制度变革与省区经济增长——基于内生视角的实证研究

首先利用主成分方法构建了各省区的年度制度指数,设计了制度的工具变量,即各省区的矿产资源禀赋和海外市场接近度,然后利用回归方程分析了制度变革对经济增长的影响。结果表明,市场化导向的制度变革直接推动了我国省区的经济增长。     

货币供给的制度内生与需求内生实证研究

文章分别从基础货币投放的被动性、金融机构的"有价证券与外汇"资产渠道以及利率渠道对我国货币供给的内生性进行了实证研究。研究表明:我国货币供给具有较强的内生性,主要表现为基础货币供给的制度内生和信贷供给的需求内生。为提高当前紧缩性货币政策的有效性,货币当局必须稳定人民币汇率升值预期,提高法定存款准备金率、提高贷款利率尤其中长期贷款利率水平,以此削弱货币供给的制度内生和需求内生。     

Household Food Insecurity and Maternal and Child Nutritional Status: Evidence from Maharashtra

In this paper we rigorously examine the association of household food security status with maternal and child nutritional status exploring a rich micro‐level database, the Comprehensive Nutrition Survey Maharashtra 2012. Using Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) as a metric to measure household food security, we apply simultaneous probit models to estimate the effect of food insecurity on maternal and child nutritional outcomes. The modelling framework addresses possible endogeneity in the above relationship. Findings indicate that household food insecurity increases the risk of maternal and child underweight with no effect on child stunting, wasting or maternal overweight. Women’s decision‐making power mediates these associations. Food security interventions should be effective in tackling the concerns with undernutrition, however, food alone is not the solution. A mix of nutrition‐specific and nutrition‐sensitive policies is warranted. Food security interventions should be integrated into policies for human development.     

Modeling Simultaneity in Survey Data

Responses to questions in a survey can reflect a behavior process that influences multiple response items. Respondent ratings of brand attributes, for example, can be affected by past purchases by making a brand more salient, or by respondents attributing higher performance to justify their purchases. When multiple response items are influenced by a common underlying process, there is simultaneity in the data. This paper proposes an approach to model the simultaneity in different survey responses by using common parameters and structural relationships motivated by behavioral theories on how consumers respond to surveys. Specifically, the proposed models show how brand usage and attribute perception responses are jointly determined by justification, order, and brand halo effects in two brand positioning studies. We detect a significant tendency for respondents to inflate their reported beliefs for particular brands as well as the selected brand across five countries in an international survey as well as in a domestic study. JEL Classification: C35, C53, D12, M31     

大陆与香港金融新合作的中长期效应评析

2003年6月底中央政府与香港特别行政区政府签署了《内地与香港关于建立更加紧密经济关系的安排》后，两地在金融领域的合作不断加快。在目前已呈现出短期效应基础上，对可能产生的中长期效应要进行合理地预测。     

Solving and Testing for Regressor-Error (in)Dependence When no Instrumental Variables are Available: With New Evidence for the Effect of Education on Income

This paper has two main contributions. Firstly, we introduce a new approach, the latent instrumental variables (LIV) method, to estimate regression coefficients consistently in a simple linear regression model where regressor-error correlations (endogeneity) are likely to be present. The LIV method utilizes a discrete latent variable model that accounts for dependencies between regressors and the error term. As a result, additional ‘valid’ observed instrumental variables are not required. Furthermore, we propose a specification test based on Hausman (1978) to test for these regressor-error correlations. A simulation study demonstrates that the LIV method yields consistent estimates and the proposed test-statistic has reasonable power over a wide range of regressor-error correlations and several distributions of the instruments. Secondly, the LIV method is used to re-visit the relationship between education and income based on previously published data. Data from three studies are re-analyzed. We examine the effect of education on income, where the variable ‘education’ is potentially endogenous due to omitted ‘ability’ or other causes. In all three applications, we find an upward bias in the OLS estimates of approximately 7%. Our conclusions agree closely with recent results obtained in studies with twins that find an upward bias in OLS of about 10% (Card, 1999). We also show that for each of the three datasets the classical IV estimates for the return to education point to biases in OLS that are not consistent in terms of size and magnitude. Our conclusion is that LIV estimates are preferable to the classical IV estimates in understanding the effects of education on income. JEL Classification: C12, C13, C21, J3, M3     

Returns to Education Using a Sample of Twins: Evidence from Japan*

The objective of this article is to measure the causal effect of education on earnings using a large dataset of twins compiled in Japan with wide‐ranging socioeconomic information. Recent research conducted in China showed that, contrary to the case in Western countries, ability bias is large in estimating the return to education. It is argued that the low rate of return in China is in part due to the competitive and exam‐oriented education system, which is similar to the system in Japan. The empirical results in our study show that the estimated rate of return to education using the sample of identical twins in Japan is 9.3 percent even after omitted ability bias and measurement errors in self‐reported schooling were corrected. Our findings suggest that the conventional OLS estimate is not significantly contaminated by potential biases in Japan.     

The nexus between public sector corruption and private sector efficiency: Evidence from worldwide firm-level data

Anti-corruption is highlighted as one of the key institutional principles by the United Nations, as corruption hinders the progress in achieving sustainable development goals. However, the extant literature on how private firms' efficiency is influenced by corruption prevailing in regulatory agencies across economies has been inconclusive. Analyzing the World Bank Enterprise Survey data across 45,121 firms from 80 countries, this study finds that bribe payments to corrupt public officials by firms causes bureaucratic delays. Employing an instrumental variable Tobit framework to address the issue of endogeneity inherited with observational data, this study demonstrates that an increase in the magnitude of bribes and depth of corruption by one percentage point separately expands the firm managers' time being spent on regulatory requirements by 2.78 percentage points and 2.47 percentage points, respectively. The findings are robust to different specifications. The results imply the importance of promoting anti-corruption measures across countries to create a conducive environment for firms to enhance efficiency, and thereby to achieve sustainable development goals successfully.     

Proxy variable estimation of productivity and efficiency

We model productivity and inefficiency jointly, instead of modeling and estimating either only productivity or only inefficiency with many variable and quasi-fixed inputs. In the first model, we use a multi-step procedure. We use the proxy variable method based on the first-order condition (FOC) of expected profit maximization with respect to the single variable input to take care of the endogeneity problem arising from both productivity and inefficiency. To separate mean inefficiency from mean productivity we assume them nonparametric functions of different sets of exogenous variables. In the second model, we consider a novel system consisting of the production function and the FOCs of expected profit maximization for the multiple variable inputs. Distributional assumptions are made on all the random errors associated with the production function, the FOCs, productivity, and inefficiency functions in the second model. We use the Colombian food manufacturing data as an application of our model.     

The financial and green effects of cultural values on mission drifts in European social enterprises

The sustainable social enterprises (SEs) literature shows that SEs have to simultaneously pursue economic, social, and environmental aims. However, tensions between these objectives can make this a challenging task and lead towards mission drift. This work investigates if the cultural dimension can forecast the mission drift. We empirically analyze this relationship in three stages. In the first stage, we identify a homogeneous dataset of 287 sustainable SEs from seven EU countries from 2011 to 2020. Then, in the second stage, we apply the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology to calculate the efficiency of the SEs. An efficient SE has to simultaneously achieve social, environmental, and economic aims. We calculate a proxy of the mission drift and generate a dichotomous category variable that assigns value 1 to the SE not affected by mission drift, 0 otherwise. In the last stage, we implement the 2SLS logistic regression between the variable that identifies the SEs affected by mission drift and three cultural dimensions: avoidance of uncertainty, masculinity, and short-term orientation.