A CLASS OF PERFORMANCE‐BASED SUBSIDY RULES*

We consider a benchmark static incentive scheme, i.e. a per unit subsidy, that induces a monopoly to produce a target output level. We show that the same output level can be achieved by a continuum of dynamic subsidy rules based on a performance indicator. The rules require only local information. The present value of the subsidies paid is smaller than the amount paid under the static subsidy. Each of the dynamic subsidy rules results at each moment in a lower per unit subsidy than the static subsidy. The subsidy rate depends on a state variable that reflects the monopolist's performance history.     

中国通用航空产业补贴效率及最优补贴制度研究—以低空飞行服务业为例

补贴效率是检验补贴制度设计合理性、运行有效性的核心标准。研究发现,我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度存在相对供给挤占、暂时性收益陷阱、恶性亏损经营和资金体内循环4类突出的效率损失及福利侵蚀问题,补贴对通航运营企业经营效益提升无显著影响。立足补贴效率受损形式并顺应有效供给和需求严重不足的产业发展矛盾,以社会福利和外部性为核心,从结构重塑、机制优化两个维度出发,全面建立我国通用航空飞行服务业补贴制度并探讨最优补贴边界,最大化补贴效益。首先,以需求二维影响机制为理论支撑,搭建“需求侧保险费率补贴制度+供给端弹性补贴计划”的双侧补贴模式,减缓有效供需规模偏小对企业短期非理性补贴行为的过度激化。其次,从调整补贴标准、丰富补贴层次、规范补贴流程、定位补贴属性4个方面着手深度优化供给侧补贴计划,并以应用事后补贴安排、筹建再保险补贴基金的形式细化需求侧补贴内容,以期最大程度减少补贴效率损耗对预期补贴福利的影响。     

Attracting private investment: Tax reduction,investment subsidy,or both?

This paper uses a real-option model to examine the net benefit to a government from using tax cut and/or investment subsidy as incentives to induce immediate investment. Although earlier papers generally concluded that investment subsidy dominates tax cut, it is observed that many governments use a combination of subsidy and tax cut. We show that, when the government uses a different discount rate from private firms, and when it has to borrow money to provide an investment subsidy, it is possible to get an internal optimum; that is, it might be optimal for the government to provide an investment subsidy as well as charge a positive tax rate on the profits from the project. Thus, we provide an explanation for the puzzling fact that many governments provide an investment subsidy to a firm while simultaneously taxing its profits.     

Subsidies as an alternative to the Australian tariff

A subsidy is said to be able to achieve the same objective(s) as a tariff with less resource misallocation and greater visibility to taxpayers. The ORANI general equilibrium model is used to explore the practical difficulties of defining what are the subsidy alternatives to a tariffand to examine the significance of particular subsidy alternatives to specific tariff policies. The conclusion is reached that it is unwise to speak of the subsidy alternative to the tariff without specifying precisely what tariff policy and what subsidy alternative to the tariff one has in mind.     

Industrial heterogeneity and international product cycles

We analyze the superiority of the specific, demand and cost ad valorem subsidies in industrial and export policies. The criterion employed to measure the ranking of the superiority of the subsidy policies in this paper is that, given an identical total output, the smaller the amount of the subsidy, the superior the subsidy policy. We show that the demand ad valorem subsidy is the least efficient policy, regardless of whether it is measured in regard to the industrial or export subsidy policies. The superiority related to the specific and cost ad valorem subsidies hinges upon the production technology. We can thus provide a theoretical explanation to the real world phenomenon as to why governments usually offer a specific or cost ad valorem subsidy policy to agricultural products and exports.     

Subsidy competition and imperfect labor markets

This study presents a two‐country model of subsidy competition for manufacturing firms under labor market imperfections. Because subsidies affect the distribution of firms, subsidies influence unemployment rates and welfare in both countries. We show that when labor market frictions are high, subsidy competition is beneficial, although subsidies under subsidy competition are inefficiently high. In the coordinated equilibrium, the supranational authority provides a subsidy to firms that equal the expected total search costs, which increases the number of firms relative to laissez‐faire and improves welfare relative to laissez‐faire and subsidy competition. Finally, we find that a rise in a country's labor market frictions raises the equilibrium subsidy rate, affects unemployment rates, and lowers welfare.     

A Note on Optimal Industrial Policy Towards Bertrand Homogeneous Duopoly

Recent studies in strategic trade and industrial policy analysis suggest that an investment subsidy, in the form of an R&D subsidy, a capacity subsidy or an advertising subsidy, would be a robust industrial policy recommendation towards an international differentiated oligopoly. However, in this paper, we show that this result does not carry over to the case of a Bertrand homogeneous duopoly. This result together with the fact that the optimal industrial policy is to set an investment subsidy when in product market competition firms play a Cournot output game, imply immediately that there hardly exists a robust industrial policy recommendation towards homogeneous goods industries.     

