创新、企业家活动配置与长期经济增长

本文继承并扩展了熊彼特关于企业家精神的思想,把企业家活动的配置引入内生技术创新模式。在本文中,企业家活动的配置决定了一个经济的R&D投入水平,技术水平和经济增长率。不同经济活动的报酬结构决定了企业家活动的配置,而且报酬结构是内生的,并且存在历史依赖性。本文的突破包括两个方面:一是把企业家活动的配置引入宏观的分析中,考察了企业家活动的配置对宏观总量的影响;二是把企业家活动的配置对经济活动影响的一般性分析引入创新活动分析中,考察了企业家活动的配置、相对报酬结构与技术创新水平之间的动态关系。本文的政策含义是,要提高经济中R&D投入水平,进而提高技术创新水平以及经济增长率,就必须通过政治、经济、法律和文化制度创新,营造激励创新的报酬结构,促使企业家更多地从事生产性的创新活动,经济才能打破低水平均衡陷阱,趋向较发达的均衡。本文对我国实施自主创新的国家战略具有重要的政策含义。     

Information feedback and contest structure in rent-seeking games

We investigate the effects of information feedback in rent-seeking games with two different contest structures. In the share contest a contestant receives a share of the rent equal to her share of rent-seeking expenditures, while in the lottery contest a contestant wins the entire rent with probability equal to her share of rent-seeking expenditures. In share contests average expenditures converge to equilibrium levels when subjects only get feedback about own earnings, and additional feedback about rivals' choices and earnings raises average expenditures. In lottery contests information feedback has an opposite, and even stronger, effect: when subjects only get feedback on own earnings we observe high levels of rent dissipation, usually exceeding the value of the rent, and additional feedback about rivals' choices and earnings has a significant moderating influence on expenditures. In a follow-up treatment we make information feedback endogenous by allowing contestants in a lottery contest to make public or private expenditures. Subjects make the vast majority of expenditures privately and overall excess expenditures are similar to the lottery contest with own feedback.     

寻租理论的新发展

寻租理论把租金的范围定义在政治领域。政府拥有某些政治特权,可以创造和保护租金,从而增加人们的决策选择。出于利益最大化的考虑,人们会选择＂寻租＂方式来增加收益。正是由于＂寻租＂,遏制了市场经济发挥作用。同时,寻租活动也浪费了本应用于从事生产性活动的资源。在上述思想的指引下,寻租理论的发展出现两大分支：一是规范寻租理论,试图说明和估算寻租活动给经济带来的成本;二是实证寻租理论,试图解释社会中人为制造的租金来源。寻租被应用于很多研究领域,但是也许是由于寻租理论本身存有缺陷,或者其他原因,寻租理论在中国并没有很好地发展起来。     

Asymmetric information contests

We consider how asymmetries in information affect contest behavior. We find two effects drive behavior-risk and perceptions of an opponent's value. Our results also suggest that the more tractable one-sided asymmetric information contest might be sufficient to capture contest behavior under uncertainty. However, the efficiency of a contest is sensitive to asymmetric information and the distribution a players' values because players with relatively low values can have an increased probability of success. Thus, it is important (a) to account for information asymmetries to avoid biasing predicted efficiency, and (b) to recognize that this bias is unsystematic.     

父代关系与代际收入流动：基于教育和就业的视角

文章运用计量方法分析了父代关系与中国代际收入流动性的关系。我们用2010年中国家庭追踪调查中父代为了子女上学和就业“找关系”来衡量寻租行为,通过工具变量法和分位回归法探讨了父代关系对不同人群的影响。结果显示,为子女就学（就业）找关系对于代际收入流动有一定的促进作用;进一步,分位回归和不同社会区域特征的影响揭示,教育和就业领域的“寻租市场”远远不是完全有效市场,在这一市场中所进行的寻租行为进一步加剧了教育和就业资源在城乡之间、不同收入阶层之间原本就存在的分布不均。教育资源均等化和劳动力市场的进一步市场化对于减少为了子代福利而进行的寻租腐败行为、以及建设机会均等的和谐社会具有重要意义。     

A game of accounting numbers in asset pricing: Evidence from the privatization of state-owned enterprises

This study examines a public policy issue: whether government officials engage in earnings management to collude with private investors in the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We find that the managers of listed Chinese SOEs, who are de facto bureaucrats, employ income-decreasing earnings management to reduce the price of shares to be sold to private investors. We also find that more aggressive income-decreasing earnings management is associated with a lower CEO turnover rate in the year following the privatization. These findings highlight the need to consider the opportunism of government agents when accounting information is used in redistribution of state assets.     

Overbidding and overspreading in rent-seeking experiments: Cost structure and prize allocation rules

We study experimentally the effects of cost structure and prize allocation rules on the performance of rent-seeking contests. Most previous studies use a lottery prize rule and linear cost, and find both overbidding relative to the Nash equilibrium prediction and significant variation of efforts, which we term ‘overspreading.’ We investigate the effects of allocating the prize by a lottery versus sharing it proportionally, and of convex versus linear costs of effort, while holding fixed the Nash equilibrium prediction for effort. We find the share rule results in average effort closer to the Nash prediction, and lower variation of effort. Combining the share rule with a convex cost function further enhances these results. We can explain a significant amount of non-equilibrium behavior by features of the experimental design. These results contribute towards design guidelines for contests based on behavioral principles that take into account implementation features of a contest.     

会计寻租成因及其对策分析

会计寻租是经济发展的产物,只要市场经济和政府管制存在,会计寻租就不可避免。本文分析了会计寻租的成因,并提出了相应的解决对策,认为正确处理会计寻租问题,对我国进行市场经济建设具有现实意义。     

Can migration reduce civil conflicts as an antidote to rent-seeking?

In this paper, I investigate whether access to migration reduces the positive effect of natural resources on the onset of civil conflicts shown in the literature. There is a negative and significant correlation between the interaction variable “migration rate-natural resources” and the probability of outbreak of civil wars, showing that the effect of natural resources is conditional on the migration rate. Simulations to quantify the marginal effects of the interaction term show that a migration rate equal to 6% or higher dampens the effect of natural resources on civil wars. To address the potential endogeneity problem in estimating the relationship between civil conflicts and migration, although I distinguish economic migrants from refugees, I also use an IV approach. In this respect, the negative effect of the two interacting variables on the probability of outbreak of civil wars remains robust after having instrumented the migration rate by using the gravity-based predicted emigration rate. Given the endogenous nature of the ratio of primary exports to GDP, in addition, the study directly utilizes the emigration rates as an alternate robust method to estimate the primary issue on civil conflicts. The results show that only the civil conflicts caused by natural resources are negatively impacted by emigration rates.     

An experimental examination of rational rent-seeking

The theoretical literature exploring various ramifications and applications of Tullock's (1980) rent-seeking model is extensive and rapidly growing. In contrast, there exist as yet only a few experimental evaluations of this model, with ambiguous results. Moreover, these studies focus on one particular case (proportional probabilities) and use a problematic experimental design. With an appropriate design we investigate the extreme cases of proportional probabilities and perfect discrimination, which offer the starkest contrast in theoretical predictions. We find substantial evidence for the predictive power of the rent-seeking model, particularly if one allows for the fact that people sometimes make mistakes or are confused about what to do.