财政政策引导金融机构支农有效吗?——涉农贷款增量奖励政策的效果评价

财政支农与金融支农的协调配合是当前国家支农和减贫的重要政策创新之一。县域金融机构涉农贷款增量奖励政策自2009年起在全国部分省区进行了多轮试点,是一项利用财政手段引导金融资源向农村配置的重要举措。基于我国各地区农业经济发展数据,本研究采用渐进双重差分方法评估涉农贷款增量奖励政策是否促进了我国农业经济的发展。实证结果显示:在控制气候条件、要素投入、地方支农财政支出、地方金融发展和农业产业化等变量后,涉农贷款奖励政策显著激励了各地区粮食产量和农民收入的增长,即用财政政策引导金融机构支农确实促进了我国农业经济的发展。一系列检验证明估计结果是稳健的,且由于地方财政分担比例不同等原因导致涉农贷款奖励政策对中西部地区的影响更为明显。机制分析发现,奖励政策主要是通过提高农业机械化水平和优化农村交通基础设施的方式促进了农业经济发展。本研究表明应继续推进财政引导金融支农的政策,为振兴乡村战略提供更多支撑。     

Do negative interest rates affect bank risk-taking?

We offer early evidence on the impact of negative interest rate policy (NIRP) on banks’ risk-taking. Our primary result shows banks in NIRP-adopter countries reduce holdings of risky assets by around 10 percentage points following implementation of NIRP in comparison to banks in non-adopter countries. We augment this result by identifying NIRP’s impact on other aspects of banks’ risk-taking behaviour; NIRP is associated with reductions in banks’ loan growth and average loan price (by 3.7 percentage points and 59 basis points) and a rebalancing of asset portfolios towards safer assets. Secondly, we find the NIRP-effect is heterogeneous; post-NIRP risk-taking increases at strongly capitalised banks and at banks operating in less competitive markets that exploit market power to insulate net interest margins and profitability. Our robust empirical evidence supports the “de-leverage” hypothesis which suggests that banks acquire safer, liquid assets to bolster their capital positions rather than searching for value by acquiring riskier assets. We base our evidence on a sample of 2,584 banks from 33 OECD countries across 2012 to 2016, and from models that employ a difference-in-differences framework.     

中国低碳城市建设的创新驱动效应评估——兼论多重嵌套试点示范机制的完善

以中国分批次、分地区进行的低碳城市试点作为准自然实验，利用277个城市2003—2017年面板数据和双重差分模型，对低碳城市建设影响低碳技术创新的效应与机理进行系统经验考察。研究发现：①自上而下指定产生、试点单位以省为主的第一批低碳城市试点并未有效促进低碳技术创新，而自下而上申报遴选、试点单位以城市为主的第二批试点则显著推动了低碳技术进步；②政策效应机理是加大政策性研发补贴支持力度，而增加研发从业人员数量和提高经济集聚程度的传导机制并不明显；③环境规制、城市规模和资源禀赋均具有调节作用，对于环保重点城市、“两控区”城市、碳交易试点城市、规模较大城市和资源丰裕程度较低的城市而言，低碳城市建设对低碳技术创新的促增作用更加显著。     

European Regional Development Fund and pro-environmental behaviour. The case of Italian separate waste collection

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) regulations over two programming periods (2000–2006 and 2007–2013) in terms of separate waste collection rates of Italian regions. We analyse longitudinal data for 20 NUTS-2 Italian regions over two EU policy cycles (2000–2006 and 2007–2013), by means of a Difference-in-differences estimation method. The estimates suggest that ERDF regulations in both programming periods had no relevant impact on the achievement of cohesion policy goals for separate collection at the regional level. Subsequently, we analyse data for 103 NUTS-3 Italian provinces over 2000–2013 by means of two statistical tools: The Theil index (TI), and the Moran index (MI), and find that proximity effects at provincial scale cause positive social contagion of pro-environmental attitudes toward separate collection. Our results make a case for the relevance of ‘cultural’ policy measures fostering environmentally responsible attitudes as a possible pre-condition for effective implementation of ERDF-funded separate collection projects in low-performing regions.     

The effectiveness of taxes in decreasing candy purchases

We use candy purchase data at the household level to analyze changes in candy purchases due to Colorado’s candy tax. Colorado is one of the many states that exempts candy containing flour from their candy tax. To do this, we construct a dataset of monthly household taxed and tax-exempt candy purchases for the years 2009 and 2010 for the Denver, CO and Omaha, NE metros. Difference-in-differences estimates imply that Colorado’s candy tax led to a decrease in taxed candy purchases of at least 11.2%, which would translate into a reduction of household body weight of at least one pound during the first year the tax is in effect. Conversely, we find no effect on the purchase of tax-exempt candy.     

The impact of central clearing on the market for single-name credit default swaps

In this article, we revisit the impact of the voluntary central clearing scheme on the CDS market. In order to address the endogeneity problem, we use a robust methodology that relies on dynamic propensity-score matching combined with generalized difference-in-differences. Our empirical findings show that central clearing results in a small increase in CDS spreads (ranging from 14 to 19 bps), while there is no evidence of an associated improvement in CDS market liquidity and trading activity or of a deterioration in the default risk of the underlying bond. These results suggest that the increase in CDS spreads can be mainly attributed to a reduction in CDS counterparty risk.     

Reproductive behaviour at the end of the world: the effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis on U.S. fertility

We exploit the timing of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the geographical variation in mortality risks individuals faced across states to analyse reproduction decisions during the crisis. The results of a difference-in-differences approach show evidence that fertility decreased in states that are farther from Cuba and increased in states with more military installations. Our findings suggest that individuals are more likely to engage in reproductive activities when facing high mortality risks, but reduce fertility when facing a high probability of enduring the aftermath of a catastrophe.     

Does low-carbon pilot city program reduce carbon intensity? Evidence from Chinese cities

Low-carbon pilot city (LCPC) programs have been implemented in China to facilitate low carbon production and consumption for combating climate change. The two rounds of low-carbon pilot regions covered six provinces and 36 cities in China. Governments have invested considerable funds and resources to develop LCPCs. Based on panel data from 49 cities for 2005–2018, we employ a matched difference-in-differences approach to explore the effects of the LCPC program on carbon intensity at the city level. Results show that in contrast to the program’s goals and expectations, LCPCs significantly increased carbon intensity in both rounds by 15 %–20 % compared with control groups. The growth effect on carbon intensity gradually weakened in the third year following the adoption of the LCPC program. An influential factor analysis indicates that the effects are stronger in eastern coastal cities with improved economic conditions and a reduced proportion of secondary industry production. A series of robustness and placebo tests indicate that the results are robust. We identify possible reasons for this unexpected result, such as preliminary infrastructure construction and development of economic circles. These measures show that the process of decarbonization may result in higher carbon intensity in the short term.     

Participation in the Kaesong Industrial Complex and its impact on productivity: South Korean textile firms’ experiences

This paper examines the effects of participating in the KIC on firms’ productivity using firm-level data from 1998 to 2012, focusing on the textile sector. To do this, we implemented PSM estimations employing the radius matching method with 0.01 caliper and 10nearest-neighbor matchings with replacement. We found 100 matched firms in control groups(domestic firms) that corresponded to each of the 10 treated firms.For analysis, we used a difference-in-differences (DID) framework and extended the basic DID framework to the event study framework of Gathmann et al. (2018). The results reported that the treated firms experienced the increased sales but the improvement in sales had not lead to improvements in productivity. These results can be found in the DID event study as well as the DID analysis. That is, improvement in productivity through FDI cannot be found in the empirical results.