De-industrialisation and the balance of payments in advanced economies

This paper defines de-industrialisation as a secular declinein the share of manufacturing in national employment. De-industrialisation,in this sense, has been a widespread feature of economic growthin advanced economies in recent decades. The paper considersbriefly what explains this development and quantifies some ofthe factors responsible. It then examines the experience ofBritain and America, which are two countries that have combinedrapid de-industrialisation with a strong overall economic performance.The paper considers both the domestic situation of manufacturingindustry in these countries and its foreign trade performance.It concludes by examining in detail the British balance of payments,and documenting how improvements in the non-manufacturing spherehave helped offset a worsening performance in manufacturingtrade.     

Balance of payments accounting and exchange rate dynamics

The balance of payments is an accounting identity. Many wonder how the current and capital accounts, which add up to zero, can influence exchange rates. This paper shows how payment flows arising from balance of payments imbalances affect the demands for different currencies in the foreign exchange market over time. Based on a dynamical system approach, the paper demonstrates how international payments evolve depending on the joint dynamic behaviour of different balance of payments components. It finds that international payments and exchange rates interact in fundamentally different ways depending on whether a country restricts its capital inflows and outflows, whether capital flows are accommodating or autonomous and whether the exchange rate is fixed, flexible or, say, governed by a crawling peg. Empirical evidence from major industrial countries as well as from countries hit by currency crises support the paper's theoretical predictions.     

Brexit,the City and the Contingent Power of Finance

Brexit poses a profound challenge to the economic fortunes of the financial services sector in the United Kingdom (UK) because it threatens to sever access to the single market in the European Union (EU). Recognising this, the City of London’s largest financial firms and main representative bodies supported a Remain vote in the June 2016 referendum, and subsequently lobbied for a ‘soft’ Brexit policy to preserve the City’s lucrative passporting rights. Despite this, the government led by Theresa May pursued a ‘hard’ Brexit policy which threatened to leave the UK outside the single market. How can we explain the City’s apparent failure to influence the UK’s Brexit policy? We argue that whilst the UK financial sector wielded formidable latent structural power, its capacity to translate this into instrumental influence in the policy process was constrained by three factors: the political statecraft of Brexit, leading the government to downgrade the concerns of the financial industry; the reconfiguration of institutional structures, which undermined the City’s voice within government; and constraints on business organisation, caused by collective action problems and heterogeneous preferences. These three factors constitute important scope conditions which highlight the contingent power of finance in liberal market economies.     

Global imbalances and asymmetric returns to US foreign assets: fitting the missing pieces of the US balance of payments puzzle

The issue of whether the US earns a persistently higher return on its foreign direct investment (relative to returns to foreign-owned direct investment in the US) has received considerable attention but little closure in the ‘global imbalances’ debate. Measuring the rate of returns to US direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in the US we find higher returns to US foreign direct investment relative to its foreign counterparts in the US. Given the evidence indicating higher returns to US direct investment overseas, we link the irresolution in the contemporary literature regarding the existence of these returns to the unsettled debate over the origin of global imbalances. Reviewing the macro-financial literature on global imbalances, we find a failure to acknowledge that the US current account deficit is, in part, the outcome of transnational production networks in a global economy under-pinned by dollar hegemony. Given the growth in US multinational supply chains, we argue that the US trade deficit is consistent with asymmetric returns to US direct investment and that the sustainability of these return differentials rests on the stability of the status quo.     

经常项目逆差会导致货币危机吗

经常项目逆差与货币危机之间存在着相互关系。从理论上分析,汇率变动率可分解为经常项目差额变动率、资本项目差额变动率以及综合影响比率三者之和;但从实证角度看,汇率变动与其影响因素的变动关系相当复杂。研究显示,该关系很难直接通过线性回归模型来表达。通过相关分析,我们揭示出经常项目逆差与汇率贬值存在较明显的正相关关系;汇率贬值与GDP增长有较强的负相关性。但中国的情况似乎有些特殊,仍有待进一步考察。     

The Bank of England and Parliament were monetarily adroit during the Napoleonic Wars

