非完全竞争市场假设在CGE模型中的引入及应用

通过对部门生产函数及相关参数、系数的改造,将非完全竞争市场条件引入CGE模型,并模拟在完全竞争与不完全竞争两个不同市场结构下国际油价上升对我国经济的影响.结果表明,当油品市场设定为不完全竞争时,面对国际油价上升的冲击,GDP下降的程度大于完全竞争的情况.因此随着油品市场逐渐开放,油品市场的产出增加,可以增强我国石油产业和总体经济应对国际油价上升冲击的能力,应继续推动我国石油产业市场自由化的进程.     

Imperfectly competitive factor markets and price normalization

A two-sector general equilibrium model with imperfectly competitive labor markets is set up. Noncooperative equilibria with wage setting at the sectoral level are shown to depend on the choice of price-normalization rule even though all agents behave fully rationally. Hence, imposing rationality is not sufficient to deprive the choice of price-normalization rule of its importance. It is argued that the importance of the choice of price-normalization rule may follow from the strategic interaction of agents and not from imperfectness of competition per se, and some examples are provided.     

Trade Liberalization in Agriculture in Developed Nations and Incidence of Child Labour in a Developing Economy

This paper is an attempt to analyse the consequence of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed countries on the incidence of child labour in a developing economy in terms of a three‐sector general equilibrium model with informal sectors. Adult labour and child labour are substitutes for each other in the two informal sectors of the economy and are used together apart from capital in producing two exportable commodities. The interesting result that appears from the analysis is that agricultural trade liberalization in the developed countries may be effective in bringing down the incidence of child labour in the system. The paper substantiates the desirability of trade liberalization in agriculture in the developed nations from the perspective of the developing economies for reasons other than welfare improvement.     

Imperfect competition and capital accumulation: the role of price normalization

We consider a capital-accumulation model with infinitely lived households and two production sectors. The intermediate-good sector is characterized by perfect competition, a constant-returns-to-scale technology, and production externalities. The final-good sector is a monopoly operating under constant returns to scale. We analyze the general equilibrium in the sense of Gabszewicz and Vial [Journal of Economic Theory (1972) 4: 381–400] for this economy and different price-normalization rules. It is shown that the qualitative behavior of the equilibrium paths depends crucially on the chosen normalization rule. In particular, whether equilibria are monotonic or oscillating and whether indeterminacy occurs or not may depend on the choice of the numeraire.     

Competition and price dispersion in the airline markets

We use two ticket-level data sets on one-way domestic flights for the US airlines to examine the potentially nonlinear relationship between price dispersion and three forms of competition: inter-firm, inter-flight and frequency competitions. The linear relationship is rejected at any conventional significance levels. In particular, there is an S-shaped relationship between market concentration and price dispersion. This can be a reason for the mixed results in the literature. Roughly speaking, the inter-flight and frequency competitions have opposite effects on price dispersion. Finally, in general, the size of aircraft has a positive effect on price. However, for very large aircraft, the relationship becomes negative.     

Exchange rates of oil exporting countries and global oil price shocks: a nonlinear smooth-transition approach

This paper models logistic and exponential smooth transition adjustments of real exchange rates for six major oil-exporting countries in response to different shocks affecting oil prices. The logistic form captures asymmetric and the exponential form symmetric adjustments in regards to positive and negative oil price shocks. We chose oil-exporting countries that do not peg their exchange rates. For most countries, we detect no statistically significant non-linearities for the adjustment process of real exchange rate returns, be they asymmetric or symmetric, in response to oil supply shocks, idiosyncratic oil-market-specific shocks, and speculative oil-market shocks. Exceptions are oil supply shocks in the UK and possibly Brazil, where exchange rates respond nonlinearly, though the effects are symmetric for both countries. On the other hand, global aggregate demand shocks, which are shocks not originating directly in the oil market, have nonlinear asymmetric effects on real exchange rate returns for Canada, Mexico, Norway and Russia, and nonlinear symmetric effects for Brazil and the UK.     

Commitment and price competition in a dynamic differentiated-product duopoly

This paper characterizes linear Markov-perfect equilibrium in a duopolistic environment where firms engage in dynamic price competition. Firms have constant (but potentially different) marginal costs and produce differentiated products. We show that, for the case of linear demand, dynamically stable Markov-perfect equilibrium prices are strictly higher than one-shot Nash equilibrium prices, but lower than fully collusive (monopoly) prices. We provide closed-form solutions for the Markov-perfect equilibrium prices which, in principle, can be estimated given data on firm demand and costs. Our results suggest that static two-stage models of price commitment are on reasonably solid ground in that they might be viewed as a reduced form for more complicated dynamic models.     

