Do Piketty and Saez Misstate Income Inequality? Critiquing the Critiques

A large body of literature points to sharply growing income inequality over the past half century. The Piketty and Saez dataset that measures income distribution provides empirical support for this claim. Our article evaluates three prominent criticisms of this dataset as well as the responses of Piketty and Saez to these criticisms. One key argument against using their dataset is that Piketty and Saez do not control for income shifting by top income earners in response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86) and thus overstate income inequality. In evaluating this criticism we find that a segment of their dataset likely understates income inequality; this is just the opposite of what critics assert. This implies that the Piketty–Saez dataset is a valuable resource for income inequality research and that scholars can use it to build more refined, accurate and insightful measures of income inequality.     

国家科技重大专项财政支持效率评价

在相关文献的基础上,选取财政支持效率评价作为突破口,研究了我国科技重大专项管理路径。分析重大专项财政投入现状发现,资金使用情况良好,支出结构基本合理,多元化投入机制逐渐建立,管理制度基本建立。同时,通过DEA和Malmquist模型评估了决策单元的综合效率值和动态效率值,结果表明,财政支持重大专项发展过程中的资源配置效率并没有实现最优。但是,通过技术创新、资源配置、规模效率等途径优化重大专项管理的效果已初步显现。效率较为低下的表象为科研活动价值补偿不足,制约因素包括：事权缺乏清晰界定且事权与支出责任不匹配、组织管理体制有待完善、实施模式缺乏清晰判断。最后,提出了建议,包括不断完善重大专项财政投入及其管理、匹配科技重大专项事权与支出责任、健全重大专项实施机制、优化管理架构。     

关于珠三角金融发展及其立法的若干思考

珠三角的金融业要在《珠江三角洲地区改革发展规划纲要》的指导下得到长足发展,必须建立和完善与其相适应的法律和机制。具体来说,应当将该纲要上升到立法层面,加快区域发展立法建设;建立试错纠错和究错机制,如完善跨境贸易人民币结算的配套立法;促进珠三角金融法制的一体化;推进区域金融中心的法制建设;健全粤港澳金融合作机制。     

福建省“十二五”期间改革发展若干问题研究

福建省在“十二五”期间应该进一步深化国有资产管理和国企改革的步伐,通过有效的改革发展壮大国有经济。应采取措施尽快促进大流通、大市场格局的形成,以完善市场体系建设。应加大对民营企业的政策扶持力度,帮助民营企业解决融资难问题,使其对福建经济的发展起更大作用。应在总结以往林权改革经验的基础上,进一步深化集体林权改革。     

改革开放前锐：中国经济特区

对中国经济特区创办30年来所取得的成就进行回顾,并对其在中国经济体制改革中的率先探索实践和对祖国和平统一所作的贡献进行了阐述,最后对其将来如何在推动科学发展、加快经济发展方式转变等方面继续发挥作用提出了见解。     

中国直接税与间接税比重变化趋势研究

直接税与间接税的比重,是税制结构研究的主要问题之一。本文通过对相关资料的整理和分析,概要描述了中国若干重要历史时期特别是新中国成立60年来历次重大税制改革以后直接税与间接税比重变化的轨迹,并探讨了上述比重变化的趋势和进一步合理调整上述比重的途径。     

我国医疗保障体系的构建时序与制度整合

国务院发布的新医改方案提出,到2020年我国要建立覆盖城乡居民的基本医疗保障体系和多层次医疗保障体系,并加以有机衔接。未来我国医疗保障体系的构建时序大致经过覆盖城乡、统筹城乡、整合城乡、城乡一体化,最后达到统一城乡的阶段。制度整合的原则包括公平优先、兼顾效率等原则,制度衔接与整合的重点领域包括新型农村合作医疗与城镇居民医疗保险衔接等四大领域以及管理机构的整合。     

股权分置改革上市公司并购格局变化与对策研究

本文认为,并购是公司资本组织方式和经济制度相互博弈的一种制度变迁。在股权分置时代上市公司的并购行为存在制度性缺陷,股权分置改革将会对上市公司的并购市场产生重大影响,并导致并购格局的重整。各方利益相关者必须对此变革采取相应对策,通过新的博弈实现最优利益均衡。     

"All Decisions Are Top-Down:" Engendering Public Expenditure in Vietnam

Between October 1999 and June 2000 a joint government-donor working group undertook a public expenditure review in Vietnam that was supposed to use "gender issues" as a cross-cutting theme. The article discusses ways in which a gender analysis could have been incorporated into a review of public expenditure, and examines why this did not happen in the end. Flaws in the process reduced the scope of gender analysis. Institutional constraints on the part of both the government and the World Bank weakened the commitment to a gender analysis. More fundamentally, however, it is argued that the methodological approach of the World Bank rendered it incapable of investigating possibly unquantifiable macrostructural and mesoinstitutional determinants of individual behavior. It is further argued that the conceptualization of social institutions offered by the World Bank with regard to gender relations fails to adequately express the extent to which social institutions are gendered.     

State ownership and firm performance: Empirical evidence from Chinese listed companies

While the relationship between state ownership and firm performance has been widely researched, the empirical evidence has provided mixed results. This study applies panel data regression techniques to 10,639 firm-year observations of non-financial Chinese listed firms during 2003–2010 to examine the relationship between state ownership and firm performance. The results show that state ownership has a U-shaped relationship with firm performance. The Split Share Structure Reform in 2005–2006 played a positive role in enhancing the relationship between state ownership and firm profitability ratios. Although state ownership decreased significantly after 2006, it remains high in strategically important industry sectors such as the oil, natural gas and mining sector and the publishing, broadcasting and media sector. The findings reveal that a higher level of state ownership is superior to a dispersed ownership structure due to the benefits of government support and political connections. The Split Share Structure Reform made previously non-tradable shares legally tradable, improving corporate governance and reducing the negative effect of non-tradable state shares.