Fiscal Autonomy and Total Government Expenditure: An Austrian Case-study

The ongoing debate on the efficiency of a federal system versus a centralized system has lead to a diverse and unclear empirical picture of the effects of fiscal decentralization on public sector growth. For analyzing these effects it is crucial to consider the sub-national decision power on taxing and spending. In the current paper, we test for the effects of fiscal autonomy on total government expenditure using time series from 1955 to 2007 for Austria. Determinants of government expenditure are economic growth, fiscal illusion of policy makers, and the unemployment rate. We additionally account for different degrees of sub-national fiscal autonomy. Our econometric results suggest that the often-hypothesized dampening effects of fiscal autonomy cannot be corroborated for the Austrian system.     

Under what conditions may social contracts arise? Evidence from the Hanseatic League

Social contractarians commonly take social contracts to be solely hypothetical and refrain from elaborating on the factors that influence the feasibility of the formation of social contracts. In contrast, this paper aims at providing a discussion of the conditions affecting the feasibility of social contracts. I argue that the more aligned the preferences of group members for public goods are, the more the individuals share similar social norms, and the smaller the group is the more feasible a genuine social contract becomes. I provide evidence in support of my contention from the medieval Hanseatic League. At the Hanseatic Kontor in Novgorod, one of the four major trading posts of the Hanseatic League in cities outside of Germany, German merchants agreed to live under the rule of a constitution that gave rise to a political authority for the Kontor society.     

Federalism and decentralization—a critical survey of frequently used indicators

The economic effects of federalism are unclear: some papers find that federalism has strong positive effects on a number of economically relevant variables, others find negative effects. The results often crucially hinge on the proxies for federalism used. In this paper, we critically survey the existing indicators for both federalism and fiscal decentralization. We argue that federalism is a constitutional institution, whereas decentralization is the outcome of a policy choice, and that the two ought to be systematically distinguished because decentralization can also occur in nonfederally structured states. We further argue that institutional details are very important with regard to federalism and that dummy variables usually capture only very specific aspects of these institutional details. We use factor analysis to test whether the latent variables behind the observed indicators support these assumptions. More than two important factors are derived, implying that a more fine-grained differentiation beyond simply “‘federalism” and “decentralization” might be in order. The correlations of the most important proxies for various aspects of federalism and decentralization with a number of quasi-exogenous variables, as well as with institutional variables, are usually rather modest.     

“Core” and “Periphery” in a Monetary Union: A Macroeconomic Policy Game

We develop a dynamic game model of a two-country monetary union to study strategic interactions between macroeconomic policy makers, namely the central bank and governments. In this union, the governments of participating countries pursue national goals when deciding on fiscal policies, whereas the common central bank’s monetary policy aims at union-wide objective variables. The union considered is asymmetric, consisting of a core, with lower initial public debt, and a periphery, with higher initial public debt. For a symmetric demand shock, we derive numerical solutions of the dynamic game between the governments and the central bank using the OPTGAME algorithm. We show that mildly active cooperative countercyclical policies dominate noncooperative solutions and a scenario of no policy intervention. Optimal policies call for a brief expansionary action to bolster the effects on output and a return to a small fiscal primary surplus as soon as the crisis is over until the targeted level of public debt is reached.     

Market Instability and Revision Error in Risk Premium

This paper provides a theory and evidence that the risk premium puzzle is viewed as a phenomenon pertaining to the unstable foreign exchange market. In an unstable market, revision error uncompensated by an initial risk premium accrues due to consumer expectation revision about the ex ante uncertainty of the exchange rate. The risk premium widely deviates from its initial level, depending on the frequency of the consumer expectation revision and the degree of risk aversion. Subsequent evidence shows the existence of the revision errors for the risk premium during the Asian currency crisis and the recent financial crisis periods.     

以科学发展观为指导促进贵州民族地区经济可持续发展

贵州民族地区经济发展是全省经济发展的重要组成部分。但长期以来,多数民族地区偏重于依靠第二产业尤其是工业增长实现经济跨越式发展的模式。转变民族地区经济发展方式,坚持可持续的发展方向,是民族地区贯彻落实科学发展观的客观需要,是促进民族地区经济又好又快发展的有效途径。     

投资者非理性假设下公司金融决策前沿理论评述

随着行为金融理论的逐步发展,市场错误定价的稳定存在已经得到越来越多学者的认可。本文对行为公司金融理论中投资者非理性范式下的前沿理论进行了综述,从投资和融资决策两个方面分析了面对错误时的外部市场定价行为,以及理性的财务决策者如何利用这种市场无效率来为长期股东获利,或迎合非理性投资者预期来实现自己的短期目标。     

文化差异与跨文化民航客舱服务职业教育

伴随着中国民用航空市场大众化和民航运输服务贸易全球化,中国民航客舱服务对象文化背景多元化趋势日益明显。如何应对各种文化差异及由此所引发的文化冲击和沟通障碍、冲突和误解,已成为中国民航客舱服务职业培养亟待解决的新课题。本文着力探讨文化差异对民航客舱服务影响,探寻文化差异背景条件下的跨文化客舱服务对策,以利于推动中国民航客舱服务职业队伍培养质量的不断提升。     

浅谈资本运营中的风险管理

资本运营活动会带来未来收益的不确定性。而这种不确定性主要源于环境的不确定性。其表现主要有资本运营操作者对环境的认识能力有限和环境自身的动态变化。企业资本运营风险管理的基本方法主要有风险规避、风险控制、风险隔离、风险转移、风险分散等方法。企业不仅要及时识别资本运营中存在的风险,还需要建立一套风险管理机制,即建立风险报告、考评制度和企业财务风险防范制度,从而加强资本运营风险的控制。