Limited monitoring and the essentiality of money

Monetary theory emphasizes that imperfect monitoring is necessary for money to be essential, that is, for money to achieve socially desirable allocations. Little is known about how limited monitoring must be if money is to be essential, though. Understanding sufficient conditions for the essentiality of money is important since monitoring is a natural way in which credit is introduced in monetary models. In this paper, we show that money can fail to be essential even if monitoring is quite limited. This indicates that one must be careful when introducing monitoring in monetary models to allow for the coexistence of money and credit.     

The Private Finance Initiative: Clarification of a Future Research Agenda

The Private Finance Initiative in the UK, whereby the public sector actively seeks private finance for developments in its services/buildings, can be traced to the Chancellor of the the Exchequer's Autumn Statement of 1992. However, the seeking of private finance had been a Government concern for many years before this time even though it was only in 1992 that it gained a real impetus and direction. Since then it has developed and expanded into all areas of Government and into local authorities and has been carried forward, with equal, if not greater, enthusiasm, by the recently elected Labour Government. This paper provides an introduction to this new development in the public sector in the UK, tracing its historical development from its 'macro' emphasis, through to the 'micro' outworking of these policies across the entire public sector. This summary provides the base to draw up a future research agenda for PFI, which forms the major concern of the paper.     

The challenge of using standard contracts in public–private partnerships

A call for an increased use of standard contracts in public–private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development is noticeable in practice. These contracts are expected to simplify and improve procurement by creating opportunities for learning, lower transaction costs, and better competition. This paper delineates standard contracts in PPP as a new venue for research and unfolds their potential impact. Here lies an important challenge since the benefits of standardization are not as straightforward as they look at first sight, particularly when taking into account the tension between the powerful, control-oriented role of contracting authorities and the need for contingent, informal contracting.     

上市公司过度投资问题初探

与投资不足等其他非效率投资行为相比,投资过度产生的不利后果更为严重,本文在界定过度投资的基础上,分析了上市公司过度投资产生的原因,并从防范经理人获取私利、克服个人有限理性、合理引导投资者形成理性投资预期等三个方面提出了抑制过度投资的相应对策。     

国有企业人才流失的契约性阻挠与社会福利损失:一种代理理论分析

随着我国非国有经济的不断发展壮大 ,人才流失已对许多国有企业运行效率以及长期稳定发展造成严重影响。面对人才市场竞争 ,绝大多数国有企业在人才引进、人事管理以及收入分配等诸多领域都做出了适应性调整和改革。本文在一种委托—代理框架下 ,从契约理论角度考察了国有企业为防止人才流失所普遍实行的薪酬激励契约和阻挠人才流失契约之间的内在联系 ,然后在此基础上研究了阻挠人才流失契约如何影响社会总福利水平 ,并针对围绕国有企业劳动契约缔约过程所安排的正式制度上的某些缺陷 ,提出若干改革建议。     

会计信息透明度——一种理论分析模式

本文提出一种会计信息透明度的新的分析视角:(1)从会计信息供求双方相互作用的角度来认识会计信息透明度;(2)把经典的成本一收益分析方法运用于会计信息供求双方行为的解释;(3)从静态和动态两个角度,对会计信息透明度的一般状况及变化情况进行理论分析。     

Limited participation and consumption-saving puzzles: A simple explanation and the role of insurance

In this paper, we show that the existence of a large, negative wealth shock and insufficient insurance against such a shock could explain both the limited stock market participation puzzle and the low-consumption–high-savings puzzle. We then conduct an empirical analysis on the relation between household portfolio choices and access to private insurance and various types of government safety nets. The empirical results demonstrate that a lack of insurance against large, negative wealth shocks is positively correlated with lower participation rates and higher saving rates. Overall, the evidence suggests an important role of insurance in household investment and savings decisions.     

The Changing Nature of Contracting and Trust in Public‐Private Partnerships: The Case of Victorian PPP Prisons

This paper examines shifting constructions of contracting and trust that are manifest between pre‐2000 and post‐2000 public‐private partnerships (PPPs) providing prison facilities and/or services in the Australian State of Victoria. As such, this paper is significant because it outlines longitudinal insights into the nature of changing practices sustaining these PPPs. The post‐2000 period examined reflects a change of government and the policy context. Our examination is based on a range of primary and secondary documents. The primary documents comprise three pre‐2000 Prison Services Agreements and two post‐2000 Facilities Services Agreements. A number of government and other reports constitute the secondary documents consulted. While there are many substantive similarities between the contracts, we find five main areas of changed contracting practices over the period examined. These relate to: first, the objectives of the PPP prisons; second, risk management practices; third, the approach to performance measurement and reporting; fourth, the structuring of incentive and payment mechanisms; and fifth, the emphasis on collaboration. Overall, we find that the post‐2000 contracts promote a more overt development of goodwill trust and relational contracting, building on presumptions of contractual and competence forms of trust. However, quite different outcomes have been achieved from particular contractual contexts. Our study suggests that in complex PPP contracts, the influences of both the transacting parties and the transaction environment have been insufficiently recognized in the literature on PPPs.