Business cycle accounting for the Japanese economy

We conducted business cycle accounting (BCA) using the method developed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (Chari, V.V., P.J. Kehoe, E.R. McGrattan, 2002a. Accounting for the Great Depression. Am. Econ. Rev. 92 (2), 22–27) on data from the 1980s to 1990s in Japan and from the interwar period in Japan and the United States. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, we find that labor wedges may have been a major contributor to the decade-long recession in the 1990s in Japan. Assuming exogenous variations in the share of labor, we find that the deterioration in the labor wedge started around 1990, which coincides with the onset of the recession. Second, we performed an alternative BCA exercise using the capital wedge instead of the investment wedge to check the robustness of BCA implications for financial frictions. The accounting results with the capital wedge imply that financial frictions may have had a large depressive effect during the 1930s in the United States. This implication is the opposite of that from the original BCA findings.     

Labour relations and industrial productivity

Abstract

Britain and Sweden have often been cited to illustrate the contrasting fortunes of post-War European economies. Britain seemed destined to struggle with bad labour relations and comparatively poor levels of output, whilst Sweden established a reputation as a model of corporatist management and high productivity.¹ The industrial turmoil of the 1970s swept Scandinavia as well as the U.K. and blurred this convenient contrast, but it was the dramatic improvement in the performance of British manufacturing in the 1980s which has forced us to reappraise the nature of ‘the British disease’. This improvement has been attributed by a number of writers to the changed climate of industrial relations, as many employers broke with the bad bargaining practices of earlier decades.² The power of the unions has been curtailed if not completely extinguished and resistance to new technologies has been overcome in many of the traditional strongholds of craft production. It seems logical to conclude that the defeat of the unions and the reform of industrial relations have been essential prerequisites of improved output.³ Yet the evidence is, at best, ambiguous. Current debates on productivity in Britain during the 1980s indicate the difficulty of measuring changes in contemporary output and the limits of the data available for such an exercise.⁴ The Swedish economy, and Scandinavia more generally, were historically successfully in combining a steady improvement in output with very high levels of trade unionism.⁵ It was able to sustain this progress during the 1970s and 1980s in the face of mounting pressures on the Swedish model. Established agreements were called into question by the outbreak of large scale strikes whilst dissatisfaction with central negotiations became apparent on the shop floor and in the board rooms of Swedish industry. Wage differentials increased whilst productivity improvements declined during the 1980s, particularly in the export industries. The trade unions were less attractive to manual workers in Sweden as well as Britain and in the opening months of the 1990 the Social Democrats were thrown into crisis by the resistance to their efforts to introduce austerity controls on labour. Sweden seemed to have belatedly arrived at the same impasse which British labour faced a decade earlier.     

绿色信贷推动产业结构优化升级的实证研究

近年来在绿色政策的引导扶持下,中国绿色金融实现迅速发展.影响绿色金融体系构建的因素甚多,绿色信贷始终占据至关重要的地位,是实现绿色发展、循环发展、低碳发展等高质量发展的主要推动力.选取2008—2019年31个省区市面板数据进行多元线性回归.实证结果表明,实施绿色信贷对于产业结构优化升级具有正向的推动作用.为促进绿色金融发展,助推产业结构优化,建议绿色政策以政府与银行业金融机构为着力点,对策措施聚焦于增加政府绿色金融支持、不断完善银行绿色信贷体系.     

流动性冲击与中国金融改革

由于金融泡沫的重灾地欧美政府至2008年以来一直在推行大规模的货币救市政策,而各国金融体系资源配置能力在随之而来的周期下行过程中又凸显出不断萎缩的状态,因此"后危机时代"中国经济一定会面对全球流动性泛滥的挑战。如果中国不能看清我们抗衡危机所需要的结构调整及周期和政策协调的紧迫性,那么欧美国家所形成的金融危机给中国经济产生的负面影响将难以估量。为此,本文指出我们应对未来严峻挑战最关键的步骤就是要尽快发展和健全中国的金融体系,而不能像过去那样过度仰仗货币政策被动的对冲手段来缓解。本文提出了"企业家金融"、"关系型金融"、"供应链金融"、"财富金融"、"消费金融"、"政府金融"、"国家金融"和"全球化金融"等不同的改革与发展模式来适应中国经济转型各个环节对金融服务的紧迫要求。     

关于我国建立存款保险制度的研究

20世纪80到90年代的全球性金融危机导致西方国家纷纷引进了存款保险制度。在目前新一轮的全球金融危机前,作为一个国家金融安全网的重要组成部分之一,存款保险制度在保护存款人利益、维护金融体系的稳定方面有重要作用,但该制度也存在负面效应。我国当前市场化进程尚未完成,商业银行的风险具有制度风险的特征,存款保险制度在稳定金融、化解风险方面有一定的作用,是否实行,关键在于能否设计出符合我国金融市场的存款保险制度。     

Industrial policy in Detroit: The search for a new regional development model in the home of Fordism

This article reports on the efforts of State government in Michigan in the 1980s to develop interventionist regenerative economic policies for the ageing industrial district of Detroit. This is a region which is almost synonymous with a whole production and consumption system, Fordism, now deemed by many theorists to be in decline (eg Albrechts and Swyngedouw 1989, Harvey 1989, Murray 1989). Federalism in the United States permits regional economic experiment and debate going beyond the US notion of free market privatism which has inspired many policy ideas in Britain in the 1980s (Barnekov et al, 1989). The article reports on a policy practice experiment in Michigan which was inspired by developing theories of “flexible specialization”. While short lived, the initiative has lessons for possible future regional industrial policy and the work of economic and physical planners in Britain.     

