内外经济政策不确定对中国出口贸易及其发展边际的影响*

本文分析了国内和国外政策不确定对中国出口贸易及其分解的影响,探究了它们的作用差异、具体特点及影响渠道。本文研究发现,国内和国外政策的不确定均显著阻碍了中国出口贸易及其广义边际、集约边际的发展,且前者作用格外突出。同时,控制了经济运行周期、经济危机的影响后,本文的基本结论仍比较稳健。此外,扩展研究发现政策不确定对中国出口的作用还依赖出口市场特点、行业要素密集度和出口沉没成本等因素。最后,本文还利用微观数据进行了简单的机制验证。     

REDISTRIBUTION AND FISCAL UNCERTAINTY SHOCKS

This article studies the impact of fiscal uncertainty shocks. In micro data, noncapital holders reduce consumption persistently in response to an increase in fiscal uncertainty whereas capital holders do not. Motivated by this evidence, I introduce limited capital market participation and show that it magnifies the fall in economic activity due to a fiscal uncertainty shock and induces macroeconomic comovement. This is because the limited participation model captures individual uncertainty about redistribution. When agents are ambiguity averse, this uncertainty about redistribution has first-order effects. As a result, the model successfully matches the empirical responses of macro and household variables.     

MONETARY POLICY,FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS,AND REDISTRIBUTION

This article examines how financial constraints affect redistribution via monetary policy. We explore a novel mechanism of monetary nonneutrality, which is based on debt limits imposed in nominal terms. Specifically, when debt is constrained by current income, monetary policy can alter the real terms of borrowing. Changes in inflation exert ambiguous effects, depending on the initial debt/wealth position and the willingness to borrow. We show analytically that borrowers can benefit from increased debt limits under lower inflation rates. This novel effect can dominate conventional debt deflation effects. We find that particularly less indebted borrowers as well as potential future borrowers gain and that aggregate welfare can be enhanced under a permanent reduction in inflation.     

MONETARY POLICY UNCERTAINTY AND ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS

We investigate the relationship between uncertainty about monetary policy and its transmission mechanism, and economic fluctuations. We propose a new term structure model where the second moments of macroeconomic variables and yields can have a first‐order effect on their dynamics. The data favor a model with two unspanned volatility factors that capture uncertainty about monetary policy and the term premium. Uncertainty contributes negatively to economic activity. Two dimensions of uncertainty react in opposite directions to a shock to the real economy, and the response of inflation to uncertainty shocks varies across different historical episodes.     

THE POLITICS OF PRECOMMITMENT WITH ELECTORAL UNCERTAINTY AND TRANSACTION COSTS

Despite the lack of legal channels through which binding commitments can be made by the government, economic and political factors enable it to affect future outcomes. In practice, large transaction costs are associated with any significant change of policy, and therefore the current government can adopt policies so that certain outcomes are more likely to be realized by its successor. In this paper it is argued that transaction costs combined with electoral uncertainty are likely to drive the current government to adopt a policy which is extreme relative to the preferences of the existing political parties. This policy is adopted in order to ensure that due to transaction costs, the future government will not depart radically from the most preferred policy of the current government. If the current policy is likely to affect the election outcome, then, in addition to the above considerations, the electorate attitudes would have to be taken into account by the government. Hence, the current government confronts two factors in choosing its policies: the behavior of the future government and the behavior of the electorate. The interplay between the two factors determines the choice of the current policy.     

HETEROGENEITY,REDISTRIBUTION, AND THE FRIEDMAN RULE*

We study monetary models with nondegenerate stationary distributions of money holdings. We find that the Friedman rule does not typically maximize ex post social welfare. An increase in the rate of growth of the money supply has two effects: the standard distortionary, or rate‐of‐return, effect makes money a less desirable asset for all moneyholders. A second, redistributive effect, creates a transfer from one type of agent to the other. An increase in the rate of growth of money away from the Friedman rule can produce a rate‐of‐return effect that dominates the standard effect.     

