Local public expenditure in Sweden a model where the median voter is not necessarily decisive

This paper deals with local public expenditures, and the analysis is based on cross-section data for the Swedish municipalities. Two models are estimated; one is the basic median voter model where the decisive voter is assumed to be the voter with median income, while the other is a more general statistical alternative. The statistical alternative nests the basic median voter model as a special case, which makes it easy to test the null hypothesis that the basic median voter model is the correct model, given that the alternative is the true general structure. Although our results indicate a rejection of the null hypothesis, the estimation results are, nevertheless, similar for the two models.     

Economies of scale and trade policy: The median voter model revisited

Why do some political economy models perform so poorly in predicting actual trade policy? Do scale economies provide the missing puzzle to our understanding of the anti-trade bias? By integrating economies of scale in production, this paper theoretically reinstates the median voter model as in Mayer [Mayer, W. (1984). Endogenous tariff formation. The American Economic Review, 74, 970–985] as a suitable political economy model in predicting trade policy. The modified model generates the scope for the anti-trade bias and predicts that sometimes economic, rather than political, considerations may lead to restrictive trade.     

Heterogeneous Dynasties and the Political Economy of Public Debt

We consider a small open overlapping generations economy with descending altruism. Heterogeneity is introduced by assuming that each parent procreates a fixed proportion of selfish children. Altruistic parents can recognize the type of each child. There is no Ricardian equivalence and an active public intergenerational transfer policy is attractive to altruistic dynasty members, although there may be no unanimity among them. We display reasonable conditions for indirect preferences to be single-peaked and we apply the median voter theorem. We then describe political equilibrium paths and discuss their compatibility with the steady path of an underlying closed economy with autonomous labor productivity growth.
JEL classification : D 31; D 64; D 72; D 91; H 63     

Estimates of optimal public capital stocks in Japan using a public investment discount rate framework

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the optimality of the level of public capital in Japan. We use a methodological approach based on Burgess's (1988) procedure for calculating the public discount rate. This approach involves estimating a production function, but does not necessarily require utility function estimation. The results indicate that, although the Japanese economy experienced a public capital deficiency over the period 1960–1982, public capital moved toward optimal levels throughout the period. First version received: March 1997/final version received: June 1998     

The Italian approach to the theory of public goods *

Abstract

The subject of needs is the centre of attention of Italian public finance scholars. The financial activity of the State is justified by the existence of collective or public needs to whose satisfaction collective or public goods and services are linked. Italian economists have studied the problems of public goods in a general context, taking into consideration concurrently both taxes and public expenditure and giving prominence to positive analysis. Italian theorists have always been far removed from the classical approach, which denies the productivity of public services, and have deemed it necessary to take into account the political context in which fiscal structures operate. Their models include the State as a major factor. Herein lies the main value of the Italian tradition in public finance, which puts in coercion into the market mechanism via State intervention.     

The legal theory of finance and the financial instability hypothesis: Convergences and possible integration

This article presents the legal theory of finance (LTF) and compares it with the financial instability hypothesis (FIH), identifying points of convergence and divergence. The study aims to contribute to the literature by connecting these theories and provides the following main conclusions. First, the LTF incorporates aspects of the FIH, as the theories share several key elements, particularly the presence of fundamental uncertainty, the constraint of liquidity, and the necessity for governments to act as lenders of last resort. Second, the liquidity concept used in the LTF can be better comprehended with the use of Keynesian and post Keynesian literature on the topic. Third, the LTF aims to advance and update certain aspects of Minsky’s theory, particularly with regard to the globalization of markets, power relations, and the interdependencies of the political economy of finance. The study concludes that the theories are more complementary than divergent and future studies should create an analytical framework that integrates the theories’ most insightful aspects.     

