我们是否在过度消费?

本文提出了判断消费是否过度的两大标准，即现值最大化标准和可持续性标准，并将人口增长和技术进步因素纳入可持续性标准进行讨论。在对两个标准分别进行了实证研究后，文章认为，目前世界上许多国家的经济发展未能满足可持续性原则，对人力资本和制造资本（manufactured capital）的投资不足以补偿时自然资本的消耗。     

Forest Conservation – Too Much or Too Little? A Political Economy Model

This paper studies the formation offorest policy when the government isinfluenced by an environmental lobbyand an industrial lobby representing anon-competitive wood processing industry.Government decides on forestconservation by way of restricting timberharvesting. Lobbying is modelledas a common agency game with differencesin the efficiency of lobbying. Acomparison of the political equilibriashows that an exporting forestindustry faces a stricter conservationrequirement than a forest industrywhose production is destined for domesticmarkets. If the industrial lobbyis more efficient than the environmentallobby, conservation is insufficientfrom the social point of view. However,conservation may be insufficienteven if the environmental lobby is moreefficient in lobbying than theindustrial lobby. This is because thelobbying effort of the environmentallobby also benefits consumers thatremain politically passive.     

When Competition is Not Enough: Consumer Protection

Rather than market structure, it is the nature of the goods and services and the cost of obtaining and processing information that may place consumers in a poor bargaining position. The article outlines the key provisions for consumer protection in Australia, Part V of the Trade Practices Act. It discusses search costs, and the factors that limit search, and explains how the conduct of suppliers (or others) may reduce search costs. Asymmetry of information is identified as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for misleading consumers. When products are sub standard or are used incorrectly, they may harm consumers or cause property damage and in some circumstances this may be best addressed via product liability laws. The article concludes by considering how firms or industries can be more pro-active in relation to consumer protection.     

中国股票市场流动性:过高还是过低 --一个国际比较视角的分析

现有中国证券市场流动性方面的研究在评价中国证券市场(尤其是股票市场)流动性水平问题上分歧相当严重.本文从国际比较的视角出发,利用波动性调整后的换手率指标对中国上海证券交易所、深圳股票交易所和纽约股票交易所的流动性水平进行度量.结论表明,中国股票市场流动性在一定程度上优于NYSE市场,同时,剧烈的市场波动对市场流动性造成了损害.     

Performance Pay,Productivity and Morale*

This paper incorporates the notion of worker morale into an economic model of pay and performance, and examines its implications for the efficacy and design of performance-based pay schemes. A worker's morale is determined by his relative pay status. A contract that rewards only individual performance can therefore undermine the morale of the least skilled workers in a firm and thereby adversely affect their productivity. On the other hand, competition for relative pay status tends to boost the productivity of highly skilled workers in the firm. The net effect on productivity depends on the composition of the firm's workforce. If the workforce is sufficiently heterogeneous then the inclusion of a profit-sharing component in the pay contract, which reduces the pay differential across workers, can sufficiently boost the morale of the least skilled workers as to improve overall productivity and profitability.     

企业特征、高管薪酬结构与企业绩效

利用2005—2010年我国沪深两市A股非金融保险行业1654家上市公司的高管年度薪酬数据,结合企业特征,对不同类型企业的高管薪酬结构与企业绩效的关系进行了实证研究,细化锦标赛理论和行为理论在不同类型企业中可能形成的差异化实施效应。结果显示:我国不同类型的企业都比较适宜采用锦标赛理论制定高管薪酬激励政策,竞争性的高管薪酬结构对于提升企业绩效具有正面作用,均等化高管薪酬结构不利于企业的价值创造;相对于民营企业、小规模企业、低成长企业而言,我国国有企业、大规模企业、高成长企业更宜采用锦标赛理论设计企业高管薪酬结构。因此我国不宜对非金融保险行业国有企业的高管薪酬进行过度均等化的管制,否则会负面影响企业绩效提升和企业价值创造。     

