Parental Wealth and the Black–White Mobility Gap in the U.S.

Utilizing longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this paper examines the relationship between parental wealth and intergenerational income mobility for black and white families. I find that total parental wealth is positively associated with upward mobility for low‐income white families, but is not associated with reduced likelihood of downward mobility for white families from the top half of the income distribution. Conversely, I find that total parental wealth does not have the same positive association for low‐income black families, while home ownership may have negative associations with the likelihood of upward mobility for these families. However, for black families from the top half of the income distribution, home equity is associated with a decreased likelihood of downward mobility, suggesting a heterogeneous relationship between home ownership and mobility for black families.     

U.S. Labor Market Dynamics Revisited

The picture of U.S. labor market dynamics is opaque. This paper aims at its clarification by (i) listing data facts that can be agreed upon; these indicate that there is considerable cyclicality and volatility of both accessions to and separations from employment and hence both are important for the understanding of the business cycle; (ii) presenting the business‐cycle facts of key series; (iii) pointing to specific gaps in the data picture, showing that the definite characterization of labor market dynamics depends upon the closing of these data gaps.     

财富、企业家才能与最优融资契约安排

本文认为企业家是企业发生的逻辑起点 ,是最初的“中心签约人” ,因此力图站在企业家的角度来考察企业家的融资行为。我们证明理性的企业家往往会将企业残值的优先索取权让度给外部投资者 ,从而否定了关于“投资者是最后的剩余索取者”的先验观点。在认识到“提供担保服务”是企业家自有资本的基本功能的基础上 ,我们揭示出一些关于企业家选择融资契约的规律。最后 ,我们还进一步发现即便未受财富约束 ,企业家也不会完全依靠自有资本来创业 ,因为很可能存在一个最优的企业家自有资本比例。     

Effects of U.S. Banking Deregulation on Unemployment Dynamics

I use state-level banking deregulation in the U.S. to study the causal impact of credit expansion on unemployment through its effects on the average monthly job-finding and job-losing rates. State-level analysis shows that deregulation increased the average job-finding rate and decreased the job-losing rate, and thus led to a lower unemployment rate. I also find that deregulation decreased the average unemployment duration. Extending the analysis to industry-state level, I find that the impact of deregulation on the job-finding rate is positive, but does not show any pattern across industries with respect to their needs for external finance. However, deregulation reduced the average job-losing rate, and the reduction monotonically increases with industries’ dependence on external finance.     

The demand for traded and non-traded goods in the U.S.

Annual postwar U.S. data are used to estimate the Rotterdam demand model for traded and non-traded goods. The estimated income elasticity is 1.51 for traded and 0.64 for non-traded goods, while the own-price elasticities are both between −0.3 and −0.2.     

Dynamics of volatility transmission between the U.S. and the Chinese agricultural futures markets

The U.S. and China are two of the biggest players in the world agricultural market. The literature documents that volatility in the U.S. agricultural futures market spills over significantly to that of China. This article provides further insights into the spillovers from China to the U.S. as well as the time horizon and dynamics of the bidirectional spillovers through the application of a multivariate extension of the heterogeneous autoregressive model, in relation to four commodities – soybean, wheat, corn and sugar. The results confirm the existence of significant spillovers from the U.S. to China for four commodities, which are primarily generated by the shorter-term volatility components in the U.S., and provide evidence for the increasing pricing power of the Chinese market. The findings are robust against various specifications and have important investment and policy implications.     

Time Series Analysis of Deregulatory Dynamics and Technical Efficiency: The Case of the U.S. Airline Industry

As markets worldwide become less regulated, it becomes increasingly possible and timely to establish the presence of an empirical relationship between technical efficiency and market forces compelling agents to economize. This article, taking an innovative approach to test the hypothesis that competitive pressure enhances efficiency, constructs a methodology to examine time series of technical efficiency indices for cointegration and convergence. A panel of U.S. airlines, observed quarterly between 1970 and 1990, is used as a case study. Cointegration results are suggestive of long-run relationships between carriers; furthermore, convergence tests document less dispersion in firm performance over time.     

U.S. farm dynamics and the distribution of U.S. agricultural subsidies

The persistent instability of the agricultural sector is the fundamental premise of most agricultural policy. Yet no research has ever quantified the aggregate dynamics of individual farms in the US. This article is the first to combine the US Census of Agriculture with the Agricultural Resource Management Survey to observe the dynamics of nearly 1.5 million farms. The data reveal substantial variation in farm size expansion and contraction. Most of this variation is unobservable in the sector totals reported by the US Department of Agriculture each year. The distribution of agricultural subsidies suggests that subsidies become more important as farms get smaller and may play a role in slowing farm size contraction.     

美元本位制、美元霸权与美国金融危机

美元本位制下,美元霸权表现为中心一外围框架体系.在该体系下,中心国美国与外围国家的权益和义务不对称,地位不对等,而且框架体系本身具有内在的不相容性,这些特征决定了美元本位制的内在脆弱性,由此也使美国落入美元本位制的陷阱,造成美国国内利率下降、消费信用过度扩张、制造业陷入衰退等经济失衡,最后当信用泡沫破灭时,金融危机爆发.     

