Does the Welfare State Destroy the Family? Evidence from OECD Member Countries

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on demographic trends in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e., the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show that an expansion in the welfare state increases fertility, marriage, and divorce rates with a quantitatively stronger effect on the marriage rate. We conclude that the welfare state supports family formation in the aggregate. Further, we find that the welfare state decouples marriage and fertility, and therefore alters the organization of the average family.     

To defer or not defer? UK state pension and work decisions in a lifecycle model

The UK state pension (which depends only on age) includes an option to defer take up which yields either a subsequent lump sum or higher weekly pension. We analyse the joint decisions on pension deferral and intertemporal labour supply/participation in a lifecycle setting. We show that deferral is purely a financial decision, but the impact of deferral on work decisions depends on preferences, wage rates, non-labour income and initial wealth. To exactly characterize this, we use a quasilinear utility function and provide calibrated simulations. We also discuss the choice between a lump sum or increased weekly pension.     

国有企业的债务问题研究*

本文基于1995—2014年间A股制造业上市公司的样本数据进行实证研究,回归结果表明所有制因素对公司资本结构的选择没有显著影响,即便把资本结构区分为长期结构和短期结构亦是如此。公司的总资产收益率、有形资产比率、成长性、公司规模以及实际税率对上市公司资本结构具有显著影响,其中最主要的两个因素是公司的总资产收益率和公司规模。这说明虽然从总量数据上看国企负债的确构成了宏观债务的主体,但就制造业来说国企的债务水平和其经济特征是相匹配的,规模和总资产收益率足以解释这种高债务水平,国企过度负债说至少对制造业国有企业来说并不成立。国企债务风险可能来自平台类国企,相关的政策应该针对这类企业来设计。     

Mapping EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L in patients with colorectal cancer

Aims: The primary aim of this study was to perform a mapping of the EORTC-QLQ-C30 scores to EQ-5D-3L for the SIRFLOX study; a large dataset of patients with previously untreated liver-only or liver-dominant metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). A secondary aim was to compare the predictive validity of existing mappings from EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L conducted in other cancers.

Methods and materials: Questionnaires (completed within 529 patients) were used in a linear mixed regression to model EQ-5D-3L utility values (scored using the UK tariff) as a function of the five function scores, nine symptom scores, and the global score from the EORTC-QLQ-C30 questionnaire. A Tobit regression was also performed. The mean EQ-5D-3L values for the SIRFLOX trial were calculated and compared with predicted EQ-5D-3L values derived using published mapping algorithms.

Results: The linear mixed regression model provided a satisfactory mapping between the EORTC-QLQ-C30 and the EQ-5D-3L, whilst the Tobit model did not perform as well. When utilities from the SIRFLOX data were calculated with previously published mapping studies, three out of five studies performed well (< 10% mean difference).

Limitations: The main limitation of the study was the lack of meaningful observations post-progression (67 paired observations). For this reason, this study was unable to test whether the mapping holds by disease stage. Additionally, although the study adds to the literature of mappings to the EQ-5D-3L, it is not known how results would differ using the EQ-5D-5L.

Conclusion: This study is the first of its kind in liver-only or liver-dominant mCRC, and mCRC in general. The mapping constructed showed a good fit to the data and provides practitioners with an additional mapping between EORTC-QLQ-C30 to EQ-5D-3L using a large dataset (529 patients, 707 paired observations). The study also confirmed the generalizability of mappings published by Proskorovsky, Kontodimopoulos, and Longworth to liver-only or liver-dominant mCRC.     