高管团队内薪酬差距、公司绩效和治理结构

公司高管团队内薪酬差距主要指CEO薪酬水平同其他高层管理人员之间的薪酬数额的差别。本文对我国上市公司内高层管理人员薪酬差距和公司未来绩效之间关系进行了检验 ,发现二者之间具有显著的正向关系 ,大薪酬差距可以提升公司绩效。该结果支持薪酬激励的锦标赛理论而不是行为理论。本文还发现 ,影响我国公司薪酬差距的主要因素不是公司外部市场环境因素和企业自身经营运作上的特点 ,而是公司治理结构。本文认为 ,我国上市公司应适当提高薪酬差距以维持足够的锦标赛激励能量 ,而提高薪酬差距的主要出路在于进行治理结构改革。     

The World Is Not Enough! Small Open Economies and Regional Dependence

In this paper, we explicitly introduce regional factors into a global dynamic factor model. We combine new open economy factor models (emphasizing global shocks) with the recent findings of regional importance in the business cycle synchronization literature. The analysis is applied to a large panel of domestic data for four small open economies. We find that global and regional shocks explain roughly 30 and 20 percent, respectively, of the business cycle variation in all countries. While global shocks have most impact on trade variables, regional shocks explain a relatively large share of the variation in cost variables.     

高管同酬、激励效率与公司绩效

我国部分上市公司的董事长和总经理领取的年薪完全相同。这种高管同酬的确定依据是什么？高管同酬是否具有激励效率？高管同酬又会对公司绩效产生什么影响？文章利用2007－2012年 A 股上市公司数据,对高管同酬及其经济后果进行了实证分析。研究发现,部分上市公司出现高管同酬,主要是因为高管薪酬由公司政治因素或内部薪酬比较所决定,而并非遵循最优契约观所寓示的“效率逻辑”;与高管异酬的公司相比,高管同酬公司的董事长薪酬激励缺乏效率;高管同酬对公司未来财务绩效产生了显著的负面影响。这表明在中国情境下,高管薪酬契约的设计和实施需要关注公司权力博弈或内部薪酬比较等非经济性因素的影响。     

行长薪酬、薪酬差距与银行绩效

文章不仅研究了银行高管薪酬的影响因素,还从中国上市银行内部薪酬差距的角度出发,依据锦标赛理论和行为理论探讨了银行内部薪酬差距与银行绩效之间的相关关系。研究结果显示,中国上市银行的薪酬结构具有一定的合理性。此外,通过对银行行长薪酬与银行绩效的回归分析发现,银行行长薪酬与银行绩效的联系程度还不够紧密,需要在今后的薪酬制度改革中进一步加强。     

机构投资、高管薪酬与公司业绩研究

文章以2008-2012年我国沪深两市A股前十大股东中有机构投资者持股的上市公司为样本,运用回归分析法研究了机构投资者持股、高管薪酬和公司业绩三者之间的关系,并在此基础上探讨了不同类型机构投资者对高管薪酬和公司业绩的治理效果是否存在差异。研究结果表明,上市公司的高管薪酬与公司业绩正相关,机构投资者持股与高管薪酬正相关,并且机构投资者能够通过作用于高管薪酬激励机制进而影响公司业绩;不同类型的机构投资者持股,其通过薪酬制度对公司业绩的影响不同。建议积极培育多元化的市场投资主体,完善机构投资者的发展结构;优化上市公司股权结构,形成多元化的股东结构;通过鼓励非国有经济、引进战略投资者、交叉持股等方法来进一步构建多元化的股东结构,促进公司治理的市场化,为机构投资者创造良好的治理环境。     

Performance Pay and Adverse Selection*

It is well known in personnel economics that firms may improve the quality of their workforce by offering performance pay. We analyze an equilibrium model where worker productivity is private information and show that the firms’ gain from worker self‐selection may not be matched by a corresponding social gain. In particular, the equilibrium incentive contracts are excessively high‐powered, thereby inducing the more productive workers to exert too much effort and increasing agency costs stemming from the misallocation of effort.     

