Climate Policy Under Uncertain and Heterogeneous Climate Damages

We highlight that uncertainty about climate damages and the fact that damages will be distributed heterogeneously across the global population can jointly be an argument for substantially stricter climate policy even if uncertainty and heterogeneity in isolation are not. The reason is that a given climate risk borne by fewer people implies greater welfare losses. However, these losses turn out to be significant only if society is both risk and inequality averse and if climate damages are highly heterogeneous. We discuss how insurance and self-insurance of climate risk could theoretically mitigate this joint effect of uncertainty and heterogeneity and thus admit weaker climate policy. Insurance provides more efficient risk sharing and self-insurance allows strongly impacted individuals to compensate damages by increasing savings. We first use a simple analytical model to introduce the different concepts and then provide more realistic results from the integrated assessment model DICE.     

中国投资发展(2002-2003):回顾与展望

本文从固定资产投资、金融资产投资和国际投资三个方面系统地回顾和总结了2002年中国投资运行的总体态势和发展特征，并根据国内外投资环境的新变化，展望了2003年中国投资的发展趋势。     

Noxious Facilities, Environmental Damages, and Efficient Randomized Siting

This paper considers the efficient siting of a noxious facility that causes environmental damages (for example, increased pollution) in the host community. The analysis shows that there can be multiple efficient locations without transfers, and that an efficient location need not have the smallest WTA or WTP. In general, there exist randomized outcomes that are ex ante efficient and that Pareto dominate efficient outcomes. The analysis also shows that a community’s most preferred lottery never provides full insurance. Under some conditions, lotteries with no host compensation are Pareto superior to those with compensation.     

业绩期望顺差、知识产权保护与绩优企业创新

研究绩优企业创新行为,探讨了产权性质与知识产权保护的情景效应,回答了企业组织是遵循“富则思安”的行为惯性抑或是“富而思进”的可能性。基于2011-2017年主板A股上市公司数据研究发现,业绩期望顺差显著抑制企业创新投入,且这种抑制作用在国有企业中更强,总体上绩优企业创新行为遵循“富则思安”的行为惯例。进一步研究发现,随着我国创新驱动发展战略的实施及知识产权保护制度的完善,知识产权保护能促进企业创新投入,且能有效降低业绩期望顺差对企业创新投入的抑制作用。这一作用机制在知识产权保护越强的情况下,越能引导绩优民营上市公司从“富则思安”向“富而思进”转变。     

专用性人力资本投资与工资合约——引入不对称信息的敲竹杠模型

经典的不完全合约理论认为,当事人的专用性投资会引发敲竹杠行为从而导致专用性投资的无效率。本文通过在经典的敲竹杠模型中引入关于雇员能力的不对称信息,构建一个新的模型来分析企业工资合约的刚性与灵活性,以解决敲竹杠所导致的专用性人力资本投资不足。分析表明:从保护雇佣双方专用性人力资本投资方面看,固定工资合约优于灵活工资合约;且在固定工资合约下,雇员虽然仍可能面临敲竹杠风险,但敲竹杠未必妨碍专用性人力资本投资效率。     

Time-Related Characteristics of Tenancy Contracts and Investment in Soil Conservation Practices

We present a dynamic model that shows how different types of land tenancy contracts and their time-related characteristics influence farmers’ decisions to invest in soil improvement and productive inputs. Using recent household and plot-level data from the Brong-Ahafo Region in Ghana, we analyze the impact of land tenancy arrangements, contract duration, as well as the number of times the contract has been renewed in the past on the intensity of investment in soil conservation measures such as ditches and farmyard manure and productive inputs like chemical fertilizer. The empirical findings generally confirm the predictions of the theoretical model and reveal that the intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given farmer varies significantly with the type of tenancy arrangement on the plot as well as the time-related characteristics of the contract.     

