Do health system reforms stand a chance?

While most major reforms of health systems fail, those that succeed are motivated by politicians' quest for reducing the health burden on their budget in response to a shift in voters' preferences away from public health. An Edgeworth box is used to depict their preferences, in addition to those of (potential) patients and health‐care providers. Politicians are found to severely constrain the area of mutual advantage, suggesting that only minor reforms are possible unless they promise to lower health‐care expenditure. An efficiency‐enhancing change that would enlarge the box and hence the area of mutual advantage would be to suppress the requirement imposed on health insurers to purchase domestically, rather than being free to directly import health‐care services and drugs.     

交通运输行业超限超载与黑车治理困境及突围——来自赏金猎人制度的借鉴

交通治理现代化是交通强国建设的重要支撑。交通运输行业超限超载与黑车现象屡禁不止的现实困境,一方面源于早期制度设计阶段遗留的逻辑障碍,一方面源于目前缺乏行之有效的规则来对此类问题进行限制和制约。尽管各级政府对黑车治理高度重视并采取了多种措施,但依然存在黑车辨识难、管理成本高、效率低等问题,尚未达到我国现有施政路线的要求。鉴于此,可抓住管理型政府向服务型政府转型的契机,遵循合法、合理、高效、经济的原则,通过比较分析美国赏金猎人制度来形成制度改革的借鉴。赏金猎人模式作为国外长期摸索得到的经验,有很多值得参考之处。现阶段,赏金猎人模式在我国已经具备试行的基础条件,不仅能够开拓视野,为当前我国面临的交通运输行业治理问题提供制度层面的启示,而且更为重要的是,能够为解决我国超限超载与黑车治理问题提供新的思路。当然,为避免简单借鉴或全盘照搬而导致的水土不服等落地性难题,需要围绕黑车治理困境和超限超载运输这两个具象背景,对不同国别法律解释上的差异加以创新并实现本地化,使之在立法层面稳固的前提下展示其优越性。     

A critical review of the 2015 South Korean civil service pension reform

The Republic of Korea’s civil service pension (KCSP) was established in 1960 and has been changed several times to overcome the serious financial burdens it has placed on the country. Major problems related to the KCSP include its structure (low contribution and high benefit) and the country’s rapidly aging population. The authors examine the 2015 KCSP reform, reviewing the reasons for the reform, its process, and its fiscal and policy implications. Reforms in other countries are briefly compared. The paper provides important lessons for researchers and practitioners involved in public sector pension reforms.     

供给侧结构性改革进程中技术创新效率研究

本文以生产要素内部配置结构调整对边际产出弹性影响为基础,建立包含生产要素内部配置结构的科布-道格拉斯生产函数,对中国工业企业技术创新效率进行实证分析。主要结论有:区域外商投资工业企业比例的增加能提升资本和劳动力边际产出弹性;区域内资工业企业比例的增加能提升劳动力边际产出弹性;政府科技资助与工业企业技术创新效率之间并非简单的线性关系。提高工业企业技术创新效率需要政府科技资助形成一定规模;劳动者素质提高对工业企业技术创新效率产生积极影响。政策建议是:继续加大对外开放力度,优化区域生产要素配置结构;扩大政府科技资助规模,优化政府科技资助结构;有效引导高素质人才流动。     

Enhanced Special Drawing Rights: How China Could Contribute to a Reformed International Monetary Architecture

Since the end of the Bretton Woods era, the world has operated on a de facto system of free‐floating exchange rates, with the US dollar as the dominant international currency. The system, characterized by large pro‐cyclical capital flows and chronic imbalances, is inherently unstable, and has contributed to repeated crises, recessions and geopolitical tensions. One potentially “least‐difficult” line of reform would be to allow the evolution of a multi‐currency system, underpinned by an expanded role for Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Attempts to promote wider use of the SDR have foundered on the liquidity premium. However, for Chinese corporations and institutions, at present restricted in their capital account activities, the SDR liquidity premium would appear less daunting. The Chinese authorities could provide policy encouragement for the use of SDRs by their institutions. This initiative, supported by China's Special Administrative Region Hong Kong, would kick‐start an international SDR ecosystem, and encourage even broader use of SDRs, to the benefit of international monetary stability.     

