Government Consumption and Industrial Productivity: Scale and Compositional Effects

Within a production function framework in which government spending produces public goods which enter firms production functions, empirical tests using time series data spanning eleven countries and thirty industries find both the scale and the composition of government consumption spending to affect the level and the rate of growth of total factor productivity at the industry level.Jel Classification: H50, D24     

商业银行定义与商业银行法的适用范围

对英国、美国及我国香港和台湾银行定义以及银行法适用范围进行了研究。分析了我国《商业银行法》约定义并建议在坚持形式认定主义的同时，修正该法第87条，对一些关键性的概念如存款、贷款加以明确界定。     

从三次加息看我国央行宏观调控的意图

本文分析了我国央行三次加息的动态、背景厦其政策意图，并进一步指出，央行的这三次加息都是具有方向性的举措，目标是为了进一步巩固宏观调控成果，发挥经济手段在资源配置和宏观调控中的作用。与此同时，三次加息也标志着我国央行释放紧缩信号，开始步入新一轮的宏观调控周期。     

对中央银行会计事后监督的认识

本文从中央银行会计事后监督的产生与演变入手,分析了央行会计事后监督的职能与定位,提出了央 行会计事后监督的特殊性及其对会计事后监督理论的发展,并阐述了会计监督与会计控制之间的统一性。     

Learning for Innovation and the Skill Premium

The computer revolution took very long to pay off in productivity growth in the computer-using sectors. The relative wage of skilled workers, however, has risen sharply from the early days of the computer revolution onward. As skilled workers wages reflect their productivity, the two observations together pose a puzzle.This paper provides a micro-based explanation for the long diffusion period of the computer revolution. The general equilibrium model of growth zooms in on the research process and provides an explanation for sluggish growth with booming relative wages of the skilled. Technological progress in firms is driven by research aimed at improving the production technology (innovation) and by assimilation of ideas or principles present outside the firm (learning). A new General Purpose Technology (GPT) like the computer revolution generates an initial slowdown in economic growth and an increase in the skill premium.Acknowledgement I am indebted to Theo van de Klundert for suggestions and encouragement. Suggestions by Jan Boone, Bas Jacobs, Patrick Francois, Henri de Groot, Lex Meijdam, Niek Nahuis Sjak Smulders, Harald Uhlig and anonymous referees have contributed to the paper.     

Deposit insurance and bank regulation in a monetary economy: a general equilibrium exposition

Summary. It is commonly argued that poorly designed banking system safety nets are largely to blame for the frequency and severity of modern banking crises. For example, underpriced deposit insurance and/or low reserve requirements are often viewed as factors that encourage risk-taking by banks. In this paper, we study the effects of three policy variables: deposit insurance premia, reserve requirements and the way in which the costs of bank bailouts are financed. We show that when deposit insurance premia are low, the monetization of bank bailout costs may not be more inflationary than financing these costs out of general revenue. This is because, while monetizing the costs increases the inflation tax rate, higher levels of general taxation reduce savings, deposits, bank reserves, and the inflation tax base. Increasing the inflation tax rate obviously raises inflation, but so does an erosion of the inflation tax base. We also find that low deposit insurance premia or low reserve requirements may not be associated with a high rate of bank failure.Received: 2 January 2002, Revised: 1 March 2003JEL Classification Numbers: D5, E5, G1.B. D. Smith: Sadly, our co-author, colleague and dear friend, Bruce D. Smith, died on July 9, 2002.     

新农村建设:一个政治经济学视角的解析

新农村建设是对城乡经济社会发展不平衡的一个积极回应,它包含经济增长和社会发展两个层面.从政治经济学视角出发,在经济增长方面,户籍、土地、保障等制度性因素制约到农村劳动力的有效流转,从而对劳动生产率提升和农业发展产生负面影响;在社会福利方面,农民的数量优势没有转化为谈判优势,对市场价格和政策制定的影响力较小,其社会福利获取以及发展程度处于不利地位.据此,新农村建设必须对相关制度性、组织性因素进行完善和改革,部分农民的真正流转和留守农民的自发组织将尤其重要.     

我国银行业监管体制改革的思考

长期以来 ,我国的金融机构由中央银行———中国人民银行监督管理 ,同时 ,中国人民银行还负责制定并实施货币政策。随着我国社会主义市场经济体制更进一步完善 ,需要进一步加强宏观调控 ,而货币政策是政府宏观调控的重要内容。因此 ,为了更好地制定并实施货币政策 ,国务院决定将金融监管的职责剥离出来 ,成立银监会来承担这一职责。文中就银监会设立的背景、意义进行了详尽分析 ,提出运行中应注意的若干问题。     

Does the World Bank have any impact on human development of the poorest countries? Some preliminary evidence from Africa

In an attempt to better understand the impact of the World Bank on human development in poor countries, we use cross-country data on African countries for the 1990–2002 period to examine this relationship. The coefficient estimates of our parsimonious fixed-effects models indicate that while loans and grants of the Bank have had a positive impact on some relatively short-term indicators of health and education in an average African country, there is little evidence to suggest that such loans and grants have helped these countries to consolidate on the short-term gains.     

International Comparisons of Australia's Infrastructure Performance

International benchmarking has played a key role in the reform of Australia's infrastructure industries by promoting indirect or yardstick competition, in highlighting the need for further reform and building a consensus for implementing necessary changes. The international benchmarking of infrastructure performance by the Bureau of Industry Economics (BIE) between 1991 and 1996 did much to focus attention on the need for change. The BIE examined the performance of eight infrastructure industries relative to international best practice: electricity, rail freight, telecommunications, the waterfront, road freight, coastal shipping, aviation and gas supply. Performance comparisons concentrated on indicators of price, service quality, labour productivity and capital productivity. This paper reviews and summarises the performance comparisons the BIE undertook over the last three years of its infrastructure benchmarking program. The BIE international benchmarking program provides a useful role model for other countries wanting to seriously pursue reform of their infrastructure industries.