A Note on Investment Incentives in the WTO and the Transition Economies

Most of the transition economies are already members of or in the process of accession to the WTO. Therefore their investment incentive regimes need to be compatible with the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures in the WTO. This study compares the fiscal investment incentives in the transition economies provided to foreign investors and shows which are expected to be phased out soon owing to their inconsistency with the current WTO regulations. It would be to their own benefit for these economies to make their investment policies consistent with the relevant WTO provisions, to take steps to eliminate subsidies prohibited in the WTO system and to try not to waste their resources, considering that the incentives may be subjected to countervailing measures by WTO members.     

信贷市场上投资项目的正逆向选择--不确定和不对称信息条件下投资项目正向和逆向选择的一般条件及转换

文章研究在不确定且信息非对称情况下,信贷市场上投资项目逆向和正向选择的一般条件.这里假设投资项目的结果只有两种,即要么成功,要么失败.我们定义并证明在一组仅具有两种结果的项目中,在成功概率-回报空间上存在一个逆向选择"区域"和一个正向选择"区域".Stiglitz和Weiss(1981)以及De Meza和Webb(1987)早先关于逆向选择和正向选择的案例实际上是一种特例,因为取决于所考察的项目情况,可以有无数个逆向和正向选择的情况.文章也考察了参数变化对企业家选择投资项目的比较静态影响,以及通过银行的某种决策组合把逆向选择转化为正向选择的可能性.     

Macroeconomic Impacts on Bulgarian Agriculture during Transition

An unstable and erratic macroeconomy in an economy in transition might be expected to affect agricultural performance. This is tested for Bulgaria between 1992 and 1997 using impulse response functions from a vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Despite data limitations, it is found that shocks to the foreign exchange rate and interest rate feed into farm prices and agricultural exports but equilibrium will be re–established within 5 years. Agricultural policies may not be sufficient to counteract the wider macroeconomic forces.     

A Note on Inflation Targeting

The authors present a pedagogical graphical exposition to illustrate the stabilizing effect of price target zones. Based on a textbook AD-AS apparatus, they find that authorities' commitment to defend a price target zone will affect the public's inflation expectations and, in turn, reduce actual inflation. They also find that, when the economy experiences supply shocks, the announcement that the monetary authorities intend to defend a price target zone will reduce the variability of domestic prices but raise the variability of domestic output relative to a free-price regime. However, when the economy experiences demand shocks, a price target zone tends to lower the variability of both domestic prices and out-put relative to a free-price regime.     

A Note on Tradeable Permits

This note offers a perspective on whether tradeable permits are a passing fad or an enduring trend. It does so in noting how various types of tradeable permit systems relate to conventional environmental permits, what are the unique requirements of tradeable permit systems, and why they might be preferred to alternative instruments. A final observation concerns the analogy between tradeable permits for environmental goods and private property in land. This note first appeared in the CESifo Forum, 4: 3 (Spring 2003), a quarterly publication of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich, Germany, as an invited article. Permission to republish is gratefully acknowledged. In forming the ideas expressed here, I am indebted to many years of discussion and collaborative research with Paul Joskow, Juan-Pablo Montero, David Harrison, and Richard Schmalensee. All errors of fact and interpretation remain mine.     

A Note on Compensation Schemes

In general, an economic reform wins unanimous support only if it incorporates a scheme of compensation.
It is widely believed that
(a) all lump-sum compensations: (i) have impractical information requirements about the technology of firms and the preferences of households, or (ii) are not manipulation-proof.
(b) Non-lumpsum compensations constitute feasible alternatives.
Further to the dissenting views of Kemp and Wan, this note makes two points: The first is that in a realistic model with overlapping generations, there is a lump-sum compensation scheme which is manipulation-proof . The second is that the presence of multiple equilibria may create havoc for a non-lumpsum compensation scheme. In real life, we have no information to rule out multiplicity.     

A Note on Progressive Taxation and Cooperation

This paper shows that marginally progressive taxation may help independent agents to sustain cooperation in a repeated prisoners' dilemma setting. It is suggested that political support for progressive taxation schemes may be affected by the desire to promote more cooperation among individuals.     

