X效率理论的内在局限与发展困境

X效率理论是20世纪下半叶在对新古典经济学效率问题的质疑中提出的一种解释效率的理论。受理论抽象和研究方法的局限,该理论不仅未能像其创始人期待的那样对新古典理论进行全面的替代,而且未能纳入主流经济学的视野。在对同一问题的解释上,新制度经济学从对新古典经济学假设条件的现实解释中成功地得到发展,并很快成为主流经济学的主要内容。从事后的角度对X效率理论和新制度经济学进行比较分析,对于中国在转轨过程中经济理论的发展具有一定的启迪作用。     

Macroeconomic implications of modeling the Internal Revenue Code in a heterogeneous-agent framework

Tax policy analysis in heterogeneous-agent models typically involves the use of smooth tax functions to approximate complex present tax law and proposed reforms. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the tax detail omitted under this conventional approach has macroeconomic implications relevant for policy analysis. To do this, we develop an alternative approach by embedding an internal tax calculator into a large-scale overlapping generations model that, while conditioning on idiosyncratic household characteristics, explicitly models key provisions in the Internal Revenue Code applied to labor income. We find that for a debt-constant steady state analysis of a given tax policy change, both approaches generate similar policy-induced patterns of macroeconomic activity despite variation in the underlying patterns of household tax-preferred consumption and labor supply behavior. However, this variation in underlying behavior is associated with significant quantitative and qualitative differences in macroeconomic aggregates along a debt-financed transition path immediately following a policy change. Consequentially, although the use of unconditional smooth tax functions may be a reasonable modeling simplification for steady state analysis of tax policy, caution should be taken for their use in transition path analysis within heterogeneous-agent models.     

New Evidence of Psychological Barrier from the Oil Market

The authors examine how stock returns were affected when the oil price reached the psychological barrier of US$100 per barrel for the first time in history. Using an event study approach, 4 key results emerge. First, the authors show that a psychological barrier event in the oil market does affect stock returns. Second, they show that a psychological barrier event in the oil market is a source of return drift—a phenomenon well explained and understood with respect to nonoil news events. Third, the psychological barrier affects small/medium-sized stocks and not large stocks. Last, the authors show that successful trading strategies can be devised based on the information that the oil price psychological barrier significantly impacts the market and that it contributes to return drift.     

Modelling exchange of probabilistic opinions

Summary. This paper studies how communication or exchange of opinions influences correlation of beliefs. The paper focuses on a situation in which agents communicate with each other infinitely many times without observing data. It is an extension to the ‘Expert Problem’ in Bayesian theory, where the informational flow is asymmetric. Moreover, this paper generalizes the existing literature of communication that employs the common prior assumption (CPA) by allowing for heterogeneous beliefs. Some basic convergence results are shown in contrast with the results obtained under the CPA. Furthermore, several economic implications of the basic results are provided. Received: August 27, 2001; revised version: April 16, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The results presented in this paper are taken from my Ph.D. thesis at Stanford University. I gratefully acknowledge the inspiration obtained from innumerable discussions with Mordecai Kurz about this subject. Also, I appreciate comments from Kenneth J. Arrow, Peter J. Hammond, Maurizio Motolese, Carsten K. Nielsen, Ho-Mou Wu and the anonymous referee.     

Private enforcement,corruption, and antitrust design

We examine how the rationale for enabling versus precluding private antitrust enforcement depends on whether antitrust enforcement is corruption-free or plagued by corruption. Corruption in courts affects the incentives to bring forth private antitrust lawsuits. This, in turn, along with corruption in antitrust agency enforcement, alters the incentives to commit antitrust violations. The social welfare effect of enabling private antitrust enforcement in the presence of corruption depends on whether corrupt officials in the ensuing bribery contests favor a particular firm and if so which one and to what extent. Under some circumstances, corruption actually increases the social desirability of private antitrust enforcement relative to the no-corruption scenario. Our analysis highlights that the effects of a given legal arrangement for antitrust enforcement critically depend on the corruption environment and, thus, that the appropriate design of antitrust institutions is context-specific.     

转型社会政府审计战略定位:一个分析框架

中国经济发展过程是多元利益主体形成的过程,利益主体多元化促使政府职能转型.本文以市场经济下政府职能为分析的出发点,阐述了我国转型社会政府审计三层次战略定位,从而构建了一个转型社会政府审计战略定位的理论框架.     

Heterogeneous duopoly with isoelastic demand function

In this paper we analyze a duopolistic market with heterogeneous firms when the demand function is isoelastic (Puu, T., 1991. Chaos in duopoly pricing. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 1, 573–581.). We consider the same heterogeneous firms of Zhang et al. (Zhang, J., Da, Q., Wang, Y., 2007. Analysis of nonlinear duopoly game with heterogeneous players. Economic Modelling 24, 138–148.) introducing a nonlinearity in the demand function instead of the cost function. Stability conditions of the Nash equilibrium and complex dynamics are studied. In particular we show two different routes to complicated dynamics: a cascade of flip bifurcations leading to periodic cycles (and chaos) and the Neimark-Sacker bifurcation which originates an attractive invariant closed curve. Comparisons with respect to the Puu model and the model of Zhang et al. are performed.     

On local indeterminacy and endogenous cycles in Ramsey models with heterogeneous households

It is well-known that endogenous cycles can occur in Ramsey models with heterogeneous households and borrowing constraints. In this note, we address the issue of robustness in the more general case of endogenous labor supply and we explain the occurrence of local indeterminacy under progressive taxation.

Evidence on the contrarian trading in foreign exchange markets

This paper investigates the existence and price impacts of contrarian behavior in the foreign exchange markets. By utilizing a nonlinear behavioral model where the chartists and fundamentalists coexist, evidence obtained from two sample periods significantly supports the existence of contrarian trading in the British pound, the Japanese yen and the German mark markets. The contrarian trading can only partially offset the price impacts of trend-followers, therefore the price impact of the chartists as a whole is destabilizing. The ability that the contrarians can counterbalance the extrapolation of the trend-followers differs across markets. Traders in the BP market have the highest tendency to contrarian strategy, which in turn contributes to the least deviations of the BP exchange rates departing from its PPP fundamentals. The fundamentalists' confidence in trade fades during large misalignments, which make the mean reversion function of the fundamentalists weak under the circumstances. We find the magnitudes of interventions will be affected by the price impacts of contrarians and their abilities on market stabilization.     

产业异质性、税收激励与自主创新

以2007-2016年中国战略性新兴产业A股上市公司数据为研究样本,从企业研发投入和专利产出两个维度,考察税收优惠政策与企业技术创新之间的关系。结果发现：①税收优惠政策对于企业自主创新具有激励作用,有效促进了企业研发投入和专利产出;②基于企业所属产业异质性视角发现,税收优惠政策对于八大战略性新兴产业企业的创新作用存在显著差异：对于新一代信息技术、高端装备制造业、节能环保等产业研发投入和专利产出具有激励作用,但对新能源产业的创新投入、生物产业和新能源汽车产业的专利产出具有抑制作用。研究结论在一定程度上解释了现有研究关于税收优惠政策“激励效应”和“抑制效应”的争议,也对完善中国创新税收激励制度具有借鉴意义。