The Great Recession,Austerity and Inequality: Lessons from Ireland

The advent of the Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and its effects. We examine how the distribution of income in Ireland—a country which experienced one of the most severe economic contractions—has evolved over the years 2008 to 2013. Standard cross‐sectional analysis of the income distribution shows broad stability in the Gini coefficient and in decile shares, with one main exception: the share of the bottom decile fell sharply, with the largest fall in average incomes being for that group. Longitudinal analysis shows that the falls in the average income for the bottom decile were not due to decreasing income for those remaining in the bottom decile, but to falls in income from those initially located in higher deciles. The extent of redistribution through taxes and transfers increased strongly, as measured by the Reynolds‐Smolensky index, which rose from 0.20 before the onset of the crisis to 0.27 in 2013. Analysis indicates that about three‐quarters of this increased redistribution is due to automatic stabilisers and one‐quarter to discretionary policy changes.     

Interest and profit

This paper argues that it is important to distinguish between the real rate of interest on money and the profitability of business enterprise. The former is a purely financial or monetary phenomenon （as claimed by Keynes） and the latter is in the nature of a surplus over and above the costs of production, including financing costs. There is an inverse relationship between the real rate of interest on money and the average mark-up or profit share. A synthetic theory of profit illustrates these points.     

慎重看待大用户直供电问题

论述了在电力市场初期我国缺少实施大用户直供电所必须具备的若干条件,分析了当前开展大用户直供电存在的问题及可能造成的影响,指出开展直供是改革的趋势但不可急于求成.     

新零售下社区生鲜配送模式的综合评价

新零售模式下社区生鲜“最后500m”的冲刺已成为生鲜农产品快速配送的关键问题。基于目前已有的配送模式:“社区+便利店”模式、第三方配送以及众包模式,通过层次分析法从服务水平、配送成本、客户体验三个方面对三种配送模式进行量化分析,得出每种配送模式在各层次的权重。研究结果表明配送中降低配送成本是关键,减少货物赔损率、提高客户满意度才能实现有效率的配送。     

Correcting for the Missing Rich: An Application to Wealth Survey Data

It is a well‐known criticism that if the distribution of wealth is highly concentrated, survey data are hardly reliable when it comes to analyzing the richest parts of society. This paper addresses this criticism by providing a general rationale of the underlying methodological problem as well as by proposing a specific methodological approach tailored to correcting the arising bias. We illustrate the latter approach by using Austrian data from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. Specifically, we identify suitable parameter combinations by using a series of maximum‐likelihood estimates and appropriate goodness‐of‐fit tests to avoid arbitrariness with respect to the fitting of the Pareto distribution. Our results suggest that the alleged non‐observation bias is considerable, accounting for about one quarter of total net wealth in the case of Austria. The method developed in this paper can easily be applied to other countries where survey data on wealth are available.     

On the dynamics of inequality

The dynamics of inequality are studied in a model of human capital accumulation with credit constraints. This model admits a multiplicity of steady state skill ratios that exhibit varying degrees of inequality across households. The main result studies equilibrium paths. It is shown that an equilibrium sequence of skill ratios must converge monotonically to the smallest steady state that exceeds the initial ratio for that sequence. Convergence is “gradual" in that the steady state is not achieved in finite time. On the other hand, if the initial skill ratio exceeds the largest steady state, convergence to a steady state is immediate.This paper is based on unpublished notes from 1990; see http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/debraj/DevEcon/Notes/incdist.pdf. Two considerations suggest that these results may be worth reporting in print. First, the existence of a sizeable recent literature indicates that these relatively early notes may have value outside a filing cabinet or a private webpage. Second, Mukul Majumdar’s own research on economic growth with a nonconvex technology is an even earlier precursor to some of this literature, so the current outlet – a special issue in his honor – seems appropriate. Conversations with Glenn Loury simplified the proof of the main result. I thank Dilip Mookherjee for many useful discussions, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Funding from the National Science Foundation under grant number 0241070 is acknowledged. This paper is dedicated with much affection and warm admiration to Mukul Majumdar – or to Mukulda, as I always think of him – on the occasion of his 60th birthday.     

A Micro-Approach for Testing Marx's LTRPF: Evidence from Greece, 2000 and 2009

This article develops a novel micro-approach for the empirical evaluation of Marx's law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Contrary to the traditional method which uses national macroeconomic data, this approach utilises data taken directly from company reports and accounts. The principal advantage of this approach is that it provides an accurate measurement of the value composition of capital, devoid of the measurement limitations of the traditional method regarding variable capital which stem from the inability to distinguish productive from unproductive labour. A disadvantage, however, is that this approach does not cover the entire national economy. The application of the proposed micro-approach to the ongoing Greek crisis yields results which are congruent with the traditional method and reinforce other recent studies linking the current crisis with low profitability.     

借贷合同案件的证明责任分配

民事案件证明责任分配不统一的问题引起学术界与司法实务界的关注。与侵权诉讼中的证明责任分配相比,合同纠纷案件的证明责任分配的争议不大。但是对同一案件或同一类案件的证明责任分配,合议庭每个成员或一审和二审或各个法院的判决持己见已经屡见不鲜。尤其是看似简单的借贷合同等案件的证明责任分配意见很难统一。运用具体诉讼具体分析、参考国外先进诉讼制度的方法探究与论证：合同案件中,客观证明责任分配不是考虑分配给原告还是被告,而是以诉讼请求为单位,在债权人和债务人之间分配的。通过验证：以上证明责任分配基准通用于各类合同案件。     

三线铁路荷载作用下箱梁桥荷载横向分布系数

文章运用有限元程序对三线铁路预应力混凝土连续箱梁桥进行了模拟,分析了三线铁路荷载作用下箱梁的受力特性及在各种荷载工况下荷载横向分布规律,给出了荷载横向系数的实用值。     

城市流通系统:研究现状与一个综合性框架

现代流通产业的发展演变过程是伴随着现代城市的产生与发展过程进行的,现代城市是现代流通产业的载体,而城市则因为流通产业的发展而发展、壮大.因而,流通问题与城市问题是密不可分的.目前城市流通问题的研究集中在商业地理学领域,而传统流通理论则游离于该领域之外,这种游离造成了该领域研究的一些问题.本文在比较全面地回顾和评述了国内外学者对城市流通问题研究现状的基础上提出了一个综合性的研究框架,以期为城市流通问题的研究提供新的视角.