Risk sharing and industrial specialization in China

We investigate how risk sharing shapes industrial specialization across prefecture-level cities in China. By unbundling the mechanisms of risk sharing, we find that ex ante risk sharing generates a first-order stimulant effect on the geographical concentration of manufacturing industries, particularly for non-state-owned enterprises and cyclical industries. Ex post risk sharing matters only for state-owned enterprises. This result remains robust to instrument variable estimation and controlling for other determinants of industrial specialization. Finally, we show that interregional labor migration (special fiscal transfers) plays an important role in promoting interregional ex ante (ex post) risk sharing. The study implies that much more risk sharing and efficiency gains from industrial specialization would be achieved if capital markets and credit markets are better developed.     

Technological-knowledge bias and the industrial structure under costly investment and complementarities

We develop an extended directed technological change model with vertical and horizontal R&D to analyze the economic growth rate, the technological-knowledge bias and the industrial structure, assuming: (i) complementarities between intermediate goods, and (ii) internal costly investment. We find that complementarities directly affect long-run technological-knowledge bias and relative production, both elements influence the economic growth rate and neither affects the skill premium and the relative number of firms. We also verify that the relationship between the relative supply of skills and both economic growth and the industrial structure suggested by our model is qualitatively consistent with recent empirical data for a number of developed countries.     

Aggregate stability under a budget rule and labor mobility

Whether a balanced budget rule stabilizes or destabilizes an economy depends on various factors such as the production function or the instrument used to balance the budget. This paper argues that migration, which has widely been neglected in the literature, also affects equilibrium properties. We study the effect of pro-cyclical labor mobility in a neoclassical growth model with public debt and a balanced budget requirement. Labor mobility can destabilize the economy due to external effects. After a negative shock hits the economy, living abroad becomes relatively more attractive, resulting in out-migration. This increases per capita public debt as migrants leave behind their implicit liabilities. The government increases tax rates to satisfy the balanced budget requirement, which further depresses the economy and increases out-migration. The destabilizing effect of public debt kicks in at only slightly higher debt levels than the ones observed in the Euro area after the financial crisis.     

Foreign direct investment under a weak rule of law

We have developed a self‐enforcing contract model to show that better economic fundamentals can help an area or a region under a weak rule of law – but with order – to attract foreign direct investments (FDIs), whereas lowering taxes does not necessarily help. Using a cross‐region Chinese dataset, we find evidence consistent with our theoretical analysis. Regional variations in tax rates and the perceived quality of formal contracting institutions are not correlated with regional FDI inflows, but leadership characteristics are. Most conventional economic factors have the predicted effects on FDIs. The finding that FDI is lower in locations where domestic private firms have better access to finance and where the air quality is poor is also new to the literature.     

Dynamics of Government revenues and expenditures in industrial economies

The sources of growth in government revenues and expenditures in 22 OECD countries is addressed. The question of whether the revenue constraint is binding on the growth of government expenditures, or whether the ‘displacement’ effect of expenditure growth is binding is considered. Controls for the effects of the output gap and inflation rate on government revenues and expenditures in each of the 22 countries are presented. A major conclusion is that reductions in spending are essential to reducing budget deficits and controlling government size.     

The role of cultural and creative industries in optimizing industrial structure under low-carbon emission constraint

In the post-financial crisis era,China is facing dual pressure from reducing carbon emissions and external demand stagnation.The industrial structure changing is in urgent needs.The cultural and creative industries can expand China＇s markets through creating and stimulating demands,and can reduce carbon emissions at the same time.By producing both demands and supplies,cultural and creative industries may lead the development of other industries.Since innovation plays a quite important role in the value chain,cultural and creative industries can promote the industrial upgrading and the industrial structure optimization by industrial convergence.     

Strategic FDI and industrial ownership structure

We argue that different industrial ownership structures generate different incentives for firms to engage in FDI. A comparison is made between (partially) cooperative structures such as the Japanese kieretsu and Korean chaebol systems and competitive structures such as U.S. firms. It is found that ownership structure has significant implications for the probability of initial FDI. Whether or not a cooperative structure is also coordinated turns out to be crucial in predicting FDI behaviour. This has further implications for the optimal FDI incentives of potential host countries and for how empirical studies might be designed. JEL classification: F10, F21, F23
Stratégie d'investissements directs à l'étranger et structure de propriété de l'industrie . Les auteurs suggèrent que des structures différentes de propriété dans l'industrie engendrent des incitations diverses pour les entreprises à investir directement à l'étranger. On fait des comparaisons entre des structures partiellement coopératives comme celles des kieretsus au Japon et des chaebol en Corée, et des structures concurrentielles comme celles qui existent aux Etats–Unis. Il appert que la structure de propriété a un impact significatif sur la probabilité de faire initialement un investissement direct à l'étranger. Le fait que la structure de coopération engendre aussi une coordination s'avère d'une importance centrale pour prédire le comportement d'investissement direct à l'étranger. Voilà qui a des implications pour le design des incitations à investir par les pays hôtes potentiels, et pour le design des études empiriques de ces phénomènes.     

