The Lack of International Consumption Risk Sharing: Can Inflation Differentials and Trading Costs Help Explain the Puzzle?

The bulk of evidence on the lack of international risk sharing is based on regressions of idiosyncratic consumption growth on idiosyncratic output growth. This paper argues that the results from such regressions obtained from international data are, however, not directly comparable to those based on regional data: the standard practice of running such regressions on international data fails to account for persistent international differentials in consumer prices, whereas—implicitly—most of the literature based on regional data has accounted for these differences. When risk sharing regressions are set up in conceptually the same way in international and regional data sets, the estimated coefficients are also very similar. To explore this result further, we adapt the variance decomposition of Asdrubali et al. (Q J Econ 111:1081–1110, 1996) to allow for deviations from purchasing power parity across countries. While quantity (income and credit) flows are the dominant channel of risk sharing among regions, relative consumption and output price (internal terms of trade) fluctuations account for the bulk of the deviation from the complete markets outcome in international data. To the extent that persistent differences in consumer prices are an indication of goods market segmentation, our findings provide empirical evidence for the proposition by Obstfeld and Rogoff (NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, 2000) that segmented international goods markets rather than asset market incompleteness may account for the (apparent) lack of risk sharing between countries.

Consideration of technological and environmental heterogeneity in cost efficiency analysis

In order to evaluate and compare the efficiency levels across banking industries, we adopt the meta-frontier model that can assess the technological difference among countries. Given the importance of country specific conditions, we include in our analysis the different specificities of each country to incorporate the technological as the environmental differences in the evaluation of banking efficiencies. Using data on the banking industries of several countries in the MENA region, over the period 1991–2011, the results of the efficiency scores corrected by the technological and environmental gap led us to conclude that Egyptian banks are the most efficient in terms of cost compared with banks in other countries. Egyptian banks enjoy a very favourable banking technology. Our results support the hypothesis that traditional techniques of efficiency analysis based on the efficiency scores of a specific and pooled frontier tend to mystify efficiency levels and may incorrectly identify efficient banks. This paper contributes to the efficiency literature by incorporating technological and environmental heterogeneities in the evaluation of efficiency. This helps to characterize the production process of a bank and provides common standards by which the efficiencies of banks in different countries can be compared in a meaningful way with each other.     

The Basic Ways of Solving the Problems of Underlying Liabilities of China＇s Endowment Insurance

The supply of basic pension is seriously lacking, the personal accounts is operated with no money. This is a problem belonging to conversion cost in essence. This paper points out that the government should undertake the responsibility to solve the problem by using the increment method and stock method to repay the latent liability; then the government can enrich the personal accounts in response to the aging population crisis and the concussion brought by the endowment insurance system＇s conversion.     

资产专用性与交易成本节约——论企业是信用的载体

企业的功能不仅在于节约要素(中间品)交易成本,是要素的"间接定价装置",还在于节约最终产品交易成本.信息不对称的产品市场上,企业在交易中"制造"了一个重复博弈机制,这使其更关心长远利益.它用自身专用性资产--从价值和数量两个维度--来作为其产品是合格品的担保.专用性资产单位价值越大,数量越多,企业越有谋求长远利益、放弃短期机会主义行为的激励.市场上理性的买方考虑到这一点,总是认为效益越好、规模越大的企业越有可能提供合格品.企业是信用的载体,它一定程度上避免了产品市场由于信息不对称所引致的逆向选择,从而节约最终产品交易成本.我们的分析补充和完善了企业的交易成本理论.     

交易费用与企业技术创新战略决策

对企业技术创新战略决策进行了两阶段分析，并采用交易费用理论对创新企业技术创新来源决策进行了分析，认为企业内部技术创新是企业吸收外部技术的基础，大部分企业技术创新将走自主创新与引进创新相结合的道路。     

不同质量水平下的总质量成本研究

质量成本(COQ,Cost of Quality)是衡量提高质量活动的效果和效率的标准.COQ模型在质量成本研究中起着重要的作用.基于"6σ管理"中"持续改进"的思想和方法,用"kσ"作为质量水平(QL,Quality Level)的度量,笔者得到了不同质量水平下的动态总COQ模型.进而,还提供了不同质量水平下的总质量成本曲线.     

Induced innovation and marginal cost of new technology

Lacking data on development and implementation costs for input-saving technologies, we develop a nonparametric procedure to estimate relative differences in marginal technology costs for technical change to be consistent with the induced innovation hypothesis. We apply it to U.S. agriculture.     

保险公司诉讼预期与和解相关性研究

近年来我国保险诉讼案件增势不减,有的历经一审、二审,有的还要再审。本文通过对北京某人寿保险股份有限公司2005～2008年和解、诉讼预期的调研数据进行描述性统计和回归分析,发现保险公司从自身和投保人两个视角对诉讼结果进行预期时,预期诉讼赔付金额和诉讼成本与其愿意赔付金额存在更强的相关性。但新的《保险法》提出后,保险公司预期诉讼赔付金额时较之前更多地考虑到投保人索赔金额,且保险公司预期诉讼赔付金额与投保人索赔金额之间的显著差异消失。     

品牌经济学的理论基础——引入品牌的需求曲线及其经济学分析

需求定律是经济学分析的理论基础之一,品牌经济学的理论基础为引入品牌的需求曲线或考虑选择成本的需求定律。把品牌引入经济学中后,品牌信用度的提高使需求曲线右移并变得更为陡峭,同时品牌信用度的提高改变了需求曲线的位置,使得均衡价格提高,均衡数量增加,增加了消费者剩余和生产者剩余,提高了社会福利水平。文章为“品牌战”替代“价格战”提供了理论依据,即通过品牌建设提高品牌信用度,使得在价格提高的条件下需求量增加,而这只有在需求曲线改变位置时方能做到。     

The dynamic welfare cost of seignorage tax and consumption tax in a neoclassical growth model with a cash-in-advance constraint

Using a public finance approach, this study investigates welfare costs between seignorage and consumption taxes in a standard growth model. One of these two taxes is used to finance exogenous public spending to balance the government budget. The steady-state welfare cost of consumption taxes is lower if the consumption effect dominates the leisure effect. This paper compares equilibrium along transitional dynamic and steady-state paths and finds that because of lower consumption and leisure and thus higher welfare costs of consumption taxes during early periods, the welfare cost of consumption taxes is larger than the welfare cost of seignorage taxes.