Higher Education: Subsidizing Tuition versus Subsidizing Student Loans

We use a simple two‐period equilibrium framework to explore the effects of two different subsidization regimes for higher education on the formation of human capital and on the distribution of incomes. Individuals finance their investments in higher education through income‐contingent education loans as well as subsidies from the government. The subsidy is tax‐financed. We compare an egalitarian subsidy scheme, which reduces by a uniform amount the tuition charged to students, with a student loan subsidy which is proportional to the student's debt service obligation. We show that both types of subsidies reduce the economy‐wide underinvestment in higher education and lead to a more equal income distribution. Furthermore, according to some social welfare criterion, the student loan subsidy regime dominates the tuition subsidy regime if the subsidy level is predetermined, while the converse is true if the subsidy level constitutes a choice variable of the government.     

Environmental Goods and Measures for Their Promotion: An Analysis Using a Fair Wage Model

In this paper, we model a two‐sector small open economy with emissions and unemployment associated with the fair wage effort hypothesis, and investigate the environmental and employment impact of an emission tax, a subsidy for purchasing environmental goods in the downstream polluting industry, and a subsidy to the upstream eco‐industry. We then show that if the eco‐industry is skilled labor intensive relative to the polluting final goods industry, while a subsidy for purchasing environmental goods decreases the unemployment rate of unskilled labor, it may increase total emissions. In contrast, the emission tax and the subsidy to eco‐industry firms worsen the unemployment rate, though both policies decrease total emissions. Hence, if the emission tax is set equal to the marginal environmental damage, and either a downstream or upstream subsidy is used to mitigate unskilled unemployment, the optimal subsidy to purchase the goods is positive whereas the optimal subsidy to the eco‐industry is negative, i.e., a tax on the eco‐industry.     

Equity,externalities and energy subsidies The case of kerosine in Indonesia

This paper examines two arguments used to justify the subsidy provided kerosine, the primary commercial fuel of Indonesian households. One argument holds that the subsidy reduces deforestation externalities resulting from wood gathering. Econometric analysis of a large cross-section of households finds that firewood/kerosene substitution is very limited in Java, where the deforestation problem is most severe, so that kerosene subsidy is not an effective means of alleviating the problem. The second argument holds that social equity requires the subsidization of ‘basic needs’ such as kerosene. It is found that the kerosene subsidy disproportionately benefits urban and wealthier households.     

技术创新扩散补贴机制研究——基于微分博弈分析

运用微分博弈纳什反馈均衡(Feedback Nash Equilibrium)和Stackelberg反馈均衡(Feedback Stackelberg Equilibrium)对技术创新扩散过程中,采用时间定量补贴和投入比例补贴的两种补贴机制进行了研究。通过研究,我们发现在采用时间定量补贴的微分博弈中,纳什反馈均衡和Stackelberg反馈均衡相同,则先行动者无先动优势,补贴机制没有达到目标。而在改进的采用投入比例补贴机制中,存在唯一的Stackelberg反馈均衡:领导者是先采用者,跟随者是后采用者,则该博弈具有先动优势,从而达到了提高潜在采用者采用积极性的补贴目的。     

Price competition between subsidized organizations

Many firms and organizations compete for customers while at the same time receiving substantial funding from outside sources, such as government subsidies. In this paper, we study the effects of two commonly observed subsidy systems on the strategic behavior of competing firms. We compare a per unit subsidy to a subsidy allocated according to the firms’ market shares. We show that, holding the total subsidy budget constant, the per unit subsidy results in lower prices, higher output, lower profits and higher overall welfare as compared to the market-share based alternative. However, we also find that a market-share based subsidy makes collusive behavior between firms much harder. Our results suggest a potential trade-off between short-run and long-run objectives: subsidy systems designed to widen participation may favor collusive behavior. The welfare implications of this trade-off are discussed. Our findings have important policy implications for the design of subsidy systems.     

