Inequality among the poor of eighteenth century Amsterdam

This paper examines nearly 1000 poor to middling citizen households from the city of Amsterdam with a view to assessing their place in the larger wealth distribution of the city as preliminarily sketched in the work of Soltow, van Zanden, and others. It utilizes the probate inventories drawn up by the Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage, which when coupled with the marriage, baptism, and burial records of the city archives, allow for the reconstruction of the household circumstances, material, financial, and demographic, of the families associated with the institution. These data yield detailed information about precisely the kind of people who were systematically excluded from the tax registers and financial records which form the basis for our current knowledge about inequality among historical populations. The lower portion of the wealth distribution is described and then linked via housing rental rates to a more complete distribution of the various social classes in the city. Finally, the determinants of inequality within the ranks of the poor are examined and financial assets of even very small amounts are found to be critical in shaping the socio-economic experience of the lower citizenry.     

Ricardian Equivalence and Fiscal Policy Effectiveness in Japan

The present paper asks whether there is a limit to the potential for government spending to stimulate output in the Japanese economy. Overlapping generations and Ricardian infinite horizon representative agent models are developed, in which the government spending multiplier falls as the level of spending rises. Consistent with the Ricardian hypothesis, vector autoregressions (VAR) indicate that the timing of taxes has little impact on national output. Conversely, the impact of government spending is significant. However, using non–linear VAR techniques, the author finds empirical evidence for the hypothesis of a regime–dependent government spending multiplier that falls as spending rises.     

Credit Market Imperfections and the Distribution of Policy Rents

This article shows that credit market imperfections have important implications for the distribution of policy rents. In a model with land as fixed factor and credit market imperfections, when an area payment is given, land rents go up by more than the subsidy. On aggregate farms may lose from the subsidy. The results depend on the extent to which subsidies have direct and indirect effects on the credit constraints, on whether farms rent or own land, and on farm heterogeneity.     

生物技术、国际贸易与人力资源——一个理论框架分析及其政策含义

随着生物技术的广泛应用,人类的生活必将发生翻天覆地的变化,对于未来的农产品国际贸易格局来说,也将是一场彻底的革新。我国应适时抓住重组赶超的历史机遇,选择最佳的发展模式,去抢占“新文明”经济时代下生存和发展的国际空间。本文从静态的李嘉图方程组出发,采用均衡和非均衡动态分析的方法,研究生物经济背景下农产品国际贸易的最优格局及发展趋势。要提高我国农产品的国际竞争力,作为农业经营的主体———农村劳动力素质的提高、农村人力资本的积累和发展是最为迫切,也是最为重要的。     

How to pay for the war in times of imperfect commitment: Adam Smith and David Ricardo on the sinking fund

The paper proposes a comparative analysis of Smith's and Ricardo's views on the sinking fund. It shows that Smith and Ricardo agreed in stressing the ineffectiveness of the sinking fund as a policy instrument targeted at public debt repayment and tax-burden relief, pointing out that its actual workings had paradoxically helped to increase rather than reduce British total debt-load. Moreover, their explanation of the sinking fund paradox integrates a defective fiscal commitment technology with powerful politicians’ incentives to siphon off the money stored in the sinking fund to meet sudden increases of public expenditure whenever the occasion arose.     

The evolution of comparative advantage: Measurement and welfare implications

Using novel estimates of sectoral total factor productivities for 72 countries across 5 decades we provide evidence of relative productivity convergence: productivity grew systematically faster in initially relatively less productive sectors. These changes have had a significant impact on trade volumes and patterns, and a non-negligible welfare impact. Had productivity in each country׳s manufacturing sector relative to the US remained the same as in the 1960s, trade volumes would be higher, cross-country export patterns more dissimilar, and intra-industry trade lower than in the data. Relative sectoral productivity convergence – holding average growth fixed – had a modest negative welfare impact.     

COACHING COSTS AS TULLOCK COSTS: A MODEL OF RISING COACHING SALARIES

Escalating sports coaching costs have strained budgets at many universities. This paper analyses these expenditures as a form of Tullock Costs ( Tullock, 1967 ). In this framework the money the universities receive is spent on recruiting top talent, so the schools receive little, or no, monetary gain under current scholarship rules.     

The paradox of resource vulnerability: Considerations for organizational curatorship

Resource‐based scholars have focused on the properties of resources and the isolating mechanisms that sustain their rents in the face of competition. Unfortunately, they have devoted far less attention to the sources of vulnerability of many of these resources. We argue that, paradoxically, sources of rent such as isolating mechanisms often have a dark side that renders resources more vulnerable. We highlight three categories of challenges to managing resource vulnerability—protecting them from erosion, coping with their ambiguity, and preserving their required alignment—and identify sources of vulnerability within each. We address these via three primary functions of curatorship: preservation, connoisseurship, and orchestration, respectively. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rents,resources, and multiple technologies; Ricardian mechanisms in input-output modelling

ABSTRACT

To allow for ‘multiple technologies’ to produce a homogeneous output in input–output models, Duchin and Levine [(2011) Sectors may use Multiple Technologies Simultaneously: The Rectangular Choice-of-technology Model with Binding Factor Constraints, Economic Systems Research, 23(3), 281–302] propose an optimization model constrained by primary resources. We show that the Duchin–Levine model contains two different mechanisms by which multiple technologies can arise. If a factor in short supply is shared by the original and the newly entering technology, the output of the original, lower-cost technology will be reduced to make room for the higher-cost technology which is less intensive in that factor. In contrast, if the factor in short supply is technology-specific, a higher-cost technology supplements the original lowest-cost one, which stays fully active. Either mechanism implies a mechanism-specific set of prices, quantities and rents. We relate these results to classical views on comparative advantage, fixed output levels and the origin of rents.     

论政府隐性担保对我国证券市场微观效率的影响

政府隐性担保机制是我国证券市场运行的基础,也是市场风险聚集的根源。这种隐性担保通过一系列制度性安排造成市场主体过于追求市场隐含的政策性租金而忽视对市场价值体系的培育与发现,造成市场事前筛选和事后监督机制失效,使投资者决策面临更加不稳定的环境,增加了市场的不确定性。