Governments’ Fiscal Squeeze and Firms’ Pollution Emissions: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in China

Environmental and Resource Economics - We investigate whether and how government fiscal squeeze affects local firms’ pollution emissions. To establish causality, we introduce a policy shock...     

独立董事“政商旋转门”之考察:一项基于自然实验的研究

本文利用2013年中组部《关于进一步规范党政领导干部在企业兼职(任职)问题的意见》(下称禁令)引发的上市公司官员独董辞职潮这一自然实验,来探讨离退休官员到上市公司担任独立董事的政商旋转门现象这一问题。研究发现:第一,与一般独董辞职相比,官员独董因禁令辞职导致公司市值在公告日前后5天下跌超过2%;第二,负面市场反应随着官员政治级别提高而增大;第三,公司既有的政治关系,无论是国企背景还是高管政治关系,都不足以抵消官员独董辞职带来的市值下跌;第四,官员独董的价值至少部分来源于给公司带来的税收优惠、财政补贴等公共资源;第五,无论监督还是咨询,官员独董的表现均不优于(甚至差于)一般独董。综合这些证据,意味着官员独董的价值主要来自于官员身份所带来的资源获取和寻租功能,而不是更好的监督和咨询作用。本文不仅从寻租的新视角补充和拓展了独立董事的现有研究,而且从政策效果(市场反应)上为政府部门在其他领域规范官员兼职以及通过遏制政商旋转门从制度层面抑制官员腐败提供了可行性和有效性论证。     

Fiscal federalism in rentier regions: Evidence from Russia

When does sub-national fiscal autonomy prompt regional growth and recovery and, under what conditions, does it have adverse effects? We argue that unearned income streams, particularly in the form of revenues from natural resource production or from budgetary transfers from the central government, transform regions dependent on these income sources into rentier regions. Governments in these regions can use local control over revenues and expenditures to shelter certain firms, i.e., natural resource producers or loss-making enterprises, from market forces. Using fiscal data from 80 Russian regions from 1996 to 1999, we test this hypothesis in both cross-sectional and panel specifications. Our results indicate that tax retention, which is a proxy for fiscal autonomy, has had a positive effect on regional reform and investment since the break-up of the Soviet Union. However, we also find that this effect decreases as rentable income streams to regions increase. Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (4) (2005) 814–834.     

Fiscal Multiplier in Microstates: Evidence from the Caribbean

The global financial crisis and the attendant Great Recession of 2007–2009 have spawned a full-scale re-examination on the effectiveness of fiscal policy throughout the world. While this has led to a plethora of analyses in developed countries, the same abundance of the work has not been evident for developing counties. This paper uses time-series analysis to examine the multiplier impact of fiscal policy on growth and other macroeconomic variables in the case of four Caribbean states. Although these countries have similar degrees of openness, they differ in debt burdens and economic structures, thus providing a natural laboratory for this investigation. We concluded that fiscal multipliers among the sample countries are quite low and that the contemporaneous fiscal stance appears to be pro-cyclical.     

Regulatory Federalism and Workplace Safety: Evidence from OSHA Enforcement, 1981–1995

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) gives states the option to enforce federal occupational safety and health standards on their own instead of relying on the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). This legislative provision provides an opportunity to analyze a homogenous set of regulatory standards enforced by heterogeneous agents engaged in interjurisdictional competition. This study finds important differences in the effectiveness of enforcement options measured by occupational mortality. State-administered OSHA programs are associated with fewer workplace fatalities than states regulated at the federal level. This finding is consistent with regulatory federalism and government-as-facilitator models of OSHA enforcement.     

Conservation Auctions and Compliance: Theory and Evidence from Laboratory Experiments

Many agri-environmental conservation programs are faced with the problem of imperfect monitoring. This provides farmers with an incentive for noncompliance, because they can receive subsidies without implementing the conservation scheme. In this paper, bidding behavior and auction performance are compared for discriminatory-price and uniform-price auctions in an imperfect monitoring environment. Our theoretical analysis suggests that auction performances are equalized between the discriminatory-price and uniform-price auctions. However, laboratory experiments reveal that, although the discriminatory-price auction has an advantage in terms of reducing policy costs, it is more likely to cause adverse selection. As a result, the uniform-price auction tends to have higher efficiency and cost-effectiveness when compliance behavior is taken into account.     

