The trade credit channel revisited: evidence from micro data of Japanese small firms

It is suggested that trade credit can be a substitute for bank loans for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have little access to external funding sources. Using unique cross-sectional survey data of Japanese SMEs, we conduct a deep investigation into the substitutability between bank loans and trade credit. This survey contains rich information on the suppliers of trade credit to SMEs, thus enabling the examination of the channel through which credit is provided from suppliers to customers. We find that SMEs with little access to bank credit depend more on large suppliers for trade credit. We also find that when a purchase is made from a large supplier, more credit is indeed provided in the form of trade credit. Furthermore, this channel of credit from large suppliers to SMEs is only observed for solvent customers, not for insolvent customers. Our findings suggest that trade credit plays an important role for entrepreneurial firms over the financial growth cycle. For young and small firms with little access to bank loans trade credit is an important funding source.     

Multiple equilibria in two-sector monetary economies: An interplay between preferences and the timing for money

In this paper, we study the occurrence of local indeterminacy in two-sector monetary economies. We consider a general MIUF model with two alternative timings in monetary payments: the Cash-In-Advance timing, in which the cash available to buy goods is money in the consumers’ hands after they leave the bond market but before they enter the goods market, and the Cash-After-the-Market timing, in which agents hold money for transactions after leaving the goods market. We consider three standard specifications of preferences: the additively separable formulation, the Greenwood–Hercovitz–Huffman (GHH) (Greenwood et al., 1988) formulation and the King–Plosser–Rebelo (KPR) (King et al., 1988) formulation. First, we show that for all the three types of preferences, local indeterminacy occurs under the CIA timing with a low enough interest rate elasticity of money demand. Second, we show that with the CAM timing, although determinacy always holds under separable preferences, local indeterminacy can occur with GHH and KPR preferences. We thus prove that compared to aggregate models, two-sector models provide new rooms for local indeterminacy when non-separable standard preferences are considered.     

Satiation and existence of competitive equilibrium

In this paper, we introduce a new assumption concerning the (non)satiation property of preferences and establish the existence of a competitive equilibrium under it. The assumption is weaker than the standard nonsatiation assumption and “weak nonsatiation” introduced by Allouch and Le Van (2008). In particular, it allows preferences to be satiated only inside the set of individually rational feasible consumptions, while the two nonsatiation assumptions do not. It is also worth noting that just like the two nonsatiation assumptions, our new assumption depends solely on the characteristics of consumers.     

Health systems futures: The challenges of technology,prevention and insurance

This article argues that the futures of health systems depend on how countries address three wider challenges that include: (a) the adoption of health innovations and quality improvements, (b) responses to new non-communicable and preventable global diseases, as well as (c) adjusting financial models to current insurance constraints. Future trends point towards an increasing dependence on productive quality improvements, the personalisation of health care and the organisation of delivery and finance to take advantage of existing knowledge. Prevention, and disease avoidance, particularly that of non-communicable diseases, will aim to reduce pressure on “care components” of the health system whilst global control of communicable risks will become apparent. Finally, trends suggest an increase in patient participation and personalisation of insurance contracts will help to realign risk sharing with cost containment and financial sustainability. Other potential challenges such as ageing are regarded as second order issues to be addressed through these aforementioned future trends.     

Cross-border pollution abatement and its synergy

The present study shows that in the case of cross-border pollution between two neighbouring jurisdictions, residents in each jurisdiction should undertake a competitive pollution abatement program. The present study considers an economy comprising two homogeneous regions, with each regional government competing to provide some local public good that can benefit not only the regions supplying them but also the other neighbouring regions. This study investigated the circumstances under which such regional spillovers mutually arise by comparing cases without spillover effects with those featuring varying levels of spillovers. The study result indicates that regions exhibiting a different levels of spillover provide higher welfare measures than those without spillover and that the higher the level of spillover the greater the social welfare measures yielded. The study also compares cases without synergy effects with those featuring varying levels of spillover.     

Can consumption habit spillovers be a source of equilibrium indeterminacy?

This paper investigates whether the external consumption habit can be a source of indeterminacy in a one-sector growth model when the labor supply is elastic. When there is a proper habit effect with a positive intertemporal elasticity of substitution, we find that the model exhibits indeterminacy if the coefficient of the habit formation is sufficiently large that allows for a substantial impact of current consumption on the habit. Indeterminacy arises even though the elasticity of the Frisch labor supply is positive and the elasticity of the labor demand in negative. In a calibrated version, we find that indeterminacy is empirically plausible when the habit effect is negative that features the “catching up with the Joneses” effect. Under given “catching up with the Joneses” effects, the external consumption habit can be a source of indeterminacy even if more than a half of the external consumption habit comes from past average consumption.     

Is a monetary union feasible for East Asia?

The empirical suitability of the East Asian economies for potential monetary integration is assessed. The structural vector autoregression (VAR) method is employed to identify the underlying shocks using a three-variable VAR model across the East Asian economies. The estimates of the EEC are used as a benchmark to compare the size of the underlying shocks and the speed of adjustment to shocks in both regions to determine the feasibility of forming an optimum currency area (OCA) in East Asia. The empirical results do not display strong support for forming an OCA in the East Asian region. The results do imply, however, that some small subregions are potential candidates for OCAs, since their disturbances are correlated and small and these economies adjust rapidly to shocks.     

不同视角下的中国城镇社会保障制度与收入再分配——基于年度收入和终生收入的经验分析

本文利用中国社会科学院经济研究所收入分配课题组1995年和2002年两次城镇居民住户调查数据，从不同的角度分析了中国城镇社会保障制度在收入再分配方面发挥的作用。我们发现总体上中国城镇社会保障制度缩小了个人收入差距，降低了相对贫困率，具有正的再分配效应。但社会保障对劳动年龄人群和老年人群的收入再分配作用非常不同，社会保障的再分配主要不是通过收入阶层间的再分配，而是通过代际间的收入再分配实现的。高收入人群通过社会保障体系转移出去的收入很少，中国社会保障费用负担的累进性很低。另外，与1995年相比，2002年时社会保障缩小收入差距的作用下降，相对贫困率有所上升。我们还发现从劳动年龄人群代际内的收入转移看，以终生收入为基础估计的养老保险制度的长期收入再分配效应大干以年度收入为基础估计的当期再分配效应，机关和事业单位人员是否实行改革后的养老保险方案对整个养老保险制度的长期收入再分配效应的影响非常大。     

Circular domains

I introduce the notion of circular domains and prove that on any circular domain there is no strategy-proof and nondictatorial social choice function. Moreover, I show that on any proper subset of a minimal circular domain, there exists a group strategy-proof and essential social choice function. These results together detect the minimal size of the domains over which the incompatibility arises with respect to pairs of democratic-incentive requirements (nondictatorial, strategy-proof) and (essential, group strategy-proof).