POLITICAL INEQUALITY,CENTRALIZED SANCTIONING INSTITUTIONS,AND THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC GOODS

Centralized sanctioning institutions cultivate cooperation by eradicating the gains from free‐riding. Studies show that electing a community member to operate a centralized sanctioning institution further increases support for the public good. These studies have overlooked an all‐too‐common attribute of non‐laboratory elections: political inequality. In this paper, we replicate those studies and, then, introduce novel experimental treatments that examine how political inequality influences the cooperation‐enhancing effect of a democratic election to centralized sanctioning institutions. In our novel treatment conditions, participants receive either a random allotment of votes that they can use to elect a centralized sanctioning authority or an allocation of votes proportional to their earnings in a previously‐executed public goods game. We find that political inequalities created via the random allocation of votes do not hinder cooperation, whereas political inequalities created via past game play undermine elected authorities and diminish contributions to the public good from individuals advantaged by political inequality.     

A UNIFIED ANALYSIS OF TRADE GAINS IN THE PRESENCE OF PUBLIC GOODS*

It has long been known that free trade is potentially (after lumpsum compensatory transfers) beneficial for each trading country if the autarkic and post‐compensation free‐trade equilibria are perfectly competitive, with market distortions limited to non‐negative taxes on imports and exports. However these conditions are merely sufficient. It can now be shown that, under alternative sufficient conditions, free trade is potentially beneficial to each trading country even in the context of public goods.     

INFLUENCING THE PUBLIC AND EFFICIENCY IN BUREAUCRATIC PROVISION

Abstract.  In the present paper a public bureau can extract additional budgetary allocations, not only by misreporting its production cost to its oversight committee but also by 'influencing' the perceptions of the public at large. I juxtapose the bureau's ability to influence the public with its ability to misreport to the oversight committee, and find that influencing the public might support an efficient level of production by invoking a separating equilibrium. However, a pooling equilibrium involving either overproduction or underproduction of output cannot be ruled out. Accordingly, overproduction could occur even when the bureau cares only about extracting excess budget and not increasing output per se.     

POVERTY,ELITE HETEROGENEITY,AND THE ALLOCATION OF PUBLIC SPENDING: PANEL EVIDENCE FROM THE INDIAN STATES

In this paper, we explore how in India, the world's largest democracy, the presence of different elite groups—the dominant landed and capitalist elite, and the minority elite (who are the elected representatives of the marginalized women and low caste population)—could affect the nature and extent of public spending on various accounts, especially education. We argue that the productive cooperation between the capitalist elite and workers may induce capitalists to favor spending on education, while the landed elite tend to oppose investment in basic education because they are fearful of dilution of their political dominance by the educated poor. While the minority elite may tend to favor redistributive spending, including that on education, their effectiveness could be limited by their under‐representation in the government. Results from the Indian states for the period 1960–2002 provide support for these hypotheses.     

REGULATION STRATEGIES FOR THE PROVISION OF PATERNALISTIC GOODS

In this study, we analyze the regulation of markets for the provision of services whose costs are subsidized for paternalistic reasons. We model the choice of a benevolent regulator who wants to maximize consumer welfare in a setting where quality cannot be verified and the good provided is fully subsidized. The choice is thus made between two types of providers (profit maximizers and altruistic providers) and two frameworks (monopoly franchise and quality competition). Our analysis shows that in this environment the performance of mixed markets is always dominated by pure forms. Moreover, although making efficient providers compete for the market minimizes cost, the choice of quality competition with altruistic providers may be preferable from a welfare point of view whenever service quality is relevant and the productivity differential is not substantial.     

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION AND ECONOMIC VOLATILITY: EVIDENCE FROM STATE‐LEVEL CROSS‐SECTION DATA OF THE USA*

This paper examines the implications of fiscal decentralization for economic stability. It has been discussed that fiscal decentralization reduces the variance of GDP growth, due to the greater diversification of performance across jurisdictions. We examine this theoretical result using a panel data set of the 50 states of the USA over the period of 1992–1997. We show that the theoretical specification of the production function is supported. We also show a negative significant relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic volatility. The results are robust when we take into account the endogeneity of fiscal decentralization.     

