Small-Group,Multi-Level Democracy: Implications of Austrian Public Choice for Governance Structure

This paper examines the process of mass democracy as the fundamental cause of transfer seeking and the centralization of governance, using Austrian-school theory and methodology such as decentralized knowledge, disaggregated phenomena, and the structure of capital goods. The alternative of decentralized, small-group governance reduces the demand for campaign financing and makes more effective use of decentralized knowledge. In addition, when public revenues originate in the local districts and are passed on to higher levels of governance, it provides incentives for revenue sources which do not have an excess burden on production. The governance structure of cellular, bottom-up, multi-level voting, with public revenue flowing up from the lower to the upper levels, provides a contrast for a comparative systems analysis that can yield insight into the transfer seeking endemic in mass democracy.     

公共选择理论与交易成本政治学的比较分析

作为当代西方新政治经济学的重要组成部分,公共选择理论与交易成本政治学存在着共识,但是,兴起于公共选择理论之后的交易成本政治学增进了对政治领域的交易及制度的理解,弥补了公共选择理论的不足。换言之,交易成本政治学提高了对于政治世界的理解水平。通过对公共选择理论与交易成本政治学的比较分析,厘清二者之间的共识与差异,有助于辨析政治学和经济学整合发展的趋势。     

提高基本公共服务供给水平的政策思路——基于公共财政视角下的分析

提供基本公共服务是公共财政的重要职责。中国基本公共服务供应的短缺和不均等是构建和谐社会的主要障碍之一。中国公共服务短缺的原因是多方面的，从公共财政视角来分析，可以归结于财政支出结构不合理、民主财政的缺失和财政透明度不高等因素。要解决公共服务供应短缺问题，关键是要按照公共财政的思路，调整财政支出结构，坚持民主财政的原则，提高财政透明度，完善财政转移支付制度。     

Core Concepts of Institutionalist Public Finance: Problem Solving,Institutional Analysis,Strategic Choice,and Stakeholder Engagement

Citizens and policymakers in many nations are becoming increasingly concerned about large budget deficits and mounting long-term fiscal policy challenges. At the same time, slow economic growth in the United States and Europe is causing some people to demand more government spending (and lower taxes) and others to question the efficacy of fiscal policy. Against that backdrop, institutional economists are exhibiting renewed interest in the field of public finance. This article responds by outlining four core concepts of institutionalist public finance: problem solving, institutional analysis, strategic choice, and stakeholder engagement. What distinguishes the perspective of institutionalism from that of neoclassical economics, today’s dominant economic paradigm, is described in the course of the discussion. The core concepts of institutionalist public finance offer a coherent approach to the study of fiscal policy questions. Those concepts were first fashioned decades ago, but remain relevant: institutionalism continues to provide a solid basis for constructive analyses of fiscal challenges.     

政府就业战略选择与公共管理责任

高校毕业生就业已成为一个社会问题。政府部门肩负着构建毕业生社会保障与援助机制、开辟毕业生就业空间与就业机会传导机制、强化就业评价与督导机制方面的公共管理责任。     

我国最优混合养老保险体制的选择:收益和风险分析

养老金研究的核心问题之一在于选择合适的养老金计划运行方式。文章基于中国实际,通过引入随机性的"权衡理论"模型分析发现,在代表性参保人效用最大化前提下,运行方式选择类似于金融资产组合问题。所谓的艾隆条件只是在确定性模型下的特定结果。在加入风险因素后,即便在艾隆条件下,引入一定的积累制也将改善养老金体系的运行状况。两种制度最优的混合比例将受到人口增长率、工资增长率、个人风险规避倾向和金融市场因素的共同影响。分析结果表明提高养老金计划运行收益率和养老基金分散化投资有利于增进参保人效用。     

The Impact of Choice Inconsistencies in Stated Choice Studies

A new test procedure revealing mutuallyinconsistent choices has been developed andapplied to Stated Choice data. Our analysisshows that inconsistent choices commonly occurin several Stated Choice tasks. An applicationof the test to the Norwegian Value of Timestudy data shows that failing to excludeinconsistent choices resulted in asubstantially higher Value of time. Theinconsistent choices were made by less educatedparticipants. As the tasks were undertaken inthe easy context of choosing travelalternatives with three attributes,practitioners of more complex and cognitivedemanding designs should be particularilyconcerned with these results.     

城乡统筹的公共财政检讨与政策取向

在市场经济条件下,公共财政既是政府经济干预的重要工具,也是政府实施他干预的重要载体。从一定意义上讲,公共财政是推动城乡统筹的经济体制基础和保障。本文从财政角度分析我国城乡分割的形成机理,通过实践反思公共财政体制框架下,实施城乡统筹取向的财政政策。     

The Powers of The Central Governments and the Problems of Enlarging and Deepening the European Union: An Essay of Constitutional Political Economy

In this paper we present an adaptation of Buchanan and Tullock’s model in order to apply it to the constitutional choices regarding the assigning of powers to a supranational authority. The outcome of the economic-political model developed in this paper demonstrates that there are constraints in the supply of integration, suggesting that the enlargement and deepening of the European Union will have to be based on federalist conceptions. The authors should like to thanks seminar participants at European Public Choice conference (Belgirate 2002) and ECSA-C conference (Toronto 2002) where earlier versions of the paper have benefited from constructive suggestions. The authors assume the sole responsibility for any errors remaining in this version.     

