Political spending,related voluntary disclosure,and the cost of public debt

Following the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case of 2010, which removed restrictions in relation to firms’ political spending, and building on the growing debate over whether voluntary political spending disclosure (VPSD) provides valuable information, we examine the effect of political spending on the cost of public debt and the role of VPSD on this effect. Based on a measure of VPSD that became available in 2012 and a large dataset on US firms’ actual political spending, manually extracted from different filings, we provide novel evidence that, in the post-Supreme Court decision period, political spending increases the cost of public debt. This is consistent with the uncertainty associated with political spending. Moreover, we find that the level of voluntary disclosure weakens the positive association between political spending and the cost of public debt. These results hold across multiple specifications as well as when we use a sudden release of firms’ political spending as an exogenous shock to political spending.     

Asymmetric effects of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries

In this article, we take account of an evaluation of the short- and medium-term effects of the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries and their dependence on the state of the economy and fiscal behaviour. Our findings indicate that (i) across EU member states the impact of government spending on economic performance is larger in the accession than in core member states, (ii) since the onset of the economic/financial crisis the government spending multipliers have become larger in both core and accession EU member states, and (iii) a comparison with fiscal responses in the OECD countries shows robustness of our estimates. The conclusion implies that the austerity measures present a substantial drag for economic activity in accession EU countries. Thus, we may state that not considering the fiscal behaviour and state of the economy gives misleading fiscal multiplier effects, which in turn lead to the adoption of inappropriate fiscal measures that even worsen a country's economic situation.     

Effects of government spending shocks in China,Japan, and Korea

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effects of government spending shocks on various key macro variables in China, Korea, and Japan using structural VAR models. The main empirical findings are as follows. Government spending multipliers of all three countries are far larger than 1 in recent years. The effectiveness of fiscal expansion has not changed markedly in China but substantially increased in Korea (after the Asian financial crisis) and Japan (during zero lower bound period). Increases in the effectiveness of fiscal expansion are associated with changes in the monetary and exchange rate policy regimes and institutions of these countries. Among the three countries, the government spending multiplier is relatively large in China but relatively small in Japan in recent years. Although the effects on exchange rate and trade balance vary across countries and sample periods, real exchange rate tends to depreciate, whereas trade balance tends to improve under flexible exchange rate regimes. Some empirical findings are consistent with standard theory, but others are not.

Abbreviations: NK: New Keynesian VAR: Vector Autoregressive ZLB: Zero Lower Bound     

政府支出与私人消费的关系研究——基于跨国数据(1983-2008年)的面板协整分析

文章运用面板协整分析方法和世界上36个国家(20个发达国家和16个发展中国家)1983-2008年的面板数据进行跨国研究,通过建立变系数面板模型并结合可支配收入和宏观经济环境的影响,分析了政府支出和私人消费的关系。研究结果显示,总体上而言,样本国家的政府消费支出与私人消费成互补关系,可支配收入仍然是影响私人消费的主要因素,宏观经济环境(经济开放程度和失业率)对消费的影响在统计上很不显著。为了扩大消费,中国政府应实施积极的财政政策、扩大财政支出和提高社会保障水平以及切实解决民生基本难题。     

Does higher government debt link to higher social expenditure? New method,new evidence

Scholars believe that higher social expenditures are usually linked with higher government debts, whereas higher debts reduce social expenditures. However, it is reasonable to speculate that higher government debt may contribute to higher social spending, while fiscal deficits occur during a recession, which commonly creates greater demand for social expenditure. For a deeper investigation, this paper revisits the dynamic relationship between social spending and public debts in the time-frequency domain, using the novel wavelet-coherency analysis as well as the phase-difference technique to derive the co-moved and causal relationships between social spending and public debts in 13 OECD countries. The evidence identifies a dynamic relationship between variables. While higher social expenditures increase government debts, the shocks from government debts to social expenditures are conversely uncertain. We discover that higher government debt does reduce social expenditures, but it may be linked to higher social spending. The robustness of partial coherency and phase-difference discovers the role of a political party in the decision over social welfare programmes in the sample countries.     

财政收入、财政支出与居民消费率

从财政政策收入分配功能的角度就财政收支对居民消费率的影响进行了理论分析,并采用全国数据和省级面板数据就财政收支对居民消费率的影响进行了实证分析。研究结果表明,我国过高的税负率对我国居民消费率的提高有负面影响,以间接税为主的财政收入结构不能实现社会财富再分配的均等化,不利于促进我国居民消费率的提高。财政消费性支出对居民消费具有挤出效应,而保障性支出有助于提高居民消费率。因此改变财政收支结构,强化财政收支的收入再分配功能是提高居民消费率的关键。     

中国式“荷兰病”与中国区域经济发展

文章从实证角度深入探讨了中国式"荷兰病"通过"支出效应"、"资源转移效应"和"人民币汇率效应"等渠道,对中国区域经济发展特别是对西部大开发的影响.文章建议适时扩大人民币汇率浮动区间,加大中央政府对中西部地区在政策和资金等方面的支持力度,以及鼓励中西部内陆地区更积极主动地改善投资环境和培育优势产业,从而减少中国式"荷兰病"对中国区域经济发展的不利影响,促进我国区域经济的协调发展.     

The effects of public spending externalities

We conduct a positive analysis on the effects of ‘externalities’ produced by government spending. To this effect, we estimate, using U.S. data, an RBC model with two salient features. First, we allow government consumption to directly affect the marginal utility of consumption. Second, we allow public capital to shift the productivity of private factors. We provide an identification analysis that supports the strategy adopted for estimating the parameters governing these two channels. On one hand, private and government consumption are robustly estimated to be substitute goods. Because of substitutability, labor supply reacts little to a government consumption shock, so the estimated output multiplier is much lower than in models with separabilities. On the other hand, our results point towards public investment being ‘unproductive’.     

论物保与人保并存纠纷中债权实现之顺位——以近五年来类案实证研究为基础

当前,物保与人保并存纠纷不断涌现,相关裁判时常冲突,引发社会关注。围绕当前物保与人保并存纠纷债权实现条款模式、关于物保与人保并存债权实现顺位之理解、债权人是否放弃物保之认定等相关问题,对近五年来最为主要的类案进行实证分析与比较研究可见,处理物保与人保并存纠纷,应当根据物保相对优先的精神,对保证人是否就放弃物保优先抗辩权重点作出判断,据此就物保与人保提供者的责任顺位作出正确裁决。     

省际亲贫式支出对国民幸福水平影响的差异化研究

本文以公共财政学、新经济地理学、空间计量经济学为理论基础,引入地理空间因素,分析了2000-2010年亲贫式支出对国民幸福水平的省际影响。研究发现：空间溢出效应明显存在;本地区每增加1%亲贫式支出会带动国民幸福指数提升范围大致在02%~1%之间,邻近地区国民幸福指数提高1%会带动本地区国民幸福指数提升07%左右;空间计量模型估计效果优于最小二乘估计效果,空间滞后模型优于空间误差模型。新经济地理学理论能够提供我国各省市亲贫式支出与国民幸福指数集聚、差异及其形成原因的部分解释。