Too Much of a Good Thing? The Quantitative Economics of R&D‐driven Growth Revisited

This article augments an R&D‐based growth model of the third generation with human capital accumulation and impure altruism, calibrates it with U.S. data, and investigates whether the market provides too little or too much R&D. For benchmark parameters, the market share of employment in R&D is close to the socially optimal solution. Sensitivity analysis shows that the order of magnitude of possible deviation between market R&D and optimal R&D is also smaller than suggested by previous studies. Small deviation of total research effort, however, can be compatible with large sectoral misallocations. Furthermore, the model allows for two additional channels through which population growth may affect the resource allocation so that its overall economic impact is no longer predetermined as positive. Numerical calibrations show that economic growth at the average rate in the U.S. over the last century can be consistent with a small and probably negative partial correlation between population growth and economic growth.     

干部任用“年轻化”≠“低龄化”

"年轻化"是小平同志干部任用"四化"标准之一,通过干部年轻化,使干部队伍充满生机活力,促进了中国政治经济社会的发展.但在实际工作中,一些地方政府出现了矫枉过正的现象,将地方中高层干部年龄定得过低.在很大程度上实质是把干部"年轻化"等同于"低龄化",是在干部人事制度的认识和执行上出了偏差的表现,带来了一系列问题.     

Performance Standards and Incentive Pay in Agency Contracts

When the presence of limited liability restricts a principal from imposing monetary fines on an agent in case of poor performance, the principal might use other kinds of punishment threats to deter the agent from shirking. We show that under the optimal contract in this case, the principal sets a performance standard and punishes the agent if the standard is not met, but rewards the agent on a profit-sharing basis if the standard is significantly exceeded. The optimal choice of performance standards for such contracts is discussed. It is shown that punishment threats, although inefficient, often help the principal to discipline the agent.
JEL classification : D 82     

Do Consumers Purchase Too Much Health Insurance? The Role of Market Power in Health‐Care Markets

Several authors have suggested that consumers purchase too much health insurance in private markets. We readdress this issue within a model that combines excess health‐care demand due to health insurance with market power due to monopolistic production of health‐care services. We evaluate the market equilibrium in terms of consumer welfare and social welfare. The consumer welfare criterion suggests that in the market equilibrium consumers in fact purchase too much health insurance coverage. The social welfare criterion, in contrast, suggests that because profits of the health‐care industry are properly accounted for, consumers should purchase more insurance coverage than they choose to do in the market equilibrium.     

When a Good Business Model is Not Enough: Land Transactions and Gendered Livelihood Prospects in Rural Ghana

Recent large-scale commercial agriculture projects in developing countries have raised concerns about the effects on natural resource-based livelihood activities of local people. A significant weakness in the emerging literature is the lack of a gender perspective on implications for agrarian livelihoods. This article explores the gendered aspects of land transactions on livelihood prospects in the Northern Region of Ghana. Drawing on qualitative research from two commercial agriculture projects, the article examines how pre-existing gender inequalities in agrarian production systems, as well as gender biases in project design, are implicated in post-project livelihood activities. The article concludes that a good business model of a land deal, even one that includes local communities in production and profit sharing, is not sufficient to protect women's livelihood prospects if projects ignore pre-existing gender inequalities and biases, which limit access to opportunities.     

What's Not Converging? East Asia's Relative Performance in Income,Health, and Education*

This paper discusses East Asia's performance in terms of per capita gross domestic product growth rates over the past 40 years and compares that performance to progress primarily on measures of health. It also compares the region to the rest of the world on a set of broader development measures. It looks at the evidence of East Asian regional and global convergence in health and education, alongside evidence from the region matching global evidence of a comparatively weak link between income growth and health and education growth. This finding is echoed by available within‐country evidence from the region. This paper discusses what might be behind these results, suggesting the importance of a few simple supply‐side interventions coupled with the spread of demand for health and education services as sufficient to drive quality‐of‐life convergence.