Delegation and polarization of platforms in political competition

Summary. We consider a model of political competition among two ideological parties who are uncertain about the distribution of voters. The distinguishing feature of the model is that parties can delegate electoral decisions to candidates by nomination. It is shown that if the credible platform commitments of the candidates is feasible, then at least one of the parties nominates in equilibrium to a candidate who has an ideology that is more radical than the delegating party's ideology. In a variety of circumstances, this, in turn, yields a polarization of equilibrium policy choices of the candidates. It is thus argued formally here that strategic nomination of the candidates may well be one of the major reasons behind the well documented observation that the platforms associated with the political parties in two-party democracies are often surprisingly polarized. Received: January 10, 2002; revised version: May 8, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We thank Alberto Alesina, Levent Ko?kesen, Antonio Merlo, Ronny Razin, Vijay Krishna, Alessandro Lizzeri, and seminar participants at Alicante, Columbia, Copenhagen, and NYU for helpful comments. We also thank an anonymous referee for its useful suggestions. A good fraction of this research was conducted while Ok was a visitor in the Department of Economics at University of Alicante; he thanks for the kind hospitality of this institution. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education through grant CICYT BEC2001-0535 (Faulí-Oller) and BEC2001-0980 (Ortu?o-Ortín). Correspondence to:I. Ortu?o-Ortin     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interactions in the Euro Area

The problem of monetary and fiscal policy interactions is an important issue for the euro area, since the individual member states of the EMU are responsible for their fiscal policies but monetary policy is pursued by a single monetary authority, the ECB. This paper is concerned with empirical evidence on monetary and fiscal policy interactions in the euro area. We first explore fiscal regimes with a VAR model and find empirical evidence that a non-Ricardian fiscal policy has been pursued in both France and Germany. As an example, we then study how one member state of the EMU, namely, Italy, is responding to the common monetary policy with its fiscal policy and find that Italian fiscal policy seemed to be counteractive to the common monetary policy between 1979 and 1998. In order to study monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a more general way, we explore time-varying interactions by estimating a State-Space model with Markov-switching for some Euro-area countries. There appear to be some regime changes in monetary and fiscal policy interactions in France and Germany, but the interactions between the two policies are not strong. Moreover, the two policies have not been accommodative but counteractive to each other. Finally we explore forward-looking behavior in policy interactions and find that expectations do not seem to have played an important role in the policy designs.     

阿根廷贸易政策与汇率制度的错配及启示

上世纪，阿根廷贸易政策与货币政策的错配导致了其宏观经济的不稳定。长期以来，阿根廷深受庇隆主义封闭政策的影响，实行进口替代战略，使其优者变劣，劣者不优。不仅使产业结构失衡，对外贸易长期处于逆差。同时，长期实行僵硬的固定汇率制度但允许资本自由流动，引发了恶性通货膨胀。长期的高消费、低储蓄与进口替代导致了低的资本积累率，政治家权利欲望只能以巨额的财政赤字与高筑外债来维持，当政权无以为继时又靠通货膨胀来掠夺财富，从而引发经济和政治危机的循环。另外，阿根廷在贸易自由化之前允许资本项目的自由化显然是一个严重的错误。     

金融工具会计准则交易税制设计的思考

为了规范金融工具的确认和计量,反映金融工具对金融机构财务状况和经营成果所带来的真实影响,揭示其潜在风险,提高金融机构的会计信息的质量,新颁布的金融工具会计准则采用公允价值计量,并将损益纳入当期损益。本文分析了此举对我国税制所产生的影响,并对金融工具交易的税制设计提出了设想。     

Candidate stability and nonbinary social choice

Summary. The requirement that a voting procedure be immune to the strategic withdrawal of a candidate for election can be formalized in different ways. Dutta, Jackson, and Le Breton (Econometrica, 2001) have recently shown that two formalizations of this candidate stability property are incompatible with some other desirable properties of voting procedures. This article shows that Grether and Plott's nonbinary generalization of Arrow's Theorem can be used to provide simple proofs of two of their impossibility theorems. Received: August 15, 2001; revised version: March 11, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" Parts of this article were previously circulated in somewhat different form in a working paper with the same title by the second author. We are grateful to Michel Le Breton and an anonymous referee for their comments. Correspondence to:J.A. Weymark     

中日传统文化对政治现代化的影响

对任何国家来讲,政治现代化既是现代化运动的一个重要方面,也是现代化运动的一个重要支撑,而传统文化对政治现代化有着不可低估的影响。传统文化是民族历史的结晶,蕴涵了本民族思维方式、价值观念、行为准则等因素,一方面具有强烈的历史性、遗传性,另一方面又具有鲜活的现实性、变异性。因此,传统文化为政治现代化提供历史的根据和现实的基础。本文将就中日两国不同的传统文化对各自政治现代化的影响进行浅析,以求对中国政治现代化道路做有益的探索。     

生态经济理论的发展与政治经济学的创新

长期以来,我国社会主义政治经济学由于忽视研究生态经济问题,使之缺乏创新与发展。现在生态经济学得到了迅速的发展,政治经济学必须研究生态经济问题,必须吸收生态经济理论,真正成为社会主义现代化建设的坚实的理论基础。     

金融衍生产品发展的新特点与国内商业银行的策略研究

近年来，国际金融衍生产品市场呈现三个新特点：市场需求及市场规模日趋扩大，产品创新层出不穷，风险防范问题日渐突出，并由此对国际金融市场的发展和稳定带来深刻影响。随着我国人民币汇率制度改革、利率市场化及资本市场股权分置改革等进程的不断加快，金融衍生产品在国内市场的发展契机已经到来。我国发展金融衍生市场应遵循“适应经济金融改革进程、满足市场需求、结构上由简到繁、风险上由低到高”的总体原则。国内商业银行应当以资产保值增值为目的，选择适当的产品切入金融衍生市场，并注重提高金融衍生产品的核心竞争力，加强风险防范和人才的培养与引进。     

国有企业建立激励约束机制的制度性障碍分析

委托代理理论揭示了国有企业低效率的原因,指明了国有企业改革的方向,即建立激励与约束机制.但是该理论在中国的运用遇到了制度性障碍.本文试图分析制度性障碍产生的根源,以及弱化和解决制度性障碍的办法,期望对国有企业改革有所启示.     

Benefits of Downward Earnings Management and Political Connection: Evidence from Government Subsidy and Market Pricing

This paper examines the role of downward earnings management and political connection on the receipt of government subsidies and market pricing of subsidies. Using subsidies data hand-collected from Chinese listed firms over the period 2004–2014, the results show a significantly positive association between downward earnings management and the receipt of government subsidies. The results also reveal that a firm's political connection is conducive to securing subsidies for poor performers, but not for good performers. Market pricing analyses demonstrate that share markets value subsidies positively in general, but the effect is ameliorated in firms conducting downward earnings management. No discernible difference is found between the market pricing of subsidies received by firms with political connections and those without.