正规金融、非正规金融对家户福利的影响——来自中国农村的证据

金融抑制是发展中国家所面临的重要约束,其可能给家户福利和生产活动带来损失。金融约束不仅来自于正规金融,也来自于非正规金融。利用区域转换模型,本文从两个方面论证了正规金融与非正规金融对家户福利的不同作用。实证分析表明,正规金融约束的家户采用新的农业生产技术受到限制,非农经营的效应也更低,而社会资本在一定程度上对正规金融形成了替代,弥补了其部分功能。受到非正规金融约束的家户,社会资本的功能被弱化,但采用新的农业生产技术的作用以及参与农业生产合作组织的作用由于得到正规金融的支持而更强。正规金融与非正规金融大致存在一种替代关系,农村正规金融在满足生产发展尤其是非农业生产发展的需要方面发挥着重要作用,而基于社会资本的非正规金融主要对于缓冲收入冲击起着更重要的作用。     

正式和非正式的制度

社会资本是一个非常有用的概念，但却是一个非常复杂的概念，不同的观点很多，促成了这种复杂性，组织的视角尤其提供了一个有益的框架，有理由想信，一个社会的社会资本的构成，质量和数量并不必然是最优的，社会资本受到发展过程的影响。并影响发展过程，在社会资本的提高中，存在着重要的公共角色，但谁来担当这种公共角色，以及这种公共角色应当如何担当，这些问题仍然需要大量的思考。     

女性劳动参与对家庭储蓄率的影响

中国家庭的高储蓄是一个广受关注的问题,本文试图从女性劳动参与的角度对中国家庭的高储蓄给出解释。首先从理论上探讨了女性劳动参与和家庭储蓄率之间的关系,然后利用2017年中国家庭金融调查数据对此进行了实证检验。为克服内生性的影响,采用同一社区、同一年龄段的其他已婚女性劳动参与率作为家庭中已婚女性劳动参与的工具变量,实证检验已婚女性劳动参与对家庭储蓄率的影响。研究结果表明,已婚女性劳动参与显著增加家庭储蓄率。异质性分析发现,已婚女性劳动参与对20岁到30岁女性家庭、大学及以上教育水平和有二孩意愿家庭的储蓄率有显著影响。进一步研究发现,已婚女性劳动参与促进家庭储蓄率增加的原因是,家庭的收入水平显著增加,而家庭消费水平未发生显著性改变。同时,现阶段中国女性劳动参与没有显著降低家庭预防性储蓄动机,反而进一步提升了家庭储蓄率。本文为理解中国家庭的高储蓄提供了新的视角,可以为未来制定政策提供参考。     

Banks dividend policy: Evidence from Pakistan

The present study empirically investigates the factors that determine the dividend payout decisions among banks. For empirical analysis the data of sixteen banks listed in the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) are used. The results indicate that earning per share, last year's dividend payouts, capital ratio and size of the bank are crucial factors in the determination of dividend payouts, whereas cash flow is negatively associated with dividend payouts. The results support the Lintner model (1956) and also follow the transaction cost hypothesis.     

Determinants of Household Savings: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper analyses determinants of household savings in a model based on an extension of the disequilibrium savings theory. These extensions follow from the life-cycle and permanent-income theories. Based on panel data for 14 countries spanning the period 2000–2018, fixed-effect least squares and two-stage least squares estimation procedures were used. In line with previous studies, there is strong and robust evidence for the hypotheses of disequilibrium savings theory, specifically, positive effects of unanticipated income changes, unanticipated inflation and the lagged savings rate. There is also robust evidence for the income uncertainty hypothesis that uncertainty has a positive effect on savings. The analysis presents some evidence that social security suppresses savings, but finds no significant effects on the interest rate or old-age dependency ratio. Unexpectedly, the participation rate of the elderly has a significant positive effect in some specifications. These findings contribute to the debate on whether and how governments can influence saving behavior.

     

Political connections and corporate performance: Evidence from Pakistan

This study seeks to understand how political connections affect firm performance. Using a hand‐collected dataset of Pakistani firms from 2008–2014, our firm fixed effects and Heckman two‐stage regression results show that connected firms outperform those without political ties. Moreover, we show channels through which political benefits are realized in terms of greater access to debt, lower financing costs and lower tax rates. These benefits are found to be particularly large when firms are connected to politicians who held political positions most recently and firms connected through their owners. Finally, we do not find evidence for differences in political favours across regulated and unregulated industries.     

中国城市化与居民储蓄研究

本文利用1992年-2004年的数据对我国居民储蓄进行了实证研究,力求在居民储蓄率、城市化程度的测量两个方面体现出新意.本文研究表明,目前我国城市化的程度有所高估.在城市化过程中,居民储蓄率受影响较大,进而影响全国国民储蓄和投资,减缓我国经济的增速.但随着城市化的不断深入,这种影响将逐渐削弱.     

