Modeling the dynamic linkage between financial development,energy innovation,and environmental quality: Does globalization matter?

In the modern era of the wave of globalization, financial development is leading toward a higher rate of economic expansion and promoting energy innovation around the globe. Nevertheless, environmental impact of financial development has preoccupied government officials to circumvent adverse impact on environmental quality. Thus, this paper examines the nexus between financial development, economic growth, energy innovation, and environmental pollution for the period of 1990–2017 for the panel of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. To obtain robust and unbiased results, this study utilizes Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PMG/ARDL) estimator that counters the issue of heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. Empirical evidence suggests that financial development promotes energy innovation and improves environmental quality. Globalization also has a long-term relationship with energy innovation and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, findings validate the environmental Kuznets curve for OECD countries in the significance of financial development, globalization, and energy innovation.     

OECD规制影响评价制度及其对中国重大科技决策评价制度之启示——兼论《科技进步法》第十三条

重大科技决策评价制度在保障重大科技决策的科学性、民主性方面发挥着关键作用，然而我国现行《科技进步法》第十三条对重大科技决策评价的相关规定过于抽象和单薄，有必要加以完善。在行政行为类型化理论中，科技决策作为一项具体行政行为是规制的一种表现形式。通过对规制影响评价制度的确立背景、运作流程及成效进行分析发现，规制影响评价在OECD成员国中已经取得明显实效并得到广泛认可。同时，我国重大科技决策评价制度在现有法律规定上至少存在如下三方面不足：尚未构建完整的事前事后评价机制；现有重大科技决策咨询制度可操作性不强；现有相关制度保障尚不健全。因此，从完善我国重大科技决策评价制度角度出发，提出如下3点建议：在现有事前评价的基础上增加事后评价机制；从整体上完善重大科技决策评价法律保障；细化重大科技决策评价所需的程序性规范。     

Measuring well-being by a multidimensional spatial model in OECD Better Life Index framework

One of the most influential measures of multidimensional well-being, the Better Life Index, launched by OECD in 2011, contains a detailed overview of the social, economic, and environmental performances of different countries. Since its launch, a relevant number of empirical studies have been proposed on these data, but the role played by the distance between societal priorities and country-level performance in Better Life Index as well as in multidimensional well-being remains underexplored. We propose to address this issue by means of a multidimensional spatial model. We position the countries in the Euclidean K-dimensional space in which each dimension is a specific aspect of well-being, and we consider each individual's opinion on the same dimensions to calculate the personal optimal point. The distance between the optimal point of well-being and the actual observed point at individual level is the individuals' loss in well-being. We show that the societal loss at country-level is negatively related to the overall well-being and the main indices of quality of democracy. Based on the above evidence, we would argue that a multidimensional spatial framework represents a promising tool for the analysis of the whole class of multidimensional measures of well-being in which a group of individuals expresses the weights individually assigned to a set of dimensions within a pre-established range.     

Cross-border mergers with flexible policy regime: The role of efficiency and market size

This study provides a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding the determinants of cross-border mergers. Past literature has focused on the effect of trade liberalization as the key factor triggering international mergers. We introduce the idea of flexible policy regime in which optimal policies are sensitive to whether a cross-border acquisition has taken place or not. In a free-trade model given asymmetries in marginal cost, we find that optimal subsidies decline when firms acquire inefficient foreign firms while optimal subsidies increase when firms acquire efficient firms. We also find that as the efficiency of the acquirer increases, the profitability of the acquisition and hence the likelihood that it takes place also increases. We find that the role of market size in triggering cross-border acquisitions may be limited even with free trade.     

Intergovernmental Organisations and Economic Freedom: Wise Technocrats or Black Helicopters?

This article explores the relationship between country membership in major intergovernmental organisations and economic freedom. While it makes no claims to have found any broad theoretically bound, robust causal mechanism, baseline fixed effects models establish relationships amongst economic freedom and membership in the EU, NATO, WTO, UN, OECD, World Bank, and IMF. Though the results are not simple, the strongest findings are negative relationships with the UN, IMF, and WTO, and positive relationships with the World Bank and possibly the EU.     

中国与OECD国家服务贸易成本动态演变的研究

文章借助Novy(2006)改进的引力模型测度2000～2008年中国与OECD国家的双边服务贸易成本。从测算的结果来看,中国与OECD国家的双边服务贸易成本在总体上经历了平缓下降的过程。绝大部分OECD国家与中国的双边服务贸易成本呈现了不同程度的下降趋势,与此同时部分国家的服务贸易成本却基本保持不变甚至略有上升。文章利用随机效应模型,从实证研究的角度对服务贸易成本进行分解,进而探讨了影响双边服务贸易成本的各种影响因素,最后揭示了研究的政策性涵义。     

Distribution dynamics: stratification, polarization, and convergence among OECD economies, 1870-1992

Using a distribution dynamics approach, the growth experience of 17 OECD economies is investigated. After explaining the distribution dynamics approach, the empirical analysis examines both the observed period dynamics and the unique long-run equilibrium associated with three periods. This study suggests persistence and stratification, not convergence, characterized the pre-1914 regime, whereas convergence was the key feature of the post-war regime. However, a larger sample of OECD economies in the post-war period indicates that convergence was primarily a feature of the Golden Age and in the post-Golden Age period separation, polarization, and divergence came to the fore.     

Does insurance activity promote economic growth? Further evidence based on bootstrap panel Granger causality test

This study applies the bootstrap panel Granger causality test to test whether insurance activity promotes economic growth, using data from 10 OECD countries over the period of 1979–2006. Empirical results indicate that one-way Granger causality running from all insurance activities to economic growth for France, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and economic growth Granger causes insurance activities in Canada (for life insurance), Italy (for total and life insurance) and the USA (for total and non-life insurance). There is a two-way Granger causality between life insurance activity and economic growth in the USA, while no causality between insurance activities and economic growth is found in Belgium (for all insurance), Canada (for total and non-life insurance), Italy (for non-life insurance) and Sweden (for life insurance). Our results also confirm the finding of Ward and Zurbruegg [Does insurance promote economic growth? Evidence from OECD economies. Journal of Risk and Insurance 67, no. 4: 489–506] showing that the insurance–growth nexus varies across countries, since their paper have previously demonstrated heterogeneity in this vein. In an analysis of a broader, though overlapping 17-country sample and taking into account banking activities, the results suggest the importance of including banking activities when investigating the insurance–growth relationship.     

How useful is the PSE in determining agricultural support?

The support of the agricultural sector in developed countries plays a major role in the international policy agenda. The producer support estimate (PSE) is one of the best known measures which has been developed by OECD and is used all over the globe. In the PSE all types of support are aggregated and one of the main components (70% at OECD level) is the market price support (MPS). Here we show by means of characteristic examples that the MPS has no clear relation to basic economic measures determining support for producers as a consequence of policy intervention. The MPS overestimates the consequences of tariffs and export subsidies and underestimates the consequences of quota systems in determining producer support. Misperception of the size and directions of support may affect policy decision-making wrongly. The paper indicates that weighted average producer prices, corrected for quantity restrictions, may be more useful than the reference prices and quantities used by OECD.