消减城乡公共产品供给差异的策略——基于政治支持差异假设的探视

本文认为导致城乡公共产品供给差异的根本原因是地方政府官员根据不同主体能够给予的政治支持做出的理性选择。文章强调了政治支持差异对地方官员行为的影响,并把上级政府、城市居民和农村居民的政治支持纳入一个统一的分析框架,分析了地方官员从不同主体获得的政治支持权重大小顺序,给出了其最优策略的均衡条件。如果要实现基本公共产品均等化目标,则需优化政治支持结构。     

Economics of externalities and public policy

In this paper we study a particular case of “multiple” externalities associated to the production of a good/activity, whose external effects can change from positive to negative depending on the level of output (intersecting externalities). To analyze their impact on the public policy we propose a very simple two-agent partial equilibrium model in the technological context of externalities. In a static framework, the centralized solution always implies an optimal policy, which may consist of taxation or subsidization depending on the individual optimum and on the technology parameters. In a dynamic model with local knowledge of the efficiency function and instantaneous output adjustments, such an optimal policy can be structurally stable or unstable. In the latter case, under small changes of the parameters the policy may switch from low taxation/subsidization to high taxation/subsidization or vice versa, or even jump discontinuously from taxation to subsidization or vice versa. Furthermore, the decentralized solution based upon “tradable rights” can be economically equivalent to the centralized solution in the form of taxation policy but the two solutions may be not politically equivalent.

Theoretical foundations of sustainable economic welfare indicators — ISEW and political economy of the disembedded system

The conceptual foundations of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) are surveyed and critiqued. It is argued that the three underlying theories of community, psychic income, and social welfare economics supply certain theoretical foundations for the ISEW. The focal point of the theories is to evaluate the positives and negatives of economic growth, with the hope of achieving a practical measure of sustainable economic welfare. However, they are not as well developed as they should be: the three theories have partial, underdeveloped explanations of the benefits (services) and costs (disservices) generated in the system. The theoretical particulars of ISEW abstract from the workings of the capitalist system, because the ISEW advocates have not specified a society in the socioeconomic system which we currently have. Specifically, there is no underlying linked systems view of the disembedded economy — where the exchange economy tends to dominate other aspects of culture. Without a systematic understanding of the political economy of capitalism, the ISEW is potentially flawed in design. Therefore, there is a need to search for a critical approach to sustainable economic welfare. As a point of departure, it is better to have a political economy theory. The political economy of the disembedded system provides an alternative theoretical approach to ISEW.     

“强监督”还是“搭便车”：自然人大股东如何影响企业专利质量

通过构建改进的知识宽度法测算企业专利质量,并以2007—2016年中国沪深A股上市公司为样本,分析自然人大股东对企业专利质量的影响以及在不同类型企业中其作用的差异性。结果表明,作为“强力监督者”,自然人大股东能够促进企业专利质量提高。但因为其角色由“强监督”转变为“搭便车”,故这种促进作用在国有企业和具有政治关联的企业中并不存在。进一步研究表明,促进作用是通过加强对经理人和研发人员的监督,减少其控制权下投机性创新策略,提升其工作努力程度实现的。研究结论为促进国有企业与民营企业创新能力提升提供相应的政策启示。     

控股股东所有权、双向资金占用与盈余质量

文章以我国上市公司2003-2005年的数据为样本,检验了控股股东所有权、双向资金占用和盈余质量之间的关系。研究发现,控股股东所有权与应计项目之间存在倒"N"型曲线关系;在控股股东持股较少时,控股股东通过占用上市公司资金降低了盈余质量,与所有权防御效应一致;当控股股东持股较多时,控股股东所有权与盈余质量之间呈现不显著的正相关。文章认为,如果控股股东通过双向资金占用影响盈余质量,那么盈余质量是低的;如果控股股东没有通过双向资金占用影响盈余质量,双向资金占用行为本身也会降低盈余质量。文章最后提出政策建议。     

Political booms and currency crises

This paper shows evidence that political booms, defined as the rise in governments’ popularity, are associated with a higher likelihood of currency crises. The reasoning behind this finding is that prudent economic policies to address underlying weaknesses in the economy may be political costly for incumbent governments in the short-term. Hence, popularity-concerned governments may not have enough incentives to take such corrective actions in a timely manner. This approach, in turn, can deteriorate economic fundamentals and increase related risks in the economy which can eventually lead to crises. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon in the case of currency crises, suggesting that currency crises can be viewed as “political booms gone bust” events. Moreover, it finds that higher international reserves, higher exports, and a higher degree of financial openness alleviate the effect of political booms on currency crises.     

Political forecast cycles

A moral hazard model is used to show why overly optimistic revenue forecasts prior to elections can be optimal: Opportunistic governments can increase spending and appear more competent; ex post deficits emerge in election years, thereby producing political forecast cycles – as also found for US states in the empirical literature. Additionally, we obtain three theoretical results which are tested with panel data for Portuguese municipalities. The extent of manipulations is reduced when (i) the winning margin is expected to widen; (ii) the incumbent is not re-running; and/or (iii) the share of informed voters (proxied by education) goes up.     

Individualism and political instability

This paper examines the relationship between the individualism-collectivism dimension of culture and political instability using a dataset covering around 100 countries. To shed light on the causal effect of culture on political instability, the identification strategy exploits the variation in historical pathogen prevalence and the information provided by the genetic distance between countries. The results reveal that individualism has a negative and statistically significant impact on the degree of political instability, which means that this cultural trait contributes to making the political environment more stable. This finding is robust to the inclusion in the analysis of a substantial number of controls that may be correlated with both individualism and political instability, including other cultural dimensions. In fact, the relationship between individualism and political instability does not depend either on the specific measures used to quantify the level of individualism and political instability within the various countries or the estimation strategy adopted. The estimates also show that part of the observed effect of individualism is due to the impact of institutional quality, which acts as a transmission channel linking this cultural trait and political instability.     

Political openness and armed conflict: Evidence from local councils in Colombia

In this paper, I empirically investigate how the openness of political institutions to diverse representation can impact conflict-related violence. Regression discontinuity estimates that exploit plausibly exogenous variations in the number of councillors in Colombian municipalities show that political openness substantially decreases conflict-related violence, namely the killing of civilian non-combatants. Empirical evidence suggests that the lower level of political violence stems from parties with close links to armed groups having greater representation on larger municipal councils. Using data about the types of violence employed by these groups, and government representation, I argue that armed violence has decreased not because of power-sharing arrangements involving armed groups linked to the parties with more political representation, but rather because armed groups with more political power deter other groups from initiating certain types of violence.