Household Finances and Social Interaction: Bayesian Analysis of Household Panel Data

We investigate the relationship between social interaction and household finances using the British Household Panel Survey. We explore the relationship between a wide range of aspects of household finances and social interaction, rather than focusing on one particular facet of household finances, such as the holding of stocks and shares. We develop a Bayesian statistical framework to simultaneously explore both sides of the household balance sheet—liabilities and assets. Additionally, we allow the influence of social interaction on household finances to be time dependent, enabling us to model the effects of social interaction from a dynamic perspective. We also develop a two‐part model to jointly investigate the influence of social interaction on the amount of different types of debt and financial assets held conditional on holding the different types of debt and assets. Our analysis suggests that social interaction is associated with households holding larger amounts of debt and assets.     

Sustainability of current account deficits in India: an intertemporal perspective

This study examines the sustainability of current account deficits (CADs) and the validity of intertemporal budget constraint (IBC) in India. The long-run model is estimated on annual data for the period 1950–1951 to 2009–2010. The optimal single-equation and maximum-likelihood (ML) system estimates of the model provide a consistent support for the long-run relationship between imports and exports. The OLSGH estimates provide no support and that ML system estimates a consistent support for cointegration in both the models estimated with one and two structural breaks in level. The new cointegration breakdown tests generally suggest that the cointegration prevails from 1951 to 2010. The evidence supporting the cointegration between imports and exports overwhelms the evidence providing a mixed or no support for cointegration. The estimates of slope parameter above zero and the dominant support for cointegration between imports and exports vindicate the validity of IBC and the sustainability of CADs. The short-term management strategies need to be accompanied by long-term improvements in productivity to reduce inflation, lever up the competitiveness of exports and ensure the sustainability of the external value of domestic currency.     

Sustainability in forest management: An evolving concept

Sustainability in forest management is both a biological and socioeconomic concept. Originating in 18th century Europe with the aim of avoiding social and economic disruptions associated with timber shortages, sustained-yield forest management evolved to a highly technical process of modeling growth, mortality, and risk in order to set timber removals at a level that theoretically could be maintained in perpetuity. Changing scientific understanding of the ecological functioning of forest ecosystems has challenged the notion that a sustained yield of timber is equivalent to sustaining all the components and natural processes necessary to maintain the long-term health and productivity of these ecosystems. Continuing uncertainty over what is socially and economically acceptable, as well as ecologically sustainable, will make optimality in forest management a much more difficult objective than in the past.     

人口规模、结构对环境的影响效应——基于中国省际面板数据的实证研究

基于2001~2010年中国内地30个省、市、区的省际面板数据,以STIRPAT模型为理论基础研究了我国人口规模、人口年龄结构、城市化率、家庭户规模等人口因素对CO2排放量、工业废气排放量、工业废水排放量和固体废物排放量四项环境污染指标产生的影响效应,建模过程中还考虑了地区生产总值、产业结构、技术进步、环境污染治理投资对环境污染各项指标的影响。研究结果表明:人口规模、家庭户规模和人口年龄结构是影响环境污染各项指标的主要人口因素,而城市化率对环境污染各项指标的影响较小。     

An Assessment of Fiscal Sustainability in Romania

This article analyses Romanian fiscal policy during the 1990s with the main emphasis on the aspect of sustainability of the budget situation. First, the study presents the general development of Romania's economy during the transition period as background for the subsequent policy analysis. Second, the problems of quasi-fiscal subsidies and payment arrears which led to very large quasi-fiscal deficits are highlighted. In the next step, a macroeconomic model is introduced to assess the degree of fiscal sustainability starting with the inter-temporal government budget constraint. The overall deficit for the general government, including central and local governments as well as other institutions belonging to the non-financial public sector, is computed using official statistics. The research findings suggest that Romania has followed an unsustainable fiscal policy in the transition period, particularly up to 1996. In the first half of the 1990s the government financed the deficit partly through seignorage and tried to deal with immediate pressures, preventing social dissatisfaction but neglecting long-term targets. The situation has improved slightly in recent years, nevertheless, there is still much to be done in this area.     

