我国农产品价格与热钱的实证研究

自2005年中国汇率形成机制改革以来,热钱流入中国的话题就开始趋热。在2006年末,世界农产品价格大幅上涨,围绕粮食、食品的国内外投资和交易成为新的经济热点。鉴于最近中国农产品价格发生了强烈波动的事实和农产品市场的重要性,本文通过对热钱规模和农产品价格指数的月度数据进行实证分析,得出热钱与农产品价格存在均衡关系,是农产品价格变化的Granger原因。     

Understanding the retirement-consumption puzzle through the lens of food consumption-fuzzy regression-discontinuity evidence from urban China

This paper provides an understanding of the widely-documented retirement-consumption puzzle from the perspective of food consumption. Exploiting the mandatory retirement age cut-off for public-sector male employees in urban China to obtain a source of exogenous variation in their retirement status, this paper identifies the causal impacts of retirement on four major aspects of their food consumption: food expenditure, time spent in food acquisition, the quantity and quality of food consumed. Based on data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, our fuzzy regression-discontinuity analysis finds that, consistent with the retirement-consumption puzzle, retirement reduces elderly males’ total food expenditure by 49–55%. However, retirement barely changes the quantity of food they consume (measured by total calorie intakes). Further analysis suggests that elderly males substitute time for money in food acquisition upon retirement, which helps to reconcile the differential impacts of retirement on food expenditure and food consumption. Finally, retirement greatly changes elderly males’ diet structure. They consume significantly less food with animal origins (and thus less fat and protein) and more grains (and thus more carbohydrate) upon retirement, which undermines their diet balance by the standards provided by the Chinese Nutrition Association.     

Learning to choose a commodity-money: Carl Menger's theory of imitation and the search monetary framework

This paper studies Carl Menger's theory of the emergence of a commodity money. We propose an interpretation of Menger's learning by imitation process based on the search theoretical formal framework. We show that there exists a tension between the importance of intrinsic properties of commodities and the pure conventional self-fulfilling expectations of agents. This confirms the role of imitation in the emergence of monetary equilibria in search theory. We conclude that Menger's approach may support the idea that the fundamental property of a commodity-money (namely its great liquidity) is the result of its emergence process and not necessarily of its original intrinsic properties.     

Supra-National Money and the Euro Crisis: Lessons from Karl Polanyi

The paper seeks to examine some of the key features of Karl Polanyi’s ideas explaining the collapse of the pre-Great Depression unregulated market system by using his broad framework of analysis, as developed in The Great Transformation and published over 70 years ago, to explain the present Eurozone crisis. Emphasis is placed on the two key institutions of the pre-Depression era, namely haute finance and the gold standard, as well as his heterodox views on the nature and origin of money to shed light on the evolving crisis within the Eurozone. On the basis of Polanyi’s insights, the paper concludes that the cause of the latter crisis is similar and it lies primarily in the adoption of stateless or supra-national money that is even more restrictive on the behaviour of national authorities than the conditions imposed under the gold standard. The current situation of quasi-permanent austerity in the Eurozone is the inevitable consequence of its monetary architecture, and it will remain a long-term feature of Europe, unless significant institutional changes are put in place to bridge the gap between money and the state.     

基本养老金替代率合意水平研究——以上海市城镇居民为例

社会保障制度是人类社会文明进步的标志,社会养老保险是其中一项重要制度,其建立对社会的平稳发展有重要影响.在人口老龄化日益深化的时期,及时有效地对社会养老保险制度进行改革势在必行.在改革过程中,对基本养老金替代率的合意水平进行研究具有深远意义.以上海市城镇居民为例,建立基本养老金收支平衡模型,将计算出的合意供给替代率与现实需求替代率进行对比.结果对比发现,需求与供给难以匹配,对不匹配的基本原因进行分析,并在此基础上提出相应对策.     

2014年上半年中国货币市场运行报告

2014年上半年，中国人民银行继续执行稳健货币政策，适时主动地进行预调微调，有效稳定市场预期。货币市场平稳运行，成交规模稳步扩大，市场利率震荡下行，波动幅度逐步收窄，各子市场发展速度出现分化。银行业金融机构融出意愿有所增强，非银行市场主体参与度不断提升，货币市场流动性管理功能进一步发挥。     

Rethinking Money as an Institution of Capitalism and the Theory of Monetary Circulation: What Can Modern Heterodox Economists/Institutionalists Learn from Karl Polanyi?

Modern heterodox theories of money reject the neoclassical conception of money as primarily a medium to facilitate exchange. These heterodox theories of money all have as common starting point an analysis of credit-debt relations in which production is a central feature, with these economies organized along capitalistic design. The Keynesian-Marxian framework describing the process of monetary circulation, traditionally referred to as the theory of the monetary circuit (TMC), perhaps best represents this comprehensive vision. This broad TMC analytical framework is compatible with institutionalist theories of money that also point to the importance of credit-debt relations. The question, however, is whether this more unified heterodox theory of money, which describes sequentially monetary relations under capitalism, can be used to understand pre-capitalistic monetary institutions. By conceptualizing money as a means of payment rather than medium of exchange, Karl Polanyi’s analysis offers social scientists crucial insights to understanding monetary relations in all types of societies in which credit-debt relations have emerged historically.     

Skidelsky's Keynes: a review essay

Abstract

The paper examines the pro-work doctrines of four writers who were connected with the ‘utopian’ and ‘romantic’ critique of classical economics in the nineteenth century. These authors are Charles Fourier, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and William Morris. All four argued that the problem of work aversion stemmed from the existing institutions of capitalist society, and could be overcome by the creation of an alternative system of production. Their aim was to create a future society in which work could be experienced as a positive activity. The paper argues that the views of the aforementioned authors provided an important counterchallenge to the classical economists' conception of work as a disutility.