The politics of redistributive social insurance

This paper analyses the political support for a social insurance that includes elements of redistribution when there exists an imperfect private insurance alternative. Individuals differ both in their income and risk. The social insurance is compulsory and charges an income-related contribution with pooling of risks. The private insurance is voluntary and charges a contribution based on individual risks. However due to the adverse selection problem, private insurance companies provide only partial insurance. Adopting a non-expected utility model, we show that there is a general majority support for social insurance and that this support is increasing with risk aversion. We also show that a mixed insurance is politically impossible, regardless of the degree of redistribution of social insurance and the joint distribution of risk and income in the population. Lastly, we analyse how the political support for social insurance is affected by any change in its redistributive component and the possibility of using genetic tests.     

Unemployment dynamics in an OLG economy with public pensions

Pension benefits in old age establish a disincentive to save in youth, thereby yielding lower levels of capital stock and the wage rate. As a result, the trade union has an incentive to change the composition of its two targets: employment and the wage rate. This paper develops a model that includes employment effects of public pensions via capital accumulation and union wage setting. Within this framework, we consider how contribution rates to the pension system influence the level and time path of the unemployment rate. It is demonstrated that (1) a higher contribution rate results in a lower unemployment rate, and (2) the economy with a high (low) contribution rate experiences monotone convergence towards (oscillatory convergence towards or a period-2 cycle around) the steady state. The author would like to thank an anonymous referee, Kazutoshi Miyazawa, and seminar participants at Osaka University for their useful comments and suggestions, and Masako Ikefuji and Hiroaki Yamagami for their research assistance. Financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No.17730131), the Asahi Glass Foundation, the Japan Economic Research Foundation and the 21st Century COE Program (Osaka University) is gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are mine.     

构建贫困农村养老保障体系的对策研究——基于河北省涞水县的实证分析

本文通过对涞水县3个乡的12个村、362户居民的入户调查，了解了困扰涞水县贫困农民养老的问题所在，并就贫困农村养老保障进行了对策性探讨，旨在帮助贫困农民解决实际的养老问题，同时也为构建贫困农村养老保障体系提供参考。     

Does the World Bank have any impact on human development of the poorest countries? Some preliminary evidence from Africa

In an attempt to better understand the impact of the World Bank on human development in poor countries, we use cross-country data on African countries for the 1990–2002 period to examine this relationship. The coefficient estimates of our parsimonious fixed-effects models indicate that while loans and grants of the Bank have had a positive impact on some relatively short-term indicators of health and education in an average African country, there is little evidence to suggest that such loans and grants have helped these countries to consolidate on the short-term gains.     

On the cost-benefit of the regionalisation of the National Health Service

In this paper we analyse in formal terms the desirability of the regionalisation of a National Health Service. The policy consists of a devolution process, i.e. the increase in the health services provision to be decided by a region and financed by an increase in its revenues. The change is a marginal one, as it regards the part of supply of the health services exceeding a minimum standard, which for purposes of equity is maintained uniform in the national territory. As the central government is responsible for this component of the provision of health care (a federal “mandate”), the level of the said component is chosen by this authority and financed by federal taxation. Moreover, the government also applies an equalisation scheme based on the difference between a standard level of tax revenues and the revenues which the region is deemed able to raise for this purpose. Within the theoretical context of welfare improving reforms with distortionary taxation, we derive two conditions which focus on the regional, as well as the social, convenience of regionalisation. Received: May 5, 1999 / Accepted: January 21, 2000     

Market Structure and Risk Taking in the Banking Industry

We demonstrate that the common view according to which an increase in competition leads banks to increased risk taking fails to hold in an environment where homogeneous loss averse consumers can choose in which bank to make a deposit based on their knowledge of the riskiness incorporated in the banks outstanding loan portfolios. With an exclusive focus on imperfect competition we find that banks incentives for risk taking are invariant to a change in the banking market structure from duopoly to monopoly. Finally, we show that deposit insurance would eliminate the gains from bank competition when banks use asset quality as a strategic instrument.revised version received October 15, 2003     