Efficient Estimation and Testing of Alternative Models of Currency Futures Contracts

An efficient systems approach is used to estimate and test two alternative models regarding the pricing of Australian dollar futures contracts traded on the International Monetary Market of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Cointegrating relationships among the Australian dollar spot and futures prices, and the US and Australian risk-free rates of interest, suggest alternative error-correction representations for the cost-of-carry model which, with appropriate zero restrictions, yields the unbiased expectations hypothesis. A structural break in the futures price series permits estimation of appropriate models for the full sample in the presence of the break, for the full sample without explicitly modelling the break, and for two separate sub-samples created by the structural break. The restricted and unrestricted cost-of-carry formulations are estimated for all sample sets, the models obtained are found to be statistically adequate, and the qualitative results are reasonably robust across different sample sets for both models. On the basis of the tests of zero restrictions, the cost-of-carry model is found to be empirically superior to the unbiased expectations hypothesis for the four sample sets considered, regardless of the number of cointegrating relations.     

Managerial Bargaining Power in the Determination of Compensation Contracts and Corporate Investment

This paper considers the design of managerial compensation contracts and their impact on corporate investment decisions and the managerial effort decision. The model relates the compensation scheme to outside share ownership and managerial bargaining position. Using the methods of mechanism design under asymmetric information, a shift in favor of effort is documented in the case where managerial bargaining strength is weak, while a shift toward more use of capital investment results from strong managerial bargaining power. The model distinguishes managerial equity holdings from contingent compensation contracts. Our results are related to the empirical literature on pay-performance sensitivities.     

Investment Under Monetary Uncertainty: A Panel Data Investigation

There is a presumption in the literature that price or exchange rate uncertainty, or uncertainty in the monetary conditions underlying them, will have a negative effect on investment. Some argue that this negative effect will be extended by imperfect competition. However, models of irreversible investment show that the situation is more complicated than that. In these models, investment expenditures are affected by the scrapping price available on world markets and also by the opportunity cost of waiting rather than investing. The impact of uncertainty is therefore going to depend on the type of industry and hence on the industrial structure of the economy concerned. In addition, it may depend on the persistence of any price misalignments away from competitive equilibrium. In this paper, we put these theoretical predictions to the test. We estimate investment equations for 13 different industries using data for nine OECD countries over the period 1970–2000. We find that the impact of price uncertainty is negative or insignificant in all but one case whereas the impact of (nominal) exchange rate uncertainty is negative in only six cases, positive in four cases, and insignificant in three others. In addition, there are conflicting effects from the real exchange rate. The net effect depends on whether the source of the uncertainty is in domestic markets or in foreign markets.     

Investment Incentives Under Emission Trading: An Experimental Study

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on incentives to adopt advanced abatement technology under emissions trading. Our experimental design mimics an industry with small asymmetric polluting firms regulated by different schemes of tradable permits. We consider three allocation/auction policies: auctioning off (costly) permits through an ascending clock auction, grandfathering permits with re-allocation through a single-unit double auction, and grandfathering with re-allocation through an ascending clock auction. Our results confirm both dynamic and static theoretical equivalence of auctioning and grandfathering. We nevertheless find that although the market institution used to reallocate permits does not impact the dynamic efficiency from investment, it affects the static efficiency from permit trading.     

Investment Decisions,Financial Flows,and Self‐Enforcing Contracts*

This article studies the role of risk sharing in dynamic credit relationships that are secured by physical collateral. It is shown that, when borrowers and lenders cannot commit not to terminate relationships (through default in the first case and liquidation in the second), overinvestment is optimal. Overinvestment facilitates risk sharing in this context: It occurs in expectation of periods in which lenders are unwilling to supply all the funds necessary to achieve complete risk sharing. Typically, overinvestment happens when investment decreases; it slows down the pace at which the capital stock is reduced and therefore results in production smoothing.     