Abstract

With the connivance of Parliament, was the Bank of England's over issue of banknotes inflationary? The inflation stemmed from military subsidy and Peninsula campaign payments, as well as food imports, far in excess of Britain's export earnings to cover these capital transfers (particularly when crimped by the Continental Blockade), and not merely from domestic credit over issue. Neither domestic money creation nor the fiscal theory of the price level best explains the imbalance in Britain's international accounts during the Napoleonic Wars. This deficit stemmed from domestic production shortfalls in essentials (above all food production) and contractual obligations such as military spending/subsidies relative to the pound's international purchasing power which emanated from the ability of Britain to sell exports and replace imports with domestic output (raise food production internally). These types of highly inelastic transactions tended to operate independently of domestic money creation, fiscal policy (taxes) or price developments (inflation). This article tracks England's bullion debate, which concerned whether gold prices rose (and hence sterling's exchange rate fell) because military capital transfers overwhelmed the balance of payments, or because the Bank of England over issued paper money after the gold cover was removed in 1797. The issues herein are not antiquated because the primary issues in monetary debates for two centuries have concerned the cause of inflation and deflation, and whether the domestic money supply or the balance of payments is responsible. Determining actual causation is critical for the proper solution: monetary deflation, or domestic and international restructuring of trade and investment.     

Financial dependence and the terms of payments in international transactions

Using a novel data on payment choice in export transactions, this study shows that financing cost in a country is more important in terms of offering (undertaking) post-shipment (prepayment) terms in exports (imports) for the industries that rely more on external finance.     

Current Account, Capital Formation and Terms of Trade Shocks: a Revisit of the Harberger-Laursen-Metzler Effect

This paper extends the Blanchard model of a closed-economy to a three-good (exportable, importable and non-tradable goods) open-economy model with capital accumulation and uncertain lifetimes to study the impacts of terms of trade shocks on the current account. The simulation results show that a model with uncertain lifetimes is more appropriate to describe a small open economy like Taiwan at the steady-state equilibrium than a model with infinite lifetimes. We find that the Harberger-Laursen-Metzler effect is discernible for temporary or permanent terms of trade shocks. Furthermore, the steady state is a saddle point and the speed of convergence of capital and consumption is quite low.     

An Apartment Story: To Introduce the Study of Spot,Forward, and Futures Markets,the Term Structure,and Arbitrage

An imagined apartment condominium complex is used as a device to teach how real markets work.     

金融共生理论对银行与保险关系的研究

我国现阶段的银行与保险之间是一种共生关系，金融混业经营是必然趋势，银行保险、保险银行或金融控股公司是银保共生发展的优化方向。不合理的制度安排制约了银保关系的深化发展。加快金融体制改革步伐，健全完善法律法规才是解决问题的关键所在。     

储蓄率、经常项目顺差与人口结构变迁

文章从一个多期人口代际交叠模型入手,分析了计划生育政策对人口结构和抚养比例的影响,同时还运用中国数据对人口抚养比与储蓄率、相对生产率差异与经常项目差额进行协整与因果检验。文章认为:计划生育政策并非不可持续,特定时期内放开该政策已经无法应对社会抚养高峰,而保持该政策则会获得一个较低人口总量的均衡人口结构。经常项目差额实际上只是储蓄的跨时空转移。人口年龄结构决定储蓄率,决定储蓄的跨时间转移,国家相对生产率差异决定储蓄的跨空间转移。空间上的这种转移并不改变一国国民的总福利;时间上的转移也不改变代与代之间的总福利。因此,不考虑人口结构、提高即期消费率刺激经济的做法值得商榷,过分关注短期经常项目差额并无太大必要。     

基于金融发展质量的金融与区域经济增长研究

金融增长表现为金融资产规模与金融机构数量的扩张,而金融发展涉及的是金融质量的提高,因此,金融发展的质量便成为促进区域经济增长的核心要素。已有的金融和经济增长文献研究大多集中在金融体系的规模,很少涉及用来解释经济增长差异的金融中介质量调节。本文运用我国中部、东部、西部部分地区经济和金融中介发展的数据,分析金融发展与区域经济增长之间的关系,通过具体银行效率评价,提出了对经济增长存在巨大影响的金融中介调节质量的方法。本文的分析表明金融发展质量调节的改善促进了要素生产率的提高,降低了金融代理的成本,增进金融产品和服务成本的能力。     

Keynes,the socialisation of trade,and international monetary institutions

While Keynes began formulating his ideas concerning the post-WWII international financial system in the early 1940s, the genesis of these ideas can be traced to his earlier work. The Keynes Plan represents the culmination of his search for adequate institutions that guide economic activity for the public good. The reasons given by Keynes for the establishment of an International Clearing Bank are relevant in the modern international economy, given the current imbalances in international trade. As Keynes argued for the socialisation of investment as a method to achieve full-employment in the domestic economy, he argued for the “socialisation of trade” as a method to achieve international economic balance among nations.     