Spatial price dynamics and integration in russian food markets

In general, vocational education does not lead to higher wages. However, in some countries, labor markets are characterized by employment growth and skill shortages. In these, vocational schooling has produced higher wages and returns on investment than general education. Using 1998 Egyptian household survey, the study adds evidence to the debate on relative benefits of vocational education and of general education at the secondary level. The findings suggest that providing general education to the workforce followed by on-the-job training would provide the most benefit.     

Economic liberalization, capital mobility and informal wage in a small open economy: A theoretical analysis

Empirical evidence suggests that the size of the informal sector in the developing countries has increased considerably during the liberalized economic regime. The present paper purports to analyze the consequences of economic reforms on the wellbeing of the informal sector workforce using a three-sector general equilibrium model with two informal sectors. The theoretical analysis finds that different liberalized policies produce diverse effects on the informal wage and that these results are independent of the nature of capital mobility between the informal and the formal sectors. It also shows that labour market reforms, contrary to the common wisdom, are likely to produce favourable effects on the informal wage.     

Cointegration and spatial price transmission among wheat and wheat-flour markets in Afghanistan

This article examines cointegration and spatial price transmission among Afghan wheat and flour markets as well as their linkages with those of supplier countries and global markets. Unit root tests, consistent momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) models and vector error correction models (asymmetric and symmetric) are employed to achieve research objectives. The results suggest that provincial wheat and flour markets may have a long-run relationship with principal market of Kabul. Afghan wheat and flour markets may also be cointegrated with their respective global, Kazakh and Pakistani markets. While provincial wheat markets might adjust to divergence from their long-run equilibrium with Kabul wheat market, some of the provincial flour markets may not respond to deviation from their long-run equilibrium with Kabul flour market. The speed of adjustment towards the long-run Afghan–Pakistani and Afghan–Kazakh equilibrium may be faster for Afghan flour than wheat markets. The equilibrium adjustment coefficients are generally small and market imperfections may exist, however. A shock in Kabul wheat and flour markets may have long-lasting effect on the respective provincial markets whereas a shock in global wheat and Pakistani, and Kazakh wheat and flour markets might have transitory effect on the corresponding Afghan markets.     

Profitability and supply price in the US domestic oil industry: implications for the political economy of oil in the twenty-first century

In May 2001, the US Government's National Energy Policy DevelopmentGroup proposed to increase investment in domestic oil resourcesand to diversify further the sourcing of US oil imports by increasingproduction in new petroleum provinces. The paper argues thatboth strands of this policy are dependent upon a third, unstated,objective—to ensure that OPEC retains sufficient marketpower to prevent the sort of collapse in world oil prices thatoccurred in 1998–99. The consequences of that collapse,when the real price of US oil fell to its lowest level in 53years, are explored. Finally, it is argued that the outcomeof the crisis was a rapprochement between OPEC and the US. Itis suggested that the consensus between the US and OPEC as tothe desired range within which the world oil price should moveis likely to survive any temporary political disturbances.     

Endogenous trade policy in general equilibrium: An interaction of redistribution rule,trade openness,and labor market condition

Using a general equilibrium framework, the paper derives trade policy endogenously for a small country. It shows that, contrary to the existing literature, a lobbying industry is not guaranteed trade protection; it may even face trade taxes. Besides lobbying, trade policy depends on other factors such as the trade revenue distribution rule, income distribution across groups, trade openness, factor substitutability in production, industry employment size, and labor market flexibility. The paper also shows that the observed phenomenon of government preference for import tariffs over export subsidies—a long overdue puzzle—is an inherent outcome of lobbying equilibrium. It also shows that trade policies such as import tariffs and export taxes that have the same impact on economic market—Lerner symmetry (1936)—are driven by the same forces in the political market.     

管子轻重理论的均衡思想

<管子>后16篇,也称轻重篇,着重阐述了轻重理论,是中国古代特有的一种经济管理思想.前人学者大多从供求规律与货币数量论等角度对商品之间的轻重规律进行阐释.文章则重点阐述了轻重规律所蕴含的均衡思想,并且在阐述管子轻重理论中蕴含的局部均衡、动态均衡、一般均衡思想后,借用现代经济学的分析工具,试图重建管子轻重规律的均衡分析.西方经济学直到1769年以后才在经济学中引入均衡的概念,此研究将进一步丰富中国经济思想的研究.     

