The Welfare Economics of a Biofuel Tax Credit and the Interaction Effects with Price Contingent Farm Subsidies

A framework is developed to analyze the effects of a biofuel consumer tax exemption and the interaction effects with a price contingent farm subsidy. Ethanol prices rise above the gasoline price by the amount of the tax credit. Corn farmers gain directly while gasoline consumers only gain from any reduction in world oil prices due to the extra ethanol production. Domestic oil producers lose. Historically, the intercept of the ethanol supply curve is above the gasoline price. Hence, part of the tax credit is redundant and represents rectangular deadweight costs that dwarf triangular deadweight cost measures of traditional farm subsidies.     

When Do Export Subsidies Have a Redistributional Role?

If an export subsidy is efficient, that is, has a surplus-transfer role, then there exists an implicit function relating the optimal level of the subsidy to the income target in the agricultural sector. If an export subsidy is inefficient no such function exists. We show that dependence exists in large-export equilibrium, not in small-export equilibrium and show that these results remain robust to concerns about domestic tax distortions. The failure of previous work to produce this result stems from its neglect of the income constraint on producer surplus in the programming problem transferring surplus from consumers and taxpayers to farmers.     

价格支持亦或直接补贴:金砖国家农业政策改革趋向

新兴市场国家农业政策改革进程历来备受关注。利用经济合作与发展组织的生产者支持估计方法,分析金砖国家农业支持政策的结构特征可知,以市场价格支持为重心保护农业生产者、逐步加大直接补贴投入额度、注重强化农业知识创新和基础设施建设成为当前金砖国家农业政策调整的主要趋向。鉴于此,应稳步推进农产品价格支持向直接补贴转型;坚持科技兴农导向,提振农业可持续发展能力;制定差异化保护策略,提高农产品支持的针对性和有效性。     

The State-Contingent Properties of Stochastic Production Functions

The state-contingent properties of the most frequently used representations of stochastic production in the agricultural-economics literature are examined. Particular attention is paid to the cases of multiplicative uncertainty, additive uncertainty, and the Just–Pope production function. State-contingent technologies and their associated cost functions are reviewed, and that theory is applied to the stochastic production function. A generalization of the Just–Pope technology that has desirable state-contingent characteristics is proposed. Cost functions based upon state-contingent technologies are compared with cost functions based on a parametrized distribution representation of production uncertainty.     

论房价对中国产出和通货膨胀率的影响

研究目的：运用IS — LM模型和总供求模型分析住房价格对产出和通货膨胀率的影响机制,并应用中国的数据进行计量检验。研究方法：理论 — 实证分析。研究结果：（1）住房价格对产出缺口的影响是显著的,影响大小为0.76;（2）住房价格的快速上涨易导致投资主导型的经济出现过热,并加剧经济结构的失衡;（3）住房价格与通货膨胀率互为Granger因,房价的上涨在短期刺激经济增长的同时,最终推动物价水平的上涨。研究结论：住房价格波动对中国宏观经济具有显著影响,已经在货币政策传导机制中发挥作用,宏观经济政策应关注住房价格的波动,并采取适当措施来稳定住房价格,降低房价波动对宏观经济的冲击。     

国际油价暴涨背后中国石油安全战略探析

石油作为一种重要的战略性基础能源,对一国国家经济安全产生重要影响。甚至使某些西方大国不惜动用武力来试图控制国外的石油资源。我国目前面临的状况是:国际油价高企,在强劲经济的拉动下我国石油需求持续增长,而国内原油产量增长缓慢,供求失衡不断扩大,对国际石油供应的担忧也日益严重。文章就国内目前高油价对经济的不利影响、石油供求现状、石油进口价格、风险等问题做了分析,并提出了大力开展石油期货贸易,建立石油储备体系,提高能源利用效率等项政策建议。     

地价与住房价格比例关系再检视

研究目的:探讨各国地价与住房价格的比例关系,分析其历史变动和区域差异,并与中国的情况相比较。研究方法:文献法和比较分析。研究结果:各国地价占住房价格的比例呈现随时间不断上升的态势,而各国内部不同区域间地价占住房价格的比例也有很大差异。研究结论:与各国相比,中国不少城市地价占住房价格的比例不算很高,但在一些城市,如北京、广州,地价占住房价格的比例上升较快,值得注意。     

The Variable Response of Agricultural Supply to World Price Instability in Developing Countries

This paper analyses the effect of world price instability on the agricultural supply from developing countries and determines to what extent this effect is dependent upon the macroeconomic environment. Producers from agricultural commodity‐exporting countries are particularly vulnerable to the fluctuations of world prices: they are widely exposed to price shocks and have little ability to cope with them. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of risk‐coping strategies is conditioned by the influence of macroeconomic factors (infrastructure, inflation and financial deepening). Thus country‐specific price indices are established, and the response of production indices to price instability indices is estimated by using a panel model including macroeconomic variables which interact with price instability. Such analysis is based on a sample of 25 countries between 1961 and 2002. The results highlight a significant negative effect of the world price instability on supply, and further show that high inflation, weak infrastructure and a poorly developed financial system exacerbate this effect.     

