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.     

Group Selection and the Limits to Altruism

Several evolutionary mechanisms have been identified in the literature that would generate altruism in humans. The most powerful (except for kin selection) and most controversial is group selection, as recently analyzed by Sober & D.S. Wilson. I do not take a stand on the issue of the existence of group selection. Instead, I examine the level of human altruism that could exist if group selection were an engine of human evolution. For the Sober & Wilson mechanism to work, groups practicing altruism must grow faster than other groups. I call altruistic behavior that would lead to faster growth efficient altruism. This often consists of cooperation in a prisoner's dilemma. ltruistic acts such as helping a temporarily hungry or injured person would qualify as efficient altruism. Efficient altruism would also require monitoring recipients to avoid shirking. Utilitarianism would be an ethical system consistent with efficient altruism, but Marxism or the Rawlsian system would not. Discussions of efficient altruism also help understand intuitions about fairness. We perceive those behaviors as fair that are consistent with efficient altruism. It is important to understand that, even if humans are selected to be altruistic, the forms of altruism that might exist must be carefully considered and ircumscribed.     

开放条件下我国外贸政策的定位及体系构建

具有渐进性、法制化和市场化特征的我国外贸体制改革以及贸易自由化与贸易保护并存的对外开放 ,要求我国对外贸易政策应该是在贸易自由化过程中的合理保护———开放型有管理的自由贸易政策。这一政策应遵循开放、适度有效的保护和竞争的原则 ,其政策基点是贸易保护的适度性 ,表现为保护的动态性、主动性、目的性和差别性。我国开放型有管理的自由贸易政策的实施应有体制上的保障 ,以扩大出口为主要政策目标 ,并与产业政策相结合 ,真正促进社会资源的有效配置 ,保证社会经济效益的提高并促进市场秩序的完善。     

Bandwagon mergers,international competitiveness,and government policy

This paper suggests that while the static welfare losses of merger predilections among Western firms may not be dramatic, they may lead to substantial dynamic losses when merger-prone firms need to compete with firms which instead focus on equipment investment and investments in R&D. It is suggested that such diverging investment priorities have been the real cause of the deteriorating competitiveness of many of the largest Western enterprises vis-à-vis their Japanese rivals. While mergers are generally taken to be determined by either efficiency or monopoly considerations, this paper argues that Western merger predilections are likely to be generated by a combination of imitative and defensive routines as well. That would make it difficult for firms to unilaterally break away from these competitiveness-threatening investments. If correct, this would imply that competition policies would need to be refocused. However, it is also suggested that the implications for international competitiveness should make merger questions a subject of industrial policies too. In that respect, the paper suggests some basic attitudinal changes.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at a Global Forum for Competition and Trade Policy conference in Vienna and at a EUNIP workshop at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (contract nos. 54473 and 57305) and the European Commission (contract no. ERB CHRX CT94-0454), research assistance from Michel Renirie and Chee-Wai Chan, and helpful comments from the conference and workshop participants, especially Kurt Bayer and Keith Cowling, are gratefully acknowledged. Only the author is responsible for the contents of, and any flaws in the paper.     

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.     

Interbank Relationships and the Credit Channel in Germany

A crucial condition for the existence of a credit channel through bank loansis that monetary policy should be able to change bank loan supply. This papercontributes to the discussion on this issue by presenting empirical evidence fromdynamic panel estimations based on a dataset that comprises individual balancesheet information on all German banks. It shows that the average bank reduces itslending more sharply in reaction to a restrictive monetary policy measure the lowerits ratio of short-term interbank deposits to total assets. A dependence on its size canonly be found if explicitly controlled for this dominating effect. Overall, the evidenceis compatible with the existence of a credit channel but the results indicate that it is weakened by the network structures that exist in the German banking system.     

铜陵矿区生态经济建设

本文根据矿区生态经济系统协调发展和演化的原理,提出合理规划、建设铜陵生态市的建议,以实现铜陵经济、社会的可持续发展。