POLITICAL PREDATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

We analyze a game between citizens and governments, whose type (benevolent or predatory) is unknown to the public. Opportunistic governments mix between predation and restraint. As long as restraint is observed, political expectations improve, people enter the modern sector, and the economy grows. Once there is predation, the reputation of the government is ruined and the economy collapses. If citizens are unable to overthrow this government, the collapse is durable. Otherwise, a new government is drawn and the economy can rebound. Consistent with stylized facts, equilibrium political and economic histories are random, unstable, and exhibit long-term divergence.     

EFFECTS OF POLITICAL MONOPOLY ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Abstract.  This paper has two objectives. First, it presents a survey of the literature surrounding the relation between political monopoly and economic development. Second, it offers an analysis of how commoners' high degree of tolerance towards unfair inequality of income distribution between theirs and the monopolizing ruling elites leads to poor economic development. We assert that free migration between states causes monopoly rent to shrink because it poses a threat to the ruling elites due to fiscal competition between states. The shrinking in monopoly rent implies a higher level of division of labour, which results in a greater extent of the market and higher aggregate productivity.     

THE COEVOLUTION OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT FROM MONARCHY TO DEMOCRACY*

This article establishes a unified political economy model to analyze the democratization process from monarchy to oligarchy and to democracy in the context of dynamic economic development. As the predominant source of wealth evolves from land to physical capital and finally to human capital, the relative economic and hence coercive power of land owners, capitalists, and workers shifts accordingly, inducing the transition of the political system where political power is expanded from landlords to capitalists and finally to workers. A smooth transition through political compromise facilitates efficient allocation of savings in physical capital followed by efficient investment in human capital.     

ENDOGENOUS CONSUMER PARTICIPATION AND THE RECYCLING PROBLEM*

We endogenise the extent of consumer participation in the recycling process, and analyse its effect on the ‘recycling problem’. When recycling requires consumers to undertake costly sorting activities to separate scrap from household waste, they will participate only if the net reward from sorting is positive. Consumers' sorting cost is subject to a network effect arising due to social norms. With heterogeneous consumers differing in terms of their sorting cost, the entire output of the recyclable product may not be subsequently available as scrap to the recycling firms. This increases the virgin producer's monopoly power, and may also lead to multiple equilibria if the network effect of sorting is sufficiently large. The latter result suggests a role for the government in influencing equilibrium selection to improve social welfare. Depending on the fraction of consumers that participate in recycling, increased societal pressure on consumers to recycle may decrease consumer participation and increase the virgin producer's market power.     

内生经济增长理论:一个文献综述

本文旨在通过评述30年代至今的各种经济增长理论,进一步梳理经济增长理论的发展脉络,尤其是内生经济增长理论的内在演化逻辑,并在此基础上指出经济增长理论可能的发展趋势。     

碳减排约束条件下的内生经济增长机制研究

本文将碳减排的约束条件及碳减排成本弹性系数引入生产函数,将人们对气候变化的警惕意识引入效用函数,在内生经济增长模型的研究框架内系统分析了碳减排影响经济增长的内在机制以及实现经济增长和控制碳排放双重目标的条件。研究表明:在低碳基础设施不完善及低碳技术应用不广泛的阶段,加快碳减排将给经济带来较大的负效应;控制碳排放除了与碳减排速率、非化石类能源的增长等客观因素有关外,还与人们应对气候变化的主观意识有关;为实现社会福利最大化条件下的长期经济增长与控制大气中温室气体存量的双重目标,碳减排最终将依靠科技进步以及非化石类能源的增长。     

UNDERSTANDING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Review of Explaining Growth: A Global Research Perspective, edited by Gary McMahon and Lyn Squire and Productivity Growth, Inflation, and Unemployment: The Collected Essays of Robert J. Gordon by Robert J. Gordon     

注重发展规划 促进经济发展

１９９６年 ,圣菲市制定了第一个《经济发展规划》。这一规划的目的在于为圣菲市的经济发展提出战略性规划 ,指明促进经济多元化的途径 ,激发现有存量产业的潜能 ,确定发展目标以及实现目标的有效措施 ,为经济发展创造更多的机遇。为了探讨市政府如何为市民提供更多的经济发展机会 ,我们举行了２０余次公众会议。《经济发展规划》文件的基本导向就是创造更多的机会 ,提高市民的生活质量。由于发展规划中吸收了许多合同文本的内容 ,所以经济发展规划也被认为是我市经济发展合同的重要基础。１９９７年 ,我市的《经济发展规划》荣获美国规划协…     

PLATFORM COMPETITION WITH ENDOGENOUS HOMING

We consider two-sided markets in which consumers and firms endogenously determine whether they single-home, multi-home, or exit the market. We find that the competitive bottleneck allocation in which consumers single-home and firms multi-home is always an equilibrium. In addition, we find equilibria with multi-homing and single-homing on each side of the market. However, unlike the standard pricing result where the side that multi-homes faces higher prices, we find that lower prices coincide with multi-homing: agents find multi-homing more attractive when faced with lower prices. We also show that endogenous homing can induce straddle pricing which deters price undercutting between platforms.     

