Industrialization versus Education: Optimal Investment Choices and Growth in a Developing Economy

Recent growth theory has focused on the role of human capital as a source of welfare gains in developing economies, rather than traditional sources such as improving resource allocation and physical capital accumulation. This paper examines traditional developing-country labor market problems in a Uzawa–Lucas endogenous growth model. Numerical solutions show that policies which promote human capital accumulation can have significant short-term costs, and lower overall welfare improvements, than policies that give similar productivity improvements in the physical-capital or final-goods sector.     

A Markup Interpretation of Optimal Investment Rules

We re-examine the basic investment problem of deciding when to incur a sunk cost to obtain a stochastically fluctuating benefit. The optimal investment rule satisfies a trade-off between a larger versus a later net benefit; we show that this trade-off is closely analogous to the standard trade-off for the pricing decision of a firm that faces a downward sloping demand curve. We reinterpret the optimal investment rule as a markup formula involving an elasticity that has exactly the same form as the formula for a firm's optimal markup of price over marginal cost. This is illustrated with several examples.     

廉洁度、基础设施投资与中国经济包容性增长

本文采用Malmquist-Luenberger生产率指数模型,对2008～2017年中国30个省(直辖市、自治区)的包容性全要素生产率进行测算和分析,并在此基础上运用动态面板模型和门限面板模型,实证分析廉洁度、基础设施投资对包容性增长的影响及其异质性。研究结果表明:廉洁度和基础设施投资均对包容性增长有明显的正向促进,但现阶段廉洁度水平削弱了基础设施投资对包容性增长的提升作用,且上述结论存在明显的地区异质性。进一步分析发现,基础设施投资对包容性增长的影响存在廉洁度门槛,不同廉洁度水平下,基础设施投资对包容性增长的影响存在差异。高廉洁度时基础设施投资显著促进了包容性增长的提升,而低廉洁度时基础设施投资显著阻碍了包容性增长的提升,且相对于科技型基础设施投资而言,一般性基础设施投资对廉洁度的要求更高。     

外资准入政策与资源优化配置

改革开放40多年以来,外商投资是中国经济发展的主要动力之一,同时也对资源优化配置产生多方面影响。以2002年《外商投资产业指导目录》的调整作为准自然实验,具体分析外资准入政策放松对资源优化配置的影响。研究表明:外资准入政策显著地增大了城市-行业层面生产率的离散度,不利于资源的优化配置;但是,从企业层面来看,外资准入政策提高了规制放松行业中企业的平均生产率;除此之外,外资准入政策在地区、企业性质和创新能力等方面的影响存在显著差异,政策效力主要体现在东部地区、非国有企业和创新能力较强的行业。因此,中国进一步扩大外资开放程度和改革外资准入政策时,应考虑到外资准入政策放松对企业生产率和资源优化配置的双重影响。     

Regulating Private Infrastructure Investment: Optimal Pricing for Access to Essential Facilities

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for access to essential facilities in a competitive environment. The focus is on investment incentive issues arising from regulation under complete information. To that end, examining the provision of a natural monopoly infrastructure with unlimited capacity, it is shown that the fixed component of a regulated access price can be structured so as to induce a race between market participants to provide the infrastructure. An appropriate pricing formula can ensure that a single firm chooses to invest at the socially optimal time (taking into account producer and consumer surplus) despite the immediate access granted to rivals and the non-existence of government subsidies. Under the optimal pricing formula, firms choose their investment timing based on their desire to pre-empt their rivals. This pricing formula is efficient (a two part tariff), implementable ex post, and robust to alternative methods of asset valuation (replacement or historical cost). When firms are not identical, the access pricing formula resembles, in equilibrium, a fully distributed cost methodology.     

中国基础设施投资的最优规模与最优次序——基于1996-2008年各省市地区面板数据分析

本文克服各项基础设施同时回归导致的多重共线性问题,基于基础设施的边际产出与最优规模分析框架,采用中国1996-2008年各省市地区面板数据实证研究发现:中国电力、燃气和水的生产与供应业、交通运输、仓储和邮电通信业、水利、环境和公共设施管理业等各项基础设施和政府总投资的边际产出分别为5.765、2.520、1.420和1.276;最优规模分别为4.66%、3.29%、5.02%和20.95%;各项基础设施的实际投资均低于最优规模。因此,为使政府投资收益最大化可按边际产出大小顺序优先次序投资;而根据各项基础设施投资的缺口和紧迫程度,则应按实际投资与最优规模差距由大到小顺序进行投资。     

Optimal Tax and Public Investment Rules for Congestion Type of Externalities

Optimal government policy is considered in a second-best framework where consumers and producers cause an externality of the congestion type and income distribution issues are taken into account. The theoretical results of the optimal tax literature are adapted using the concept of the net social Pigouvian tax. An illustrative AGE model uncovers the relative importance of its components. The model demonstrates that the level of the externality tax does not depend strongly on distribution concerns, as reoptimization of the other taxes ensures that the income distribution objective is reached. The model also allows us to study the interaction between externality taxes and public abatement.     

