Are We Better Off if Our Politicians Have More Information?

The model of public policy studied in this paper has heterogeneous citizens/voters and two public goods: one (roads) chosen directly by an elected policy‐maker, and the other (pollution) stochastically dependent on the amount of roads. Both a one‐country and a two‐country version of the model are analyzed; the latter displays externalities across the countries which create incentives for free riding and strategic delegation. The welfare effects of providing the policy‐maker with information about the relationship between roads and pollution are investigated, and it is shown that more information hurts some—sometimes even all—citizens. In particular, the opportunity not to create an institution for information gathering can serve as a commitment device for a country, although with the unfortunate effect of making the overall outcome even worse. Implications for the welfare effects of “informational lobbying” are also discussed.     

National Income Accounting and Public Policy

Modern national income accounting was designed in the early 20th century for the purpose of providing improved indicators about the performance of the economy so that government policy makers could better control the economy. The way that performance is measured affects the types of policies used to try to accomplish policy goals. Two attributes of national income accounting are analyzed for their effects on economic policy. First, government production is included in the national income accounts at cost, rather than at market value as private sector output is measured. This biases policy toward a larger public sector. Second, output is measured as a homogeneous dollar amount. This biases policy toward focusing on increasing quantities of inputs and outputs in the production process, rather than on innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the true engines of economic progress. Economic policy could be improved by focusing less on national income as an indicator of policy, and more on the underlying processes that foster economic progress.     

弱化我国货币政策传导机制因素探讨

当前我国货币政策传导机制不顺畅，其主要原因是：需求不足制约了中央银行货币供给，经济实体经济结构与金融经济结构的不对称阻碍了货币政策传导的信贷渠道，传导机制的机构活力不足，金融市场发育不成熟使货币政策实施的有效空间减少，等等。因此，必须认真研究提高货币政策传导效率的途径，使中央银行货币政策意图顺利实现。     

国际投资税收政策对跨国企业集团投资战略的影响

由于各国经济发展水平、经济资源优势和经济国际化程度不同,各国都制定符合各自经济政策目标的国际投资税收政策,采取的税收优惠政策的侧重点也各不相同。跨国企业集团在制定投资战略时应注重分析各国引导投资的侧重点并充分加以利用,在投资战略选择中,必须慎重确定投资所在国的重点优惠项目或重点优惠地区,全面考虑投资国和投资所在国之间的国际税收协调性,正确认识资本投入量同税收负担与其他投资环境要素之间的关系。应以全球的观点进行国际化投资战略规划,以谋求集团整体税收负担的最小化和整体投资收益的最大化     

Airbus versus Boeing revisited: international competition in the aircraft market

This paper examines international competition in the commercial aircraft industry. We estimate a discrete choice, differentiated products demand system for wide-body aircraft and examine the Airbus-Boeing rivalry under various assumptions on firm conduct. We then use this structure to evaluate two trade disputes between the United States and European Union. Our results suggest that aircraft prices increased by about 3.7% after the 1992 US-EU agreement on trade in civil aircraft that limits subsidies. This price hike is consistent with a 5% increase in firms' marginal costs after the subsidy cuts. We also simulate the impact of the future entry of the Airbus A-380 super-jumbo aircraft on the demand for other wide-bodied aircraft, notably the Boeing 747. We find that the A-380 could reduce the market share of the 747 by up to 14.8 percentage points in the long-range wide-body market segment (depending upon the discounts offered on the A-380), but would reduce the market for Airbus's existing wide-bodies by an even greater margin.     

Managing Strategic Alliances in China （1）-Background and Experience

Creating effective strategic alliance is a useful method for the global expansion of international companies and managing strategic alliances is an important research project to the success of strategic alliances. This paper focuses on the practical problems of strategic alliances in China and explores how to manage such alliances. This research aims to introduce the basic background of strategic alliances, analyzes the primary reason for the current situations of strategic alliances, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of strategic alliances, gives the successful factors managing strategic alliances and discusses what should be done in the future research about strategic alliances？     

Tinbergen in De Economist

Jan Tinbergen's scientific writings cover six main areas of research. His articles in De Economist represent these areas; in some cases the contributions to De Economist were of a pioneering nature (business cycles, economic models, economic integration); in others De Economist was the first or even single outlet for Tinbergen's work. This article provides an overview of these contributions. The wide scope of Tinbergen's areas of research goes together with a unity in approach, the characteristics of which are: policy relevance, quantification and measurement, balance in analysis and presentation, and learning from experience. Tinbergen's articles in De Economist bear witness to this approach which at the time also met with scepticism and resistance as this overview shows. According to Houthakker, Tinbergen's main contribution may be that, amidst the pleas of interest groups and the slogans of the laity, an attempt is made that the voice of the professional economic researcher be heard. Tinbergen's work still sets an agenda for both economic research and policy making.     

LABOUR SUPPLY ESTIMATION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract. Economists devote considerable energies towards refining their econometric techniques to overcome difficulties connected with conducting empirical research. Despite advances in technique. it is not clear whether further refinement in this direction is worthwhile for policy purposes. It may be that no further amount of statistical adjustment of inadequate data will increase understanding, and that better data is simply necessary to add to our knowledge. But rarely is sufficient credit paid to new forms of data. In short, econometric technique is emphasized to the neglect of data innovation, as if new data were merely lying about waiting for an ingenious suggestion for use. This paper surveys advances of the last twenty five years in estimating labour supply for policy purposes with a view towards appreciating the relative contribution of both improvements in econometric technique as well as developments of new data.
After briefly detailing the key parameters which economists have sought to estimate, we describe the early 'first generation' research (circa 1970), which is plagued by problems of unobservable variables, measurement errors, truncation and selectivity bias, and non linear budget constraints. 'Second generation' research constitute attempts to resolve one or more of these difficulties, and the respective contribution of econometric technique and new data is acknowledged and assessed, including the contribution of data generated by large scale social experiments in which participants are randomly assigned to different guaranteed income plans and their labour supply behaviour measured.     

国有经济结构分析与调整对策

国有经济战略调整是中央提出的国有企业改革和发展的重要目标。在计划经济体制向市场经济体制的转轨过程中，国有经济的分布仍不够合理，国有企业在竞争领域仍然占有很大的比重，在经济结构的优化方面仍然存在着一些不容忽视的问题。因此，对这一问题的深入研究，具有重要意义。