GROWTH AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL TAX‐BASED PUBLIC PENSION REFORM*

This paper presents an overlapping generations model in which: (i) firms create emissions as by‐products of production; and (ii) tax revenue from the working young is transferred to the retired elderly as pay‐as‐you‐go pension benefits. The paper focuses on a replacement ratio, which measures the proportion of after tax work earnings replaced by the public pension, and considers a replacement ratio neutral reform in which the newly introduced environmental tax is devoted to cutting the social security tax, keeping the replacement ratio unchanged. It is shown that the reform may improve growth, environmental quality and the nonenvironmental utility of every generation.     

Public Expenditures on Education and Cultural Affairs in the West German States: Does Government Ideology Influence the Budget Composition?

Abstract. This paper examines whether government ideology influenced the allocation of public expenditures on education and cultural affairs in the West German states in the 1974–2006 period. I explicitly consider the allocation of policy responsibilities between the federal and the states' governments. The results suggest that leftist governments slightly increased public spending for schooling, whereas rightwing governments spent somewhat more on universities and cultural affairs. This spending pattern appears to be in line with the preferences of the governing parties' constituencies and indicates political competition in a time of declining electoral cohesion.     

α‐SERIAL MECHANISMS FOR THE PROVISION OF AN EXCLUDABLE PUBLIC GOOD

We present a new class of “α‐serial mechanisms” for the provision of an excludable public good. Those mechanisms have a similar structure to the serial mechanism, but may let the non‐consumers pay a positive cost. They inherit desirable properties such as anonymity, envy‐freeness, Maskin monotonicity, and population monotonicity from the serial mechanism. We calculate the “maximal efficiency loss” and “maximal manipulation” of α‐serial mechanisms and point out a trade‐off between these two properties.     

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH OF VIETNAMESE PROVINCES: THE ROLE OF LOCAL PUBLIC GOVERNANCE

This study offers an insight into the public governance role in the relationship between fiscal decentralization and provincial economic growth in Vietnam. Fiscal decentralization measures are assorted. Applying a sequential (two‐stage) estimation for the panel data of 62 provinces of Vietnam over the 2006–2015 period, we find that first, fiscal decentralization is positively related to the economic growth of Vietnamese provinces. Second, the effects of public governance on economic growth vary across provinces depending on various levels of local public governance. Interestingly, the effect of fiscal decentralization is strengthened when this variable is added along with better quality of public governance. In a region of high public governance quality, fiscal decentralization exerts a positive effect on its economic growth. Our findings imply that the design of fiscal decentralization needs to be associated with local governments’ ability of public governance to improve the local economic growth.     

PUBLIC INVESTMENT,TAXATION AND TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

A low‐wage developing economy (South) is interested in accessing and attracting superior technology from a high‐wage developed economy (North) with firms having heterogeneous quality of technology. To improve upon the initial market equilibrium, which shows that relatively inefficient technologies will move to the South, the host government invests in infrastructure financed through taxing the foreign firms. We discuss the problem of existence of such a tax‐transfer mechanism within a balanced budget framework. We argue that such a policy can increase tax revenue as well as instigate the transfer of better quality technology. It turns out that this policy is more likely to be successful when the production concerns high‐value, high‐price products in low‐wage economies. Our results improve upon the conventional strategy of a tax break.     

COMMUNITY AND COOPERATION: THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATIVES TOWARDS NEW MODELS OF CITIZENS' DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC SERVICES PROVISION

The community cooperatives that are spreading today in many parts of the world are the arrival point of an evolutionary process that has seen the progressive shift of cooperatives’ focus from specific social and professional groups to society as a whole. This evolution is marked by two changes. The first was at the turn of the 19th century when there made their appearance the first community cooperatives which catered to the needs of a whole community. Among them were electric cooperatives, cooperative banks and some kinds of agricultural cooperatives. A further development relevant to the evolution of community cooperatives occurred towards the end of the last century with the enlargement of cooperatives’ aims to embrace society's benefit. From this process there emerge in total four categories of cooperatives which taken together constitute a complete classification of the cooperative universe. New community cooperatives are the off‐springs of the old ones but the picture is rather confused. The term itself is relatively new and similar institutions are named differently at different times. Moreover, though having a few basic features in common, they differ much from one another and from the old ones. To take care of this we elaborate a concept of community cooperative consistent with its evolution and the classification of cooperatives we have identified. Basic elements of the concept are community goods, territory and citizenship, which are discussed extensively with reference to factual cases. We then discuss in what way new community cooperatives differ from old ones. The paper closes with a discussion of their future prospects.     

