On the existence of a regulated production function

This paper examines the generalization of the regulated production function. It characterizes the set of admissible regulatory constraints that are compatible with the existence of a regulated production function in a sufficiently weak framework to encompass the usual rate-of-return constraints à la Averch and Johnson and value constraints.     

How to Select a Dual Nash Equilibrium

The paper analyzes situations, generalizing the duopoly problem, where two identical players are allowed with two control variables each, all of them linked through two non-strategic private constraints. Four dual equilibria are then obtained when each agent selects one leading variable to optimize and adjusts the other, and these equilibria are compared in a meta-game. For a simplified class of continuous games with linear constraints, it is shown that one symmetric dual equilibrium dominates the others and is the only perfect equilibrium of the metagame. The latter result holds locally for all quasi-concave utility functions and globally for all homogeneous ones, always keeping linear constraints. However, it is no longer valid in discrete games where the implicit constraints are not linear. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, D43.     

Regulation of the evolution of the architecture of a network by tensors operating on coalitions of actors

Socio-economic networks, neural networks and genetic networks describe collective phenomena through constraints relating actions of several actors, coalitions of these actors and multilinear connectionist operators acting on the set of actions of each coalition. We provide a class of control systems governing the evolution of actions, coalitions and multilinear connectionist operators under which the architecture of the network remains viable. The controls are the “viability multipliers” of the “resource space” in which the constraints are defined. They are involved as “tensor products” of the actions of the coalitions and the viability multiplier, allowing us to encapsulate in this dynamical and multilinear framework the concept of Hebbian learning rules in neural networks in the form of “multi-Hebbian” dynamics in the evolution of connectionist operators. They are also involved in the evolution of coalitions through the “cost” of the constraints under the viability multiplier regarded as a price.     

An Analysis of a Rules-based Approach to Disciplining Export Credits in Agriculture

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the comparative static effects of rules-based disciplines for government supported export credit arrangements. The arrangements provide traders in the country offering the guarantees more favourable borrowing conditions. This may provide an advantage relative to rival exporters since the supported trader may offer better financial terms to importers. Rules that discipline implicit interest rate subsidies are appropriate when an importing country does not face liquidity constraints when borrowing. However, these rules may not be appropriate with liquidity constraints because of the potential for additionality and benefits for all exporting countries. Rules on benchmarks for insurance premiums are always appropriate because insurance subsidies unambiguously have the potential to distort markets.     

How Borrowing Constraints Hinder Migration: Theoretical Insights from a Random Utility Maximization Model*

We provide a theoretical framework to analyze how financial constraints hinder migration. Introducing wealth heterogeneity and borrowing constraints into a random utility maximization model of migration, we find evidence of multilateral resistance to migration stemming from borrowing constraints. We calibrate the model on 22 European countries, and we show that omitting the constraints biases upward the estimation of bilateral migration rates. We then simulate an increase in the bilateral cost of migration to the United Kingdom. We find that omitting the constraints biases downward the change entailed by the cost increase in the bilateral rates of migration to all destinations.     

Determinants of Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: Description of a Survey in Russian Industry

The survey described in this article collects data on enterprise restructuring, ownership, competition, budget constraints and, particularly, institutions in Russian industry, covering the period between the start of 1992 and September 1999. On their own, the survey answers show a devastating restructuring crisis, massive privatisation, rather weak competition, unexpectedly hard budget constraints, an overwhelmingly negative and relatively positive assessment of formal and informal institutions respectively, and largely the same ruling networks as before the start of market reforms. Ironically, tentative results based on this survey indicate that important determinants of enterprise restructuring in Russian industry are exactly those on which least reform has been accomplished: stronger competition and better institutions go with more restructuring, while privatisation and harder budget constraints do not. The substitution, to some extent, of informal for formal institutions may have prevented even worse restructuring figures, but better formal institutions in general would have led to further improvements.     

Educational Policy in a Credit Constrained Economy with Skill Heterogeneity*

An overlapping‐generations model where agents choose whether to become educated when young is presented. Education enhances productivity, but needs to be financed by borrowing. Because of the possibility of default, lenders may ration credit. We characterize the steady‐state equilibrium with and without credit constraints and show that credit constraints are associated with lower education and a lower real interest rate. We then study the role of public policy in remedying the inefficiency which occurs with credit market imperfections and examine whether public education can improve on the constrained equilibrium.     

