Sustainability Policy and Environmental Policy

A theoretical, representative‐agent economy with a depletable resource stock, polluting emissions and productive capital is used to contrast environmental policy, which internalises externalised environmental values, with sustainability policy, which achieves some form of intergenerational equity. The obvious environmental policy comprises an emissions tax and a resource stock subsidy, each equal to the respective external cost or benefit. Sustainability policy comprises an incentive affecting the choice between consumption and investment, and can be a consumption tax, capital subsidy or investment subsidy, or a combination thereof. Environmental policy can reduce the strength of the sustainability policy needed. More specialised results are derived in a small open economy with no environmental effects on utility.     

Sustainability of Monetary-cum-Exchange Rate Policy in China

This paper theoretically considers the long-run sustainability of China’s monetary-cum-exchange rate policy under the impossible trinity. Two different models are examined: One sterilizes current net foreign assets (NFAs) and the other focuses on NFAs realized in the previous period. Under the de facto opening of financial flows, sterilization yields a negative risk premium in uncovered interest parity (UIP) that triggers a feedback increase among capital inflows. Here, stability depends on the magnitudes and the combination of structural and policy parameters. It is shown that if current capital inflows are sterilized, the monetary-cum-exchange rate policy in China offers a sustainable solution for exchange rates that are relatively stringently managed. However, such a solution can be obtained for relatively flexible or moderately managed rates if sterilization policy is implemented on the previous period’s inflows.     

Evolutionary Theory and Economic Policy with Reference to Sustainability

Synopsis The policy recommendations of most economists are driven by a view of economic reality embodied in Walrasian general equilibrium theory. Ironically, the Walrasian system has been all but abandoned by leading economic theorists. It has been demonstrated to be theoretically untenable, its basic assumptions about human decision making have been empirically falsified, and it consistently makes poor predictions of economic behavior. The current revolution in welfare economics offers opportunities on two related fronts for an evolutionary perspective on human behavior to reshape economic theory and policy. The first opportunity is to incorporate empirically-based information about human behavior to the study of human wants and their formation. This includes information about the evolution of the genetic component of decision making as well as the cultural dimensions of behavior. Expanding the role of economic analysis beyond stylized market behavior to focus on well-being (real utility) has far-reaching consequences for microeconomic policy. Secondly, abandoning the Walrasian model also means rethinking the microfoundations approach to the economic analysis of sustainability. This opens the door for economists to engage with the growing body of research on the evolution of whole societies. One link between the evolution of human behavior and the evolution of human societies is the psychological phenomenon of considering sunk costs. Understanding and overcoming the sunk cost fallacy may be the key to creating a sustainable society.     

退休年龄、生育政策与中国基本养老保险基金的可持续性

文章基于我国人口老龄化对养老保险体系可持续发展影响日益凸显的现实背景,运用系统精算模型对四种情况下我国基本养老保险基金的财务运行状况进行动态模拟,以重点观察延迟退休年龄与调整生育政策所产生的效果以及降低缴费率的可能性.研究显示:(1)在不实施任何改革方案的情况下,大约30年后我国的基本养老保险基金将出现亏损,面临支付危机;(2)而适时延迟法定退休年龄,引入“单独二孩”等生育政策调整,则可以消化人口老龄化对养老保险体系带来的负面影响,同时为降低基本养老保险缴费率的改革提供基础;(3)在一定的条件下,即使缴费率显著降低,基金收支仍能保持略有盈余的状态,从而减轻企业和职工的缴费负担,为进一步扩大覆盖面创造条件.因此,适时延迟法定退休年龄和调整生育政策,是实现养老保障体系可持续发展的有效措施.     

论积极财政政策的可持续性

积极财政政策是中央在特定条件下实行的特殊政策，不能使之成为经济增长的长期依赖；但由于经济内在增长机制仍未形成，目前，保持政策的可持续性，仍然是保持我国经济发展可持续性的政策重点，并且这种政策还应持续一定时期。     

Growth Effects of Fiscal Policy and Debt Sustainability in the EU

In this paper we study the relationship of fiscal policy and economicperformance of some core countries in the EU. Our aim is to find outwhether public deficit and public debt have consequences for real variables in the economies we consider. The background of our empirical study is a growth model that provides us with some predictions on the relationship between fiscal policy and economic growth. In a first step we then use Granger causality tests to analyze empirically whether some of the implications of our model arecompatible with the data. In a second step, we investigate whether the fiscalpolicies of the member states have been sustainable. Given this information,we then pursue the question of whether differences in the fiscal positions ofcountries have consequences as concerns the outcome of our empirical testsof step one. Finally, we study whether the impact of the public deficit ratiodepends on the magnitude of the debt ratio.     

