Environmental taxes with heterogeneous consumers: an application to energy consumption in France

This paper constructs a model with four groups of households who have preferences over labor supply, consumption of polluting (energy related) and non-polluting (non-energy) goods, and emissions. It quantifies the model for the French economy and computes its optimal tax equilibria under nine second-best tax regimes. We find that the redistributive role of environmental taxes requires the polluting goods to be taxed at a rate much below their marginal social damage. These goods may even require an outright subsidy if the society values equality ‘a lot’. Secondly, if environmental taxes that have an exclusively externality-correcting role, they benefit all types—although the gains are rather modest. The gains and losses become more substantial when environmental taxes have a redistributive role as well. Third, setting the environmental tax at its Pigouvian level, rather than its optimal externality-correcting-cum-redistributive level, benefits the high-income group at the expense of the low-income groups. Fourth, nonlinear taxation of polluting goods, and nonlinear commodity taxation in general, is a powerful redistributive mechanism. Fifth, introducing environmental taxes in the current French tax system, with its suboptimal income taxes, results in substantial welfare gains for the highest income group and a sizable loss for the least well-off persons.     

从美日经验看地方政府债券制度

地方政府债务风险已经成为威胁我国经济安全与社会稳定的巨大隐患。地方政府是制度变迁的主体,造成地方财政困境的根本原因在于地方政府事权、财权不对称,没有规范的制度化融资渠道。而只要存在中央与地方分权的财政联邦主义,就具备发行地方政府债券的前提。     

以城乡互动推进就地就近城镇化发展分析

“伪城镇化”、“半城镇化”现象的背后是中国城乡二元经济“一元化”过程中的“农民进城”与城市吸融功能不足的矛盾、“小城镇化浪潮”与农村城镇化的发展潜力不足的矛盾。结合中国国情的高质量城镇化发展模式在于守地式的就近就地城镇化发展,而守地式发展的关键在于农村产业发展,农村产业的发展又依赖于城乡市场与产业的互动。这需要发展立足农村的“产供销一体化”大型商贸企业,破解农村市场劳动力流转、土地流转、融资与技术及管理水平低下问题,构建城乡产业互动的交换利益基础,优化城乡产业体系配套和互补的对接方式,提升城乡产业合作的分工层次。     

Public expenditures and the unemployment rate in the American states: panel evidence

We reexamine the Unemployment Rate (UR) – government expenditure nexus in a panel of 50 State and Local Governments (SLGs) over the period 1977–2006 to provide new pre-recession empirical evidence that helps put the expectations on the effects of the federal relief to SLGs in a broader context. We found that: (1) per capita real public spending (total and capital, assistance and subsidies, wages and salaries, and social insurance categories) was part of a cointegrating relationship with UR and real per capita state personal income. (2) With the exception of social insurance, other spending variables, when statistically significant, actually had a depressing effect on UR. The magnitude of this effect, however, was generally small. UR was most sensitive to increases in wages and salaries. (3) Long-term causality analysis based on panel error-correction coefficients provided consistent evidence of a causal effect from spending to UR, but less consistent evidence of such effect in the opposite direction. Social insurance, however, drove UR. (4) The size of the error-correction coefficients suggested a slow response of UR to deviations from the cointegrating relationship. (5) The marginal effect of spending on UR increased with the amount of the federal grants received. Our results suggest that public spending may not serve as a quick fix in relation to UR. They also seem to favour allocation of the federal funds to wage and salaries and assistance and subsidies, but not to capital and social insurance expenditures to lower UR.     

The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries

Due to behavioural effects triggered by redistributional interventions, it is still an open question whether government policies are able to effectively reduce income inequality. We contribute to this research question by using different country-level data sources to study inequality trends in OECD countries since 1980. We first investigate the development of inequality over time before analysing the question of whether governments can effectively reduce inequality. Different identification strategies, using fixed effects and instrumental variables models, provide some evidence that governments are capable of reducing income inequality despite countervailing behavioural responses. The effect is stronger for social expenditure policies than for progressive taxation.     

Loan price modelling for local governments using risk premium analysis

Previous studies have highlighted the question of government loan interest as one of great current importance. Government borrowing levels are high, and reducing interest payments would generate savings to meet other spending needs and/or to lower taxation, thus supporting the sustainability of public finances. However, no previous study has presented a method for a local government to calculate its own credit risk and thus be in a position to negotiate lower interest rates on its borrowing. This article defines a financial model that enables local governments to estimate the interest rate payable on a bank loan, based on their credit risk premium, in accordance with the Basel II rules and the findings of our empirical study of large local governments.     

Alan Gillie,Input-Output Economics.

Turnovsky observes that “the rational expectations hypothesis has had a profound impact on macroeconomic theory and policy during the past decade.” Tracing briefly the evolution of the ideas involved, he concludes that “… a consensus view is emerging that in fact under quite plausible conditions the policy neutrality proposition does not hold; therefore, there is still scope for policy rules to play an important role in stabilizing output.”

The mathematics used in the article is expository rather than analytical, requiring of the reader only somewhat more than the usual amount of persistence, faith in the author's interpretation of the literature, and a willingness to accept the integrity of economic models as representative of the real world. This is “required” reading for those teaching macroeconomics.     

The changing employment situation in some cities with living wage ordinances

More than 120 municipalities (cities, towns, and counties) have introduced living wage ordinances. These laws mandate that certain employers in their jurisdiction pay their workers wages that are above federal and state minimum levels. The opponents of these laws argue that these ordinances have adverse impacts on local labor markets. This study considers rates of growth of employment and unemployment trends in a sample of these cities before and after they introduced their living wage ordinances. It finds that while a few cities have had negative labor market experiences after introducing their living wage law these cities represent the exception rather than the rule.     

Merger Waves and Firm Growth: Contemporary Historical Evidence

This article presents the outcomes of an evaluation of the impact of the series of mergers of the local exchange companies that have taken place between 1988 and 2001 on an important measure of performance of the firms undergoing the mergers. The analysis reveals that after firms have undertaken one merger they experience little or no growth after such mergers, but the impact of second mergers on firm growth have been negative. If an important motive in undertaking mergers has been to enhance firm growth, then the merger waves that have been approved and consummated have led to performance declines. The impacts of the merger wave on the growth of the telecommunications sector firms have been negative.     

The determinants of efficiency: the case of the Spanish industry

The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors explaining the technical efficiency of Spanish industrial sectors during the period 1991–1994 using the Survey of Business Strategies (SBE) of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. It analyses whether efficiency can be explained by factors external to the firm such as the degree of competition in the markets in which it operates, characteristics of the firm (size, organization, advantages of location, participation of public capital, etc.), as well as the effects of dynamic disturbances that may affect the degree of utilization of the productive capacity.