民间投资接力公共投资:后危机时期的重要选择

在应对全球金融危机的过程中,政府公共投资对我国经济在世界范围内率先企稳回升功不可没。在后危机时期,让民间投资接力公共投资是保持经济可持续增长最重要的战略选择。相对公共投资而言,民间投资具有机制活、效率高、潜力大、可持续性强、有利于创业创新、就业效应强的特点。当前政府需要以城镇化发展推动民间投资、以创业激活民间投资、以消费带动民间投资,并在投资领域、投资方式、融资渠道、财税扶持、创新引导、服务环境等方面采取措施积极扩大民间投资。     

The political economy of green taxes: The Belgian experience

This article deals with the main problems encountered with the implementation of the ecotax law in Belgium. Ecotaxes are product taxes on drink containers, throw-away products, packaging of certain industrial goods, pesticides and fytopharmaceutical products, paper and batteries. The implementation of these taxes is supervised by a special commission of experts. It proves to be a complex tax, where fiscal, political and institutional problems are serious barriers that have to be overcome.     

公共选择视角下的公共预算理念

绩效预算是20世纪公共预算管理的重大改革,是政府公共管理理念的重大转变。作为公共预算理性主义理念的应用,绩效预算对于提高政府预算决策的科学性和预算支出效率发挥了重要作用。然而,理性主义与现实主义的预算理念并不是完全矛盾的,在公共选择的视角下分析两种预算理念实际上是将公共预算作为政治程序的一部分,以经济的视角去分析其决策机制和最终要达到的绩效目标。同时,两种预算理念对于我国目前的预算改革也具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Robust Institutions: The Logic of Levy?

Levy (2002) argues that J. M. Buchanan's worst-case philosophy of constitutional political economy and J. W. Tukey's worst-case philosophy of mathematical statistics are analogous. Levy's analogy, however, is problematic. Institutions are only contingently robust. Worst-case political economy is simply best-case thinking in another guise.     

The Nature of the State and the State of Nature: a Comment on Grady & McGuire's Paper

In 'The Nature of Constitutions', Mark Grady & Michael McGuire provide a model of the evolution and purposes of constitutions as arising to minimize appropriation by dominants of subordinates. This Comment builds on Grady & McGuire's article in three ways. First, it supplements their analysis by operationalizing a model of constitutional evolution that views constitutions as arising out of the conflict of competing high-ranking individuals to preserve their own authority. From this clash of self-interest of dominant individuals, constitutions are born. This predicts that constitutions will not simply tame all forms of appropriation, but will also hard-wire some forms of appropriation behavior into the permanent constitutional structure. Second, it examines the American constitution in light of this model to show how that constitution reflects the mixture of appropriation and appropriation-taming behavior. Third, this Comment argues that the breakdown of constitutionalism in the United States this century can be explained by a failure to fully appreciate the purposes of constitutionalism in a biological framework.     

市场的自然选择与企业演化——基于演化经济学视角

引入经济的自然选择概念,有助于更好地理解微观经济主体的演化规律.分析了经济的自然选择与达尔文式的自然选择的异同、自然选择的效率导向、市场的自然选择与微观经济主体演化、自然选择下的微观经济主体存留等问题,展示了一个分析企业发展的新视角.     

公用事业改革的权利结构变动:比较与选择

SSP范式有助于我们理解公用事业改革的不同模式绩效。以竞争市场结构替代垄断的市场结构,以私有产权替代公有产权,以出让经营权的方式对公用事业进行改革在理论与实践上都存在若干负面影响。走融资之路既可以解决经营公用事业所面临的资金困难问题,又可以避免其他模式的负面影响,是适合当前中国公用事业改革的一种模式。     

Consumer Choice and the Popular Music Industry: A Test of the Superstar Theory

The superstar model predicts skewness of market outcomes and returns to artist quality. We test and confirm these predictions using a unique data set on popular music.     

Parametric and Semi-Nonparametric Estimation of Willingness-to-Pay in the Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Framework

Standard procedures for extractingwillingness-to-pay (WTP) from dichotomouschoice CV questionnaires rely heavily uponparametric assumptions regarding thedistribution and form of WTP in the sampledpopulation. However, theory provides littleguidance regarding which parametricspecification to use and the resulting WTPestimates can be sensitive to the selectionsmade. Here we compare and contrast severalparametric and semi-nonparametric estimatorsthat have been proposed in the literature,examining the sensitivity of the resulting WTPestimates to the underlying distribution ofpreferences and the estimation procedureemployed.     

What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You: Some Unresolved Issues in the Design and Analysis of Discrete Choice Experiments

The papers and comments in this issue focus on four broad areas related to understanding and modeling choices: (1) The use of laboratory experiments to improve valuation methods; (2) The design of stated preference choice set and choice occasions; (3) Latent class models as means of identifying and accommodating preference heterogeneity; and (4) Accommodating uncertainty about the “true” model, modeling ranking and rating tasks and pooling data sources. In what follows I offer some comments on each area, and briefly discuss several unresolved issues associated with each area, closing with some comments about future research opportunities.     

企业家生态位的错位与选择

近几年是我国企业界的多事之秋,著名企业家频繁出事,对这种现象进行理性分析,不难发现一个很重要的因素,那就是“生态位”的错位导致企业家命运多舛。因此,选择合适的生态位就成为企业家生存和发展的首要任务。