农业两部制水价改革的福利效应分析

介绍了我国农业水价制度的变迁及农业水价的制定方法。分析了我国农业水价改革的水价福利效应。以湖北灌区农业水价改革为例，分析了农业水价改革的实践效果及改革中存在问题的成因。分析结果表明：农业水价改革强化了农田灌溉中的水量限制，而忽视了既定制度约束下农民用水的需求理性和灌溉系统脆弱的供水能力；农业两部制水价改革加剧了灌溉供水的时间需求与灌溉系统输配水能力之间的矛盾，导致农业灌溉水供求脱节、水资源利用率下降，难以达到节约用水和改善水资源分配效应的预期目标；完善水价形成机制、推进用水交易合约化是水价改革成功的关键。     

Does oligopsony power matter in price support policy design? Empirical evidence from the Thai Jasmine rice market

In the oligopsony market, farmers may receive low prices and policy analysis assuming perfect competition can yield serious bias results. In this paper, we estimate oligopsony power between processors and farmers and evaluate the welfare impact of the paddy pledging program (PPP), a generous price support program in the Thai Jasmine rice market, with an imperfect competition model. We develop a model that consists of rice supply equation and derived demand equation. We then simultaneously estimate these equations using system estimation methods to recover oligopsony power parameters. Finally, we use these parameters to assess the welfare impact of the price support program. Using annual panel data running from crop marketing year 2001/2002–2015/2016 and exploiting the institutional feature of the PPP, we find strong evidence of some oligopsony power, a moderate level of oligopsony price distortion, and a negative relationship between price support and oligopsony power. We also find that the PPP is inefficient but effective in income redistribution. Moreover, the program benefits both farmers and consumers. With better policymaking decisions, the PPP can be efficient by setting a suitable support price. Therefore, our results show that in the case of the Thai Jasmine rice market, the generally accepted “wisdom” about agricultural price support policy does not necessarily hold, and price support can be designed to improve the efficiency of the market.     

中国彩票业对经济发展的影响分析

彩票经济随着彩票销量的不断攀升,彩票市场的逐渐繁荣和彩票业的迅速发展应运而生,并成为推动我国经济发展的重要因素.在经济学上,专家把彩票看做是“第三次分配”.彩票行业经过25年的发展已逐渐形成,彩票消费已日益成为现代经济生活中一种重要的经济现象.彩票业对我国整体经济的发展具有“软税收”、拉动内需、增加就业、提供社会保障资金支持、推动普惠型社会福利事业的发展,但同时在彩票业发展中也存在着穷人购彩、购彩者投机心理过重等不利于经济发展的负面影响.因此,为实现我国彩票业的健康与可持续发展,应当加强我国彩票业的规范化管理,提高法律层级,加强彩票资金的监管力度,同时加强彩票文化建设,引导彩民理性购彩.     

Ambiguous Social Welfare Effects of Price Regulation Under Imperfect Competition

Conventional wisdom is that a binding price ceiling increases output and so increases social welfare if imposed on an imperfectly competitive market. However, this paper shows that a price ceiling can be harmful to social welfare even though it increases industry output and consumer surplus. This model can be applied to the pharmaceutical industry under price control in many countries, e.g., U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan.     

GAME THEORETIC MODELS OF MIXED OLIGOPOLY

Abstract. In this paper we review various models that have been proposed for the study of mixed oligopoly, that is markets in which private and public firm compete on equal basis using only market instruments.     

经济转轨中自然垄断行业规制改革——竞争、所有制与激励机制选择

竞争与所有制改革是目前自然垄断行业规制改革的主要趋势.但原有的理论和经验都是针对发达国家而言,对于转轨国家如何协调经济转轨与自然垄断行业改革却没有现成的理论与经验.所以,本文从转轨国家自然垄断行业引入竞争可能性以及所有制改革模式的选择入手,研究在加入策略性激励机制后竞争与所有制模式的不同组合对自然垄断企业绩效的影响.研究发现,转轨国家自然垄断行业改革进程取决于转轨国家市场发育程度以及改革的初始条件;混合所有制的企业竞争模式比完全私有化的社会福利水平要高,也更适合于转轨国家自然垄断行业改革的所有制选择模式.     

Wealth and sustainable development: the role of David Pearce

Green net national product was thought to be one way of measuring sustainable income. However, David Pearce understood that a better measure of sustainable development was to look at what a generation is leaving in form of capital assets to later generations. In this article, his arguments and insights are highlighted against recent theoretical advances.     

Asset indexes and the measurement of poverty,inequality and welfare in Southeast Asia

Using data on household consumer durables from the Asian Barometer Survey, this paper examines the evolution of inequality, poverty and welfare in six countries of South East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. We start by deriving the most common order of acquisition of these durables, using first an algorithm proposed by Paroush (1965), and then Item Response Theory. We also compute the frequency distribution of the number of durables owned by households. We then use these results to compute inequality, poverty and achievement or welfare indices adapted to the case of ordinal variables.Our empirical results confirm the existence of an order of acquisition. The results show that inequality was higher in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines and lower in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. A similar classification of countries was obtained when computing multidimensional poverty indices.Finally, using the welfare or achievement index recently introduced by Apouey et al. (2019), we found that welfare was generally higher in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and lower in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines.     

Employment Dynamics and Linkages in the Rural Economy: Insights from Senegal

Evidence on rural wage employment is thin and lacks nuance for different employment sources, insights on dynamic effects, and an understanding of the channels of effects. We assess conceptually and empirically the direct and indirect welfare effects of entry and continuation in different types of wage employment in rural Senegal. Using panel data, fixed effects and first-difference estimation, we show substantial positive welfare and linkage effects. We find that participation in wage employment increases per capita income by 143%, and reduces poverty, poverty gap and food insecurity by, respectively, 63%, 89% and 48%. While the direct effect on income is larger for non-agricultural and contractual wage employment, the indirect income effects through self-employment are more pronounced for agricultural and casual wage employment. Our results imply that job creation is important for rural development, that wage employment in agriculture can lead to considerable growth multiplier effects, and that synergies exist between large-scale and small-scale agriculture.