Fiscal Transparency,Elections and Public Employment: Evidence from the OECD

There is considerable variation in levels and changes in public employment within and between developed democracies. This article highlights the importance of fiscal transparency in determining changes in public employment. It argues that economic growth increases public employment under low fiscal transparency and that this effect is strongest in years of election. These hypotheses are tested on a panel of 20 OECD countries from 1995 to 2010. The analyses show substantial evidence in favor of the arguments. Fiscal transparency lowers the positive effect of growth on public employment, a relationship, which is most robust in election years.     

财政与规制管理竞争——理论与实证

经济竞争并不仅仅是私营经济部门的主要特征:政府自身同样积极参与竞争以吸引新的商业投资、就业和收入以鼓励经济发展。此外,这是一个有争议的重大问题。某些观察家把这种竞争看作是一种导致实力削弱的“竞相向下限造就”的破坏性力量,结果造成伴有公众     

财政透明度中的资源诅咒-基于四川省县级财政自主性的经验证据

本文研究了财政自主性与财政透明度的经验关系及其反映出的地方政府行为逻辑。我们发现,更多的自有财源和更强的财政自主性并没有为财政透明度提升创造有利条件,反而表现为政府财务公开的一大阻碍。我们将此现象解释为财政透明度中的资源诅咒,并认为现有的财政体制和问责机制是其主要成因。要破除财政自主性对于财政透明度的诅咒效应,有待于通过收入分权培养形成与地方支出责任相适应的财政自给能力,同时完善社会公众自下而上推动财政透明的参与和监督机制。     

Causal Effect of Credit Guarantees for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Evidence from Italy

We evaluate the effectiveness of a partial credit guarantee program, implemented in a large Italian region, that aimed to improve the access to credit of small and medium enterprises. Using unique microdata from a broad set of firms, we show that the policy increased the long-term loans for beneficiary firms, while the total volume of bank loans was unaffected. Furthermore, targeted firms benefited from a substantial decrease in interest rates. However, there is some evidence that firms are more likely to default as a consequence of the treatment. Conversely, the results do not point to any significant effect on investments.     

Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand

With many fiscal policies likely to have quite different age/gender incidences, this paper examines age and gender dimensions of income distribution and fiscal incidence in New Zealand using Household Economic Survey data for 2010. Applying, and testing, an intra‐household income sharing rule, our evidence suggests strong life‐cycle and gender aspects to fiscal incidence. Net tax liabilities are found to be low and negative, at younger and older ages but positive during much of the “working age.” Notwithstanding considerable within‐gender heterogeneity, women are found on average to have systematically and persistently lower net fiscal liabilities than men, especially at older ages.     

Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment*

Declining fertility is often attributed to the increased education of women. It is difficult to establish a causal link because both fertility and education have changed secularly. In this paper we study the connection between fertility and education using educational reform as an instrument to control for selection. Our results indicate that increasing education leads to postponement of first births away from teenage motherhood and towards women having their first birth in their 20s as well as, for a smaller group, up to the age of 35–40. We find no evidence, however, that more education results in more women remaining childless or having fewer children.     

Cultural Differences in Ultimatum Game Experiments: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

This paper reports the findings of a meta-analysis of 37 papers with 75 results from ultimatum game experiments. We find that on average the proposer offers 40% of the pie to the responder. This share is smaller for larger pie sizes and larger when a strategy method is used or when subjects are inexperienced. On average 16% of the offers is rejected. The rejection rate is lower for larger pie sizes and for larger shares offered. Responders are less willing to accept an offer when the strategy method is employed. As the results come from different countries, meta-analysis provides an alternative way to investigate whether bargaining behavior in ultimatum games differs across countries. We find differences in behavior of responders (and not of proposers) across geographical regions. With one exception, these differences cannot be attributed to various cultural traits on which for instance the cultural classifications of Hofstede (1991) and Inglehart (2000) are based.     

