ICT Statistics at the New Millennium—Developing Official Statistics—Measuring the Diffusion of ICT and its Impact

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.     

Is the Optimal Labor Income Tax Progressive in a Unionized Economy?*

This paper concerns optimal nonlinear labor income taxation in an economy with union wage setting and endogenous hours of work. The purpose is to study the determinants of tax progression. We show that the optimal degree of progression of the labor income tax depends on the extent to which the government can influence the wage rate via tax policy as well as on its ability to redistribute income across individuals. In addition, the argument for progressive labor income taxation depends on whether hours of work are chosen by the employed themselves or the union.     

Optimal Emissions Taxation under Imperfect Competition in a Durable Good Industry

This paper investigates optimal emissions taxation under imperfect competition in a durable good industry where products are sold (instead of rented). As a benchmark, attention is paid to the special case of monopoly with exogenously given product durability. In line with previous literature, the optimal emission tax in this benchmark model falls short of marginal damage (underinternalization). Extending the benchmark model either to the case of an oligopolistic market structure and/or to the case of endogenous product durability then provides two cases in which the optimal emission tax overinternalizes marginal damage.     

Leaving state sector employment in Russia

I analyse the reallocation of labour and human capital from the state sector to the non‐state sector and non‐employment in Russia. I use a nationally representative household dataset, the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, to study sectoral mobility in early transition using summary measures of mobility and multivariate discrete choice models. The results show that sectoral mobility varies between different skill groups, and in particular that those with university education, with supervisory responsibility and in white‐collar occupations are less likely to leave state jobs for both non‐state employment and non‐employment. The results suggest that in the early stages of transition in Russia mismatch of skills across state/non‐state employment was significant and that non‐state employment consisted mostly of low skill, ‘bad’ jobs.     

What Role Taxes and Regulation? A Second Look at Open Market Share Buyback Activity in the UK

This paper re-examines the evidence on open market share repurchase activity reported by Rau and Vermaelen (2002) for the UK. Using data from the Securities Data Corporation (SDC), Rau and Vermaelen conclude that the level of repurchase activity is trivial. They attribute the low repurchase volume to regulatory restrictions that limit companies' ability to take advantage of an undervalued stock price and conclude that the bulk of repurchase activity that does occur is driven by the desire to generate tax credits for pension funds. Using data collected from a variety of sources, we find that the SDC substantially understates UK open market buyback activity. Based on our more comprehensive dataset we conclude that (a) pension funds' tax considerations are not the primary cause of UK share repurchases and (b) despite the prevailing regulatory environment, underpricing still represents an important determinant of repurchase activity.     

Hedging,Financing and Investment Decisions: A Simultaneous Equations Framework

We empirically investigate the interactions among hedging, financing, and investment decisions. We argue that the way in which hedging affects a firm's financing and investing decisions differs for firms with different growth opportunities. We find that high growth firms increase their investment, but not leverage, by hedging. However, we also find that firms with few investment opportunities use derivatives to increase their leverage.     

Environmental Taxation and Vertical Cournot Oligopolies: How Eco-industries Matter

This article specifies what an optimal pollution tax should be when dealing with a vertical Cournot oligopoly. Polluting firms sell final goods to consumers and outsource their abatement activities to an environment industry. It is assumed that both markets are imperfectly competitive. Thus, the tax is a single instrument used to regulate three sorts of distortions, one negative externality and two restrictions in production. Consequently, the optimal tax rate is the result of a trade-off that depends on the firms’ market power along the vertical structure. A detailed analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria in both markets is also performed. In this context, the efficiency of abatement activities plays a key-role. It gives a new understanding to the necessary conditions for the emergence of an eco-industrial sector.      

国债规模的均衡数量及优化

笔者基于世代交叠模型,假定政府执行赤字预算体制,在市场结清的均衡状态下得到了确定国债规模与私人资本规模之比值的解析式。通过模拟发现税率、基本财政支出率、产出关于私人资本的弹性等是决定该比值大小的主要因素。     

Changing composition of human capital The Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland1

We show that business education/occupations have expanded and that technical education/occupations have contracted in the Czech Republic and Poland since 1990. We interpret these changes as an adjustment necessary for their transition to a market economy. We do not find the same pattern in Hungary, which we attribute to the earlier timing of its transition. We construct an aggregate model in which labour reallocates in response to changing demand structure. When calibrated with the Czech and Polish data, the model generates a large movement of workers with technical education and experience into business occupations in the early 1990s. The discounted sum of output loss due to the gap between the demand structure and the composition of existing human capital amounts to between 8 and 40 percent of 1990 GDP.     

Analysis on the internal mechanism forming the capital operation venture of nation-owned enterprises

According to the Capital of Karl Marx, capital aims at realizing the value maintenance and increment during the process of its cycle and turnover. Without the conditions of capital＇s cycle and turnover, it will break off. This will furthermore bring an obstacle to the value maintenance and increment of capital, which is the root of capital operation venture and is also the internal mechanism forming the capital operation venture of nation-owned enterprises.