关于发行地方公债的理论依据及现实意义的探讨

目前世界上大部分国家都允许地方政府发行公债,同时无论从公平角度还是从效率角度,中国经济发展的实际也要求地方公债的存在。发行地方公债可以完善分税制、减轻中央政府的债务压力及完善中国的金融市场。在中国,随着各种政策制度的不断完善,各个经济领域体系的日益健全,发行地方公债的条件可以说已经基本上成熟了,发行地方公债在中国具有可操作性。可以说,地方公债的发行既有必要性,又有其可行性。因此,应在财政体制改革过程中,逐步建立、完善地方公债制度。     

后危机时代地方政府经济行为的风险分析

国际金融危机以来,伴随着中央宏观经济政策各种效果的显现,地方政府的经济行为在宏观调控中的影响受到了一定关注。以及今年希腊债务危机爆发以来,中国地方政府的债务问题的凸显也使得地方政府的经济行为研究进一步加深。从地方政府的支出、收入以及政策博弈行为三方面加以分析说明在后金融危机时期中央和地方政府关系调整的必要性。     

宏观调控中的公债政策选择

发展市场经济，需要加强政府的宏观调控。公债政策作为国家宏观经济政策的组成部分，在宏观调控中发挥着特殊的功能与作用。本文从合理运用公债政策，实现国家宏观经济目标出发，在指出两种体制下公债类型政策差异的基础上，着重考察分析了我国经济转轨期公债政策与制度的市场化变革及存在的问题，最后从合理界定财政职能范围、尽快实现公债类型的市场化转型，调整公债管理政策，加强公债政策与财政、货币政策的协调配合等方面，提出转轨期合理运用公债政策的建议。     

我国发行地方公债的新制度经济学分析

地方公债属于政府债务的范畴,它在发达的市场经济国家得到了广泛的应用并收到了很好的效果.由于我国历史和国情的原因至今没有允许地方政府独立发债,随着社会主义市场经济体制的完善和公共财政理论的深入发展,这一问题日益引起人们的关注,本文试图从新制度经济学的视角来分析我国地方公债发行的问题.     

关于我国地方政府发行公债的分析与思考

地方政府发行公债在发达的市场经济国家尤其是在美国和日本是一个相当普遍的现象,历史悠久.目前在我国人们对于地方政府是否应当发行公债存在着争议,发行公债作为政府缓解地方财政困难,完善财政分税分级体制的一种重要手段,也受到了学术界的广泛关注.本文就我国地方政府发行公债的问题,从财政学角度进行了简要的分析与探讨,通过对发行地方公债的利弊研究,以及我国财政管理体制完善改进,提出了对地方政府发行公债的可行性探究.     

最优财政和货币政策及其福利效应分析

本文建立了财政和货币政策协作的最优政策模型,并以中国经济为研究对象,以福利效应为最优政策的评估标准,研究了财政和货币政策协作的最优政策机制。分析表明:在Ramsey最优均衡下,财政和货币政策共同作用于通货膨胀和产出目标,以严格通货膨胀为目标的最优货币规则会使得政策的福利损失最小,但货币政策在产出目标、通货膨胀目标以及政策福利损失三者上不能同时兼顾;最优财政规则是趋向缩小收支差,从而趋近于福利损失最小。本文同时使用贝叶斯分析,对中国经济政策2005年第一季度至2009年第二季度的福利效应进行了评估,实证分析表明:样本期间政策的无条件福利损失处于波动状态,经济增长增加了家庭部门的条件福利损失,即经济增长导致跨期消费成本增加。     

公债效应的理论分析

古典经济学家的公债有害论 公债（或政府债务）的经济影响一直贯穿于经济思想史。重商主义者普遍认为：公债是财富的一部分，支付公债利息不过是财富从纳税人向公债持有者的转移。休谟猛烈批驳这种观点，休谟的公债观点可以总结为：第一，反对重商主义者“因为我们欠的是自己的钱，所以债务不重要的观点”；     

贸易政策不确定性与中国城市居民的消费福利

本文构建理论模型,从产品价格角度分析贸易政策不确定性对消费者福利的影响,并以中国入世为准自然实验,进行实证分析。研究发现,如果不加入WTO,贸易政策不确定性会提高中国消费品价格,使中国城市居民的消费福利平均降低1.02%,但出口国间贸易政策不确定性的竞争降低了中国消费品的价格,使高收入城市居民的消费福利上升0.004%;收入越高的城市居民在贸易政策不确定性中所损失的消费福利越大,在出口国间贸易政策不确定性竞争中所获得的消费福利越大,主要原因是其对非农产品的支出份额较高;贸易政策不确定性对城市居民消费福利的影响主要是通过最终品进口来实现。这意味着通过稳定的贸易政策,比如签订区域贸易协定,能够增加消费福利,但也要关注由此带来的消费不平等问题。     

