Trends in British public investment

British public investment has declined sharply both as a share of GDP and as a share of government spending since the 1970s. Only part of this decline is explained by privatisation, which transferred some public investment to the private sector. More important was the very large and permanent reduction in public house‐building between the mid‐1970s and the early 1980s. Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the rate of public investment recovered somewhat, but after that time it declined again, reaching a record low in 1999. The most recent decline in public investment has affected a range of central government programmes, and it has not been significantly offset by investment under the Private Finance Initiative. The government now plans to increase investment spending, although levels look set to remain low by historical standards for some time to come.     

Does a Switch of Budget Regimes Affect Investment and Managerial Discretion of State-Owned Enterprises? Evidence from Italian Firms

We investigate the investment decisions of Italian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across budget constraint regimes and carry out a natural experiment that exploits a regime switch in 1987. Drawing on the theory of capital market imperfections, we apply an empirical framework for investment analysis to a panel of manufacturing SOEs in competitive industries. We identify parallels between SOEs and widely held, quoted companies afflicted by agency problems, managerial discretion, and overinvestment. We argue that, in the case of SOEs, the soft budget regime increases managerial discretion, facilitates collusion with vote-seeking politicians, and results in wasteful investment. Consistent with our predictions, we find that the regime switch disciplines SOE's investment behavior. Following a hardening of the budget constraint, managers lose discretion to indulge in collusion and overinvestment. J. Comp. Econ., June 2002 30(4), pp. 787–811. London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom; and CERIS–CNR, Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth, National Research Council, Via Avogadro, 8, 10121 Turin, Italy. © 2002 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E32, G31, G32, L32, M40.     

论我国人力资本的现状及投资对策

本文从阐述知识经济时代人力资本对经济增长的重要性入手，结合我国人力资本的现状，分析其存在的问题与不足，进而提出相应的建设性投资建议，以充分发挥人力资本对经济增长的直接动力作用。     

峰荷需求、资本配置效率与中国网络型基础产业投融资机制改革——对阿弗奇-约翰逊模型的一个扩展

阿弗奇—约翰逊模型(A—J模型)表明规制对象具有过度使用资本倾向,相应的实证检验中同时存在肯定和否定的结果,但基本的A—J模型、已有扩展和实证检验都忽略了受规制行业的峰荷需求特征。本文从基本的A—J模型出发,假定生产要素单位使用成本与规制机构所认可的单位核算成本不同,考察了峰荷需求特征下受规制网络型基础产业的投资行为,提供了资本配置效率的衡量标准。本文的基本结论在于,峰荷需求条件下受规制企业不一定投资过多,这也解释了为何A—J效应的实证检验存在相互矛盾的结果。     

开放式基金投资风格浅析

近年来，开放式基金在我国发展极为迅速，在数量不断增加的同时，呈现出的风格日趋多样化。面对种类繁多的开放式基金，投资者很难分清哪种投资风格更适合自己的风险偏好，因而投资风格逐渐成为基金最重要的识别系统之一。本文首先介绍了开放式基金的定义，其次，根据财务指标对开放式基金的投资风格进行分类并描述不同类型基金的特点。最后分析了基金最终风格出现趋同的原因。     

提高博士生培养质量刍议

本文通过数据统计实证分析 ,发现浙江省的民营经济与国有经济在资金投入产出上存在严重的不对称 ,从而制约了民营企业的活力和快速发展 ,得出了改变对民营企业的传统偏见 ,为其提供一个宽松、公平、合理、有效的环境 ,加大国有金融机构对民营经济的信贷倾斜 ,设立专门为民营企     

出口、对外直接投资与企业的异质性研究

出口和对外直接投资是一国企业进入国外市场的两种重要模式，本文通过建立一个简单的理论模型来分析企业对这两种进入模式的选择问题。本文将企业异质性引入模型分析，同时将企业的R＆D活动作为内生变量来进行研究。在理论分析的基础上，本文结合中国出口和对外直接投资发展的实际情况提出了相关政策建议。     

Bureaucratic integration and regional specialization in China

Fiscal decentralization introduced as part of China's economic reform since 1979 has unleashed strong incentives for China's local governments to pursue economic development, but the same incentives have also led to local protectionist policies inhibiting the process of regional specialization. This paper focuses on the constraints or freedom with which local governments can implement their protectionist policies. Using a panel data of 29 China's regions over the time period of 1985–1997, we find that China's political system of bureaucratic integration (specifically, concurrent appointment of local government officials in the central government) imposes constraints on the local governments from practicing protectionism. We also find that the effectiveness of local protectionist policies is limited by market competition, specifically, competition from foreign-invested firms operating in China and foreign imports. Our results on the role of local protectionism remain robust to controls for the regional variations in the size of the economy and the stage of economic development.     

Does direct foreign investment affect domestic credit constraints?

Firms in developing countries cite credit constraints as one of their primary obstacles to investment. Direct foreign investment may ease credit constraints by bringing in scarce capital. Alternatively, if foreign firms borrow heavily from domestic banks, they may crowd local firms out of domestic capital markets. Using firm data from the Ivory Coast, we test whether: (1) domestic firms are more credit constrained than foreign firms, and (2) whether borrowing by foreign firms exacerbates domestic firm credit constraints. Results provide support for both hypotheses. We also find that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are less financially constrained than other domestic enterprises.     

The complex integration strategies of multinationals and cross country dependencies in the structure of foreign direct investment

The behavior of many multinational enterprises is not well described by existing models of foreign direct investment (FDI). Firms often follow strategies that involve vertical integration in some countries and horizontal integration in others, a strategy known as complex integration. This paper presents a three-country model that is used to analyze why firms might follow a strategy of complex integration. My analysis reveals that complex integration strategies create complementarities between potential host countries that have important implications for the structure of FDI. The analysis also shows that falling transport cost between countries may increase the importance of complex integration strategies.