The cyclical behaviour of fiscal policy: evidence from the OECD

This paper addresses the topic of cyclicality in fiscal policy. In particular, we show that the level of cyclicality varies across spending categories and across OECD countries. In line with leading theories of fiscal cyclicality, we show that countries with volatile output and dispersed political power are the most likely to run procyclical fiscal policies. Wage government consumption is highlighted as the most important channel by which these variables affect fiscal cyclicality.     

Central Bank's interventions and the Fisher hypothesis: a threshold cointegration investigation

The long-run relationship between nominal interest rates and inflation is examined, allowing for structural breaks and asymmetric mean reversion. From a Threshold AutoRegressive (TAR) test applied to the residuals of the cointegration relationship (while allowing for both a break in the mean of the long-run equation and a smooth regime-transition), there is strong evidence for non-linear mean reversion properties for the real interest rates of the US Treasury Bill market. This suggests asymmetric changes to inflation shocks in the Central Bank's reaction function. The existence of different regimes is consistent with some interpretations of the monetary policies run by the Fed, such as credibility and opportunism.     

Overlapping Generations or Infinitely-Lived Agents: Intergenerational Altruism and the Economics of Global Warming

Do we need an overlapping generations model for the economics of global warming? To answer this question, an infinitely-lived agent (ILA) approach and an overlapping generations (OLG) model are contrasted. ILA and OLG can be viewed as polar representations of intergenerational altruism. With ILA an immortal agent acts through his investment/savings decisions as trustee on the behalf of the future generations. With OLG, agents need not behave altruistic. They simply save during working years and dissave completely during retirement. Nevertheless, ILA and OLG must not differ in their implication for greenhouse policy. Greenhouse gas abatement is a straightforward alternative to physical capital formation and, even without altruism, each age cohort has an incentive to provide current abatement in order to reduce future damages attributable to climate change. Indeed, under reasonable assumptions and parameter values, our simulations reveal such an invariance result. Provided carbon taxes are the only policy tool and tax revenues are recycled through socially mandated rules, projections of economic growth, climate change and energy consumption are only insignificantly affected by the choice of approach.     

Assessing Voluntary Programs to Improve Environmental Quality

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the use of voluntaryapproaches (VAs) to environmental protection, which has spurned agrowing literature on the relative merits of voluntary vs. mandatoryapproaches. This paper draws on that literature to discuss both thetheoretical and empirical issues that arise in the evaluation orassessment of a particular VA. We consider both the environmentaleffectiveness and the efficiency of this policy approach. Our aim is toaid policymakers in evaluating a specific program or in thinking aboutthe use and design of a VA. We identify some key features that arelikely to increase both the effectiveness and the efficiency of VAs.     

股票市场的货币政策传导分析

货币政策的传导机制不是唯一的，金融市场的种种特征造成了货币政策传导的多样性，股票市场中的货币政策传导就具有独特的规律，在不与银行信贷的创造机制相连的前提下，信贷资金和股市资金的沟通是合理的，目前中国信贷市场和股票市场之间千丝万缕的关系，并没有为货币政策传导创造更加有效的机制基础，股票市场还不能成为货币政策的有效传导渠道。     

Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution

In the “perpetual youth” overlapping-generations model of Blanchard and Yaari, if leisure is a “normal” good then some agents will have negative labor supply. We suggest a solution to this problem by using a modified version of Greenwood, Hercowitz and Huffman’s utility function. The modification incorporates real money balances, so that the model may be used to analyze monetary as well as fiscal policy. In a Walrasian version of the economy, we show that increased government debt and increased government spending raise the interest rate and lower output, while an open-market operation to increase the money supply lowers the interest rate and raises output.     

农村政策性金融与财政支农关系

政策性金融的产生及其作用的发挥,实际上就是财政职能不断强化的一个产物,改革开放中后期以来,我国农村政策性金融体系的功能趋于弱化,其原因在于:财政实力被过多地削弱,公共产品资源配置不够合理,过分倚重商业性金融的支农效应而弱化了财政对农村政策性金融的支持。为此,应当健全财政对农村政策性金融持续投入机制与补偿机制,协调好财政政策与货币政策的关系,财政还应承担起对政策性金融业务监督管理的责任。     

积极财政政策执行效果及隐忧问题研究——H省执行情况个案分析

基于凯恩斯主义国民收入决定理论 ,通过对H省经济运行数据的实证模拟 ,分析H省积极财政政策的执行情况 ,并结合H省省情和我国国情 ,我们得到了九个基本命题 :命题 1∶H省经济处于投资陷阱之中 ,因而货币政策无效 ,财政政策充分有效。命题 2∶H省的财政政策乘数为 5 596,投资需求拉动乘数为 2 3 945,消费需求拉动乘数为2 2 0 1 5,财政支出回馈乘数为 0 2 2 66。命题 3∶H省国债转贷与补助资金拉动的经济增长率为 :1 988年 0 6个百分点 ,1 999年 0 9个百分点 ,2 0 0 0年 0 6个百分点 ,2 0 0 1年 0 5个百分点。命题 4:乘数愈大 ,积极财政政策的效果愈大 ,但积极财政政策退出造成的负作用也愈大 ,总需求和经济增长对积极财政政策的依赖程度也愈强。命题 5,民营化程度愈低 ,投资的利率弹性愈低 ,货币政策愈无效 ,反之亦然。命题 6,民营化程度愈低 ,财政依赖程度愈强 ,反之亦然。命题 7:我国的积极财政政策必然会退出 ;退出的最佳方式是淡出 ;维持现有国债规模是淡出的最可能的形式 ,是一个聚点均衡。命题 8:H省的民营化程度低于全国的平均水平 ,财政依赖程度高于全国的平均水平 ,自主性增长动力尤显不足。命题 9:如果没有激励民间投资的有效措施出台 ,积极财政政策淡出将使H省经济增长速度下滑。     

关于我国财政政策导向调整的研究

近年来我国实施的积极财政政策确实在很大程度上促进了经济和社会的发展。但是随着经济市场化程度的不断提高和经济环境的变化，这种积极财政政策也表现出诸多的不适应性。因此应适时调整财政政策导向以适应经济和社会发展的新要求。拟从我国近年来实施的积极财政政策的成效分析出发，阐述了当前调整财政政策导向的必然性，并提出了今后我国财政政策的调整方向。