近代中国的政府债务与金融发展

金融是现代国家能力的主要体现,而公债将国家财政和金融发展联系起来,推进了金融革命和经济转型.文章基于近代中国的政府债务与金融发展的资料,探讨了近代化过程中政府债务与金融发展之间的内在关系、现代金融体系转变与成长的演进路径以及近代中国金融发展的层次和阶段.研究表明:(1)金融体系由传统向现代的转变始于政府财政体制的变革,大体上经历了一个由新式银行和公共债务市场到私人融资和资本市场,再到完备金融工具和金融市场综合发展的演进路径;(2)近代中国的政府公债既推动了金融体系的成长,又决定了其发展水平;(3)虽然金融的现代化转变已经启动,新式银行体系也已初步形成,但金融市场仍然处于公共债务支配的时期,以股票和企业债券为主的资本市场的大发展仍然没有到来.当前,我国正处于政府债务和资本市场改革与发展的关键时期,而推进银行体系和公共债务市场的改革,对于资本市场的长期发展具有非常重要的意义.     

欧猪五国主权债务危机:原因、影响与启示

本文从美国次贷危机的影响、欧元区的制度缺陷、欧盟监管机制不完善以及过高的福利水平等方面分析了欧猪五国主权债务危机发生的原因和经济影响,并从三个方面分析了欧猪五国主权债务危机给中国的启示:(1)地方政府经济政策的定位要着眼于长期社会经济发展;(2)建立地方政府债务监管机制,加强中央对地方政府债务监管;(3)地方政府要保持适度的社会保障水平。     

Foreign Debt,Foreign Direct Investment and Volatility

We investigate how foreign debt and foreign direct investment (FDI) affect the growth and welfare of a stochastically growing small open economy. First, we find that foreign debt influences the growth of domestic wealth by lowering the cost of capital, while FDI affects the country's welfare by providing an additional source of permanent income. Second, a decline in domestic investment may improve domestic welfare as FDI replaces the gap. Even when the welfare deteriorates, its magnitude is mitigated, leaving more room for discretionary fiscal policy. Third, a fiscal policy aimed to stabilize domestic output fluctuations needs to be conducted not to crowd out the welfare benefit of FDI too much. Fourth, an economy with both types of foreign capital experiences wider welfare swings by external volatility shocks than the one with foreign debt alone, while the welfare effects from domestic volatility shocks are mitigated. The welfare effects of fiscal shocks are much smaller with both types of foreign capital. Lastly, the first-best labor income tax covers the government absorption by the labor's share of total output, and the capital income tax covers the rest. Investment is penalized or subsidized depending on the social marginal cost-gain differential.     

A note on public debt, tax-exempt bonds, and Ponzi games

By issuing tax-exempt bonds, the government can incur debt and never pay back any principal or interest, even if the economy without public debt evolves on a dynamically efficient growth path. The welfare effects of such a Ponzi type borrowing scheme are mixed. The current young will unambiguously benefit. Depending on preferences and the aggregate technology, a finite number of subsequent generations may also benefit. However, the welfare of all generations thereafter will be lower than in the economy without public debt.     

Optimal fiscal and monetary policies in the face of rare disasters

This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policies in an economy exposed to large adverse shocks (rare disasters). We contrast optimal policies under commitment and discretion and identify several striking differences between these institutional environments. A government that can commit to its policy plans relies heavily on debt to smooth the adverse effects of large shocks over time. Lack of commitment seriously limits the government's ability to use debt as a shock absorber. Under discretion, an increase in debt leads to an increase in inflation expectations and therefore higher nominal interest rate distortions. Hence, the discretionary government keeps debt in close vicinity of its steady-state level, and the response of taxes, inflation, and interest rates to shocks is much more pronounced under discretion than under commitment. This is particularly relevant for large shocks and when the initial stock of government debt is already high at the time the shock occurs. We also argue that the adverse welfare effects of disasters are larger under discretion than under commitment, but these welfare differentials can be significantly reduced by making the discretionary government inflation averse.     

Debt Maturity: Is Long‐Term Debt Optimal?

We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity premium , sustainability, and service smoothing. We use a dynamic-equilibrium model with tax distortions and government outlays uncertainty, and model maturity as the fraction of debt that needs to be rolled over every period. In the model, the benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. We then calibrate our artificial economy and solve for the optimal debt maturity for Brazil as an example of a developing country and the US as an example of a mature economy. We obtain that the calibrated costs from defaulting on long-term debt more than offset costs associated with short-term debt. Therefore, short-term debt implies higher welfare levels.     

