预算软约束视角下私营企业成长分析

随着社会市场经济体制的不断完善私营企业成长的环境在不断优化。但在快速发展的背后,私营企业面临着多种形式的预算软约束问题,虽在一定条件下有助于经济增长,但大多数对企业成长影响是负面的,并严重损害了社会经济效率。有必要采取各种市场与非市场措施对进行预算软约束硬化,同时要坚持适度原则,在特定条件下保证适度的预算软约束,以加快"十二五"时期私营企业的转型进程。     

Profiling hospital utilization in a mixed public–private system

While there is an extensive body of literature on the demand for hospital services, little is known about the interaction between public and private hospitals in a mixed system. In this article, we (1) apply latent class analysis to identify distinct subgroups of patients who use the hospital market differently, (2) characterize each patient type by their personal characteristics and (3) link the patient type to future hospital admissions. We apply our analysis to individual-level longitudinal patient data from Australia, focusing on three popular procedures that are performed in both public and private hospitals. We find 4–5 patient types. The most common types use either a public or a private hospital almost exclusively and absorb a moderate level of hospital resources. The severe types represent 13–17% of patients. The type which uses both sectors makes up 10–20% and tends to have private health insurance coverage. The patient types are predictive of prospective utilizations as we find that patients tend to be admitted to the sector they have used in the past. By revealing how patients use coexisting public and private hospitals, our results have direct implications on health resource financing and allocations.     

企业、银行和政府三方还贷博弈研究

预算软约束已成为国有企业改革的阻碍因素,并影响经济转型期的政企、银企关系,而政府对于债务的软预算约束是企业信贷违约的原因之一,根据企业还贷过程中相关利益者的相互博弈,建立一个企业、银行、政府之间三方博弈模型来分析它们之间的行为及其目标差异对企业信贷违约的影响。模型分析表明：政府出于政治和经济利益的考虑,通过补贴银行和企业来实施对企业还贷的软预算约束,而银行在衡量了政府补贴和清算得失之后有可能对企业再贷款。解决预算软约束和企业信贷违约的关键在于＂政府、银行、企业＂之间的关系处理,企业完全按市场化运作,建立科学的法人治理结构,让政府从企业中逐步退出,硬化企业的预算约束环境,从而降低企业的信贷违约的概率。     

Unbalanced government budgets,private asset holdings,and the traditional comparative static multipliers

During the past quarter century, the traditional macro model of effective demand has been criticized repeatedly for ignoring certain asset market effects associated with government policy. The customary approach in using an underlying framework for this model has been to assume that government faces a budget constraint whereas the private sector confronts a wealth constraint. In this paper, we demonstrate thet if every sector faces a budget constraint, many of the aforementioned criticisms disappear. One particularly interesting result is that a balanced government budget is not necessary to achieve a stationary equilibrium for national income.     

STRATEGIC BUDGET CONSTRAINTS IN A UNIONIZED MIXED OLIGOPOLY

This paper considers the budget‐constraint problem where the government decides whether or not to impose a budget constraint on the public firm, assuming the public firm is less efficient than private firms. We find that imposing budget constraints on the public firm is the preferred choice because of the welfare‐improving effect. Our model suggests that the wage levels of the public firm can be lower or higher than those of private firms depending upon the degree of inefficiency. These results differ from Ishida and Matsushima's findings that in a unionized mixed duopoly, tight budget constraints can enhance social welfare when the public firm is as efficient as private firms.     

Service Quality,Competition, and Regulatory Policies in the Postal Sector

This paper presents a simple model which illustrates the possible policy- and welfare-implications of endogenous product selection in the postal sector. The cost of a unit of mail depends on its "quality" (e.g., speed of delivery) and on the type and location of the addressee (firms, urban households, and rural households). Senders have inelastic demands and differ in their willingness to pay for quality. Addressees are passive but their utility may affect social welfare. Two operators play a two-stage game, first choosing qualities and then prices. We first show that the equilibrium with two private (profit maximizing) operators results in an inefficient provision of quality. Then, we consider the mixed (Nash) equilibrium with one private and one (welfare maximizing) public operator. If the budget constraint of the public firm is not binding, this equilibrium is shown to be first-best efficient even if social welfare accounts for the utility of addressees. If the budget constraint is binding, the mixed equilibrium is not efficient but yields a higher level of welfare than the private equilibrium. Finally, we study the impact of minimum quality standards within our setting.     

