破解外向型经济生态瓶颈的法律思考——从我国资源环境逆差谈起

资源环境逆差是对贸易成效的一种环境评估指标。目前,我国对外贸易中环境成本外部化的问题比较严重。应从资源安全与防止污染转嫁两方面着手平抑资源环境逆差,一方面,通过完善资源有偿使用制度、资源储备制度,广泛推行国际领域的资源合作与开发,缓解我国目前资源紧缺的现状;另一方面,通过建构贸易政策的环境影响评价制度和征收污染税,防止国际贸易带来的污染转嫁,最终实现我国对外贸易的结构性转型。     

中国财政风险两大警戒线的测算研究

在国际金融危机仍在蔓延和深化的条件下,我国于2008年重启的积极财政政策将持续较长时间,但由此导致的财政风险将对积极财政政策能走多远产生重要影响.本文在模型推导基础上,对我国财政风险两大警戒线进行实证测算,认为运用<马约>中所谓的"国际警戒线"来判断中国财政风险状况并不科学合理.主要研究发现:(1)我国财政赤字率和公债负担率的警戒线分别约为4.05%、49.05%,这与<马约>中的财政标准有较大差异.(3)以测算出的财政风险两大警戒线为评判基准,发现目前我国财政风险状况尚处于可控的、安全的区间,如2008年我国实际的财政赤字率和公债负担率尚与警戒线值分别相差约3.68%和31.33%,即具有较大的政策回旋余地和操作空间.     

中国资本流对中美贸易逆差的影响

本文从中国银行信贷和海外上市公司融资额两股资本流变化对中美贸易逆差影响的新角度,分析了中美贸易逆差未来的可持续性问题。文章揭示了两个方面的内容:首先通过实证分析得到了中国目前的资本流变化是维持中美贸易逆差上升原因之一的结论,并据历史经验等分析方法,预计了资本项目的开放对美国目前以资本顺差融资高消费这一循环过程将有平缓的促进作用;另一方面本文从未来投资者投资偏好的转向,及公债供应国未来可能出现的金融行为逆转两方面分析了中国政府对美国公债的购买这一投资策略的可持续性。文章最后从国际合作、共赢、共荣的角度,提出了解决该问题的突破口。     

The Great Escape: The Multinational Trade Deficit in Historical Perspective

During the Bretton Woods era, the debate surrounding U.S. export sales versus U.S. multinational production focused primarily on the maintenance of pegged exchange rates and labor’s concern over the export of jobs. The collapse of Bretton Woods gave at least the hope that a decline in the dollar would expand exports and limit imports. Yet, the forty-year secular decline in the dollar has been one with a secular expansion of U.S. trade deficits. The older concerns of U.S. multinational sales competing with U.S. exports retain a current relevance. They help explain the unending nature of U.S. trade deficits.     

The impact of tourism on deficit in balance of payments of Pakistan: an application of bounds testing approach to cointegration

The current study is intended to analyze the long-run relationship between deficit in balance of payments (BOPs) and tourism for the period of 1976–2015 using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The findings of the paper exposed an indirect relationship between tourism and BOP deficit in the context of Pakistan economy, while deficit balance of trade, real effective exchange rate, and deficit in fiscal balance have a positive and significant association with the deficit in the BOPs in the long run. Based on the findings, it is recommended that policies should be devised that promote the tourism industry of Pakistan as it would be helpful in reducing the deficit in the BOPs.     

Are Private Vices Public Finance Virtues? An Empirical Investigation

The article investigates the impact of widely accepted private vices (smoking and alcohol and gasoline consumption) on public finance. Introducing the concept of “vice-related deficit,” which aggregates the positive effects on public finance on the revenue side (cash inflows) and the negative effects on the expenditures side (cash outflows), the article looks upon cigarette, alcohol, and gasoline consumption as determinants of vice-related deficit for a number of 68 countries for year 2012. We found that smoking had a negative effect on vice-related budget balance, while alcohol and gasoline consumption had a positive effect. As control variables, we used life expectancy and size of the economy, both having been found with negative effects. The results prove robust to different sample adjustments. We also found that the negative effect of private vices on public finance is stronger for Christian countries than for non-Christian countries. Policy recommendations were made accordingly.     