公共资本投资、内生经济增长与合理政府债务规模*

本文基于一个具有内生增长机制的三部门世代交叠模型,讨论了政府举债为公共投资进行融资时经济的长期均衡;同时,通过数值模拟方法考察了我国的均衡政府债务规模及其影响因素。结果表明：在特定条件下,经济系统存在一个正的均衡政府债务-产出比重,该债务比重水平明显受到公共投资—产出比重、公共投资的债务融资比重、民间资本产出弹性等参数的影响。但是,均衡政府债务比重并不是无限上升的,当上述参数超过特定临界值时,经济系统无法达到均衡,政府债务-产出之比将持续上升,财政将不可持续。另外,当民间资本产出弹性较低时,较高的均衡政府债务比重可能导致经济运行动态无效率。数值模拟结果还显示,基于不同的假设情形,我国的均衡政府债务-产出比重均在不同程度上高于当前实际的政府债务规模,这为我国在未来期间实施扩张性财政政策提供了有利的依据。     

中国通货膨胀的福利成本研究

通货膨胀一直以来都是衡量一国宏观经济运行是否稳定和健康的重要指标。本文对国内外关于通货膨胀福利成本的研究发展进行了较为完整的综述,并在此基础之上运用消费者剩余方法和新古典宏观经济学一般均衡模型对中国通货膨胀的福利成本进行了计算和比较。实证结果说明,在中国高通货膨胀会带来较高的福利损失,因此将通胀率保持在较低的水平对提高中国的经济福利水平是有利的。     

Internal debt and welfare

This paper analyzes how multinational firms' internal debt financing affects high-tax countries. It uses a dynamic small open economy model and takes into account that internal debt impacts both the multinational firms' investment decisions and the government's tax policy. The government has incentives to redistribute income from firm owners to workers. If the government's redistributive motive is not too strong, internal debt reduces welfare in the short term by decreasing tax revenues. However, debt financing stimulates capital accumulation and exerts a positive long-term welfare impact.     

Debt Policy Rules in an Open Economy

In a small open economy model of endogenous growth with public capital accumulation, we examine the effects of a debt policy rule under which the government must reduce its debt–GDP ratio if it exceeds the criterion level. To sustain public debt at a finite level, the government should adjust public spending rather than the income tax rate. The long‐run debt–GDP ratio should be kept sufficiently low to avoid equilibrium indeterminacy. Under sustainability and determinacy, a tighter (looser) debt rule brings welfare gains when the world interest rate is relatively high (low).     

HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING,PUBLIC DEBT AND BALANCED BUDGET RULES

This paper considers a government that chooses its tax and borrowing policy in order to minimize the present value of the excess burden caused by taxation. In doing so, the government uses hyperbolic discounting. It turns out that public deficits are positive even if public expenditures are constant over time. With cyclical expenditures, the government chooses an asymmetric debt policy, i.e., in bad times it borrows more than it repays in good times. In contrast to tax smoothing and political economy theories of public debt, the welfare effects of a balanced budget rule are ambiguous.     

How do market reforms affect China's responsiveness to environmental policy?

A large percentage of total investment in China is allocated by the central government at below-market interest rates in pursuit of non-economic objectives. This has resulted in low rates of return and a high number of non-performing loans, threatening the future health of the Chinese economy. As a result, reform of capital markets is a high priority of the Chinese government. At the same time, the country is implementing various environmental policies to deal with serious pollution issues. In this paper we ask how reforms of the capital market will affect the functioning of a carbon tax. This allows us to assess how China's willingness to join global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is influenced by China's current efforts to reduce investment subsidies. We compare the costs of a carbon tax in a reformed economy with the costs of a carbon tax in the current subsidized economy. We find that in the subsidized economy the tax-interaction effect dampens the effect of a carbon tax resulting in smaller reductions in emissions than what would result in a reformed economy. Importantly, we also find that the effect on economic welfare from a carbon tax is lower in the subsidized economy; in fact, for lower levels of reductions, the carbon tax is actually welfare improving. These results have important implications for an economy undergoing economic transition. The carbon tax rate required to achieve a certain level of emission reductions will be higher in an economy with capital subsidies. However, the welfare implications of the tax indicate that the current system with capital subsidies is highly distorting implying that there is a high efficiency cost for the non-economic objectives the government is pursuing by maintaining this system of subsidies.