Investment decisions and the soft budget constraint

This paper investigates the investment behaviour of a large panel of Hungarian firms in the period 1989–99, in order to assess the impact of institutional and regulatory changes on the efficiency of credit allocation. We find that the role of financial factors for investment decisions has changed significantly after the introduction of major financial reforms, and that firms were affected differently depending on their ownership type. Reforms have hardened the budget constraint of private domestic firms, particularly small ones, and reduced informational problems for foreign‐owned firms. State‐owned firms remained subject to a soft budget constraint. In particular, small state firms became more sensitive to financial conditions, whereas large state firms were unaffected and kept operating under a soft budget constraint.     

Asymmetric Information and Adverse Selection in Mauritian Slave Auctions

Information asymmetry is a necessary prerequisite for testing adverse selection. This paper applies this sequence of tests to Mauritian slave auctions. The theory of dynamic auctions with private and common values suggests that when an informed participant is known to be active, uninformed bidders will be more aggressive and the selling price will be higher. We conjecture that observable family links between buyer and seller entailed superior information and find a strong price premium when a related buyer purchased a slave, indicative of information asymmetry. We then test for adverse selection using sale motivation. Our results indicate large discounts on voluntary as compared to involuntary sales. Consistent with adverse selection, the market anticipated that predominantly low-productivity slaves would be brought to the market in voluntary sales.     

Competition and the reform of incentive schemes in the regulated sector

We consider a regulation problem with complete contracting in a principal–agent model with adverse selection and review within this model the various channels by which external competition parameters affect incentives within the regulated firm. The channels are: the principal’s information, the principal’s objective function, the agent’s incentive constraint, the agent’s participation constraint. We consider in particular a better information structure, a threat of liquidation, a fight for talent, a more efficient private sector, and the existence of better substitutes. We characterize in each case the conditions under which the effect on incentives is positive.     

Determinants and consequences of soft budget constraintsAn empirical analysis using enterprise‐level data in transition countries1

This paper presents empirical work grounded in the soft budget constraint (SBC) literature. A loan is soft when a bank cannot commit the enterprise to hold to a fixed initial budget and/or the timing of repayment. Using data collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS), 2002) in 26 transition economies, we analyze the determinants of managers’ expectations of having a soft loan. In particular, we find that managers’ expectations are lower when the initial financing requires collateral, and higher for larger firms and when firms had recently experienced financial distress. We also provide evidence that managers’ expectations influence their price responsiveness.     

Aid and the Soft Budget Constraint

The author applies the theory of the soft budget constraint to explain some stylized facts regarding the outcomes and practice of international aid, including ineffectiveness, white elephants, and volatility. The soft budget constraint can also make aid counterproductive. Nonetheless, actual aid institutions may be constrained optimal responses to soft budgets and commonly suggested reforms such as improved donor coordination in aid, focus on fewer countries and projects, and less volatility of aid may lower the effectiveness of aid. The soft budget is also consistent with conservative project selection and the recent focus on "ownership."     

Optimal privatization policy with asymmetry among private firms

We revisit the relationship between the optimal privatization policy and market competition indexes such as the Hirschman–Herfindahl index. It is affected by the number of the firms and asymmetry among the sizes of the firms; the smaller the number of firms and the more asymmetry among firms, the higher the market concentration index. The literature on mixed oligopolies suggested that the optimal degree of privatization increases with the number of private firms, and thus, decreases with the market competition index, assuming that all private firms are homogeneous. We investigate how asymmetry among private firms affects the optimal degree of privatization. We propose the simplest and natural model formulation to discuss asymmetry among private firms. We find that the optimal degree of privatization is either nonmonotone or monotonically increasing, and thus never monotonically decreasing, in asymmetry among private firms.     

国有企业预算约束硬化与财政分权

软预算约束导致国有企业低效率。在向市场经济转轨的过程中,国有企业软预算约束问题仍然存在。硬化国有企业预算约束是改革的一项重要内容。在要素自由流动的条件下,从中央向地方的财政分权引起地方政府之间的竞争;竞争提高了对亏损国有企业进行救助的机会成本,从而有助于硬化国有企业的预算约束。     

Investment and the soft budget constraint in China

This paper examines the incentive effects of the soft budget constraint on the investment behavior of firms in general and on the investment-cash flow sensitivity in particular. To this end, we develop a simple model of moral hazard that takes the soft budget constraint into account. Within this moral hazard environment, we show that investment is positively related to the amount of internal funds. We further show that the presence of the soft budget constraint deteriorates the moral hazard problem, thereby making the investment level less sensitive to the amount of internal funds. This is the case irrespective of whether the soft budget constraint renders the firm more or less liquidity constrained. To test the model's empirical implications, we employ data of China's listed companies for the period from 1997 to 2003. We use the share of state ownership as a proxy for the severity of the soft budget constraint. We find strong evidence that firms with larger shares of state ownership exhibit lower investment-cash flow sensitivities than firms with smaller shares of state ownership.     