GOVERNMENT CONSUMPTION AND THE COMPOSITION OF PRIVATE EXPENDITURE: A CONDITIONAL ERROR CORRECTION MODEL

In this paper we provide empirical evidence of the relationship between government purchases and private expenditure by adopting a microeconomic approach. Using UK quarterly data, a long‐run demand system conditioned to the public sector is obtained by specifying a vector error correction model in which government consumption is assumed as an exogenous I(1) forcing variable. Our findings reject the hypothesis of separability of individual preferences between public and private expenditures, with simultaneous crowding‐out/in effects. Moreover, crowding‐out effects of government consumption on private spending are found to be larger for those goods and services that produce similar utility.     

中国证券业:发展与未来之路

中国证券公司10多年的发展过程中,其盈利模式一直是一种“通道”盈利模式,即证券公司通过为客户提供各种通道来获取收入,实现利润。这种模式不仅造成证券公司的收入曲线与市场走势高度相关,具有高度不稳定性和周期性,同时还使得我国证券公司业务明显同质化,证券公司之间缺乏业务分工,证券公司之间恶性竞争严重。未来中国证券业必须创造新的盈利模式,要通过市场化基础上的重组、兼并、业务的重组和创新、法人治理结构的完善来创造一条新的发展之路。     

财政学：两大传统的分立与融合

20世纪80年代以来,中国的财政学教学与科研逐渐摆脱了原苏联财政学体系的影响,全面转向以英美财政学传统为主要特色的当代西方主流财政学。这既加速了中国财政学“国际化”的进程,同时,这种以“英美化”为标志的“国际化”进程,也对当代中国财政学研究带来了负面影响。本文在对当代主流财政理论两大源流--英美财政学传统与欧洲大陆财政学传统--的理论特色和历史演化进行梳理的基础上,提出了“中国财政学应向何处去”的问题。     

浅析我国征地制度中"公共利益"界定与征地范围划分问题

在我国,土地征用权的法律规定主要来自《宪法》、《土地管理法》和《城市房地产管理法》。我国宪法,虽然赋予国家征用土地的权利,却没有为这种权利的行使划定明确的范围、界限、方式和程序;现行法律中关于土地征用权的规定互相矛盾,从而导致土地征用权的滥用,同时还存在对农民的补偿和安置不到位等问题。因此迫切需要完善土地征用制度,明确界定“公共利益”的范围,文章就此问题进行了初探,并提出了完善征地制度的建议。     

INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR,CORPORATE CONTROL,AND PRIVATE BENEFITS OF CONTROL: EVIDENCE FROM A SURVEY OF UKRAINIAN FIRMS

We analyse the impact of ownership and corporate control on firms’ investment using the 2001 survey of Yacoub et al. on Ukrainian firms. The model explains investment by output, financial and soft budget constraints, and corporate control (and ownership) categories potentially enjoying private benefits of control. We find that the corporate control model fits better than the ownership model, a negative relationship between state and employee control and firms’ investment, and evidence for the presence of soft budget constraints. A negative relationship between firms’ investment and the relative size of non‐monetary transactions strengthens the conclusion of private benefits of control impacting investment.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY: THEORY AND AN APPLICATION TO LATIN AMERICA

Building on the existing literature, this paper constructs a simple scalar measure of inequality of opportunity and applies it to six Latin American countries. The measure—which captures between‐group inequality when groups are defined exclusively on the basis of predetermined circumstances—is shown to yield a lower‐bound estimate of true inequality of opportunity. Absolute and relative versions of the index are defined, and alternative parametric and non‐parametric methods are employed to generate robust estimates. In the application to Latin America, we find inequality of opportunity shares ranging from one quarter to one half of total consumption inequality. An opportunity‐deprivation profile that identifies the worst‐off types in each society is also formally defined, and described for the same six countries. In three of them, 100 percent of the opportunity‐deprived were found to be indigenous or Afro‐descendants.     

A NOTE ON THE PROPERTY RIGHTS THEORY AND THE EX ANTE VALUE OF INFORMATION

This paper examines the ex ante value of information in the property rights model where the possibility exists that an investing agent can be provided with relevant information before investments are undertaken. When contracts are incomplete, from an ex ante perspective, informing the investing agent does not necessarily increase the expected surplus resulting from a relationship between two economic agents. The paper highlights the fact that the second‐best nature of the problem that arises from contractual incompleteness can ensure this.