Default and aggregate income

This paper studies how default varies with aggregate income. We analyze a model in which optimal contracts enable risk sharing of privately observed, idiosyncratic income by allowing for default. Default provisions allow agents with low idiosyncratic income realizations to repay less and thus provide insurance. Default penalties ensure that only these agents default. We show that default can occur under the optimal contract and that default provisions vary with aggregate income. We provide conditions such that both the amount of default and default penalties vary countercyclically with aggregate income and show that the default rate can be discontinuous.     

清洁技术投资的发展研究及启示

在全球气候变迁与节能减碳趋势中,清洁技术投资已成为许多国家维持生态平衡、解决能源短缺的重要手段。以美国、日本、德国为代表的发达国家都制定各种财税、金融支持等政策,投资清洁技术,取得了显著成果,已成为新的重要经济增长点。中国目前正向低碳经济迈进,积极投资清洁技术,加速新技术的商品化,促进产业向低碳化、高附加值转型升级。文章阐述清洁技术的内涵和投资动因,着重分析国际清洁技术投资的市场潜力、发展趋势以及相关政策,借鉴发达国家在清洁技术投资中的经验提出对中国的启示及政策建议。     

风险投资能促进高新技术企业的技术创新吗?——基于中国创业板上市公司的经验证据

本文以中国创业板高新技术企业为样本,实证检验了风险投资与技术创新的关系。研究发现,风险投资的参与并不能为高新技术企业带来更多技术创新资源,也不能促使高新技术企业创造更多技术创新成果和效益,风险投资未能促进高新技术企业的技术创新。这一结论与利用创业板的融资功能,提升我国高新技术企业技术创新能力的政策初衷不符。为了提升风险投资对高新技术企业技术创新能力的促进作用,创业板监管当局应当以技术创新和成长性为尺度,进一步改革和完善创业板发行审核、保荐、新股询价、股票禁售以及退市等制度。     

Technical change and total factor productivity growth: The case of Chinese provinces

In the literature technical change (TC) is mostly assumed to be exogenous and specified as a function of the time trend or time dummies. However, some exogenous external factors other than time can also affect TC. In this paper we model TC via time trend (external non-economic) as well as other exogenous (external economic) factors (technology shifters). For this we define technology indices based on the external economic factors and the time trend. The specification of production function is then amended to accommodate these technology indices which are not necessarily separable from the traditional inputs. That is, these technology indices allow for non-neutral shift in the production function. In doing so we are able to decompose TC (a component of TFP change) into two parts. One part is driven by time and the other part is related to producer-specific external economic factors. The latter can further be decomposed into each external economic factors. The empirical model uses panel data on Chinese provinces. We identify a number of key technology shifters and their effect on technical change and TFP growth of provinces are examined.     

A simple method for estimating unconditional heterogeneity distributions in correlated random effects models

I propose a general, simple approach to recovering an unconditional heterogeneity distribution when a conditional distribution has been estimated. The approach can be applied to cross section models and panel data models-both static and dynamic-with unobserved heterogeneity.     

Mixed oligopoly, optimal privatization, and foreign penetration

This paper examines the impact of foreign penetration on privatization in a mixed oligopolistic market. In contrast to the simple framework of single domestic market with foreign entry by entry mode of foreign direct investment (FDI) or exports, our result shows that government should increase the degree of privatization along with increasing proportion of domestic ownership of multinational firms. Furthermore, we show that an increase in domestic ownership of multinational firms raises all domestic private firms' profit and social welfare, while it may either increase or decrease public firm's profit. With the aid of numerical example, intensive competition from private firms in general will enhance the degree of privatization gradually; in particular, the degree of privatization is lower in the presence of multinational firms.     

Poverty traps in a frictionless world: The effects of learning and technology assimilation

We study an endogenous growth model of technology assimilation through an adaptive learning process defining the accumulation of technological knowledge among both workers and industrial clusters. The assimilation of new technology and the arrival rate of innovations are both based on the distance from the technological frontier to the current technological development level of the country. We illustrate how, even if technological innovations become immediately available to all countries, and absent educational and institutional frictions among countries, differences in technological development levels allow for the existence of poverty traps leading to the economic stagnation of technological laggards.     

MEASURING VARIATIONS IN LIFETIME WELFARE EX ANTE AND EX POST: SOME EXPLORATORY CALCULATIONS

Whereas longevity‐adjusted consumption measures have become increasingly used as indicators of lifetime standards of living, it remained unnoticed that those measures, by relying on period – rather than cohort – life tables, constitute indicators of expected – rather than actual – lifetime standards of living. In order to estimate the actual gap between ex ante and ex post measures of lifetime welfare, this paper computes, for 19th‐century European economies, longevity‐adjusted consumption measures based on period and cohort life tables. It is shown that the gap between ex ante and ex post measures is statistically significant, and that attempts to reduce it are likely to be unsuccessful, because standards of living tend to exhibit, over temporal horizons as long as a human life, structural breaks, which make the ex ante measurement of lifetime welfare highly speculative.