An empirical investigation of the balance of embodied emission in trade: Industry structure and emission abatement

By constructing the world panel dataset for the pollution emission embedded in international trade of 132 countries for the period between 1988 and 2008, we investigate whether the balance of embodied emission in trade (BEET) is consistent with the implication of pollution haven hypothesis (PHH). By using two differently constructed datasets, we are able to distinguish between the composition (i.e., changes in industry structure of international trade) effect and the technique (i.e., improvement in emission abatement) effect. We find that the composition effect is neither related with the income level nor the democracy level of countries. However, the empirical evidence, with consideration for the technique effect, provides a partial support that income level is negatively related with the BEET. Therefore, the BEET in fact has worsened for developing countries, but not by the composition effect assumed in the PHH.     

权力资源、生活机会和财政体制--论我国"三农"问题及农村税费改革思路

本文通过建立“财政社会学”理论框架和运用财政社会学分析方法，对我国历史上长期以来的“三农”问题进行研究。作者认为，“三农”问题，包括农民负担过重的问题，其根源在于我国国家集权型财政体制和农村、城市之间不当的权力资源配置格局，解决问题的根本出路在于彻底改变我国传统的财政体制，建立农村城市协调发展的工商基础型公共财政体制，实行民主财政。     

农地使用权证券化、资本化与农地金融

我国农地金融的制度基础是农地的所有权与使用权的分离,并赋予农地使用权物权的法律地位.在此基础上,通过农地使用权的证券化和资本化,可以丰富农地金融产品,促进农地金融市场的机制建设,并使农地金融的参与者获得更多的筹资渠道和资产管理手段.     

An empirical analysis on the law of purchasing power parity and international economic deepening

This article empirically investigates the effect of international trade on the deviation of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) law and on the international economic deepening in four developed countries (Japan, USA, UK and France), and three Asian developing ones (South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia), using International Financial Statistics (IFS) data issued by International Monetary Fund (IMF). Our results show that in some developed countries the imbalance effect of balance of payments is significant for both international deepening and deviation from PPP, and in some developing countries the volume effect of balance of payments is significant for international deepening.     

现金、股利资产估值与独立董事有效性——基于价值回归模型的实证研究

文章在借鉴Fama和French(1998)公司价值回归模型的基础上,从公司内部现金和股利价值的角度,研究了中国上市公司独立董事的有效性。研究表明:将独立董事引入公司董事会能够显著提升公司内部所持现金的价值,明显降低了股利对公司价值的贡献。这一证据表明,独立董事有效地抑制了公司管理层和大股东牺牲投资者利益、谋取私人利益的行为,提高了公司治理水平。文章还发现,独立董事在一定程度上抵消了公司董事会规模与公司价值的负相关关系,这在一定程度上解释了董事会规模与公司价值之间可能存在的非线性关系。     

Educational upgrading,structural change and the task composition of jobs in Europe

We analyze the changes in the task content of jobs in 24 European countries between 1998 and 2015. We link the O*NET occupational data with the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU‐LFS), and use the methodology of Acemoglu and Autor ( 2011 ). We find that the intensity of non‐routine cognitive tasks grew in all countries, while the intensity of manual tasks declined. Workforce upskilling was the major factor contributing to these developments. The intensity of routine cognitive tasks grew in most Central and Eastern European countries, but it declined in Western European countries. This difference is attributed to the contrasting patterns of structural changes in these groups of countries.     

企业家社会资本：概念、影响机制及其研究新方向

本文梳理了企业家社会资本的概念和影响机制的相关研究成果。在此基础上,引入企业家机会要素对企业家社会资本的内涵进行了重新界定,并探讨了在新经济背景下结构洞理论对企业家社会资本影响机制研究的启示作用,阐述了该领域研究的新方向,并对相关理论研究的完善和应用研究的前景作了展望。