独立董事的独立性:基于董事会投票的证据

本文利用中国特有的强制披露数据,即中国上市公司独立董事对董事会议案发表意见和进行投票的数据,考察了独立董事相对于管理层的独立性及其监督作用。本文发现,绝大多数情况下独董并不会公开质疑管理层行为,这在一定程度上符合Mace(1986)对独董投票权属于橡皮图章的描述。然而,当公司业绩不佳时,独董更有可能对管理层行为提出公开质疑;并且,声誉越高、具有财务背景、任职时间早于董事长任职时间的独立董事更有可能对管理层决策提出质疑。进一步研究发现,存在异议独董的公司市场价值也更高。这表明当公司面临危机时,独立董事能够发挥监督作用,并且独立董事的监督行为能够缓解代理问题,提高公司价值。     

Fiscal rules to tame the political budget cycle: Evidence from Italian municipalities

The paper provides evidence that fiscal rules can limit the political budget cycle. It uses data on Italian municipalities during the 2000s and shows that: 1) municipalities are subject to political budget cycles in capital spending; 2) the Italian sub-national fiscal rule (Domestic Stability Pact, DSP) introduced in 1999 has been enforced by the central government; 3) municipalities subject to the fiscal rule show more limited political budget cycles than municipalities not subject to the rule. In order to identify the effect, we rely on the fact that the domestic fiscal rule does not apply to municipalities below 5000 inhabitants. We find that the political budget cycle increases real capital spending by about 10–20 percent on average in the years prior to municipal elections and that municipalities subject to the DSP show a pre-electoral increase in capital spending which is only a quarter of the one of municipalities not subject to the rule.     

区域自主创新的特征研究──以中国优势创新区域为例

提高自主创新能力是建设创新型国家的核心环节,把握区域自主创新现状的特征是制定创新发展战略的基础。本文以中国优势创新区域为例,从自主创新要素、区域创新网络和创新外部环境三个视角入手,剖析区域自主创新的特色和劣势,并建议:各省市应提高创新活动与经济发展的互动性,加大金融机构对创新活动的支持力度;湖北、陕西和四川要加强大中型企业的创新地位;天津、福建、浙江和山东要争取创新资源,提高基础创新力;辽宁要倡导能源环保理念,为创新提供良好的外部环境,保证创新的合理性和可持续性。     

Fiscal and External Deficits Nexus in GIIPS Countries: Evidence from Parametric and Nonparametric Causality Tests

International Advances in Economic Research - This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal and external deficits in five European Union countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and...     

Natural gas prices and stock prices: Evidence from EU-15 countries

This study investigates the long-run relationship between natural gas prices and stock prices by using the Johansen and Juselius cointegration test and error–correction based Granger causality models for the EU-15 countries. We employ quarterly data covering the period from 1990:1 to 2008:1. Empirical findings suggest that there is a unique long-term equilibrium relationship between natural gas prices, industrial production and stock prices in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Luxembourg. However, no relationship is found between these variables in the other ten EU-15 countries. Although we detect a significant long-run relationship between stock prices and natural gas prices, Granger causality test results imply an indirect Granger causal relationship between these two variables. In addition, we investigate the Granger causal relationship between stock returns, industrial production growth and natural gas price increase for Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany and Luxembourg. As a result, increase in natural gas prices seem to impact industrial production growth at the first place. In turn, industrial production growth appears to affect stock returns.     

Fiscal Shocks and the Current Account in the Redux Model: Evidence from the Italian Economy

The main goal of this paper is to study the effects of fiscal policy on the current account in the Italian economy through the analysis of one of the most innovative intertemporal models of recent years, the Obstfeld–Rogoff Redux model. The author proposes an innovative econometric approach to the model, based on the estimation of the microeconomic parameters that appear in its fundamental equations. The estimated parameters are used to empirically determine the multipliers that, according to the theory, connect permanent and temporary variations in public expenditure to the current account. Estimation is carried out on a dynamic extension of the original model, which has been developed modifying the first order conditions system of the maximization problem. Finally, the author provides a comparison between the results obtained and the actual dynamics of the Italian current account balance.