为什么要加强对"国有资本财政"的研究

从近几年来的研究动态看,无论是财政理论界还是政府财政职能部门,关注的热点大多集中在如何建立“公共财政”上,把单一的“公共财政”作为与我国社会主义市场经济相适应的唯一目标模式。我国是以公有制为主体的国家,存在着面广量大的国有资产,这就决定了国有资产总量中除了非市场赢利性的部分外,还包含了巨额的经营性国有资产,因而我国在市场赢利性的国有经济基础上就必然相应产生“国有资本财政”。因此,由公共财政与国有资本财政所构成的国家财政必然要实行“双重(元)结构财政”模式,这是适应我国经济体制转轨特征和需要的财政运行模式。作为其重要组成部分的国有资本财政是社会主义市场经济的必然选择。加强对国有资本财政问题的研究有利于“双重(元)结构财政”模式的理论建构;有利于巩固我国公有制的主体地位;有利于矫正国有资本财政“越位”与公共财政“缺位”并存的格局;有利于澄清国有资本在市场竞争领域进与退的理论误区。     

农村义务教育到底由谁来"埋单"

目前的农村义务教育问题,一是国家的教育经费投入严重不足;二是这不足的经费配置又严重不公平,“重城轻乡”,使农村普遍存在“上学难”;三是应试教育的偏差和教育费用的暴涨挫伤了农民子弟上学的积极性,农村又出现新的“读书无用论”。缓解农村义务教育的困难,从资金保障的角度来看,必须尽快由目前以县乡为主的资金供给机制改变为以中央或省为主的资金供给机制,对于这一改变本文从理论与实践两方面作了较深入的分析,并对农村义务教育属于地方公共品的传统观点以及对“分税制改革”中央集中财力的非难提出了质疑。     

政府生命周期模型--对公共政策理论基础的重新阐释

文章以财政的视角,在一个契约的框架内通过对穷人、富人以及代理人集团博弈的财政过程的描述建立了政府生命周期模型.在此基础上对公共政策的理论基础进行了重新阐释,得出了公共政策的实质是权利分配、政府通常偏好短期政策操作、公共政策多是"穷则思变"的结果、权威在公共政策施行中起着独特作用的结论.本模型在还政府行为本来面目的同时,可以扩展到对企业家生命周期和对经济史上制度变迁的研究中.     

城市公园供给方式的模型分析

本文建立了一个可以描述各类公共品的理论模型,提出了公共品供给的目标——社会福利和社会公平最大化之间的权衡,并在模型框架下以具体数值例子演示了具有受益排他性和消费竞争性的混和公共品如何达到最优供给,从理论上为城市公园供给方式的研究提供了一个新的视角。     

The participation decision versus the level of participation in an environmental treaty: a spatial probit analysis

This paper represents treaty participation as a two-stage game, for which nations first decide whether or not to participate and then they choose their level of participation. The resulting subgame perfect equilibrium is used to derive a reduced-form equation for estimating and separating the influences of the variables at the two decision stages. This spatial probit equation forms the basis for a full-information maximum likelihood estimator that accounts for the simultaneity bias associated with public good spillins at both stages. When the procedure is applied to the Helsinki Protocol, we find that the strategic influence of a variable may drastically differ depending upon which stage is scrutinized.     

Testing for the Presence of a Tremble in Economic Experiments

The classical trinity of tests is used to check for the presence of a tremble in economic experiments in which the response variable is binary. A tremble is said to occur when an agent makes a decision completely at random, without regard to the values taken by the explanatory variables. The properties of the tests are discussed, and an extension of the methodology is used to test for the presence of a tremble in binary panel data from a well-known economic experiment.     

和谐社会与公共服务的提供机制

构建和谐社会,建设服务型政府,必须满足人民群众日益增长的公共服务需求。本文从公共财政视角分析了我国公共服务供给现状与问题,认为我国公共服务供给存在财政保障机制不够、地区差异性较大、政府问公共服务事权划分不清等问题,并从政府职能回归、财政支出结构转型、转移支付制度改革等角度提出了保障基本公共服务供给的政策建议。     

Reexamining the permanent income hypothesis with uncertainty in permanent and transitory innovation states

In this paper, we reexamine the permanent income–consumption relationship analytically and empirically, based on the innovation regime-switching (IRS) model developed in [Kuan, C.M., Huang, Y.L., Tsay, R.S., 2005. An unobserved component model with switching permanent and transitory innovations. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 23, 443–454]. A novel feature of the IRS model is that it explicitly allows for uncertainty in innovation states. When the labor income follows an IRS process, it is shown that the agent’s perception on the likelihoods of income innovations being permanent and transitory plays a crucial role in determining the optimal forecasts on the change of consumption. The effect of a current labor income innovation on consumption is a weighted average of two distinct effects resulting from permanent and transitory innovations with the weights equal to the perceived likelihoods of the respective states. Also, past innovations may affect consumption when there are revisions in the perceived likelihoods of previous states. Our empirical study on US data shows that consumption indeed reacts significantly to the perceived likelihoods of innovation states. However, even after controlling for the effect of state uncertainty, we find consumption vastly underreacts to permanent innovations in labor income but reacts about the right magnitude to transitory ones when compared with the prediction of the permanent income hypothesis. This evidence is similar to [Elwood, S.K., 1998. Testing for excess sensitivity in consumption: A state-space unobserved components approach. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, 30, 64–82] but in sharp contrast with that found in [Hall, R.E., Mishkin, F.S., 1982. The sensitivity of consumption to transitory income: Estimates from panel data on households. Econometrica, 50, 461–480].     