合谋和风险投资合约设计的关系探讨

风险企业独特的所有权结构值得研究。给出了一个理论框架，在这个框架里，风险企业的控制权和现金流量权安排都得到了说明。在风险企业里，风险资本家的主要功能是监督。要保证监督的有效性，必须赋予其对风险企业的控制权。为了发挥其监督功能，风险投资合约必须防止合谋。     

家族所有权调节下的CEO薪酬与研发投资

以2013—2018年期间379家中国A股技术密集型公司数据为样本,研究了家族所有权在研发投资和CEO薪酬关系中的调节作用。结果发现:与非家族企业相比,家族企业CEO薪酬与研发投资水平关联性较高;家族所有权比例较高的家族企业对CEO薪酬与研发投资的关系具有更强的正向调节能力;低风险与高风险的家族企业在研发投资上没有显著差异。因此,家族所有权在研发投资和CEO薪酬关系中具有调节的作用是基于信息优势和较长的投资期限,而并非风险规避。进一步研究发现:家族企业的研发投资比非家族企业具有更高的投资效率、并可转化为更高的企业价值和增长率。     

Contracts and competition: an introduction

Changes in public policy and corporate strategy have enhancedthe role of contracts as mechanisms of economic governance.The understanding that norms, standards and other forms of regulatorymechanism can affect the structure of incentives and the qualityof contractual outcomes has helped to stimulate a wider debateconcerning institutions and economic performance. Among thethemes explored in this Special Issue, which draws on the UKESRC's Contracts and Competition Programme, are the need forinterdisciplinary analysis of economic organisation; the linkbetween contracts and trust; and the complex relationship betweeninstitutional forms and economic outcomes.     

Endogenous Games and Mechanisms: Side Payments Among Players

We characterize the outcomes of games when players may make binding offers of strategy contingent side payments before the game is played. This does not always lead to efficient outcomes, despite complete information and costless contracting. The characterizations are illustrated in a series of examples, including voluntary contribution public good games, Cournot and Bertrand oligopoly, principal–agent problems, and commons games, among others.     

Severance Payments and Unemployment Insurance: A Commitment Issue

In the event of a job termination, many workers receive severance payments from their employer, in addition to publicly provided unemployment insurance (UI). In the absence of a third party enforcer, contracts featuring severance payments must be supported by an implicit self‐enforcing contract. Workers believe employers will make severance payments only if it is in their best interest ex post. If firms discount the future deeply, they will reduce the severance payment they offer, in order to relax their incentive constraint. Workers are forced to bear risk, and too many workers are laid off. We show that a well‐designed public UI system can correct these distortions.     

高管薪酬契约对公司投资行为的影响——基于证券市场非有效视角的分析

文章基于中国上市公司2004-2010年动态面板数据GMM方法,在证券市场非有效的背景下考察了高管薪酬契约对公司投资行为的影响。研究结果显示,无论是货币薪酬还是高管持股激励,高管薪酬激励和股票错误定价对公司投资行为的影响具有交互作用,股票市场的投机行为会诱使高管为增加从股权激励中得到的收入而更多地投资。同时,这一关系在实际控制人性质不同的企业存在差异。     

金融支付结算系统四大领域问题的理论前沿

支付结算系统直接关系到我国金融业乃至社会经济发展的效率与稳定,受到广泛关注.为此,本文从微观和宏观的角度对国外支付结算系统四大领域的最新研究进展进行考察,包括消费者支付系统中的相关问题;支付系统中的新技术应用;国际背景中的支付结算系统和证券结算系统的危机扩散.这些研究有助于我们对当前我国支付结算系统现状进行思考.     

Contracts and externalities: How things fall apart

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many uncontracted or “free” agents there are. We study how such a principal, unwelcome though he may be, approaches the problem of contract provision to agents when coordination failure among the latter group is explicitly ruled out. Two variants are considered. When the principal cannot re-approach agents, there is a unique equilibrium, in which contract provision is split up into two phases. In phase 1, simultaneous offers at good (though varying) terms are made to a number of agents. In phase 2, offers must be made sequentially, and their values are “discontinuously” lower: they are close to the very lowest of all the outside options. When the principal can repeatedly approach the same agent, there is a multiplicity of equilibria. In some of these, the agents have the power to force delay. They can hold off the principal's overtures temporarily, but they must succumb in finite time. In both models, despite being able to coordinate their actions, agents cannot resist an “invasion” by the principal and hold to their best payoff. It is in this sense that “things [eventually] fall apart”.