactly what property of time preferences is instantiated by hyperbolic or quasi‐hyperbolic functional forms. The paper revives an earlier proposal in Prelec (1989) that the key property is Pratt–Arrow convexity of the log of the discount function, which corresponds to decreasing impatience(DI) at the level of preferences. DI provides a natural criterion for assessing the severity of departure from stationarity in that greater DI is equivalent to more choices of dominated options in two‐stage decision problems, as well as greater convexity of the log of the discount function. Inefficient choices may arise as intentional precommitments, or as unintended reversals of preference by “naïve” agents.     

Multiple Buyers, Rent‐Defending and the Observed Social Costs of Monopoly

This paper uses analytical and experimental methods to assess the effects of fracturing the interests of agents seeking to maintain the competitive status quo in a rent‐seeking contest for a monopoly franchise. Theoretically, it is shown that while "rent‐defending" can ameliorate the social costs of rent‐seeking, these beneficial effects deteriorate quickly as the interests of those seeking to maintain the status quo become fractured. Experimental results indicate that overbidding is persistent when bidders have different sharing rules. In fact, the observed social costs of rent‐seeking often increase just when rent‐defending has the greatest predicted ameliorative effect.     

Decentralized Policymaking in a Long‐run Growth Model with Seigniorage and Taxes

The paper introduces decentralized policymaking into a game‐theoretic model with output growth through capital accumulation, and in which the determination of taxes, seigniorage and the long‐run growth rate of the economy reflects the strategic interactions between the government, the central bank and the private sector. The paper investigates, among other things, the impact on the long‐run growth rate of a higher degree of inflation aversion of the central bank and a higher degree of inefficiency in the tax system.     

On the Equivalence of Taxes Paid by Employers and Employees

In this paper we study the employment effects of a budget neutral restructuring of taxes levied on employers and employees. We derive conditions for taxes levied on workers to have the same employment effects as taxes levied on firms under standard processes of wage determination.     

Unit Versus Ad Valorem Taxes: The Private Ownership of Monopoly in General Equilibrium

Employing a general equilibrium framework, Blackorby and Murty prove that, with a monopoly and under 100% profit taxation and uniform lump‐sum transfers, the utility possibility sets of economies with unit and ad valorem taxes are identical. This welfare equivalence is in contrast to most previous studies, which demonstrate the superiority of the ad valorem tax in a partial equilibrium framework. In this paper, we relax the assumption of 100% profit taxation and allow the consumers to receive profit incomes from ownership of shares in the monopoly firm. We find that, under certain regularity conditions, for any fixed vector of profit shares, the utility possibility sets of economies with unit and ad valorem taxes are not generally identical. But it does not imply that one completely dominates the other. Rather, the two utility possibility frontiers cross each other. Additionally, employing a standard partial equilibrium welfare analysis, we show that the Marshallian social surpluses resulting from the two tax structures are identical when the government can implement unrestricted transfers.     

语言输入模态对书面语输出的差异性影响实证研究

本研究采用平衡准实验设计,探讨英语教学过程中语言输入模态对书面语输出的影响。研究发现,视觉输入与听觉输入对不用语义关系的书面语输出有不同影响,且与受试英语水平存在交互效应;输入频数在不同输入模态下对不同语义关系输出影响不同,且与受试英语水平存在交互作用。     

公共服务投入决策与产出效果的互动影响——基于VEC模型的经验分析

较之于扩大公共服务提供规模和实现均等化而言,改善公共服务内部生产效率更适合中国的民生改善之路.本文通过构造公共服务提供的内生系统,基于中国长期经验数据考察了中国公共服务投入决策在不同服务项目之间的产出效幕,同时研究了公共服务产出效果时投入决策的反馈影响.结论表明,中国公共服务存在不同服务项目阔产出效果差异较大,产出对投入决策反馈影响在长期内显著,但在短期内影响偏弱,并认为改进资源配置并强化产出对投入决策的反馈影响有利于中国民生总体状况的改善.     

Joint Adjustment of House Prices, Stock Prices and Output Towards Short‐run Equilibrium

A dynamic IS‐LM model including houses and stocks as additional assets will be analysed in this paper. Providing also housing services, a major consumption item for most households, houses create an additional link between the monetary and the real sector, distinct from the traditional wealth effect channel. We analyse the adjustment path of output, house prices and stock prices after policy shocks within a rational expectation setup. Depending crucially on the elasticity of housing services demand, different reaction patterns of asset prices will emerge. The results are contrasted with relevant empirical findings, particularly Lastrapes (Journal of Housing Economics, 11 (2002), pp. 40–74), leading to the identification of plausible elasticity ranges. The analysis sheds new light on the ongoing discussion about demand effects from changing real estate wealth and about determinants of house price fluctuations.     