Sustainability and Stability? Australian Fiscal Policy in the Twentieth Century

This paper examines data on Australian fiscal policy going back to federation to answer two questions. First, has the conduct of Australian fiscal policy been consistent with the government's intertemporal budget constraint? Second, have there been major structural changes in the conduct of Australian fiscal policy and if so, when did these changes occur?     

产权的延续性和稳定性与社会经济可持续发展

法治国家下的产权保护和自由交易基础上的自愿或契约式产权变更制度是产权的延续性和稳定性建立的基本条件。产权的延续性和稳定性可以减少社会经济发展的大起大落,保持社会经济的平稳发展;可以为社会经济发展提供激励机制;可以鼓励社会财富的积累和创新。建立具有延续性和稳定性的产权安排比选择有效率的产权安排还要重要。     

财政平衡观与积极财政政策的可持续性

财政平衡理论是财政学体系的一个重要组成部分。财政收支矛盾是财政的主要矛盾,财政民歧矛盾是绝对的,平衡是相对的,其运动轨迹表现为“不平衡－平衡－不平衡”;另一方面,财政收支不是彼此依存、相互统一的,即绝对的财政收支矛盾（不平衡）可以转化为相对的财政收支统一（平衡）。因此,财政收支运动是按照“平衡－不平衡－平衡”的转变向前发展的。财政政策的可持续性实质上是财政风险的控制问题;“财政平衡”与“财政政策的可持续性”既有共通之处,也有差异之处。因此从整体上和中长期战略上看,必须实施平衡的财政政策。     

外资政策、国民利益与经济发展

本文通过建立经济模型对吸引外商直接投资政策的经济效应进行了分析。研究表明 :无论是限制外商直接投资还是对外商直接投资采取过多的优惠政策均不能使短期内国民利益达到最大 ;但从动态考虑 ,外资优惠政策能否提高国内居民的福利水平取决于外资企业对内资企业技术水平的影响。     

Sustainability, flexibility, and inflation targeting

This paper examines sustainability of an inflation-targeting policy regime in terms of sustainable equilibrium using a canonical model in the recent literature. Overly flexible inflation targeting is not sustainable. Strict inflation targeting is sustainable only when shock persistence is high enough.     

Non-constant Returns,Pareto Optimality and Competitive Equilibrium

Competitive equilibrium is not Pareto optimal if returns to scale are not constant, except in special and accidental circumstances. This result is demonstrated using a classical production model; it holds quite generally and independently of all other sources of Pareto inefficiency, such as externalities, imperfect information and quantity constraints. It establishes a general and ubiquitous basis for critique of the 'invisible hand' ideology, which still dominates both the textbooks and wider reaches of social thought.     

炫耀性消费、经济增长和最优税收政策

文章通过建立模型从理论上探讨了炫耀性消费对经济增长的影响。得出的结论是,炫耀性消费能加速经济增长,但它不是经济增长的引擎。若存在消费的外部效应则会引起经济行为的扭曲,因此,为达到整个社会福利的最优状态,政府可通过设定最优的税收政策引导私人部门来达到社会最优。对目前我国部分居民日益高涨的炫耀性消费行为,应采取有效措施来加以科学引导,充分发挥它的示范效应,以形成科学、健康、文明的消费方式。     

Stochastic Dominance, Pareto Optimality, and Equilibrium Asset Pricing

This paper introduces the concept of a factor subspace in competitive equilibrium asset pricing. A factor subspace contains the market portfolio and is such that every marketed contingent claim is second-order stochastically dominated by a claim from the factor subspace. Conditions are given for the existence of equilibrium, and it is shown how APT and CAPM can be interpreted in the framework of the paper. If sufficiently many call options on the market portfolio are traded, then the space spanned by these options can be used as the factor subspace.     

"积极财政政策效应及可持续性高级专题研讨会"综述

2001年9月25-26日,由江西财经大学和中国社会科学院财贸经济研究所共同举办的“积极财政政策效应及可持续性高级专题研讨会”在南昌隆重召开,来自国务院发燕尾服研究中心,财政部财政科学研究所,中国人民大学,武汉大学,厦门大学等23家单位50余位专家学者围绕积极财政政策的相关问题进行了全面,深入的探讨,现将主要观点摘要综述如下。     

可持续转型理论中利基研究新进展

近年来,可持续转型已成为一个新的研究领域,其中利基,尤其是利基与社会—技术体制的相互关系更是研究热点。在可持续转型研究范畴内,依循利基相关思想和观点发展脉络,梳理文献中利基成长条件,以及利基催生体制转变的动态过程、模式、可能的路径选择等理论与实证分析,讨论利基研究对中国能源可持续发展研究的指导意义,为相关学者及政策制定者提供一定借鉴。