Sustainability of Monetary-cum-Exchange Rate Policy in China

This paper theoretically considers the long-run sustainability of China’s monetary-cum-exchange rate policy under the impossible trinity. Two different models are examined: One sterilizes current net foreign assets (NFAs) and the other focuses on NFAs realized in the previous period. Under the de facto opening of financial flows, sterilization yields a negative risk premium in uncovered interest parity (UIP) that triggers a feedback increase among capital inflows. Here, stability depends on the magnitudes and the combination of structural and policy parameters. It is shown that if current capital inflows are sterilized, the monetary-cum-exchange rate policy in China offers a sustainable solution for exchange rates that are relatively stringently managed. However, such a solution can be obtained for relatively flexible or moderately managed rates if sterilization policy is implemented on the previous period’s inflows.     

自然资源资产全民所有权的实现逻辑及机制完善

研究目的：围绕新时代人民日益增长的美好生活需要,揭示自然资源资产全民所有权的实现逻辑,提出完善全民 所有权实现机制的建议。研究方法：归纳法,演绎法。研究结果：自然资源资产生态属性决定生态产品是自然资源资 产所有权实现的重要内容;全民所有权行使主体直接行使所有权意义上的资源资产管理权利,实现自然资源资产保值 增值;通过自然资源保护和市场交易实现生态产品供给及经济收益最大化,通过公益支出实现公共服务均等化,从而满 足人民日益增长的美好生活需要,构成自然资源资产全民所有权实现的基本逻辑。研究结论：自然资源资产全民所有 权实现,需在改善自然资源资产本底基础上,通过权利赋予、市场流转、收益分配和配套制度建设,为全体公众谋利益。     

Special Economic Zones and Accumulation by Dispossession in India

This paper seeks to reconstruct David Harvey's theory of accumulation by dispossession (ABD) through an ethnography of a Special Economic Zone in Rajasthan, India. While Harvey sees ABD as an economic process of over‐accumulated capital finding new outlets, I argue that it is an extra‐economic process of coercive expropriation typically exercised by states to help capitalist overcome barriers to accumulation – in this case, the absence of fully capitalist rural land markets. In India's privately developed SEZs, the accumulation generated by this dispossession – which represents the disaccumulation of the peasantry – occurs through capitalist rentiers who develop rural land for mainly IT companies and luxury real estate, and profit from the appreciation of artificially cheap land acquired by the state. While such development has only minimally and precariously absorbed the labour of dispossessed farmers, it has generated a peculiar agrarian transformation through land speculation that has enlisted fractions of the rural elite into a chain of rentiership, drastically amplified existing class and caste inequalities, undermined food security and, surprisingly, fuelled non‐productive economic activity and pre‐capitalist forms of exploitation.     

效率、公平、社会稳定与住房问题——基于世代模型的政治经济学分析

土地和住房是劳动者历史共同体的公共物品。社会是否能够按照效率与公平的原则解决住房问题,其本质是社会是否能够解决劳动者现实具体利益与历史一般利益的矛盾,即个体理性与国家理性的矛盾。公共权力通过经济制度对租金的抽取和使用是解决住房问题的基本途径,不同制度模式具有等价性。在社会稳定的约束条件下,公共权力对租金的抽取和使用并不必然保证住房问题的解决符合效率与公平的原则,为此社会还需要具备公共权力良好的政治性质、法律约束力以及劳动者对国家理性道德自觉的条件。     

从古桥的无奈看国有企业的市场退出

目前,国有企业在退出市场过程中要面对经济、体制、感情等多方面的障碍。为此,国有企业退出市场时,在防止国有资产流失的前提下,要实施管理创新,变被动退出为主动退出;政府要加强宏观控制,降低企业退出成本,为劣势企业顺利退出市场创造宽松的环境和条件,形成企业有进有退的市场机制。     

国有企业民营化的约束机制研究

民营化作为国有企业产权改制的主要方式不能动摇,但必须重点研究国企民营化的约束机制。其中,产权理论难有实质性突破构成国企民营化的理论约束;部门间就业专移阻滞、分级所有的国资管理体制、利益集团行为刚性、财政资源紧张与补偿制度缺失形成国企民营化的实践约束。摆脱这些约束,国企民营化才能顺利地进行下去。