U.S. current account debate with Japan then,with China now

This paper examines two U.S. current account deficit episodes, one in the 1980s and the other in the current 2000s, in which Japan and China, respectively, are the current account surplus countries that are criticized for contributing to the deficits. In both periods, U.S. policy makers pointed out the underdeveloped and closed financial markets of the current account surplus countries and advocated for these countries to fix the deficiencies, a position akin to the current “saving glut” argument. In both episodes, the current account surplus countries have criticized the United States for its low saving, especially public saving (the “Twin Deficit” argument). This paper presents empirical findings that are consistent with the Twin Deficit hypothesis; A one percentage point increase in the budget balance raises the current account balance by 0.10–0.49 percentage point for industrialized countries. The saving glut argument seems to be applicable only for countries with highly developed legal systems and open financial markets. While the United States has been experiencing a savings drought in both episodes, the Japanese current account surplus was driven by underinvestment in the 1980s and by over-saving during the 2000s. Furthermore, although the current Chinese current account surplus is driven by its over-saving, there is no evidence of excess domestic saving in the Asian emerging market countries; rather, they seem to have suffered from depressed investment in the wake of the 1997 financial crises.     

国外农村金融体系构建的经验分析及启示

我国在社会主义新农村建设过程中,必须重视和加大农村金融对新农村建设推动作用。我国农村金融体系极不完善,已严重阻碍了农村经济的发展。本文从理论上分析了完善农村金融体系的必要性,在认真研究美国、法国和日本农村金融体系建设经验的基础上,提出了构建农村金融体系的政策建议。     

Export-led industrialisation and growth: Korea's economic miracle, 1962–1989

During 1962–1989, South Korea underwent a remarkable economic transformation from being poverty-ridden to attaining the status of newly industrialised nation. This transformation was achieved through the adoption of an outward-oriented, industry-led strategy. It was based, particularly during the 1970s, upon the development of large-scale industrial conglomerates and the attainment of economies of scale and technology to achieve international competitiveness. By the early 1980s, this strategy had resulted in major structural imbalances, a weakened financial sector, heavy concentration in domestic markets, and a repressed development of small and medium enterprises. By the end of the 1980s, despite attempts at economic reform, the structural and financial problems remained and became the country's undoing during the crisis of 1997–1998. This article reviews the question whether Korea's performance during this period can be described as an economic miracle. The empirical evidence is mixed and inconclusive, although the achievements of the Korean economy should not be underestimated.     

Nordic historical National Accounts since the 1880s

Abstract

In many respects the history of National Accounts (NA) and of Historical National Accounts (HNA) is common to all the Nordic countries, The first rudimentary accounts can be found by the end of the nineteenth century while the first income tax statistics of the early twentieth century provided a further stimulus. It was the 1920s and the 1930s, however, that saw the real breakthrough. In Sweden it took the form of HNA, and in the other countries the form of NA, with Denmark and Norway in the lead. The commodity-flow method provided the common characteristic.

Later developments somewhat differed in the individual countries. All participated in the Kuznets project ofHNA. Denmark and Norway had obtained new series by the mid 1960s and the early 1970s. Sweden and Finland came later, at the end of the 1980s, and consequently today have the most up-to-date series. These though reveal differences in methodology and a new project has been started, whose aim is to revive the spirit of Nordic community.     

Linking IDC finance to structural transformation and inclusivity in post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

The need for structural transformation and inclusivity in South Africa is urgent, given poor economic growth, employment and equality outcomes. This article examines the role of South Africa’s main industrial finance institution – the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) – in providing finance for structural transformation and inclusive economic growth post-apartheid. We find that the IDC’s funding has been concentrated in capital-intensive upstream sectors of the economy, with limited concessional finance to facilitate meaningful entry of SMEs into high-value and labour-absorptive downstream sectors. The IDC’s funding model (in being a self-sustainable institution) is a significant constraining factor in this regard. Furthermore, the lack of a purposeful integrated industrial policy strategy which directs investments clearly means that IDC’s funding priorities are not clearly defined.     

日本区域金融机构多元化发展及其问题

日本区域金融围绕振兴地域经济发展,不断推出为中小企业服务的区域性金融机构,并呈多元化发展趋势,这使得作为区域经济核心的中小企业获得了巨大的金融支持。但多元化发展过程中却引发了企业多重负债以及银企关系淡化等问题。因此,区域金融多元化健康发展的出路在于为区域中小企业再生需求提供多样化服务的同时加强区域紧密型金融计划下的银企密切关系的建设。     

The Swedish model and manufacturing industry:

Abstract

During the post-war period profound changes have occurred in the cluster of institutions and organisations called “The Swedish Model”. This article deals with those changes and with their interplay with other social changes. More specific, changes in the system for industrial vocational training, an early and cherished domain for the Swedish model-type of co-operation, are related to transforming industrial structure and to changes in industrial work organisation. The article results in an economichistorical explanation of how the very centrally managed model of the 1960s was transformed to a more local one.     

