REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT DEBT IN A BORROWING‐CONSTRAINED ECONOMY

We develop a two‐period, three‐class of income model where low‐income agents are borrowing constrained because of capital market imperfections, and where redistributive expenditure is financed by tax and government debt. When the degree of capital market imperfection is high, there is an ends‐against‐the‐middle equilibrium where the constrained low‐income and the unconstrained high‐income agents favour low levels of government debt and redistributive expenditure; these agents form a coalition against the middle. In this equilibrium, the levels of government debt and expenditure might be below the efficient levels, and the spread of income distribution results in a lower debt‐to‐GDP ratio.     

Currency substitution,risk premia and the Taylor principle

This paper studies the equilibrium determinacy properties of a simple interest rate rule in a small open economy subject to currency substitution (i.e., the use of a foreign currency for domestic transactions) and risk premia on foreign borrowing. It shows that if currencies are substitute in the provision of liquidity services the rule׳s response to inflation has to be sufficiently above unity for the equilibrium to be locally determinate. This reinforced Taylor principle requirement appears to be more binding in economies characterized by a larger elasticity of currency substitution, more debt-elastic country risk premia, and intermediate degrees of dollarization in transactions.     

国家标准《数值修约规则与极限数值的表示和判定》在车用汽油胶质含量测定中的应用

本文根据胶质含量测定试验方法的要求，以车用汽油中胶质含量（包括未洗胶质含量和溶剂洗胶质含量）测定为例，探讨了0．5单位数值修约、极限数值的表示和判定在胶质含量测定数据处理和结果判定中的应用。目的在于使车用汽油产品检测工作中在数据处理、报告和结果判定方面更加规范和统一。     

Political economy of taxation,debt ceilings,and growth

This study presents voting on policies, including labor and capital income taxes and public debt, in an overlapping-generations model with physical and human capital accumulation, and analyzes the effects of a debt ceiling on a government's policy formation and its impact on growth and welfare. The results show that the debt ceiling induces the government to shift the tax burdens from the older to younger generations, but stimulates physical capital accumulation and may increase public education expenditure, resulting in a higher growth rate. Alternatively, the debt ceiling is measured from the viewpoint of a benevolent planner and lowering the debt ceiling (i.e., tightening fiscal discipline) makes it possible for the government to approach the planner's allocation in an aging society.     

Monetary policy rules with PID control features: evidence from the UK,USA and EU

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the extent to which the monetary policy operations of three major central banks can be regarded as an application of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control rules. The paper outlines the general PID framework and estimates a series of dynamic models to identify how interest rate policy adjustments are affected by the rate of inflation and the level of macroeconomic activity. The paper examines data for the UK, the USA and the Eurozone. The results suggest that the PID rules can provide a useful theoretical and empirical framework for estimating central bank responses to the inflation and macroeconomic activity variables by improving the explanatory power of the Taylor rule model and determining the effect of the parameters.     

Can Bitcoin become money? The monetary rule problem

The growing literature on Bitcoin can be divided into two groups. One performs an economic analysis of Bitcoin focusing on its monetary characteristics. The other one takes a financial look at the price of Bitcoin. Interestingly, both of these groups have not given much more than passing comments to the problem of whether or not Bitcoin has the right monetary rule in order to become a well‐established currency. This paper argues that Bitcoin in particular, and cryptocurrencies in general, do not have a good monetary rule and that this shortcoming seriously limits its prospect of becoming widely used money.     

Income Taxation and the Diversity of Consumer Goods: A Political Economy Approach*

After‐tax income inequality has risen since the mid‐1990s, as increases in market income inequality have not been offset by greater fiscal redistribution. We argue that the substantial increase in the diversity of consumer goods has mitigated mounting political pressures for redistribution. Within a probabilistic voting framework, we demonstrate that if the share of diversified goods in the consumption bundle increases sufficiently with income, then an increase in goods diversity can reduce the political equilibrium tax rate. Focusing on OECD countries, we find empirical support for both the model's micro‐political foundations and the implied relation between goods diversity and fiscal policy outcomes.     

新规则实施对空手道裁判员执裁的影响

世界空手道联盟(WKF)2011年12月颁布最新修改审定的《空手道比赛规则》。规则是构建训练和比赛体系的向导,裁判员对规则的理解和执行是比赛的核心:裁判员执裁水平越高,运动员比赛水平就越高。通过对新旧规则主要内容的对比和分析,提高我国空手道裁判员的业务水平,由此带动我国空手道运动的良性发展。     

Are voters rational?

We test whether a voter's decision to cast a vote depends on its probability of affecting the election outcome. Using exogenous variation arising at population cutoffs determining council sizes in Finnish municipal elections, we show that larger council size increases both pivotal probabilities and turnout. These effects are statistically significant, fairly large and robust. Finally, we use a novel instrumental variables design to show that the jumps in the pivotal probabilities are the likely candidate for explaining the increase in turnout, rather than the other observed simultaneous jumps at the council size cutoffs. Moreover, our results indicate that turnout responds only to within-party pivotal probabilities, perhaps because they are more salient to the voters than the between-party ones.     

Fiscal rules and budget forecast errors of Italian municipalities

We study the impact of the domestic stability pact on the accuracy of budget forecasts of Italian municipalities. Identification of the causal effect exploits a quasi-natural experiment generated by the removal in 2001 of the fiscal restraints on budget decisions for municipalities with fewer than 5000 inhabitants and by stricter budgetary restrictions and severe penalties for noncompliers in 2002. We find that relaxing fiscal rules had a sizeable impact on budget forecast errors, especially in 2002. In fact, revenue (expenditure) forecast errors for municipalities with fewer than 5000 inhabitants became 26% (22%) larger than in the past.