INTERFUEL SUBSTITUTION: A META‐ANALYSIS

Abstract This paper provides the first meta‐analysis of the interfuel substitutability literature. The sample includes 47 studies of interfuel substitution in the industrial sector, in manufacturing industry or manufacturing sub‐industries, or in the macro‐economy of a variety of developed and developing countries. Meta‐regressions are estimated for the six shadow elasticities of substitution between coal, oil, gas and electricity. I find that at the level of the industrial sector as a whole the oil–coal, oil–gas, oil–electricity and gas–electricity shadow elasticities of substitution are significantly greater than unity. The remaining elasticities – between coal and gas and coal and electricity – are insignificantly different from unity or zero due to their large standard errors. Substitution possibilities seem more constrained at the macro level and less constrained at lower levels of aggregation. Estimates of the elasticities of substitution from cross‐section regressions are generally largest whereas fixed effects panel estimates are intermediate in magnitude, and time‐series estimates are mostly much smaller. In order to obtain more precise and less biased estimates of long‐run elasticities of substitution, there is a need for additional primary studies using large samples and/or the between estimator which econometric research suggests is likely to provide the best estimates of long‐run elasticities.     

国际贸易与劳动力市场:研究述评

近三十年来,国际贸易迅速发展,同时各国劳动力市场保持着一种动态变化,国际贸易对劳动力市场的影响不断加深.在这一背景下,国际经济学和劳动经济学领域的学者对国际贸易与劳动力市场的关系进行了大量的理论与经验研究,相关研究主要集中在三个方面:国际贸易对各国工资的影响、国际贸易对各国就业的效应以及国际贸易对劳动力需求弹性的影响.本文将从上述三个方面对相关研究进行回顾.     

医疗服务市场的高价格形成机制——一个基于信息扩散的解释框架

本文指出,一个自由的医疗服务市场会导致过高的价格水平,其原因在于,医疗服务的价格变化信息在患者之间扩散是一个缓慢的时间过程,致使医院的医疗服务需求对价格变化不敏感,从而降低了医疗服务市场的竞争性。本文同时指出,政府只要能够改变医疗服务价格信息的扩散机制,就能够建立一个以市场机制为基础的高效率的医疗卫生体制。     

外贸顺差与通货膨胀

在G函数这个理论范式里,融入描述货币固定数量的约束条件,依据经济运行中必定遵循的固定替代弹性规律,借助对偶理论,可以得出关于通货膨胀的定义。这个定义是真实的和精确的,它的发现可以为进一步的有关特殊性分析奠定基础。在一般经验水平上,出于对症状的观察和诊断,对通货膨胀曾产生过若干种猜想和推测。其中,将外贸顺差推断为通货膨胀的主要原因,便是其中之一。在关于通货膨胀的一般科学定义里,可以对此特殊推断做出审视和分析。从市场分解的角度来看,要达此目的,首先需要得出能耦合国际贸易的初始结构,再融入货币固定数量的约束条件,最后归入关于通货膨胀的分析路径。由于G函数的形式就是一个有约束的贸易函数,进行市场分解是很容易的。因此,要达到这样的目的也是很容易的。     

Steady-state growth and the elasticity of substitution

In a neoclassical economy with endogenous capital- and labor-augmenting technical change the steady-state growth rate of output per worker is shown to increase in the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. This confirms the assessment of Klump and de La Grandville (2000) that a greater elasticity of substitution allows for faster of economic growth. However, unlike their findings my result applies to the steady-state growth rate. Moreover, it does not hinge on particular assumptions on how aggregate savings come about. It holds for any household sector allowing savings to grow at the same rate as aggregate output.     

COEFFICIENT CHANGE,PRICE EFFECTS,AND IMPLICIT ELASTICITIES: ESTIMATING MICROECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OVER TWO TIME PERIODS

This paper presents and estimates an input–output model in which input coefficient changes are functions of changing prices. The model produces results that mirror the characteristics of input demand functions based on the model of cost minimization subject to producing a desired level of output. It does not rely on the specification of a functional form for input coefficients, and it does not require the use of assumptions regarding the elasticity of substitution. Instead, it allows the actual price and coefficient changes that occur between periods to identify the implicit elasticities and own- and cross-price derivatives. Using this model, it is shown how accurate measures of price effects, including the full array of own and cross-elasticities of demand, can be estimated for models comprising up to 15 sectors given data for only two time periods.     

汇率、贸易弹性和经常账户

本文在国际收支弹性分析法框架下,讨论汇率变动影响贸易收支状况的临界弹性条件。放弃传统的马歇尔—勒纳条件,采用更符合实际情况的修正BRM条件,并且在实证检验中首次使用了Gamma分布滞后模型来估计相关贸易弹性,为政府通过汇率变动来调节经常账户提供了更精确的参考标准。     

Fixed costs and long-lived investments

Fixed costs models are difficult to analyze because they feature non-degenerate, time-varying distributions of capital across firms. If investments are sufficiently long-lived however then the cross-sectional distribution of capital holdings has virtually no bearing on the equilibrium and the aggregate behavior of fixed-cost models is essentially identical to neoclassical models. The findings are due to a near infinite elasticity of investment timing for long-lived investments – a feature shared by fixed-cost models and neoclassical models. “Irrelevance results” found in numerical studies of fixed-cost models are not parametric special cases but instead are fundamental properties of models with long-lived investment goods.     

全球经济衰退背景下的中印自由贸易区建设——基于实证的研究

中国和印度作为世界上最大的两个发展中国家,相互间经贸合作稳步推进,已互为对方的对外贸易、投资和经济交流的重要伙伴。在全球经济衰退的大背景下,"龙象"合作对包括两国和全球在内的三方都是有好处的。本文通过对双方经济开放度、贸易结合度、贸易竞争性与经济互补性、以及贸易量与GDP之间关系的实证研究,计算了GDP对贸易额的弹性系数,分析表明,中印两国构建自由贸易区不仅具有现实的政治经济基础,更是在日益恶化的世界经济环境下中印和世界的理性选择,只有中印两国携手,才可以稀释衰退的负面影响。