健康风险冲击对农户收入的影响

本文基于中国8个省份、1354个农户、跨度15年的微观面板数据,测算了大病冲击对于农户长期收入的影响以及健康风险冲击持续的时间。我们发现:(1)大病冲击在随后的12年里对于农户人均纯收入都有显著的负面影响;(2)大病冲击对于农户的短期与中期影响使得患病户人均纯收入平均降低5%—6%;(3)健康风险冲击的长期影响可持续大约15年,并且冲击对于中低收入农户的影响更为严重。     

正当怀疑和应有关注理念在审计师非审计服务中的运用

正当怀疑和应有关注是审计师在执业过程中应始终坚持的重要理念。随着非审计服务的不断拓展，强调正当怀疑和应有关注理念，无论对于保证审计师非审计服务的执业质量，还是维护审计师审慎的职业形象，都具有重大意义。审计师应在提供非审计服务时始终保持正当怀疑和应有关注理念，并将其灵活地运用于具体实务。     

Dissertation abstract: “Essays in applied economics on the intervention of a third player in agency relationships”

Agency theory has established that appropriate incentives can reconcile the diverging interests of the principal and the agent. Focusing on three applications, this dissertation evaluates the empirical relevance of these results when a third party interacts with the primary contract. The analyses provided rely on either laboratory or natural experiments. First, corruption is analyzed as a two-contract situation: a delegation contract between a Principal and an Agent and a corruption pact concluded between this Agent and a third player, called Briber. A survey of the recent microeconomic literature on corruption first highlights how corruption behavior results from the properties of those two agreements. We thereafter show that the Agent faces a conflict in reciprocities due to those two conflicting agreements. The resulting delegation effect, supported by observed behavior in our three-player experimental game, could account for the deterrence effect of wages on corruption. Second, health care is governed by contradictory objectives: patients are mainly concerned with the health provided, whereas containing health care costs is the primary goal of health care administrators. We provide further insights into the ability of incentives to balance these two competing objectives. In this matter, our theoretical and econometric analysis evaluates how a new mixed compensation scheme, introduced in Quebec in 1999 as an alternative to fee-for-services, has affected physicians’ practice patterns. Free switching is shown to be an essential feature of the reform, since it implements screening between physicians. Finally, the demand for underground work departs from the traditional Beckerian approach to illegal behavior, due to the dependence of benefits from illegality on competitors’ behavior. We set up a theoretical model in which the demand for underground work from all producers competing on the same output market is analyzed simultaneously. We first show that competition drastically undermines the individual benefits of tax evasion. At equilibrium, each firm nonetheless chooses evasion with a positive probability, strictly lower than one. This Bertrand curse could then account for the “tax evasion puzzle” i.e. the overprediction of evasion in models that ignore market interactions. We thereafter show that allowing firms to denounce competitors’ evasion is not likely to solve this curse—by providing a credible threat against price cuts, it fosters illegal work. Empirical evidence from a laboratory experiment confirms these predictions. Without denunciation, experimental firms often choose evasion whereas evasion benefits are canceled out by competition. When introduced, denunciation is rarely used by firms, but the threat makes evasion profitable. JEL Classification K42, I18, D21, C25, C91     

当前我国农业保险发展的主要问题及对策建议

我国农业保险正面临着极好的发展机遇,出现了良好的发展势头.但目前仍然存在制约我国农业保险发展的诸多因素,主要是:农业风险本身的可保性差;农业保险经营技术落后;农民收入低,政府投入少;法律法规建设缺位等.我国农业保险要健康有序的发展,必须改进农业保险经营技术;建立有效的再保险机制;增加政府投入,逐步实行以支持农业保险为主的农业保护政策;加快农业保险立法进程,使农业保险走上规范化制度化发展的轨道.