城市可持续性的内涵及研究方法

我国目前正处于高速的城市化阶段,如何协调城市发展过程中的各种矛盾,正确认识并有效地实现城市可持续性,成为了城市管理者和科研人员共同关注的议题。在文献调研的基础上,总结了城市可持续性的概念内涵和构成要素,并对相关概念进行辨析。同时,系统化地介绍了承载力评价、城市代谢分析、福利核算以及综合指标体系四类常见的城市可持续性研究方法,讨论了各类方法的优缺点。最后,对未来的城市可持续性研究工作进行展望。     

中国节能政策对能源效率提高的影响——基于省际面板数据的实证分析

利用1996~2012年省际面板数据研究了我国节能政策对能源效率提高的影响。研究表明:"十一五"以来,我国所实施的节能政策对全国及各区域能源利用效率的提高有着积极作用;与东部地区相比,政府节能政策对中部和西部地区提高能效的影响效果更为显著。此外,技术进步是中部和西部省份实现节能降耗的有效手段,优化产业结构和产权结构更有利于全国以及东部地区提高能效。因此,未来还应继续加强政府相关政策对能效提高工作的支持力度,同时要根据不同地区的经济发展结构和技术水平特点实施差异化的节能政策。     

Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting: An Application to the Forest Resources in India

Forests contribute to the economy in several ways. While forests are a source of timber with market values, they also influence local and regional climate, preserve soil cover on site, and in the case of watersheds, protect soil downstream from floods –functions, which are not in the production boundary of SNA. Further, the net value added in forestry sector does not reflect sustainability of forest resources, because it ignores the consumption of natural capital (depletion) that occurs when forests are harvested or converted to other uses. The only costs of depletion considered in the national accounts are the extraction costs and records the potential loss in forest wealth as other changes in assets that have no effect on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The study tries to incorporate forest resources into the national accounts and adjust the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the depletion of forest capital, using the Satellite System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA). The value of net accumulation (positive or negative) of forests is calculated and the net Domestic Product is adjusted for the depletion of the forest resources to get Environment adjusted Domestic Product (EDP). The results show that the EDP equals 98.4% of the adjusted net domestic product in 1993–1994. A proper accounting framework would better reflect not only the long term value of the state's natural wealth but also its immediate contribution to the state economy in the current accounts.     

Determinants of Public Expenditure on Health in India: A Panel Data Analysis at Sub-National Level

This study explores whether political factors and fiscal capacity matter more in explaining the growth and variation in health expenditure than the state’s income in India. The findings suggest that with the widening of political participation and greater representation of diverse population groups in politics, one can see a concomitant rise in government expenditure on health, indicating state interventionism in health sector for political reasons. Government’s desire to increase health spending depends on the availability of financial resources with the states, failing which the probability of fulfilling expenditure obligations towards the sector would be low. In contrast to earlier estimates that income elasticity of health expenditure is nearly equal to or greater than one, the elasticity is found to be less than one which ranges between 0.16 and 0.59. Overall, coefficient estimates of most of these important covariates show an upward bias in terms of magnitude and precision due to the absence of unobserved control factors and of advanced robust estimation techniques.