我国渔业补贴政策及其改革探索

我国的渔业补贴政策在一定程度上是积极有效的,但同时也存在补贴总量不足、渔业补贴结构不合理、补贴种类不齐全和补贴核算指标体系不规范等问题。针对存在的问题,我国应从补贴结构、补贴种类和核算方法三个方面对渔业补贴予以改进：从SCM协定中渔业补贴分类、产业结构和补贴方式三方面调整渔业补贴结构;从逐渐削减渔船燃油补贴、加大远洋渔业补贴、新增休闲渔业补贴、建立政府支持型渔业保险制度等方面调整渔业补贴种类;把生产者补贴等值法（PSE）作为渔业补贴核算方法。     

Externalities,entry bias,and optimal subsidy policy for cleaner environment

This paper analyses alternative subsidy schemes and long-run entry bias in a new industry that creates positive environmental externalities (both generation externalities and externalities associated with interindustry technology spillovers). It demonstrates that per-unit subsidy scheme, despite attracting fewer firms, results in higher industry output and economic surplus in the equilibrium compared with the expenditure equivalent lump-sum subsidy scheme. However, the later leads to higher total surplus, unless spillover externalities are sufficiently small. Further, the free-entry equilibrium number of firms may be excessive or insufficient. A key finding of this paper is that the first-best equilibrium outcome can be implemented through a unique combination of per-unit subsidy and lump-sum subsidy/tax, which involves positive government expenditure in the presence of positive externalities.     

Does Child Labour Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioural Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy

It is often argued that child labour comes at the expense of schooling and so perpetuates poverty for children from poor families. To test this claim we study the effects on children's labour force participation and school enrollments of the pure school-price change induced by a targeted enrollment subsidy in rural Bangladesh. Our theoretical model predicts that the subsidy increases schooling, but its effect on child labour is ambiguous. Our empirical model indicates that the subsidy increased schooling by far more than it reduced child labour. Substitution effects helped protect current incomes from the higher school attendance induced by the subsidy.     

粮食补贴政策对农户种植行为影响的实证分析

粮食补贴政策旨在提高农民种粮积极性,促进粮食增产和农民增收。本文通过构建嵌入补贴政策的农户种植决策行为理论模型,考察粮食补贴政策对农户粮食种植行为的影响,并利用安徽省17个地市421户农户的微观调查数据进行实证检验。实证结果显示,粮食补贴政策对激励农户增加粮食播种面积具有显著的正面效应,粮食补贴政策在动态趋势上表现出显著的"土地投入"激励效应。     

Competing for Foreign Direct Investment

The paper analyzes 'subsidy games' between countries in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from a third country. The winner of this game results from the interaction of two factors, relative country size and employment gains from FDI: a large (or 'central') country is more likely to attract FDI, and so is a country with high unemployment. The subsidy equilibrium is compared with two alternative solutions: zero subsidies and first-best subsidies. It is shown that total welfare may be greater under subsidy competition than under zero subsidies: the gains from efficient location implied by subsidy competition may more than outweigh the losses from higher subsidies. Moreover, departing from subsidy competition to zero subsidies or to first-best subsidies (without side payments) implies a gain to one country and a loss to the other. This suggests that it may be difficult to reach a consensus to move away from the status quo of subsidy competition.     

The Role of Central Government in Tax Competition Between Heterogenous Regions

This paper analyzes the role of central government in a Nash tax competition between two heterogenous regions, which differ in their endowments of two production factors. Regional governments use a source-based unit tax on mobile capital to finance their public service expenditures. The central government employs excise subsidies and lump-sum taxes to induce the two regions to efficient resource allocations. We answer to the question that whether the central government can induce an efficient equilibrium, and investigate the effects of endowments difference on the optimum subsidy rates. We find that there exists a unique tax rate under which the efficiency is achieved. We identify the set of endowment allocations for which the subsidy rate to one region is higher (or lower) than the subsidy rate to the rival. The large poor region receives a higher subsidy than the small rich region, but the subsidy to the small poor region may be higher or lower than that to the large rich region. [H2]     

Regulated Competition under Increasing Returns to Scale

In the classical models of regulation economics, a mechanism that secures truthful revelation involves paying a subsidy to the firm. In this paper, we investigate whether it is possible to create a regulatory mechanism under a no‐subsidy constraint that induces the firm to report its private information truthfully. We consider a number of firms operating under regulated competition and with increasing returns to scale technology. It is shown that in equilibrium each firm chooses to report truthfully without receiving any subsidy. The use of competition may give rise to an efficiency loss due to the increasing returns to scale. However, we show that our mechanism may still be better, from a social welfare point of view, than the case of monopoly regulation that involves no subsidy.     

Subsidizing (and taxing) business procurement

This paper studies the effect of a subsidy (or tax) on a market where a downstream manufacturer uses a competitive tender to procure inputs from upstream suppliers. Subsidizing input production can result in input price decreases that are greater than the effective decrease in marginal costs. That is, overshifting occurs. When the size of the subsidy is not too large, the downstream firm can enjoy an increase in profits greater than the government expenditure on the subsidy. A relatively weak sufficient condition for these results to hold is that suppliers earn a positive profit margin on the marginal unit sold, before taking into account any subsidy payment. Stronger sufficient conditions, tailored to each result, are provided.