亚当·斯密农业发展思想研究

经济学之父亚当·斯密的传世名著《国富论》包含了非常丰富的经济发展思想,在《国富论》中,亚当·斯密重点对制造业、商业等城市经济进行阐述的同时,对农村、农业的发展也提出了自己的见解。虽然这些见解零散地分布在《国富论》的各篇章中,且距今已有二百余年,但是这些看似零碎的见解却包含着博大精深的农业发展思想,对现今我国的农村、农业发展仍然有着很强的指导和借鉴意义。     

The effects of exchange rate pass-through and cost channel on price level: The case of fragile five countries

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated whether the exchange rate and the interest rate had an effect on the inflation rate in the fragile five countries between the years of 1996Q4 and 2015Q4. In this context, a model was created to estimate the effect of interest rate and exchange rate on the inflation rate. The methods used in the study take into account cross-section dependence and heterogeneity. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there was an exchange-rate and interest-rate pass-through effect in the fragile five countries. Moreover, it was found out that the cost channel and price puzzle were effective in Indonesia and South Africa but were not effective in Turkey, Brasil and India.     

Monetary policy shocks and exchange rates in Asian countries

In this paper, we empirically investigate the effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rates in Asian countries. To do so, we use VAR models which impose sign restrictions on impulse responses to identify monetary policy shocks. We find that contractionary monetary policy shocks lead to significant exchange rate appreciation in Malaysia, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. However, in India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, we find either a significant depreciation or no significant effect. These results suggest that an interest rate increase (or decrease) may not necessarily shield Asian countries from exchange rate depreciation (or appreciation) pressure following a U.S. interest rate increase (or decrease).     

The shape of small sample biases in pricing kernel estimations

Numerous empirical studies find pricing kernels that are not-monotonically decreasing; the findings are at odds with the pricing kernel being marginal utility of a risk-averse, so-called representative agent. We study in detail the common procedure which estimates the pricing kernel as the ratio of two separate density estimations. In the first step, we analyse theoretically the functional dependence for the ratio of a density to its estimated density; this cautions the reader regarding potential computational issues coupled with statistical techniques. In the second step, we study this quantitatively; we show that small sample biases shape the estimated pricing kernel, and that estimated pricing kernels typically violate the commonly believed monotonicity at the centre even when the true pricing kernel fulfils these. This contributes to an alternative, statistical explanation for the puzzling shape in pricing kernel estimations.     

Explaining Foreign Holdings of Asia's Debt Securities: The Feldstein–Horioka Paradox Revisited*

In this paper, we find that home bias is still present in all economies and regions, especially in the case of short‐term debt securities, but that there are substantial variations among economies and regions in the strength of home bias, with the eurozone economies, the USA and developing Asia showing relatively weak home bias and advanced Asia, especially Japan, showing relatively strong home bias. We then examine trends over time in foreign holdings of debt securities and find that capital has been flowing from the USA and the eurozone economies to both advanced Asia (especially Japan) and developing Asia, and that foreign holdings of debt securities have been increasing in advanced as well as developing Asia but for different reasons. The main reason in the case of advanced Asia (especially Japan) appears to be higher risk‐adjusted returns, whereas the main reason in the case of developing Asia appears to be the growth of debt securities markets combined with relatively weak home bias and (in the case of short‐term securities) lower exchange rate volatility. Finally, we find that since the global financial crisis, foreign holdings of debt securities have declined (i.e. that home bias has strengthened) in all economies and regions except developing Asia, where they have increased (except for a temporary decline in 2008) but where their share is still much lower than the optimal share warranted by the capital asset pricing market model.     