Carin Israelsson,Kor och människor. Nötkreatursskötsel och besättningsstorlekar på torp och herrgårdar 1850–1914

Abstract

During the 18th and the early 19th centuries there was one main dynamic factor in the Swedish economy: the merchant houses of Stockholm and Gothenburg. Their dynamic power derived from their especial role in capital accumulation and in international credit movements. Many of these houses were at that time helping to finance the Swedish iron industry. Later, during the industrial revolution, many of them were to make decisive contributions, as entrepreneurs, financiers and exporters, to the building of the Swedish forest industries. Not until then did their true dynamic power make itself felt; before the industrial revolution the generally stationary state of the economy had prevented any significant number of innovations. But in so far as there were innovations in the economic life of pre-industrial Sweden, they were due to these merchant houses.     

What explains the recent fluctuations in Japan’s output? A structural factor analysis of Japan’s industrial production

By applying the structural factor analysis developed by Foerster et al. (2011), we decompose the fluctuations of Japan’s industrial production (IP) into sectoral shocks and aggregate shocks, taking input–output relationships between sectors into account. Our results show that, except for the global financial crisis period, sectoral shocks explain, on an average, nearly half of the quarterly variations in Japan’s IP. Although the relative importance of sectoral shocks declined during the global financial crisis period, it increased again in the recent post-crisis period and, at this time, it contributes to the increased volatility of Japan’s IP. Specifically, our analysis suggests that the intersectoral spillovers brought about by disruptions of supply chain networks in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the declines in domestic production (or production capacity) in some sectors, as a result of a deterioration in global competitiveness, and a shift to overseas production have contributed to the recent increase in fluctuations of Japan’s IP.     

日元、新台币升值及其对实体经济的影响

20世纪80年代中后期,日本与台湾经历了剧烈的货币升值过程。日本与台湾企业利用金融市场,加大研发力度,提升产品结构,进行对外直接投资,结果货币升值非但没有对日本与台湾的出口贸易造成太大的影响,反而促进了出口商品结构和产业结构的升级。如何借鉴日本与台湾的经验,趋利避害,是中国企业必须深入思考和正视的问题。     

国内外财政监督比较研究

财政监督是政府财政管理的有机组成部分,是国家经济监督体制不可或缺的重要环节。世界发达各国基本形成了各具特色并且相对完善的财政监督机制,但是我国目前的财政监督机制还存在着不少问题。我国在推进公共财政建设的过程中应广泛借鉴国外财政监督的先进经验和理论研究成果,从而进一步建立和完善与公共财政发展相适应的财政监督体系。     

制度范式下的中国农村金融制度变迁与改革路径研究

现阶段,由于我国的农村金融受到政府、金融机构和外部环境等多种力量的制约,表现出严重的金融抑制。主要表现为农村金融供给机制不健全,资源分配不公,正规金融供给不足,商业性金融在农村金融领域内的功能严重弱化,政策性金融功能不全,合作性金融由于自身条件的限制,难以适应农业和农村经济发展的新变化,非正规金融所具有的制度缺陷也严重影响了它金融支持作用的充分发挥。所有这一切,都需要从全新的视角来审视今天的农村金融制度安排,要从根源上把握农村金融制度创新的方向,创新农村金融制度,加速金融深化,推进农村金融市场良性发展。     

Asset market hangovers and economic growth: the OECD during 1984-93

Asses prices and investment were unusually weak throughout theindustrial world during the early 1990s. This paper highlightsthis stylized fact, and connects it with another: in most ofthe industrial world, asset markets boomed for several yearsbefore collapsing around 1989. The paper suggests that assetmarket bubbles during the late 1980s may have left the industrialworld with an 'asset market hangover' in the early 1990s, inthe form of sluggish asset markets and investment. Empiricalsupport for this hypothesis is provided based on cross-countrydata for equity and real estate markets in most industrial countries.We suggest that financial market developments not justifiedby fundamentals can substantially affect real activity.     

China’s rule of law in New Era: the rise of regulation and formalism

ABSTRACT

China’s financial development and economic growth is achieved under weak legal institutions. The literature attributes this counterexample of law–finance–growth nexus to (a) alternative mechanisms in China such as incentives, reputation and relationships and (b) a well-functioning xinfang system with common law features. In recent years, China has made increasing efforts to strengthen its rule of law. The Communist Party of China (CPC) has taken the lead by launching a far-reaching campaign against corruption, establishing a system of inspection tours, and promulgating a large number of regulations. We argue that using regulations to complement laws is effective: CPC has enough bureaucratic prowess to crack down on corruption whereas the courts are subject to subversion by powerful interests. We also discuss the drawbacks of this approach: regulations aiming at ex ante control of corruption substantially increase procedural formalism and limit the discretion of local governments and state-owned enterprises.