组合式房产税改革的宏观经济效应 ——兼顾居民用房与商业用房的DSGE框架分析

本文通过构建包含房产税的动态随机一般均衡（DSGE）框架，兼顾居民用房与商业用房，模拟分析房产税改革对主要宏观经济变量的影响。研究结果表明：（1）提高居民用房房产税税率对总消费、投资、房价和总产出等变量的均衡值和波动均以负面影响为主，但会降低社会福利损失；（2）降低商业用房房产税税率对总消费、投资、房价和总产出等变量的均衡值和波动均以正面影响为主，但会提高社会福利损失；（3）提高居民用房房产税税率与降低商业用房房产税税率同时实施时，不仅能够对冲居民用房房产税改革对宏观经济的负面影响，尤其是能够有效对冲改革对投资和总产出的负面影响，还会降低社会福利损失。因此，中国下一步试点改革应当重点关注组合式改革方案。     

Class formation and commodity chains in the making of regional monocultures: Agrarian reform from above and below in Mexico's henequen and cotton zones

This paper analyses the rise and fall of two regional monocultures in Mexico: the henequen zone in the southern state of Yucatán and the cotton‐growing area of La Laguna. Both regions experienced a dramatic expansion of commodity production between 1870 and 1910, but their key crops came to be cultivated under different labour regimes: debt peonage in the case of henequen and wage labour in the case of cotton. The process of class formation that unfolded in each region culminated in the 1930s in different kinds of crises. In Yucatán, a political struggle between hacienda owners and the federal government resulted in an agrarian reform “from above.” In La Laguna, class conflict between rural wageworkers and the landed bourgeoisie forced an agrarian reform “from below.” These previously distinct labour regimes converged in subsequent decades, however, as rural producers became de facto wageworkers on state‐organized and state‐administered production units known as collective ejidos. Ultimately, changes in the global markets for cotton and henequen, combined with the inability of the Mexican state to reconcile the political logic of agrarian clientelism with shifting commodity chain dynamics, resulted in the collapse of these regional monocultures in the late 20th century.     

Ideological taboos,entry barriers,and FDI attraction: Evidence from China

Developing and transitional countries often impose a wide variety of entry barriers on foreign direct investments (FDIs). One important reason behind these entry barriers is ideological taboos. However, do these taboos actually affect the inflow of FDIs? With the help of China’s “cultural system reform,” this study uses a panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities in China for 1994–2017 and the difference-in-differences method to evaluate the effect of the cultural system reform on regional FDI. We found that the cultural system reform remarkably promoted the inflow of FDIs by deregulating institutions and removing entry barriers, and the attraction of FDI has slowly increased along with the deepening of the reform. Our conclusions still hold after performing several robustness tests, thereby highlighting ideologies as important barriers to the inflow of FDIs into less developed countries.     

The Feasibility of the Double‐Dividend Hypothesis in a Democratic Economy

The two dividends in the double‐dividend hypothesis are assumed to be independent. This assumption can be misleading when it comes to formulating policy. I construct a model where the pollution tax rate is voted for by heterogeneous people. In addition to the revenue‐recycling effect, the equilibrium pollution tax rate depends on two opposite forces: the tax‐cutting effect and the profit effect. The two forces show that an instrument that exploits a greater revenue‐recycling effect can cause a more severe environmental deterioration, thereby resulting in the infeasibility of the hypothesis. The introduction of the interdependence between the two dividends can also mean that non‐revenue‐raising instruments are more efficient than revenue‐raising instruments.     

现代治理视域下行政审批机构改革研究

推进行政审批机构改革是新时代完善现代国家治理体系和提升现代国家治理能力的必然要求。行政审批局改革模式的现代治理意涵在于优化配置制度建设主体要素以及重构革新治理主体组织结构,并在制度依据、机制运行和治理效能三个层面建构起改革运行机理。尽管通过集中审批权限、实现"一枚印章管审批"大力提升了审批效率,但行政审批局模式依然面临有悖"职权法定"、纵横协调不足、制度建设不充分和资源配置不合理的四重困境。现代治理视域下,应从树立科学合理的审批改革理念、完善行政审批机构改革的顶层设计以及创新行政审批局具体工作模式等方面不断完善和深化行政审批机构改革。