THE PRICE LEVEL, THE QUANTITY THEORY OF MONEY, AND THE FISCAL THEORY OF THE PRICE LEVEL

This paper examines price‐level determination from the perspective of portfolio choice. Arbitrages among money balances, bonds, and investment goods determine their relative demands. Returns to real balance holdings and after‐tax returns to investment goods determine the relative values of nominal and real assets. Because expectations of government policies ultimately determine the expected returns to both nominal and real assets, the price level depends on interactions among current and expected future monetary and fiscal policies. The quantity theory and the fiscal theory emerge as special cases produced by restricting both the margins and the policies considered.     

Patching up the Pact

The paper considers the implications for the EU accession candidates of Central and Eastern Europe of the fiscal‐financial constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact and the Maastricht Treaty. Our findings apply also to those current EU members whose initial conditions (e.g., infrastructure and progress in state pension reform) or other structural characteristics (e.g., demographic structure, growth potential, Balassa‐Samuelson equilibrium real exchange rate appreciation) differ significantly from the EU average. We find the existing criteria to be seriously flawed and propose an alternative rule, the Permanent Balance Rule, based on a strong form of tax smoothing.     

Positive Accounting: An Assessment

Positive accounting theory, using the book of the same name by Watts and Zimmerman (1986) as the primary source of information about that theory, is subjected to scrutiny. The two pillars — (a) value-free study of (b) accounting practices — upon which the legitimacy of that theory are said to rest (and the absence of which is said to make other theories illegitimate) are found to be insubstantial. The claim that authorities — economic and scientific — support the type of theory espoused is found to be mistaken. The accomplishments — actual and potential — of positive theory are found to have been nil, and are projected to continue to be nil. Based on these findings, the recommendation is to classify positive accounting theory as a 'cottage industry' at the periphery of accounting thought and reject its attempt to take centre stage by radically redefining the fundamental question of accounting.     

Estimating the export and import demand for manufactured goods: The role of FDI

In this paper we estimate the demand for exports and imports of manufactured goods for a panel containing the majority of the EU countries as well as the United States and Japan. The model includes as explanatory factors both the traditional determinants of trade and also the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI). We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests allowing for heterogeneity. Whereas there is no evidence of cointegration when using just the traditional formulation, the results are favorable to the existence of long-run relationships linking the variables of the augmented model. Moreover, the results point mainly to a complementary relationship between trade and FDI.     

财政风险:防范的路径与方法

公共风险是财政风险的源头.防范财政风险,应至少从4个方面入手:一是通过制度创新来控制公共风险,从而有效地减少财政风险;二是减少政府干预公共风险中的各种失误,防范由此而引发新的财政风险;三是建立风险管理机制,打破"风险大锅饭",抑制道德风险,减少风险的积聚和集中;四是增强政府抗风险能力.     

Fiscal federalism in Russia: a critique of the OECD proposals

The OECD proposes to kill two birds with one stone in Russiaby simultaneously improving fiscal federalism, and using thefinancial reform process to press for full market liberalisation.This paper scrutinises the initiative and finds it wanting becausethe consensus reforms advocated conflate the re-centralisationof fiscal authority with optimal ownership, property rightsand effective market building, perpetuating the illusion thatthere are no bad market systems. The G-7 and Putin must do better.Yeltsin's mis-privatisation and mis-liberalisation, which spawnedrent seeking, asset stripping, asset seizing and a disregardfor profit maximising from current operations, have proved tobe path dependent and need to be rectified. Putin's increasinglyvisible efforts to rein private property rights must also betaken into account in designing on optimal fiscal federalistregime.     

简析公共财政体系下财政支出结构的调整

本文以公共财政理论为基础,针对我国现阶段所进行的经济体制改革,从行政管理支出、社会保障支出、科技事业支出三个方面对财政支出结构调整做了简要分析。     

FOSTERING OR STRIPPING RURAL CHINA: MODERNIZING AGRICULTURE AND RURAL TO URBAN CAPITAL FLOWS

The present study focuses on the flow of fiscal and financial resources in China's rural economy during the first two decades of reform. Specifically, we seek to quantify the nature and direction of the capital flows between agriculture and the non‐agricultural sectors and between the rural and non‐rural sectors. We track identify the flows of three main sources of capital: fiscal flows, financial shifts through the formal banking system, and the implicit taxes that are moving through the grain system as a result of payment of in‐kind (e.g., delivery quotas by farmers). Through this analysis, we provide policy makers with a set of measures showing that although in recent years the agriculture‐to‐industry and rural‐to‐urban flows have appeared to reverse themselves, as late as 2000 it does not appear as if the government is not directing enough resources into the rural economy. Greater flows, however, are needed if rural China is to modernize.     

A dynamic model of fiscal reconstruction

This paper investigates dynamic properties of fiscal reconstruction by analyzing the infinite duration differential game among interest groups with a framework of voluntary acceptance of tax burden. By comparing the first-best solution of fiscal reconstruction, the open-loop Nash equilibrium path, and the feedback Nash equilibrium path, we highlight the free-riding behavior of interest groups in the process of fiscal reconstruction. We derive explicitly the target levels of government debt and primary expenditures, and the adjustment speed of fiscal reconstruction under the respective solutions. We also examine the impacts of consumption taxes on their adjustment speeds as well as long-run outcomes of the respective paths.     

生态经济理论与生态经济发展走势探讨

本文阐述了生态经济学历程和阶段理论突破,即生态“资本”观,生态与可持续发展,生态与产权制度安排三大突破,在此基础上阐明世界生态经济发展的五大走势,即生态建设成为宏观政策主要目标,企业成为生态经济主体,生态产业快速长成,高新技术成为生态产业的增长动力,绿色消费成为全球新时尚。