     

美国贸易逆差:增长惯性与可持续性

美国的经常项目逆差特别是贸易逆差“历史悠久”,尤其是近年来高速增长,已引起人们广泛的关注。本文作者认为:20世纪90年代以来的美国贸易逆差已很难单从汇率、贸易政策及产品竞争力等单个变量来加以解释。通过运用滞后一年的时间数列相关分析及回归分析,本文得出的结论是:当期美国贸易逆差是前期美国贸易逆差的惯性增长,并且只要美国资本与金融账户的盈余足够冲抵贸易逆差,美国的贸易逆差便具有可持续性。针对近期美国人制造的“人民币升值论”,结合近十年来中美双边贸易现实,说明美国贸易逆差与人民币汇率之间没有必然联系,人民币升值也不可能改善美国的贸易收支状况。     

Examining energy poverty in Chinese households: An Engel curve approach

This article is first to model energy poverty in Chinese households using an Engel curve approach. To analyse the determinants of energy poverty and energy expenditures across households, we avail the 2015 wave of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Possible presence of endogeneity is accounted for in the model specification as well as by using the Lewbel heteroscedasticity identified endogenous variables estimator. In addition, we are the first to scrutinise disparity and discrimination by conducting the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition of energy poverty model by gender, ethnicity, region (Eastern vs. non-Eastern provinces), and urbanisation status (rural vs. urban residents). Our analysis shows: (i) education is the key determinant of various energy poverty measures and energy expenditure shares across Chinese households; (ii) other determinants including fossil fuel mix and electricity price discrimination are found to worsen energy poverty, on average. However, fossil fuel mix is found to increase expenditure share of total energy, electricity, and coal and decrease that of biomass; and (iii) the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition analyses show no statistically significant gender or ethnic discrimination in energy poverty rates. However, there is substantial divide between Eastern and non-Eastern provinces and between rural and urban households—with these groups also discriminated against when accessing clean cooking fuels and technologies. The Blinder–Oaxaca results also generally support the logistic and the Lewbel energy poverty model findings.     

我国赤字财政的可持续性的实证分析

本文在分析财政赤字与税收、国债之间关系的基础上，指出财政赤字的内生性。通过一系列模型证明了以下观点：从长期看，税收的增长速度应小于GDP的增长速度，减税趋势不可避免；国债负担率的增长速度较快；短期内，赤字财政在稳健的货币政策的配合下，对经济增长有一定的积极作用，但长期内对经济增长有一定的负作用；相机抉择不能合理解释经济现实。     

Fiscal Prudence and Growth Sustainability: An Analysis of China's Public Debts

This paper analyses and assesses China's current fiscal system, including its basic institutional arrangements, the relationship between central and local governments, and the fiscal balance and public debt. This paper pays special attention to the local government borrowings that have increased dramatically in recent years, and tries to measure the “overall public debt risk” by including all kinds of eligible debts. This paper finds that although the large expansion of local government debt during the fiscal stimulation response to the global financial crisis was devastating, the all‐inclusive total public debt to gross domestic product ratio remains under 50%, and as long as the local debt stops growing, the risk is quite manageable. This paper also points out that more attention should be paid to improving and reforming the Chinese fiscal system, particularly the reform of the fiscal relationship between central and local governments, and the legal framework for local government debt management.     

国际可持续性评价方法研究进展与趋势

可持续发展水平的衡量是可持续发展研究的重要内容,它可以为政府的可持续发展决策提供重要的科学依据。依据1974年以来国外可持续发展相关文献,总结了不同学者对可持续发展的理解。根据进行可持续性评价时是否考虑了系统内部组分之间及内部组分与外部环境之间的关系,将评价方法分为三类:指标列举法、流量分析法和系统分析法。分析得出现有评价方法存在六点薄弱之处:对可持续性评价框架背后的机理研究较少;指标的选取具有一定的随意性;指标的标准化、赋权及集成方法的选取尚无统一标准;流量分析方法未包含与可持续性有关的全部强度参数;鲜有评价方法考虑了可持续发展的规模;极少方法提出了可持续发展的阈值范围。最后,指出了未来需要重点加强三个方面的研究:可持续发展的定义、可持续发展的阈值范围及系统分析方法。     