Informal pay gaps in good and bad times: Evidence from Russia

Informal work is traditionally large in Russia and has further increased in the recent years. We explore the implications of this shift in terms of wage dynamics. Our characterization is based on the estimation of informal pay gaps at the mean and along the wage distribution, relying on the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 2003–2017. Our approach comprises three original features: we rely on unconditional quantile effects of informality, we incorporate quantile-specific fixed effects using a tractable approach, and we suggest a treatment of the incidental parameter bias. Over the whole period, informal wage penalties are relatively small and do not suggest heavily segmented labor markets, even at low wage levels. Yet, in the past decade, a substantial negative selection into informal employment and self-employment has taken place, on average and especially at low earnings. Economic downturns and labor market policies have likely contributed to the shakeout of less productive workers in the formal sector, making the low-tier informal sector more of a last resort.     

Liberalisation,Financial Risk,and Formal Financial Participation in Pakistan: Hyperinflationary Microeconomic Responses to Moderate Volatility in a Developing Economy

With formal financial inclusion much lower than its neighbours, Pakistan has been the focus of intensive efforts to ‘bank’ the ‘unbanked’. Yet, after a drop in deposits in the wake of Pakistan’s 2008 crisis, deposits are still struggling to return to their mid-1990s’ levels. Focusing on distortions in the banking sector, the Central Bank attributes this to ‘crowding out’ amidst a steep rise in the propensity to consume. This study draws on extensive fieldwork, identifying heightened financial risk driven by multifaceted monetary instability since the liberalisation of the rupee and of Pakistani markets. It proposes that heightened monetary risk has translated into a broad-based shift out of the rupee akin to hyperinflationary responses, but revealed in relatively moderate monetary conditions. It argues that, exposed to global markets, national currency itself has become a risky asset, pushing store-of-value and transactional holdings into unconventional liquid assets. This suggests that monetary stability, expressed in the currency itself and in broader pricing patterns in the economy, is key to the uptake of financial intermediation. The issue at the root of disintermediation in Pakistan, it is argued, is less one of ‘crowding out’ than of disruption to the role of national currency as money itself.     

Assessing poverty-deforestation links: Evidence from Swat, Pakistan

This paper contributes to the debate on the links between poverty and forestry degradation; the view that due to poverty and the meeting of subsistence needs the poor use natural resources more intensively and hence cause them to degrade. Using the case of the forest rich Swat district, Pakistan, the paper addresses the issue empirically, historically, and institutionally. We do not find empirical support for the “poverty-environment nexus”, in that the poor and other income groups are equally resource dependent and also show that resource degradation is not associated with poverty. Our historical and institutional analyses provide alternative explanations for resource degradation. Selective and rotating ownership patterns, starting with the 17th century, provided limited incentive for resource conservation. It also created tension between de jure and de facto owners, that has persisted, and is one source of forest degradation. Ill-defined resource rights have also exacerbated the impacts of several other factors contributing to forest degradation which is compounded by poor management, corruption, and perverse incentives.     

Vertical Links Between Formal and Informal Financial Institutions

The paper investigates vertical linkages between formal and informal financial institutions. Specifically, it studies a policy that expands formal credit to informal lenders, in the hope that this will improve loan terms for borrowers who are shut out of the formal sector. Special attention is paid to the Philippines. It is argued that the effects of stronger vertical links depend on the form of lender competition. In particular, if the relationship between lenders is one of strategic cooperation (sustained by threats of reprisal in a repeated setting), an expansion of formal credit may worsen the terms faced by informal borrowers.     

Unemployment Risk, Labour Force Participation and Savings

This paper analyses labour force participation and precautionary savings in the presence of risks of being fired or failing to secure a job offer when out of the labour market. We use a finite horizon framework with two employment states and a stage utility function which is CARA in consumption but non-separable in leisure. The results are that there is precautionary labour force participation: employment risk lowers the reservation wage; generally it also reduces consumption. However due to the non-separability assumption, precautionary savings, as usually defined, may not be positive. We characterize the reservation wage and contrast the results with those in which the stage utility is additive in leisure and consumption. We extend the analysis to study the effects of cyclical variation in employment risk, of stochastic future wage rates, and of adding a third employment state of search.     

Competition and Participation in Religious Markets: Evidence from Victorian Scotland

In 1885, the largest churches in Scotland were engaged in a dispute about state funding. We use data generated in the course of that dispute to test two related hypotheses. First, as market size (proxied by population) increases, the competitiveness (or complexity) of the religious market structure will not decrease. Second, religious activity, as measured by giving per member, church income and participation, will not decrease as market competitiveness (or complexity) increases. Empirical evidence lends support to the first hypothesis, but casts doubt on the second, and the supply-side theories underpinning it, which posit a causal link between increased competitiveness (complexity) and higher levels of religious activity. In interpreting the results the importance of a rich understanding of institutional arrangements—particularly market structure, governance and financing—is underlined.     