ENDOGENOUS TIMING IN A MIXED DUOPOLY WITH ENDOGENOUS VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION

We consider a game of endogenous timing with observable delay in a mixed duopoly with endogenous vertical differentiation in the context of sequential quality and price choice. We find that a simultaneous play in the first opportunity at each stage turns out to be the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, which contrasts with the endogenous timing in a purely private duopoly.     

ENDOGENOUS HEALTH CARE, LIFE EXPECTANCY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

We study the endogenous relationship between health care, life expectancy and output in a neoclassical growth model. Although health care directly diverts resources away from goods production, it prolongs life expectancy, which in turn leads to higher savings and, hence, capital formation through a private annuity market. We show that savings and health care are complements in equilibrium, with both rising with economic development. Our model is therefore consistent with several observed stylized development patterns across countries. Moreover, through the longevity-enhancing channel, health care and health production technology are found by simulation to be growth and welfare promoting.     

区域一体化、经济增长与政治晋升

我国市场分割问题比较突出,但区域经济一体化的出现以及增多已成为一个重要现象.为什么有些省区选择市场分割,而有些却致力于区域一体化?地方政府在处理区际关系上的迥异行为是否具有内在一致性的解释?我们从中央政府按照经济绩效晋升地方政府官员的假设出发,构造一个地方官员晋升博弈模型,证明了,为了政治晋升最大化,地方官员选择地方市场分割还是区域一体化因条件而异.实证分析支持模型的预测.     

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, POLITICAL STRUCTURES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The paper deals with the estimation of comparable human rights ratings (defined as a composite of political rights, civil liberties and state power indices) for 154 countries, excluding territories, of the world in 1983. It then develops a theory to gauge the sensitivity of these ratings to a specific disaggregation suggested by the theory of political economy and establishes the close nexus existing between economic systems, political structures and human rights. The results indicate that increasing government intervention, whether economic or political, unequivocally tends to worsen the human rights situation. Moreover, it is seen that affluence and income distribution are significant predictors of human rights ratings across countries.     

人力资本、技术进步与内生经济增长

在内生增长理论中,卢卡斯认为人力资本积累是经济增长的原动力,罗默则认为技术进步是经济增长的源泉。本文构建了一个内生增长模型,以解释人力资本积累和技术进步共同推动经济增长的机制。     

民营企业的政治关联及其经济效应分析

本文分析了中国转轨过程中民营企业政治关联的表现形式及其对关联企业发展的影响。本文认为,政治关联有助于民营企业建立与政府的良好关系,并通过以下机制促进民营企业的发展:第一,作为法律替代机制保护民营企业的产权;第二,缓解民营企业因所有制歧视造成的融资难问题;第三,有助于民营企业克服行业准入的管制性壁垒。     

LOBBYING CONTESTS WITH ENDOGENOUS POLICY PROPOSALS

Lobbyists choose what to lobby for. If they can precommit to certain policy proposals, their choice will have an influence on the behavior of opposing lobbyists. Hence lobbyists have an incentive to moderate their policy proposals in order to reduce the intensity of the lobbying contest. This logic has been explored in a number of recent papers. I reconsider the topic with a perfectly discriminating contest. With endogenous policy proposals, there is a subgame-perfect equilibrium where the proposals of the lobbyists coincide and maximize joint welfare; moreover, this equilibrium is the only one that survives repeated elimination of dominated strategies. Hence there is no rent dissipation at all. A politician trying to maximize lobbying expenditures would prefer an imperfectly discriminating contest.     

A MIXED NASH–WALRASIAN EQUILIBRIUM MODEL WITH ENDOGENOUS STEALING AND ENDOGENOUS SPECIALIZATION

Abstract. Using a price vector and a conjecture about a population's activities, this paper suggests that a mixed Nash–Walrasian equilibrium (NWE) occurs if, when every individual maximizes her utility under her conjecture, the trading markets and the theft ‘markets’ are all cleared. Thus, in our model the property rights system, instead of giving protection directly to producers, is aimed mainly at discouraging illegal behaviour. As a result, the equilibrium of the economy is seen to depend not only on self‐protection and/or the legal system itself, but also on the transportation efficiency of the economy.