金融自由化及其相关理论综述

针对发展中国家金融体系出现扭曲、被削弱、萎缩,以及经济发展受到严重制约等现象,理论界提出了金融自由化理论.其主要包括:麦金农和肖的金融深化理论、麦金农和肖的金融深化理论的扩展、反对与完善M-S的理论、有关金融脆弱性的现代理论研究、金融危机理论与模型、金融自由化排序理论等.这些理论从内因和外因、宏观和微观多角度地对金融自由化进行了研究.但对于实践来说,理解金融自由化的关键就是:为什么频发的金融危机主要出现在进行金融自由化改革的发展中国家和转型经济国家.而从整个金融自由化发展的进程中多角度地来理解金融自由化,而不是单纯地用任何单一的方法来研究这一复杂的课题,应当是金融自由化理论的发展方向.     

A Rationale for Infant-Industry Protection and Gradual Trade Liberalization

A two-final-good, one-primary-factor, small–open endogenous growth model is constructed based on R&D. The model yields two steady states with different growth rates as potential equilibria. Depending on history and the external environment, the economy may fall into the poverty trap in free trade. However, a temporary trade policy can release the economy from the poverty trap. Moreover, the optimal trade policy is gradual trade liberalization with the rate of protection kept to a minimum.     

A Note on Trading Stamp Strategy

A Special class of promotions where the consumer is invited to play a game, receive trading stamps or accept gifts has continually elicited reactions from economists, congressional investigators and certain consumer groups. Furthermore, many of these promotions are condemned by their originators, yet they persist! I submit that our ability to effectively treat the problem has been limited by a lack of theoretical understanding of the fundamental causes and features that underlie such promotions. This paper is an attempt to provide a general theory of these cases which I have titled the oligopolistic ‘lock-in’.

Government intervention may often be necessary for the dissolution of the ‘lock-in’, but while firms may wish to free themselves from its grip, unfavorable publicity from such intervention has historically forced them to defend the status quo. In such cases, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure: if managers in industries where the ‘lock-in’ can exist understand the phenomenon, they can (hopefully) avoid its dilemma. Likewise, economists concerned with the public policy aspects can treat the causes rather than the symptoms.     

关于“小过渡”、“中过渡”、“大过渡”的辩证

所谓中过渡,就是马克思、恩格斯、列宁所说的过渡时期,即向无阶级的共产主义第一阶段过渡;所谓小过渡,就是在仍然存在阶级的情况下提前宣布进入社会主义,实际上降低了社会主义的标准,缩短了过渡时期;所谓大过渡,就是延长过渡时期,把共产主义第一阶段即社会主义也划归为过渡时期,把消灭阶级看作只有到共产主义高级阶段才能实现的目标,大过渡实际上就是向共产主义高级阶段过渡。所谓小过渡、中过渡和大过渡的说法是对马克思科学的过渡时期理论误读的产物;事实上,只有马克思的过渡时期理论才是唯一科学的、正确的,也是我们需要坚持的。     

A Methodological Note on Long-Period Positions

This brief paper seeks to overcome a number of methodologicaldisagreements among economists who use the long-period methodof analysis. In particular, it attempts to clarify the key distinctionsbetween convergence and stability, convergence and gravitationand chronological and theoretical persistence. The conclusionis that the theoretical soundness of the long-period methoddepends on the convergence of actual magnitudes towards theirlong-period counterparts, an empirical issue to which theoreticalconsiderations of stability are irrelevant.     

A Note on Public Input Specifications

Public or fiscal policy is sometimes concerned with the provision of some infrastructure. This paper deals with the specification of such infrastructures as public inputs. Among other things, and in contrast to relevant literature, it is shown that there is no identity between various public inputs concepts. Thus, the results help to avoid misspecifications and may contribute to better public policy designs concerning the provision of infrastructures.     

A Note on Best Response Dynamics

We investigate the relationship between the continuous time best response dynamic, its perturbed version, and evolutionary dynamics in relation to mixed strategy equilibria. We find that as the level of noise approaches zero, the perturbed best response dynamic has the same qualitative properties as a broad class of evolutionary dynamics. That is, stability properties of equilibria are robust across learning dynamics of quite different origins and motivations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D83.