Pricing strategies: who leads and who follows in the air and rail passenger markets in Italy

In this paper, we aim at empirically uncovering the existence of price leadership in the passenger transport market, whose oligopolistic structure facilitates the strategic interaction among companies, with price being one of the principal elements of competition. The strategic interaction is particularly favoured by the fact that prices are easily observable online by all competitors. The analysis focuses on selected Italian city-pair markets that differ from one another with respect to the degree of inter- and intra-modal competition and to the characteristics of the transport services provided. We exploit this heterogeneity to study transport operators’ strategic interactions in different competitive environments. We find evidence of the existence of price leadership, even though results differ across city-pair markets. In particular, it emerges that the incumbent operator, in either the air or the rail sector, always holds the role of leader.     

Oil price uncertainty and the business cycle: Accounting for the influences of global supply and demand within a VAR GARCH-in-mean framework

ABSTRACT

This article reinvestigates the influence of oil price uncertainty on real economic activity in the United States using a four-variable VAR GARCH-in-mean asymmetric BEKK model. In contrast to previous studies in this area, the analysis focuses on business cycle fluctuations and we control for global supply and demand factors that might affect the real price of oil, its volatility as well as the US economy. We find that – even after accounting for these factors – oil price uncertainty still has a highly significant negative influence on the US business cycle. Our computations show that the effect is economically important during several periods, mostly after a significant variance shift in the mid-1980s. We simultaneously estimate the effect on the global business cycle but find that it is comparatively weak. Finally, significant spillover effects in the GARCH model suggest that oil price volatility is a gauge and channel of transmission of more general macroeconomic shocks and uncertainty. These linkages are particularly strong in case of unexpected bad news.     

History-based price discrimination and entry in markets with switching costs: A welfare analysis

We analyze history-based price discrimination in an asymmetric industry, where an incumbent, protected by switching costs, faces an entrant who does not have access to information about consumers’ purchase histories. We demonstrate that consumer surplus is higher with uniform pricing than with history-based price discrimination. We find that the entry decision is invariant to whether the incumbent implements history-based pricing or uniform pricing. This implies that the potential abuse of market dominance imposed by history-based price discrimination is exploitation, not exclusion. Finally, we establish that the profit gain to the incumbent from history-based pricing exceeds the associated loss to consumers.     

Cross-country fiscal policy spillovers and capital-skill complementarity in integrated capital markets

The 2010 European sovereign debt crisis has renewed discussions on fiscal policy coordination. One rationale for coordination is fiscal policy cross-country spillovers. A common finding in the literature is that spillovers tend to be small in normal circumstances but can be large if monetary policy is at the zero lower bound. Orthogonal to the existing literature, we document a novel channel that generates cross-country spillovers over the medium run. We assume perfect capital markets integration and find that capital-skill complementarity can lead to large spillovers without the zero lower bound nor a large import share in government expenditures. As capital markets have become increasingly integrated in the Eurozone, the current degree of fiscal policy coordination between its members, low, may be insufficient. We also find that the smoothing benefits from a temporary rise in public debt spill over to other countries.     

Information on sellers and buyers characteristics: added value to explain price formation at primary fish markets in managed French scallop fisheries

The aim of this article is to explore, through a hedonic approach, the factors that might explain the price variability for the French-managed fishery of scallop at primary fish markets. In addition to factors classically identified in the current literature like intrinsic product characteristics or markets situation, the characteristics of operators are tested. The relationships of loyalty between sellers and buyers, and market assiduity are notably considered.     

Income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia: Evidence of state‐specific heterogeneity

This paper estimates country‐wide and state‐level income and price elasticities of electricity demand in Australia for the period 1999Q1–2013Q2 using the National Electricity Market data and the autoregressive‐distributed lag model. The results suggest that the long‐run income and price elasticities are inelastic and are statistically significant with theoretically consistent signs. The country‐wide income and price elasticities are estimated to be 0.41 and ?0.38, respectively. It is also found that there exists state‐specific heterogeneity in both speed and magnitude of the electricity consumption adjustment in response to changes in income and electricity price. These results have important policy implications, including the need to use state‐specific elasticities in the scenario analysis of the energy pricing policy.     

Transgressing rights: La Via Campesina's call for food sovereignty / Exploring collaborations: Heterodox economics and an economic social rights framework / Workers in the informal sector: Special challenges for economic human rights

Abstract

The notion of rights is a powerful one, but the channels through which they have been promoted and enforced since World War II have militated against the more radical promise of rights. These explorations examine the question of economic rights with an international focus. The contributions touch on such diverse topics as the international peasant federation called La Vía Campesina, heterodox and social economic analyses, and the informal sector. The authors address the question of human rights with respect to the conditions that delimit and enforce these rights, the connections between macroeconomics and human rights, social movements that strive to protect these rights, and the different theoretical approaches to incorporating rights into an academic framework. Though each contribution's methodology and focus are different, the composite takes an important step in evaluating this very critical question of economic rights that greatly affects individual lives, social conditions, economic policies, and the study of economics.