Income and religion: a heterogeneous panel data analysis

A recent empirical literature has addressed the relationship between income and religion, but most of the studies are based on microdata. Macroeconomic analysis of the issue has largely ignored the potential heterogeneity between countries. Using retrospective data on church attendance rates for a panel of countries between 1925 and 1990, we apply heterogeneous panel data estimators and reveal that the effect of participation in religious activities on income per capita is mostly non-significant. This is consistent with some of the recent research that casts doubt onto the influence of religion on income, once causality is taken into account.     

Beliefs and rationalizability in games with complementarities

We propose two characteristics of beliefs and study their role in shaping the set of rationalizable strategy profiles in games with incomplete information. The first characteristic, type-sensitivity, is related to how informative a player thinks his type is. The second characteristic, optimism, is related to how “favorable” a player expects the outcome of the game to be. The paper has two main results: the first result provides an upper bound on the size of the set of rationalizable strategy profiles; the second gives a lower bound on the change of location of this set. These bounds are explicit expressions that involve type-sensitivity, optimism, and payoff characteristics. Our results generalize and clarify the well-known uniqueness result of global games (Carlsson and van Damme, 1993). They also imply new uniqueness results and allow us to study rationalizability in new environments. We provide applications to supermodular mechanism design (Mathevet, 2010b) and information processing errors.     

美国经常账户失衡:表现、理论与政策——兼驳伯南克“世界储蓄过剩”论

本文考察了美国经常账户失衡的发展过程,指出了其对手方的国别与地区结构特点,随后总结了对该现象的有关研究和解释。文章简述了伯南克世界储蓄过剩论,指出了该观点论证逻辑中的错误,然后分析了其理论分析框架——储蓄缺口模型与新古典增长模型对美国经常账户失衡解释的不适用。     

A fast and scalable ensemble of global models with long memory and data partitioning for the M5 forecasting competition

This work presents key insights on the model development strategies used in our cross-learning-based retail demand forecast framework. The proposed framework outperforms state-of-the-art univariate models in the time series forecasting literature. It has achieved 17th position in the accuracy track of the M5 forecasting competition, which is among the top 1% of solutions.     

制度变迁、国际货币改革与中国的选择

文章认为国家经济价值的提高产生了对制度创新的需求,国际货币制度不均衡的关键原因是国家的经济价值。作为公共产品,由集体行动所供给的国际货币制度由于搭便车和外部性产生滞后效应。在陷入集体行动困境的现实国际货币体系中,由单个国家（中国）或自愿合作的国家集团（欧盟或亚洲货币区）所主导的诱致性的制度变迁是一种有效的边际改革,将会带来由美元主导的不稳定的国际货币体系变迁到多元的稳定的国家货币体系。由于中国的国家经济价值不断提升,国际货币制度的稳定需要人民币国际化。中国应该内外兼修,使人民币成为亚洲货币联盟的“锚”货币。     

REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT DEBT IN A BORROWING‐CONSTRAINED ECONOMY

We develop a two‐period, three‐class of income model where low‐income agents are borrowing constrained because of capital market imperfections, and where redistributive expenditure is financed by tax and government debt. When the degree of capital market imperfection is high, there is an ends‐against‐the‐middle equilibrium where the constrained low‐income and the unconstrained high‐income agents favour low levels of government debt and redistributive expenditure; these agents form a coalition against the middle. In this equilibrium, the levels of government debt and expenditure might be below the efficient levels, and the spread of income distribution results in a lower debt‐to‐GDP ratio.     

The Uncertainty of Academic Rent and Income Inequality: The OECD Panel Evidence

The article presents an alternative view on the education—income inequality relationship, which calls into question the neoclassical claim that education increases labor productivity and hence contributes to a higher output, wage and consequently more even income distribution. In the context of public policies, education needs to be seen not only as a factor of income mobility, but also as a “positional good,” which benefits graduates at the expense of non-graduates. Education generates “academic rent,” by which we mean uneven remuneration of workers based on academic signs of distinctions that do not necessarily reflect differences in productivity. Using the robust panel model on a sample of OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries from 1980 to 2015, we show that investments in human capital lead to lower inequality, but overinvestments tends to increase income inequality, which may be related to academic rent. In discussing this result, we consider that uncertainty of academic rent under the condition of a rapid transformation of the workplace caused by the fourth industrial revolution.     

Anti‐immigration policy in the destination country and skilled–unskilled wage inequality in a source economy with or without unemployment

This paper is aimed at theoretically examining the consequence of the anti‐immigration policy adopted in the destination country on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in a source nation using a couple of two‐sector, specific‐factor general equilibrium models in both the presence and absence of unemployment. Emigration requires incurring some capital cost for professional skill formation on the part of every prospective emigrant that adds to the opportunity cost of emigration. The authority of the destination country determines the number of visas to be granted and hence directly controls the magnitude of skilled emigration from the source country. In the migration equilibrium, the expected skilled wage income abroad is equal to the opportunity cost of emigration. In both the presence and absence of unemployment of unskilled labor, the outcome of the policy on the wage inequality crucially hinges on both the magnitude of the fixed cost of emigration and the technological factors. In the specific‐factor Harris–Todaro model, the degree of imperfection in the unskilled labor market is an additional factor. Finally, some policy recommendations have been made for protecting the interest of the poor unskilled workforce.     

中国上市公司IPO后经营业绩变化情况的分析——来自A股公司的经验数据

本文以1999￣2000年在沪、深两市首发上市的216家A股公司为样本,以这些公司从首发前一年延伸至2003年的数据,研究了中国A股上市公司IPO前1年至后3年的收入、成本、费用及效益的变化。研究发现:与上市前相比,中国A股公司IPO后的主营业务收入、主营业务成本、期间费用等绝对数指标均显著上升,而主营业务收入营业利润率却显著下降;造成业绩下降因素很多,其中最直接的主要原因是公司上市后成本、费用的大幅度上升。     

河北省农村基础设施建设的收入效应研究

运用1995～2008年的数据,采用ADF检验、协整检验等对河北省农民人均纯收入和农村用电量、农业基本建设投资额及农民家庭平均每户的交通运输、仓储和邮政业原值进行了实证分析。结果表明三者对农村经济增长具有不同程度的推动作用。政府应该通过明确农村基础设施供给中各级政府的职责,加大农村基础设施尤其是生产性基础设施的投资力度等措施来促进农村经济的发展。