A political economy theory of the soft budget constraint

Why do soft budget constraints exist and persist? In this paper we argue that the prevalence of soft budget constraints can be best explained by the political desirability of softness. We develop an infinite horizon political economy model where neither democratic nor autocratic politicians can commit to policies that are not ex post optimal. We show that because of the dynamic commitment problem inherent in the soft budget constraint, politicians can in essence commit to make transfers to entrepreneurs which otherwise they would not be able to do. This encourages such entrepreneurs to support them politically. Though the soft budget constraint may induce economic inefficiency, it may be politically rational because it influences the probability of political survival. In consequence, even when information is complete, politicians may fund bad projects which they anticipate they will have to bail out in the future. We show that, maybe somewhat surprisingly, dictators who are less likely to lose power, are more likely to use the soft budget constraint as a strategy to gain political support.     

Soft budget constraint theories: From centralization to the market

This paper surveys the theoretical literature on the effect of soft budget constraints on economies in transition from centralization to capitalism; it also reviews our understanding of soft budget constraints in general. It focuses on the conception of the soft budget constraint syndrome as a commitment problem. We show that the two features of soft budget constraints in centralized economies – ex post renegotiation of firms' financial plans and a close administrative relationship between firms and the centre – are intrinsically related. We examine a series of theories (based on the commitment-problem approach) that explain shortage, lack of innovation in centralized economies, devolution, and banking reform in transition economies. Moreover, we argue that soft budget constraints also have an influence on major issues in economics, such as the determination of the boundaries and capital structure of a firm. Finally, we show that soft budget constraints theory sheds light on financial crises and economic growth.     

Negative effects of competition in a medical-service market

A market for medical care is characterized by uncertain, but inelastic demand and a ‘soft budget constraint’. We assume that in such a market, government decides on giving licenses to different private institutions to provide medical service. In this paper we present an argument as to why competition has a negative effect on social welfare and therefore government should only provide one license. We also explain why in such a market the profit-maximizing institutions install too high a capacity in comparison to a social optimum.     

论预算软约束下相关影响因素变化所导致资本结构理论的变化

预算软约束是影响企业融资行为异化的重要因素之一。预算软约束存在于各种经济体中,并影响着不同制度背景下的公司融资模式。本文在回顾已有资本结构理论及其相关经验证据的基础上,试图构建预算软约束对资本结构作用机理的理论模型与可验证的假设。为此,首先提出预算软约束的分析框架;然后通过放宽预算硬约束假设来分析已有资本结构理论,重点关注了在预算软约束环境下资本结构不同影响因素的变化及其导致的资本结构理论变化;最后总结了预算软约束和资本结构的相互作用及其理论假设,并提出了进一步研究的建议。     

SOFT BUDGET CONSTRAINT RECONSIDERED

This paper demonstrates that Kornai's original concept of the soft budget constraint (SBC) as a theoretical innovation in micro‐theory disguises income redistributions that are essentially macroeconomic relationships. The SBC also postulates a competitive market economy as the benchmark of hard budget constraint (HBC) and efficiency. A recent formal theory explains the SBC as a component of profit‐maximizing strategic behaviour. From this perspective, the SBC can be integrated into the new microeconomics, but it loses its specific institutional connotation and its macroeconomic dimension. The SBC is thus included in ubiquitous market‐type relationships, particularly complete (optimal) contractual arrangements.     

预算软约束与资产价格理性泡沫

文章将预算软约束引入资产价格理性泡沫的分析之中,在给出一个预算软约束情形下资产均衡价格决定模型的基础上,得出了资产价格理性泡沫的表达式.模型分析表明,当存在预算软约束时风险资产的理性泡沫为正;同时,风险资产对应企业面临的预算软约束越大,该风险资产价格中的理性泡沫越大.