经济政策不确定性、银行集中度与银行风险

本文基于2007—2018年30家上市商业银行季度面板数据,首次针对不同方面的银行风险,采用固定效应模型详细探讨经济政策不确定性、银行集中度与银行风险之间的关系。研究结果表明：（1）经济政策不确定性会加剧银行经营风险和信用风险,但会降低银行风险承担;（2）银行集中度的上升会导致银行经营风险和信用风险上升,但对银行风险承担的作用不显著;（3）集中度在经济政策不确定性对银行风险的影响中具有调节效应,随着银行集中度上升,经济政策不确定性会更加剧银行经营风险和信用风险,且会进一步减弱银行风险承担。本文采用不同的银行集中度变量并涵盖多种银行风险衡量指标的实证结果均稳健。进而笔者基于实证结果,在银行风险防控方面对政策制定者及监管部门提出一些建议。     

经济政策不确定性、产权性质与商业信用

本文以经济政策不确定性为研究出发点,选取2007年第1季度-2014年第4季度沪深A股的上市公司,讨论了经济政策不确定性对企业商业信用规模的冲击。实证结果表明：当经济政策不确定性较高时,企业获得的商业信用规模总体上有缩小的趋势;国有企业会凭借产权优势抑制企业商业信用规模的下降;而较快的经济增长速度和较差的金融市场环境也会抑制企业商业信用规模的下降。本文的研究结果表明,经济政策不确定性对企业的商业信用规模确实存在冲击,商业信用作为企业维持经营的重要手段需引起特别重视。     

RISK,UNCERTAINTY AND CHINA'S EXPORTS*

Both theoretical and empirical models were developed in this paper to examine how exporters’ response to real exchange rate volatility (RERV) and real exchange rate misalignment (RERM) varies across industries in China. The theoretical model indicates that the impact of RERV depends on exporters’ attitude to risk while the effect of RERM is ambiguous. Using disaggregated industry data, Chinese exporters were found to be averse to RERV and RERM. This suggests that the negative impact on China's exports resulting from a revaluation of the RMB will be mitigated by a positive impact due to the reduction of RERM.     

UNCERTAINTY AND MONETARY POLICY DURING THE GREAT RECESSION

We employ a nonlinear proxy-VAR approach to document the large response of real activity to a financial uncertainty shock during and in the aftermath of the Great Recession. We replicate this evidence with an estimated DSGE framework that we employ to quantify the output loss due to the large uncertainty shock that materialized in 2008Q4. We find such a shock to be able to explain about 60% of the output loss in the 2008–2014 period. Our model also points to the powerful role played by the Federal Reserve's systematic monetary policy in limiting the loss of output during the Great Recession.     

INTEREST GROUPS,ELECTORAL COMPETITION,AND PROBABILISTIC VOTING FOR TRADE POLICIES*

Current models of trade policy formation in representative democracies lack the micro foundations from which the political actions of voters, interest groups, and policy makers can be deduced. This paper provides microfoundations for the most influential of representative democracy models, the Magee-Brock-Young (MBY) model. Probabilistic voting is formally introduced, the conditions for active lobbying are examined, uniqueness of lobbying equilibrium is established, and the responses of different groups' lobbying to exogenous changes are discussed. Finally, the existence of tariff equilibria is studied when, different from MBY, both parties share a common strategy space.     

DOMESTIC COMPETITION POLICY AND TARIFF POLICY COMPARED*

M. Yano and F. Dei have demonstrated that, by controlling the degree of competition in a non‐tradables market (competition policy), a country can influence the terms of trade so as to increase its welfare, relative to free trade. Using their model, this study compares the extent of this effect with that of a tariff policy. It demonstrates that a competition policy can achieve a higher utility than a tariff policy if tariff rates are at levels currently tolerated in the real world. This demonstrates that domestic competition policy may play an important role as a substitute for tariff policy.