大国治理逻辑下地方公共收入机制的构建——基于公共物品有效供给分析

分税制框架下的现行地方公共收入机制,无论从增长效应还是从公平效应看,其制度设计均不利于促成地方政府有效供给公共物品。基于大国治理逻辑的一个理论基石是,促成公共物品有效供给的地方公共收入机制,需要融合独立性财权与权力制衡机制。据此,结合受益原则与支付能力原则,利于公共物品有效供给的地方公共收入机制构建,应在不触动当前政府间财政制衡设计的框架下,围绕权力确定、来源清晰,负担落实、征管优势、适度弹性原则,注重财产税、使用者费、地方公债三大收入形式的运用,并借助制度调整来增强地方独立性财权。     

Rewards and Sanctions and the Provision of Public Goods in One-Shot Settings

A burgeoning literature in experimental studies of the Voluntary Contribution Mechanism focuses on the ability of institutions that allow the monitoring, sanctioning, and/or rewarding of others to facilitate cooperation. In this paper rewards and sanctions are examined in a one-shot VCM setting that so far has been unexplored in the literature. The study finds that while some subjects are willing to reward and sanction others at a personal cost, the opportunity to reward or sanction is ineffective in facilitating cooperation relative to previous experiments in which a repeated game environment is employed. The study also compares behavior in an environment in which the imposition of rewards and sanctions is certain to an environment in which imposition is uncertain. The expected value of the reward or sanction is kept constant across environments to focus simply on the effect of uncertainty about imposition. Uncertainty does not change behavior in a significant way, either in the level of cooperation or the willingness of individuals to impose rewards or sanctions.     

公私合营项目无追索融资模型研究

准公共基础设施建设项目应用无追索融资模型可以解决政府建设资金短缺的问题,保证支付的存在为私有投资商进行项目融资提供了便利条件;从风险管理的角度,分析了项目实施过程中所面临的融资成本及各种风险存在方式;采用多目标规划方法,构建了政府财政补贴比例最小化为主要目标函数的项目投资决策优选模型,并运用算例进行了验证。     

地方高校金融学专业教学改革浅析

近年来,随着我国金融市场的不断开放,金融市场化程度越来越高,衍生金融产品交易日趋活跃,传统的金融理论知识已不足以支撑现代金融发展的需求,并且,随着地方金融中心的崛起,区域金融的发展也对金融人才提出了新的要求,因此,转变地方高校金融专业的教学理念,创新教学方法与实践迫在眉睫。     

公共品供给中的政府责任

在公共品供给中,政府责任是提供它需要并且能够提供的公共品。需要提供的公共品是指在现有的资源技术条件下,达到社会效用最大化所需提供的公共品。能够提供的公共品是指征到拉弗曲线隐含的最大税收量所能提供的公共品。需要并且能够提供的公共品是指需要提供的公共品与能够提供的公共品中量较小的一方。通过比较政府实际提供的公共品与需要并且能够提供的公共品,可以评价政府在这一领域称职与否。     

公共产品供给主体及边界确定的交易费用经济学分析——兼论我国公共产品供给过程中交易费用的计量

将新制度经济学中交易费用理论引入公共产品供给分析,给出了供给公共产品的主体确定的理论模型,并在威廉姆森范式扩展的基础上得出了各个主体的边界,认为最优公共产品供给方式的选择和主体边界的确定,取决于公共产品供给过程中发生的交易费用.测算了中国公私部门供给公共产品过程中存在的交易费用,发现就我国公共产品的供给而言,在一定的条件下将公共产品供给由政府部门交给私人部门与第三部门可以节约交易费用,提高公共产品供给的效率.