On the Cyclicality of Public Finances in Europe

Under EMU, monetary policy is oriented toward the euro area as a whole and fiscal policy is an important instrument remaining in the hands of national governments to cushion economic shocks to individual countries. The current paper analyses the cyclical pattern of public finances in Europe and addresses the question of whether fiscal policies have been geared towards this stabilising role. Although taxes fluctuate countercyclically in a conventional manner, we find that discretionary measures have tended to undermine automatic stabilisers. On the expenditure side, we find that public investment also displays a consistent procyclical pattern. Dynamic analysis reveals that a permanent shock to output induces asynchronous fluctuations in taxes and expenditures in the year of the shock and in periods thereafter. Finally, we examine political and institutional factors. The political fragmentation of the government as well as the partisan hue of the government do not interfere with the cyclical response of public finances, but we do find evidence of a pronounced electoral cycle.     

Alliances versus Federations: An Extension of Riker's Analysis of Federal Formation

This essay explores the distinction between federations and alliances and asks the question: When will states choose to federate rather than ally? William Riker argues that a necessary condition for a federal state's formation is that those offering the federal bargain must seek to “expand their territorial control, usually either to meet an external military or diplomatic threat or to prepare for military or diplomatic aggression and aggrandizement.” This argument, though, does not tell us why states sometimes respond to threats by forming federations and at other times by forming alliances. Here we address this issue directly and use a formal model of alliance formation to illustrate our arguments. Briefly, that model assumes states have initial endowments of military and economic resources, where economic resources enter utility functions directly and military capability influences preference only insofar as it determines a state's ability to counter or make threats. State can divert economic resources to military spending, and alliances, in turn, are self-enforcing coalitions designed to augment a state's offensive or defensive capabilities. Federations, which serve the same ends as alliances, are coalitions that need to be enforced by the “higher authority” established when the federation is formed. Our assumption is that states form federations in lieu of alliances if and only if (1) a stable alliance partition does not exist or, if one exists, it is dominated by an unstable partition and (2) if the cost of the loss of sovereignty to each state in the federation is offset by the gains from joining it, relative to what that state secures as its security value.     

The Public Finances of the United Kingdom: a re-interpretation

This paper presents evidence concerning the distributive activities of the UK state with regards to labour. A methodology is developed which assesses both the costs and the benefits of the UK state to labour. Applying such a methodology to the UK national accounts demonstrates that the taxes paid by labour exceed the benefits of social spending received by labour. Thus, there has been a net transfer of resources from labour to other social sectors. It can therefore be argued that the UK state both horizontally re-circulates income within labour and transfers resources vertically from wages and consumption to profits, investment and the state.     

Diffusion of mobile telephony in India: An empirical study

Diffusion of new technology is an important driver of economic growth. In this paper, diffusion of mobile telephony in India is studied. There is a vast diffusion potential in this country which needs to be exploited efficiently and in a rational way. This paper investigates the social, technological, economical and political (STEP) factors that have influenced the diffusion process of mobile telephony especially the diffusion speed. The epidemic model, which is widely employed in the diffusion studies of mobile telephony, is used for the study. The data is fitted into logistic, gompertz, and bass models by nonlinear least squares and it is found that gompertz model best describes the diffusion process of mobile telephony in India. The study reveals that competition and government intervention played a significant role in accelerating the diffusion speed of mobile telephony by making the technology affordable. It is found that mobile telephony is a substitute for fixed line telephony in India. The findings will be useful in taking managerial decisions with respect to factors in forecasting and controlling the diffusion process of emerging technologies.     

人民币汇率合理性判断--用平行数据单位根对人民币购买力平价的经验分析

本文讨论了人民币汇率是否合理、人民币是否应该升值的两个判断标准,采用四种新发展起来的平行数据单位根检验法,对1978年1月-2004年9月的人民币购买力平价进行了检验.检验的结果普遍支持了购买力平价,可以认为人民币汇率的长期基础是合理的.但我们认为由于汇率在当代存在着两重作用与二重性,现有汇率理论只能部分地解释汇率的决定.论文对汇率的两重作用与二重性进行了分析.