Household Formation,Female Labor Supply,and Savings

In this paper, we aim to quantify the impact of changing family structures on labor supply and savings in Western societies. Our dynamic general equilibrium model features both genders, and it takes into account changes in marital status as a stochastic process. The numerical results indicate that changes in household formation can partly explain the reallocation of male and female labor supply observed during the last decades in Germany. We also find a negative impact on capital accumulation, and we show that a combination of higher marital risk and a narrowing gender wage gap can explain the changes in hours ratios between single and married men and women.     

Precautionary saving under liquidity constraints: Evidence from rural Pakistan

This paper investigates precautionary saving under liquidity constraints in Pakistan using household panel data. In particular, while it estimates Kimball's [Kimball, M.S. Precautionary saving in the small and in the large. Econometrica 1990; 58; 53–73.] prudence parameter based on a framework that is similar to Dynan [Dynan, K.E. How prudent are consumers? Journal of Political Economy 1993; 101; 1104–1113.], this study deviates from the framework by explicitly considering liquidity constraints, as in Zeldes [Zeldes, S.P. Consumption and liquidity constraints: an empirical investigation. Journal of Political Economy 1989; 97; 305–346.]. By doing so, this paper attempts to differentiate the standard precautionary saving caused by uncertainty from that caused by liquidity constraints. Furthermore, endogenous liquidity constraints are used in order to resolve issues of selection biases. We find substantial evidence of the presence of precautionary saving in Pakistan. More specifically, the estimated prudence is significantly higher for liquidity-constrained households as compared with unconstrained ones. The finding suggests that the precautionary saving motives appear stronger when households see that their access to credit markets is limited.     

Disasters,Household Decisions,and Insurance Mechanisms: A Review of Evidence and a Case Study from a Developing Country in Asia

This article investigates whether and how Asian people's exposure to a variety of disasters undermine their decisions and welfare. Our case study from Vietnam, based on household panel data, shows that households adopt a variety of coping strategies against the damages caused by disasters especially through credit and labor markets. While the consumption risk sharing networks function effectively at the commune level, market and non‐market insurance mechanisms are not sufficient, especially at the regional, national, and international levels. Hence, it is imperative to strengthen market, government, and community based insurance mechanisms to diversify aggregate disaster risks at the individual, national, and regional levels in Asia.     

Informal Insurance Arrangements with Limited Commitment: Theory and Evidence from Village Economies

Recent work on consumption allocations in village economies finds that idiosyncratic variation in consumption is systematically related to idiosyncratic variation in income, thus rejecting the hypothesis of full risk-pooling. We attempt to explain these observations by adding limited commitment as an impediment to risk-pooling. We provide a general dynamic model and completely characterise efficient informal insurance arrangements constrained by limited commitment, and test the model using data from three Indian villages. We find that the model can fully explain the dynamic response of consumption to income, but that it fails to explain the distribution of consumption across households.     

论我国劳动关系契约化中的正式约束与非正式约束

由于我国社会习俗、文化、价值观等非正式约束与正式约束的不匹配,导致《劳动合同法》的实施效果不尽如人意,这些非正式约束的限制主要表现在:关系经济降低了正式劳动合约的作用;集体主义制约了正式契约关系的拓展;等级制不利于建立平等的劳动契约关系;人治不利于劳动契约按法律的手段有效实施。正式制度只有在与非正式制度相容的情况下才能发挥作用,我国劳动关系契约化中正式约束与非正式约束不相适应会带来一些问题,主要表现在:它将影响我国社会从身份到契约的进程;影响我国《劳动合同法》的实施及其效果;它使劳动合同的作用难以发挥。     

Size and Implication of Informal Economy in African Countries: Evidence from a Structural Model

This paper presents estimates of the informal economy in 41 African countries, including North Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, Central Africa and West Africa during the period 2007–2013. Using a structural equation model with latent variables, the empirical results indicate that the average size of the informal economy in Africa (in% of formal gross domestic product) in 41 countries is 42.9%, 39.9% in 5 countries in North Africa, 40.02% in 11 countries in southern Africa, 43.24% in 6 countries of East Africa, 45.5% in 7 countries of Central Africa and 45.21% in 12 countries in West Africa. We suggest economic policy recommendations to solve the dilemma of the informal economy not only in the regions but also in different countries such as: identifying the causes of informality, the barriers to formalization and how to eliminate them; developing policies, procedures and institutions that can help informal activities meet market economy requirements, reforming legal systems and ensuring equal access for all; and finally, establishing affordable social benefits for workers.