财政政策与经常项目赤字关系研究

经常项目赤字是货币危机或金融危机的主要原因之一。财政政策作为政府调控经常的一个重要政策工具，对经常项目有显著影响。本文从理论和实践上对财政政策与经常项目赤字之间的关系进行了深入研究。并且分析了当前我国所执行的扩张性的财政政策对我国经常项目的平衡可能产生的不利影响。最后对改善我国经常项目提出了一些财政对策。     

Is it all about awareness? The normalization of coastal risk

Coastal risk is already high in several parts of the world and is expected to be amplified by climate change, which makes it necessary to outline effective risk management strategies. Risk managers assume that increasing awareness of coastal risk is the key to public support and endorsement of risk management strategies – an assumption that underlies a common worldview on the public understanding of science, which has been named the deficit model. We argue that the effects of awareness are not as straightforward. In particular, awareness of coastal hazards might not lead to more technically accurate risk perceptions. Based on research on risk perception normalization, we explored the hypothesis that coastal risk awareness reduces coastal risk perception – in particular the perceived likelihood of occurrence of coastal hazards – through its effect on reliance on protective measures to prevent risk. Individuals can rely on protective measures, even when those are not effective, as a positive illusion to reduce risk perception. This effect might be stronger for higher probability hazards and for permanent residents of costal zones. Data from 410 individuals living in coastal zones corroborated most of our expectations. Global results demonstrated a risk normalization effect mediated by reliance on current measures. Additional analyses made clear that this effect occurred in 2 of the 5 high-probability hazards (flood and storm), and not in the low-probability hazard (tsunami). Normalization might be more likely among high-probability hazards which entail catastrophic and immediate impacts. This effect was also found among permanent residents, but not among temporary residents. Results imply that coastal risk management might benefit from (a) taking risk perception normalization effects into account, (b) tailoring strategies for permanent and temporary residents and (c) promoting a higher public engagement, which would facilitate a more adaptive and effective coping with coastal risk than the use of positive illusions.     

Fiscal Consolidation and the Public Sector Balance Sheet in South Africa

Between 1994 and 2008 the South African government reduced its debt/GDP ratio from almost 50% to 27%. Unfortunately this reduction was accompanied by a significant decrease in government's fixed capital/GDP ratio from 90% to 55% – fiscal sustainability might have been restored, but government's balance sheet did not improve. A similar story can be told for State Owned Enterprises. Since the Great Recession the fiscal situation worsened markedly – the public debt ratio again approaches 50%. To restore fiscal sustainability this article suggests that the government faces two options: (1) to create room for future countercyclical policy, the government must cut current expenditure and reduce the public debt/GDP ratio to its pre‐crisis level, or (2) substitute much‐needed infrastructure capital expenditure for current expenditure while stabilising the debt/GDP ratio at its post‐crisis level. Given that the much lower fixed capital/GDP ratio inhibits economic growth, the latter option might be more sensible.     

Twin deficits and fiscal spillovers in the EMU's periphery. A Keynesian perspective

The objective of this paper is to shed light on the twin deficit hypothesis in Southern Europe and the MENA region, taking into account fiscal spillovers from the core during the global crisis. Using Godley and Lavoie (2007)'s baseline model, we first show that fiscal shocks from a core region could aggravate macroeconomic imbalances in the periphery. We then gather data from the period 1977–2016 for ten MENA and peripheral EMU countries, and model the twin deficit hypothesis in the presence of fiscal spillover with a P-VARX methodology. Our results highlight that fiscal balance, current account, and GDP growth rates in the EMU's periphery are negatively affected by fiscal consolidations in the core. Fiscal discipline in surplus countries is tantamount to a ‘beggar thy neighbor’ effect on the periphery, in times of crisis. We discuss the implications of our results to propose further international coordination of macroeconomic policies.