The CES‐‐Translog Production Function, Returns to Scale and AES

The translog functional form imposes no a priori restrictions on the substitution possibilities between the factor inputs, by relaxing the assumption of strong separability, and the CES–translog cost function specification allows for testing homothetic technology with Hicks‐neutral technical change. In this paper an n ‐factor CES–translog production function is presented which develops the parameters to directly assess scale effects from those due to technology in the production structure. In addition, by applying Shephard's lemma it was possible to derive the input demand functions, as well as the partial elasticities of substitution and the cross‐partial price elasticities of demand for a generalized CES–translog production structure.     

The adjustment of external tariffs in the Kemp‐Wan‐Grinols compensation scheme

Abstract.  This paper considers the adjustment of external tariffs when two countries integrate and implement the Kemp‐Wan‐Grinols compensation scheme. Attention is also paid to the restrictions set by Article XXIV of GATT. This paper shows how the external tariffs would change in a three‐good, three‐country model under the assumption of gross substitutability. The results are sensitive to the initial trade pattern. In particular, they depend on the number of goods initially traded between the member countries. The analysis can be extended to a multi‐commodity model if the preferences of the countries have identical CES representation. JEL classification: F11, F15     

The Impact of Input and Output Tariffs on Firms' Productivity: Theory and Evidence

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization on productivity. It shows that when intermediate inputs are not highly differentiated, lowering input tariffs leads to a rise in within‐firm productivity and wages, and lowering output tariffs has the opposite effect. When intermediate inputs are highly differentiated, the conclusions reverse. These predictions are supported by the data, given by the industrial survey from INEGI (Mexico's Insitituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informacion) in the period 1984–90. The paper yields estimates for the elasticity of substitution among intermediate inputs, which are useful in determining the direction of the impact of trade liberalization. These estimates can be used to assess the gains from trade liberalization.     

A Simple Characterization of the Second‐best Two‐part and Block‐rate Tariffs Theory and Applications

The general necessary optimality conditions for second‐best discrete multipart tariffs are rather complex. In this paper, we derive a simplified characterization of these conditions for two‐part tariffs and for block‐rate tariffs for given thresholds of these tariffs. The simplified necessary optimality conditions are equivalent to the necessary conditions for a Ramsey‐optimum for goods with continuously variable individually demanded quantities. We demonstrate that this characterization of second‐best multipart tariffs can be helpful, when applying the usual regulatory mechanisms to these tariffs. In particular, we consider Vogelsang–Finsinger (1979) regulation as well as a particular form of price‐cap regulation which is related to the Laspeyres index of prices.     

The Political Economy of the (Weak) Enforcement of Indirect Taxes

The objective of this paper is to understand the determinants of the enforcement level of indirect taxation in a positive setting. We build a sequential game where individuals, who differ in their willingness to pay for a taxed good, vote over the enforcement level. Firms then compete à la Cournot and choose the fraction of sales taxes to evade. We assume in most of the paper that the tax rate is set exogenously. Voters face the following trade‐off: more enforcement not only increases tax collection but also increases the consumer price of the goods sold in an imperfectly competitive market. We obtain that the equilibrium enforcement level is the one most preferred by the individual with the median willingness to pay, that it is not affected by the structure of the market (number of firms) and the firms’ marginal cost, and that it decreases with the resource cost of evasion and with the tax rate. We also compare the enforcement level chosen by majority voting with the utilitarian level. In the last section, we endogenize the tax rate by assuming that individuals vote simultaneously over tax rate and enforcement level. We prove the existence of a Condorcet winner and show that it entails full enforcement (i.e., no tax evasion at equilibrium). The existence of markets with less than full enforcement then depends crucially on the fact that tax rates are not tailored to each market individually.     

高等教育投入产出主成分分析

知识经济条件下所形成的教育与经济的直接关联,引发了越来越多的经济学家对于研究教育投资及投资效率的兴趣.这些研究证实了人们的这样一个想法,即教育的投入是可以通过计算产出来判断其价值的.在我国,高等教育资源的稀缺问题本质上未得到缓解前,单纯通过分析个体受教育的经济收益来评估高等教育的效率,其说服力欠佳.因此,必须从社会发展的角度,从投入产出的整体角度来研究衡量高等教育的投入产出效益.     

新疆旅游业投入产出分析

本文以新疆2002年和2007年投入产出表为依据,从直接消耗系数和完全消耗系数、感应度系数和影响力系数以及投入产出乘数效应这三方面对新疆旅游业进行投入产出分析后发现,新疆旅游业对新疆经济的推动作用有限,旅游业自身的发展依赖于交通运输业、批发零售业、住宿餐饮业及交通运输设备业的发展,且旅游业的发展并未带来交通运输业的显著发展。