基础设施开发与投资

金融体系是否发达,不仅表现为金融体系的实际规模、货币化的程度,更重要的在于财政融资、信贷融资、证券融资三种融资方式的有效配合……     

The Long-run Trade Pattern in a Growing Economy

We analyze the determinants of the trade pattern in a two-country growing economy. The long-run trade pattern depends on the structure of the absolute advantage as well as the comparative advantage, because the absolute advantage determines the terms of trade and the value of the marginal product of capital which affect the growth rate in our model. Moreover, we find that opening trade reduces or removes the difference in the growth rates of the two countries when the country lagging in the growth rate has a comparative advantage in a consumption commodity. Received June 18, 2001; revised version received July 16, 2002 Published online: April 30, 2003     

Investment in Infrastructure and Effects of Tourism Boom

This paper develops a dynamic trade model of a small open economy with productivity effects of public infrastructure and inbound tourism (i.e. foreign visitors' consumption of nontradable goods produced in the home country). It is shown that the economy either specializes in the production of the nontradable good or diversifies production. In the case of specialization, a tourism boom, i.e. an increase in the foreign tourists' demand for the nontradable good, makes the economy better off. In the case of diversified production, by contrast, a tourism boom induces a deterioration in the terms of trade and the economy may be worse off.     

Capital Taxation and External Accounts in a Small Growing Economy

The effects of capital taxation on external accounts depend on how government allocates the tax revenue. With government debt being endogenous, an increase in either the residential or territorial capital tax rate may decrease net foreign asset holdings. With intergenerational transfers being endogenous, an increase in either the residential or territorial capital tax rate may increase net foreign asset holdings. With government spending being endogenous, an increase in the residential capital tax rate may either deteriorate or have no effect on the external accounts.     

中国电信投资经济效应的实证研究

本文研究了电信投资对我国经济增长的贡献以及贡献值变化的趋势。利用我国2000—2005年31个省市的数据,建立和估计了两者之间的系统结构方程。结果发现我国电信投资对我国经济增长的边际贡献平均为2.376%,比其他社会基础投资高6.758%,但电信投资的边际贡献呈现下降趋势。分区域考察的结果表明,电信投资及其贡献存在着明显的区域非均衡,在西部对生产率的促进作用远远高于东部和中部;我国西部应加大对电信的投资,东部需要调整投资结构,而中部则应采取措施刺激电信消费。本文在同类研究中取得了一定突破,和Roller与Waverman(2001)的研究结论相反,得出的实证结论与他们在网络效应和边际贡献方面的理论预测相反,对制定电信投资决策具有指导作用。     

Economic Growth and Investment in Education: How Allocation Matters

This article proposes an approach to answering two questions: first, does investment in education help growth; second, does the allocation of investment in education matter? I develop a model where individual ability is heterogeneous and education both trains students and reveals their suitability for further training. I use UNESCO data on educational enrollments and spending to estimate the efficiency of existing educational allocations in a panel of countries. A cross-country growth decomposition regression shows that the correlation of human capital capital accumulation and GDP growth is not significant in countries with poor allocations but is significant and positive in countries with better allocations.     

地市级地区间基本建设公共支出的相互影响

本文考察中国地市级地区间基本建设公共支出相互影响的机制和特征,主要包括溢出效应和竞争效应。由于地市级基本建设支出的正外部性,溢出效应使得相邻地区基本建设支出间负相关;由于中国特有的地方官员激励结构,地区间经济增长的竞争会导致基本建设公共支出正相关。本文使用中国地市级地区2002—2005年数据检验这两个影响渠道。经验分析发现了溢出效应和竞争效应存在的证据。     

论基础设施投资的产出弹性研究——以江苏省为例

文章以江苏省为例,选用江苏省1990年～2004年的数据用生产函数法,通过计算基础设施投资的产出弹性研究基础设施建设对区域经济的影响。     

Tariff Revenue, Government Expenditure and Growth in a Small Open Economy

I develop a small open endogenous growth model with domestic and foreign intermediate goods. The Marshallian external economies in the domestic intermediate goods sector work as the engine of sustained growth. The model offers two arguments. First, imposing a trade distortion is growth- and welfare-improving if the government uses the tariff revenue for correcting the domestic distortion. Second, comparing the tariff with a lump-sum tax as a financing device, the former is certainly worse than the latter with respect to both growth and welfare if the two intermediate goods are substitutes.
JEL Classification Numbers: F43, H20.     

External Debt and Taylor Rules in a Small Open Economy

We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which both price rigidity and financial friction exist. We compare two cases featuring different interest rate rules. Both cases use the standard Taylor‐type interest rate rules, but the second case also considers external debt levels. We find that when friction in foreign borrowing is large, adding an external debt level to Taylor rules improves welfare. The welfare curve, however, exhibits a hump shape because excessive reactions to changes in external debt reduce welfare.     

Balanced-Budget Rules: Welfare Loss and Optimal Policies

Most economic models do not suggest an optimal fiscal policy in which the government's budget is balanced each period. Conventional wisdom suggests that the government run surpluses and deficits to smooth taxes. In this paper, I use an approach which brings together real business cycle theory and the theory of public finance to evaluate the effects of a balanced-budget restriction. Four fiscal policies are investigated in a model with growth. All models are solved numerically using a multidimensional collocation parameterized expectations algorithm. The welfare consequences of each policy are measured, and the optimal Ramsey policies are characterized. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: E62.