Profit sharing under the threat of nationalization

A multinational corporation engages in foreign direct investment for the extraction of a natural resource in a developing country. The corporation bears the initial investment and earns as a return a share of the profits. The host country provides access and guarantees conditions of operation. Since the investment is totally sunk, the corporation must account in its plan not only for uncertainty in market conditions but also for the threat of nationalization. In a real options framework, where the government holds an American call option on nationalization, we show under which conditions a Nash bargaining leads to a profit distribution maximizing the joint venture surplus. We find that the threat of nationalization does not affect the investment threshold but only the Nash bargaining solution set. Finally, we show that the optimal sharing rule results from the way the two parties may differently trade off rents with option values.     

Collateral premia and risk sharing under limited commitment

A competitive general equilibrium model with complete collateralized contracts under limited commitment is proposed and analyzed. With limited aggregate collateral, risk sharing is imperfect. There exists a minimal spanning set of finite collateralized contracts that generates the feasible space and that contains more than the complete set of collateralized Arrow securities. Examples show that exogenously restricting feasible contracts has a significant impact on agents’ welfare. I prove that constrained optimal allocations can be decentralized as a general equilibrium with collateral constraints, and vice versa. Because a capital good serves as collateral, it has an additional value, called collateral premium. The collateral premium is zero if and only if risk sharing is perfect. This is a testable implication of the model.     

Endowment,industrial structure,and appropriate financial structure: a new structural economics perspective

Standard policy advice at times of fiscal adjustment is to protect public spending on the poor. However, the political economy of fiscal adjustment could well indicate the opposite direction, to protect the non‐poor from adjustment. This point is illustrated by three case studies based on research on social programs in Argentina, Bangladesh, and India, focusing on how targeting performance varied with aggregate outlays. The results suggest a tendency for program spending on the non‐poor that is protected from budget cuts.     

产业结构调整背景下推行绿色信贷政策的思考

绿色信贷是我国银行业贯彻可持续发展战略、将经营活动与改善环境结合在一起的一项重大举措,是实施节能减排的有力金融杠杆。通过阐述了绿色信贷的含义,进而探讨在我国产业结构调整的背景下,我国商业银行推行绿色信贷政策的意义、实践及不足,并针对绿色信贷的建设提出了相关的建议。     

开放模式转型与产业结构升级

后进国家的产业升级与对外开放密切相关。初始的开放模式在经过一定时期的发展之后,会使后进国家在产业结构升级方面面临一些特殊的深层次矛盾,基于静态比较优势的国际分工往往直接造成经济结构转型的明显滞后。当前我国面临的产业结构严重不合理问题,很大程度上就是由于初始开放模式所带来的资源锁定效应,现实经济运行过程中初始开放模式从多个方面对产业结构升级构成严重制约。面对金融危机后阶段中全球经济格局的深刻变动,应当也必须要特别重视通过加快开放模式的转型来启动和支撑未来的产业结构升级,进而真正有效地加快我国经济发展方式转型的步伐。     

应正确把握产业结构的调整

长期以来,产业结构失调一直是困扰我国经济发展的老难问题,随着我国加入WTO的临近,我国产业结构的调整要与经济结构的全面调整相结合,使增量调整与存量调整相结合,调整方向应当从适应性调整转为战略性调整,从封闭性调整转向开放性调整。     

产业结构调整、工业水平升级与城市化进程

现代社会经济发展的主线,其实是产业结构、工业化和城市化三者不断调整升级并相互推动的过程;在此过程中,任何一方的显著进步都会同样明显反作用于其它二者发展。本文从三次产业结构演化与城市化进程的关系着手探讨城市化发展的一般规律;选择苏、浙、皖、赣四省样本数据,比较产业结构调整、工业水平升级与城市化进程的速度差距,进一步说明三者互动发展的关系。     

Cooperation,stability and social welfare under majority rule

We resolve collective irrationality in the stability set, a solution concept for voting games proposed by Rubinstein (J Econ Theory 23:150–159, 1980) to resolve the well-known paradox of voting in the core. A lack of cooperation within winning coalitions prevents their members from eliminating an alternative globally less preferred to another one when they observe the rational behavior defining the stability set. Allowing for the possibility of accompanying a coalitional vote with a binding solidarity agreement is a natural response to this cooperation failure. This leads to a new standard of behavior and a new solution concept called stability set with binding solidarity agreement or S _c -stability set. It is shown that the S _c -stability set and a newly defined version of the Mas-Colell bargaining set for simple games are not comparable with respect to set inclusion. The S _c -stability set includes the core, is included in the stability set and contains only Pareto-optimal alternatives. When individual preferences are complete linear orders, the S _c -stability set is always non-empty.      

Natural resource economics under the rule of Hotelling

Abstract.  Natural resource stocks held in situ are physical assets. Equilibrium in the assets market requires that their rates of return be such that their owners are just willing to hold on to them rather than invest elsewhere. I discuss a number of factors relating to the evolution of extraction costs, to the durability of the resource, to market structure, and to uncertainty, that are important in correctly characterizing the rate of return on holding exhaustible natural resource stocks. The emphasis is put on how those factors can potentially help bridge the gap between the basic Hotelling's rule of natural resource exploitation and the historical behaviour of the flow price of a number of resources. I also highlight some theoretical and empirical issues that need further attention.