The U.S. immigration crisis

A review of the factors affecting immigration to the United States is presented. The authors develop the argument that present levels of immigration, particularly illegal immigration, are detrimental to U.S. interests, and that current global population trends will make this situation progressively worse. Stricter controls on immigration are considered.     

财富和福利的创造——企业家精神和中国农村的发展型政府

1．引言 “企业家难得把远见、动力、创造力、知识和把握机会的能力巧妙地结合在一起，使他们能用创新方法组合生产要素，既为他们自己，也为整个社会创造财富。企业家的这一概念是与市场和赢利动机不可分割的……它也是社会私人领域的组成部分，与国家的公共领域或者‘公民社会’的共同领域是相对立的，而后者运作的动机和行为规则不同于前者”。……     

美国保险监管的特点及对我国的启示

保险研究有关资料表明，2002年美国保险市场的保费收入达10081亿美元，保险密度3613美元，保险深度9．65％，保险机构5086家，其中非寿险保险公司3260家，寿险和健康保险公司1826家。美国保险业的现状．代表着世界保险业的发展趋势。发达的保险业与其保险监管密不可分，因此，学习、借鉴美国保险监管的经验，对促进我国的保险监管工作迅速与国际接轨，保证我国保险业健康稳定发展意义重大。     

美国区域经济发展及其对我国的启示

经过“点”，“线”，“片”的开发，美国东中西的区域经济差异基本消除，从总体上实现了经济的可持续发展，美国的做法为我们提供了有益的启示和借鉴。     

The value of ecosystem services provided by the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System in the contiguous U.S.

Studies that demonstrate the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by public conservation lands can contribute to a more accurate appraisal of the benefit of these lands. The objective of this study was to estimate the economic value, in real (2004) dollars, of the ecosystem services provided by the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) in the contiguous U.S. In order to estimate this value, we determined the ecosystems present on the Refuge System in the contiguous 48 states, the proportion in which they are represented, and the dollar value of services provided by each. We used land cover classes as an approximation of ecosystems present in the Refuge System. In a geographic information system (GIS), we combined land cover geospatial data with a map of the Refuge System boundaries to calculate the number of acres for each refuge and land cover class within the Refuge System. We transferred values for the following ecosystem services: climate and atmospheric gas regulation; disturbance prevention; freshwater regulation and supply; waste assimilation and nutrient regulation; and habitat provision. We conducted a central tendency value transfer by transferring averaged values taken from primarily original site studies to the Refuge System based on the ecoregion in which each study site and refuge was located and the ecoregion's relative net primary productivity (NPP). NPP is a parameter used to quantify the net carbon absorption rate by living plants, and has been shown to be correlated with spatially fungible ecosystem services. The methodologies used in the site studies included direct market valuation, indirect market valuation and contingent valuation. We estimated the total value of ecosystem services provided by the Refuge System in the contiguous U.S. to be approximately $26.9 billion/year. This estimate is a first cut attempt to demonstrate that the value of the Refuge System likely exceeds the value derived purely from recreational activities. Due to limitations of current understanding, methods and data, there is a potentially large margin of error associated with the estimate.     

The value of ecosystem services provided by the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System in the contiguous U.S.

Studies that demonstrate the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by public conservation lands can contribute to a more accurate appraisal of the benefit of these lands. The objective of this study was to estimate the economic value, in real (2004) dollars, of the ecosystem services provided by the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) in the contiguous U.S. In order to estimate this value, we determined the ecosystems present on the Refuge System in the contiguous 48 states, the proportion in which they are represented, and the dollar value of services provided by each. We used land cover classes as an approximation of ecosystems present in the Refuge System. In a geographic information system (GIS), we combined land cover geospatial data with a map of the Refuge System boundaries to calculate the number of acres for each refuge and land cover class within the Refuge System. We transferred values for the following ecosystem services: climate and atmospheric gas regulation; disturbance prevention; freshwater regulation and supply; waste assimilation and nutrient regulation; and habitat provision. We conducted a central tendency value transfer by transferring averaged values taken from primarily original site studies to the Refuge System based on the ecoregion in which each study site and refuge was located and the ecoregion's relative net primary productivity (NPP). NPP is a parameter used to quantify the net carbon absorption rate by living plants, and has been shown to be correlated with spatially fungible ecosystem services. The methodologies used in the site studies included direct market valuation, indirect market valuation and contingent valuation. We estimated the total value of ecosystem services provided by the Refuge System in the contiguous U.S. to be approximately $26.9 billion/year. This estimate is a first cut attempt to demonstrate that the value of the Refuge System likely exceeds the value derived purely from recreational activities. Due to limitations of current understanding, methods and data, there is a potentially large margin of error associated with the estimate.     

Wealth Dynamics and the Endogenous Design of Firm Organization

The purpose of this paper is to explore a dynamic interaction between wealth distribution and firm organization design using a model of growth in altruism in which a consideration of moral hazard on the part of agents with risk-averse preferences prevents complete insurance and generates inequality. I show (i) that there exists an ergodic invariant distribution of wealth to which the stochastic process of lineage wealth converges globally, and (ii) that the firm form with direct evaluation of the agent's effort is more likely to be chosen as wealth is distributed more equally.