货币信贷结构对宏观经济的机理性影响——兼对“中国货币迷失之谜”的再解释

本文使用机理变化型变结构协整模型实证分析了1996年1月至2013年5月期间货币信贷结构对中国宏观经济的影响。结果表明:货币信贷结构均在特定时点开始对产出和通货膨胀率产生机理性影响;货币结构与信贷期限结构对实际产出分别具有较弱的正向和负向机理性影响,对通货膨胀率均具有一定程度的正向机理性影响,并且货币信贷结构对通货膨胀率的影响程度明显大于货币信贷总量。在此基础上,通过比较分析货币信贷结构与“货币迷失”之间的关系,发现货币结构与信贷期限结构对“中国货币迷失之谜”均具有很强的解释力。政策建议如下:中国人民银行应同时注重货币信贷总量与结构的调控,监测货币信贷结构的变动应成为提高货币政策有效性与制定货币政策的重要参考。     

Why Greater Cash Holdings and Short-Term Debt Simultaneously Persist? The Case of Transition Economy

This study observes and explores a puzzle in Chinese firms whereby both cash holdings and short-term debt simultaneously account for more than 20% of total assets for at least two consecutive years over the sample period. This phenomenon conflicts with the principle of corporate value maximization, and is not clearly explained by the classical theories in corporate finance. Based on the implications in the extant literature and discussions of institutional constraints of the transition economy in China, this paper develops four hypotheses that are involved with agency conflicts between the largest shareholders and creditors and the formation of this puzzling financial structure. The empirical analyses suggest that the largest shareholders with tunneling motives seek to hold more cash to serve their private interests and/or the consequent operational deficit of the listed corporations. To the ends, these corporations tend to manage the timing of short term debt financing to increase cash reserves temporarily at the end of year. Essentially, greater cash holdings on the balance sheet of these corporations related with the puzzle become a misleading signal for potential creditors, possibly contributing to the refinancing of short-term debt of these listed firms for the following year. Hence, the puzzling financial structure is connected with the timing of debt financing and adverse selection of creditors. This study enriches the stream of literature on cash holdings and debt maturity, and provides new evidence on the impact of agency problems of the largest shareholders on the association between cash holdings and debt maturity in the context of a transition economy.     

Smith and Rousseau on envy in commercial societies

Abstract

Several works emphasise the similarities between Rousseau and Smith's analysis of self-interest. We will show, along the lines of Le Jalle, that these similarities end on a divergent appreciation of the importance of envy in commercial societies for, contrary to Rousseau, Smith did not consider envy to be a major threat in commercial societies. Part 1 presents their quite similar definitions of envy based on three characteristics: envy comes from a disadvantageous comparison with others; it is painful and malevolent. Part 2, then, studies their moral psychology, or the way they understand the relationship between sympathy and pity on the one hand, and comparison and envy on the other. Here, we identify significant differences between our two philosophers which might explain why they have opposing views on the predominance of envy in commercial societies and on the issue of inequalities of wealth as we show in Part 3. Rousseau thinks that envy increases with wealth and inequality and thus pervades commercial societies, while Smith sees envy as the exception rather than the rule, and, moreover, does not provide a historical genesis for envy. For Smith, it is emulation rather than envy which is the driving force of the progress of society.     

Defending free trade after physiocracy: On Dugald Stewart's architectonic of passions,reason and Providence

Abstract

Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) defended free trade in light of a providential account of Nature, according to which there would be an “identity of interests” (Halévy 1901–1904). He thereby tried to rid economic thought of references to conflicts and thus pursued the physiocrats’ programme rather than Adam Smith's. In fact, Stewart claimed that (i) self-love depends on an accommodation to Providence, by which individuals restrain their passions; (ii) self-love fosters actions that lead to a direct increase of public happiness; (iii) the perfectibility of mind allows to dismiss “legal despotism”, which can be replaced by religious education.     

A panel data approach to economic forecasting: The bias-corrected average forecast

In this paper, we propose a novel approach to econometric forecasting of stationary and ergodic time series within a panel-data framework. Our key element is to employ the (feasible) bias-corrected average forecast. Using panel-data sequential asymptotics we show that it is potentially superior to other techniques in several contexts. In particular, it is asymptotically equivalent to the conditional expectation, i.e., has an optimal limiting mean-squared error. We also develop a zero-mean test for the average bias and discuss the forecast-combination puzzle in small and large samples. Monte-Carlo simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the feasible bias-corrected average forecast in finite samples. An empirical exercise, based upon data from a well known survey is also presented. Overall, these results show promise for the feasible bias-corrected average forecast.