世界石油供应格局演变及价格走势分析

世界石油资源地域分布极不平衡,受资源丰度、勘探进展及开发强度等因素影响,世界石油供应格局发生了深刻变化。目前世界石油供应多元化的格局不仅形成,而且正不断得到强化。在供应多元化的基础上,石油市场构成已从垄断性向竞争性转变,供求关系将在决定油价方面发挥积极作用,但投机行为仍将左右国际市场油价变动的步伐和幅度,一定范围内的油价波动将在所难免。     

Aggregation of Price Risk over Commodities: An Economic Index Number Approach

This article extends the economic theory of index numbers to the aggregation of price risk over commodities in production. Superlative indexes of aggregate price risk are related to Tornqvist and Fisher−type output quantity indexes. An application to major crops in Manitoba illustrates the empirical importance of the analysis.     

森林碳生产的价格补偿分析

通过森林碳生产的经济属性分析表明森林碳生产具有正外部效应,其产品具有公共物品属性,适当的价格补偿能够激励生产行为,通过考察林地、林木的机会成本去设定价格补偿的标准,提出深化林权制度改革,明晰森林碳排放权、完善森林生态补偿法律政策,补充森林碳生产补偿政策、多元化碳生产资金渠道,完善森林碳生产的投融资体制等3方面政策保障森林碳生产的价格补偿。     

Resource Management under Production and Output Price Uncertainty: Implications for Environmental Policy

Various environmental policies have been proposed to control agricultural runoff of nutrients and pesticides. The impacts of these policies on input use are complicated because of the various sources of uncertainty farmers face and the precise nature of farmers' risk attitude. A risk–averse farmer's response to changed profit , input , and output taxes under output price and production uncertainty is examined. The impact of these policies on input use depends on the form of production uncertainty, risk–input relationships, risk attitudes, and degrees of output price and production uncertainty. These results have implications for the design and implementation of environmental and other production–related policies.     

Subsidies and agricultural productivity in the EU

This paper investigates the relationship between EU agricultural subsidies and agricultural labor productivity growth by estimating a conditional convergence growth model. We use more representative subsidy indicators and a wider coverage (panel data from 213 EU regions over the period 2004–2014) than have been used before. We find that, on average, EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies increase agricultural labor productivity growth, but this aggregate effect hides important heterogeneity of effects of different types of subsidies. The positive effect on productivity comes from decoupled subsidies, that is, Pillar I decoupled payments and some Pillar II payments. Coupled Pillar I subsidies have the opposite effect: they slow down productivity growth.     

Agricultural Export Subsidies as a Tool of Trade Strategy: Before and After the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act of 1996

If the main justification for agricultural export subsidies is that they reduce government costs of deficiency payments, then the 1996 farm legislation would make U.S. export subsidies largely unnecessary. An additional argument advanced in favor of export subsidies is that their aggressive use by one country will cause competing countries to reduce or discontinue their own subsidies. This argument is explored by means of a Nash equilibrium in which countries choose both a base subsidy level and a response to competitors, and by a consistent conjectures equilibrium. Little support is found for the argument.     

Assessing the Impacts of Pillar 1 and 2 Subsidies on TFP in French Crop Farms

This article analyses the impact of common agricultural policy (CAP) subsidies on total factor productivity using a FADN dataset of French crop farms between 1996 and 2003. We first estimate a production function using a system GMM approach and then recover farm‐level total factor productivity (TFP). Further, the impact of Pillar 1 and 2 subsidies on TFP is investigated and results show that several subsidies have a negative impact on productivity during the period covered in the dataset. CAP reforms have also had an impact on the relationship between subsidies and productivity.     

World Commodity Prices and Domestic Retail Food Price Inflation: Some Insights from the UK

We focus on two aspects of the links between world commodity prices and retail food price inflation: first, the effects of exchange rates and other input costs, and second; the effects of the duration of shocks on world commodity markets, not just the magnitude of price spikes (the latter often commanding most attention). The UK offers a natural and rather unexplored setting for the analysis. Applying time series methods to a sample of 259 monthly observations over the 1990(9)–2012(3) period we find substantial and significant long‐term partial elasticities for domestic food price inflation with respect to world food commodity prices, the exchange rate and oil prices (the latter indirectly via a relationship with world food commodity prices). Domestic demand pressures and food chain costs are found to be less substantial and significant over our data period. Interactions between the main driving variables in the system tend to moderate rather than exacerbate these partial effects. Furthermore, the persistence of shocks to these variables markedly affects their effects on domestic food prices.     

国外地价与房价关系及其启示

研究目的:介绍美国、英国、瑞典、韩国、日本以及新加坡等国家地价与房价的关系.研究方法:比较分析法.研究结果:国外地价与房价的关系可分成4类:一是地价低房价也低的国家(瑞典),二是地价低房价不低的国家(美国),三是地价高房价不高的国家(新加坡与英国),四是地价高房价也高的国家(韩国与日本).研究结论:中国应根据人多地少的基本国情,借鉴国外有关经验,协调好地价与房价的关系,促进房地产业的健康发展.     

A Heteroskedastic Multivariate Tobit Analysis of Price Dynamics in the Presence of Price Floors

This article presents an econometric analysis of the effects of price floors on price dynamics and price volatility in a multimarket context. We investigate the implications of a government price-support program providing a censoring mechanism to the price determination process. The analysis uses a dynamic multivariate Tobit model under time-varying volatility. The model is applied to the U.S. dairy markets with a special focus on the effects of government price-support programs in a period of market liberalization. The econometric analysis provides useful information on the multimarket effects of price supports on price dynamics and price volatility.