Liquidity constraints as a cause of moonlighting

An investigation of, whether some workers respond to liquidity constraints by moonlighting is carried out. Using a unique large data set, it is found that workers are more likely to moonlight if (1) they have low current incomes relative to their educational attainment, and (2) they plan to purchase a house or a car during the next six months.     

A viability analysis for a bio-economic model

This paper presents a simple dynamic model dealing with the management of a marine renewable resource. But instead of studying the ecological and economic interactions in terms of equilibrium or optimal control, we pay much attention to the viability of the system or, in a symmetric way, to crisis situations. These viability/crisis situations are defined by a set of economic and biological state constraints. The analytical study focuses on the compatibility between the state constraints and the controlled dynamics. Using the mathematical concept of viability kernel, we reveal the situations and, if possible, management options to guarantee a perennial system. Going further, we define ‘overexploitation’ indicators by the time of crisis function. In particular, we point out irreversible overexploitation configurations related to the resource extinction.     

Using surveys of business perceptions as a guide to growth‐enhancing fiscal reforms

This paper assesses the merits of using business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth‐enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper demonstrates that such perceptions of growth constraints may be misleading from a policy perspective. In particular, firms can be expected to systematically overestimate the growth‐enhancing effects of lower tax rates relative to public services and public capital, and underestimate the growth‐enhancing effects of greater provision of public capital relative to taxation and public services. In addition, we show that firms rank different public services and different types of public capital according to the actual costs they impose on firms. It is then shown that these theoretical predictions regarding how firms rank constraints correspond closely to the observed ranking of constraints by firms in the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys.     

Credit constraints and productivity of SMEs: Evidence from Canada

To what extent firms are constrained by external credit is usually unobserved in commonly used firm-level data. We use a survey of financing among Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises to measure the likelihood of a firm being constrained by credit. We find that firm size, current debt-to-asset ratio and cash flow are robust indicators of being financially constrained, while long-term debt to asset ratio is not a significant indicator of credit constraints. We then estimate the firm-level total factor productivity, taking into account the measured credit constraints. Omitting credit constraints leads to an upward bias of productivity estimates, by 4 percent. In addition, we find no strong evidence that suggests credit constraints lead to slower productivity growth. Finally, we confirm that both investment and employment growth are negatively affected by the measured credit constraints.     

Storage and Viability of a Fishery with Resource and Market Dephased Seasonalities

In this study we analyse the role of the storageregulation in a fishery's production process when theresource exploited and the market to which theproduction is exported are characterized by seasonaldephased oscillations. For this purpose we built up adynamic model drawn from the French Guyana shrimpfishery example. The underlying objective of the modelis not the maximisation of a given criterion (as wouldbe in the optimal control approach), but merely themaintenance of the fishery's economical viability. Thefundamental principle is here to try to preserve asmany as possible viable control options. Theconditions to achieve and maintain this viability arecaptured in a certain number of constraints. Theanalysis points out periods and situations within theseason where the fishermen must anticipate theevolution of their storage to avoid violating thoseviability constraints. The study also indicates howthe fishery's viability can be ensured even if theexploitation costs exceed the commercial value of thelandings for a finite part of the year. However, whenthe resource's and/or market's oscillations are toolarge, the fishery may be not viable any longer and itappears that the crisis can not be removed byinvesting in larger storage capacities.     

A note on Keynesian unemployment as a worker discipline device

Keynesian sales constraints are introduced into a model with endogeneous wages and involuntary equilibrium umemployment. The result is a lower real wage and a higher unemployment rate.     

Macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy changes: A case of South Africa

This study develops comprehensive full-sector macro-econometric models for the South African economy with the aim of explaining and providing the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy changes in the country. The models are applied to test the effectiveness of fiscal policy actions in an economic environment with existing structural supply constraints versus demand-side constraints and also to detect which components of the fiscal would be more effective in stabilising the economy. Based on the structure of the South African economy and the framework presented, the study concludes that the South African economy can be characterised as one which is embedded with structural supply constraints. Thus, a model which is suitable for policy analyses of the South African economy needs to capture the long-run supply-side characteristics of the economy. A price block is incorporated to specify the price adjustment between the supply-side sector and real aggregate demand sector. The models are estimated with time-series data from 1970 to 2011, capturing both the long-run and short-run dynamic properties of the economy. The results from the series of fiscal policy scenarios suggest that fiscal policy actions are more effective in an economic environment with limited or no supply constraints. Fiscal expansion or consolidation that comes more from government spending changes will be more effective in an economic environment where structural supply constraints are absent while tax revenue changes will be more effective in an economic environment where there exist major structural supply constraints.     

企业规模、控制人性质与企业融资约束关系研究

融资约束不同的企业在承受利率冲击上存在较大差异。不同于以往研究,笔者以上市公司为研究对象,考察不同规模、不同控制人对融资约束的影响,探讨它们之间的相互关系。研究发现,随着规模的扩大,我国上市公司面临的融资约束也在增大,这与以往学者研究结果相悖;控制人性质与上市公司融资约束关系紧密,国有上市公司面临的融资约束大于非国有上市公司;我国股票市场在一定程度上能够还原企业面临的真实融资约束。     

Optimal Lending Contracts and Firm Dynamics

We develop a general model of lending in the presence of endogenous borrowing constraints. Borrowing constraints arise because borrowers face limited liability and debt repayment cannot be perfectly enforced. In the model, the dynamics of debt are closely linked with the dynamics of borrowing constraints. In fact, borrowing constraints must satisfy a dynamic consistency requirement: the value of outstanding debt restricts current access to short-term capital, but is itself determined by future access to credit. This dynamic consistency is not guaranteed in models of exogenous borrowing constraints, where the ability to raise short-term capital is limited by some prespecified function of debt. We characterize the optimal default-free contract—which minimizes borrowing constraints at all histories—and derive implications for firm growth, survival, leverage and debt maturity. The model is qualitatively consistent with stylized facts on the growth and survival of firms. Comparative statics with respect to technology and default constraints are derived.     

A proposal for a more objective measure of de facto constitutional constraints

In this paper we propose two new indicators of de facto constitutional constraints. The indicators are based on the presence or the absence of easily observable political events. This makes the proposed measures relatively objective and easy to verify relative to the most widely used indicators of de jure and de facto constitutions. This paper describes the indicators and demonstrates their usefulness for research on economic development.     

Does a Recession Call for Less Stringent Environmental Policy? A Partial-Equilibrium Second-Best Analysis

This paper analyses second-best optimal environmental policy responses to real and financial shocks in a two-period partial equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms, an environmental externality, and credit constraints. We show that, to alleviate credit constraints and encourage investment, the second-best optimal emission tax falls short of marginal emission damages. The optimal response to shocks depends on how the shock affects the size of the environmental and credit market failures and the effectiveness of the tax in alleviating these market failures. Under mildly restrictive assumptions on functional forms, the optimal response to a (persistent) negative productivity shock or a tightening of credit is to reduce the emission tax. Our results are informative for how climate change policy should optimally change with the business cycle.     

Monetary policy in a small open economy with durable goods and differing cash-in-advance constraints

We consider the effects of inflation in a small open economy when expenditures on non-durables are more heavily financed with money than expenditures on durables. The distinctions between non-durables and durables, and asymmetric cash-in-advance constraints give rise to important dynamics.     

An Empirical Analysis of Working-Hours Constraints in Twenty-one Countries

The aim of this paper is to analyze working-hour constraints in an international setting. We use data from the latest Work Orientations data set of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The survey was conducted in 1997 and, in this paper, data for twenty-one countries are used. Our main results are: (1) In most countries the majority of workers do not face hours constraints; (2) Of the workers that are constrained, the largest portion is underemployed. Only in Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland is this not the case; (3) Workers in the five Eastern European countries considered here are among the most constrained; (4) A comparison with the 1989 ISSP data set reveals that hours constraints have increased in Israel, the United States, and West Germany and decreased in Great Britain and Norway in the 1990s; (5) GDP per capita and unemployment levels are correlated with hours constraints; (6) A multivariate analysis shows that certain socio-demographic characteristics and work conditions influence hours constraints and that these factors differ across countries.