A model of the origins of basic property rights

This paper studies the origins of one of the most basic of property rights, namely, the right of an individual or an organization to the fruits of its labour. My objective is to address the questions of why, when and how this property right can emerge and be made secure. I develop a model of the strategic interaction between two players in the state-of-nature, which is an environment characterized by the absence of any laws and institutions (including property rights and the state). My analysis explores, in particular, the roles of the players' fighting and productive skills on the emergence and security (or otherwise) of this property right.     

Who Gains from the Demographic Dividend? Forecasting Income by Age

Changes in the population age structure are known to influence the total income per person, but little is known about whether the changes are equally shared across the population or are concentrated on particular age groups and/or birth cohorts. The answer to this question has potentially important implications for income inequality, human capital investment, and fertility decision-making. We propose a new model of intergenerational transfers which distinguishes between the effects of changes in population structure and the effects of changes in family age structure. Using age-specific data from annual income and expenditure surveys of Taiwan between 1978 and 1998, we show that changes in age structure have had a very favorable effect on Taiwan's income growth. The gains are not equally shared by all age groups, however. Children and young adults have benefited the most, while the elderly have benefited the least. The population and family age structures have independent effects on per capita income; the effect of the population age structure is most important. Generational differences in per capita income are closely related to intergenerational differences in earnings, suggesting only a weak form of altruism. Finally, we predict that, on average, population aging will adversely influence the per capita income growth in Taiwan in the coming decades.     

Mobility and the Role of Education as a Commitment Device

In closed economies, human capital investment faces a hold-up problem of excessive redistributive taxation. Increased international labor mobility, however, changes the constraints which affect optimal education and tax policy. We show that in a non-altruistic, gerontocratic world, investments in human capital which increase the mobility of the young generation can be interpreted as a commitment device overcoming the hold-up problem. This is in line with Kehoe (1989) who derives a similar result with respect to capital mobility.     

“加剧”还是“缓解”：政府转移支付与农户家庭未来减贫——基于贫困脆弱性视角的实证分析

基于2018年CFPS数据和Logit模型分析政府转移支付对农户家庭贫困脆弱性的影响及异质性。研究表明：政府转移支付总体上对农户家庭贫困脆弱性并未产生积极的改善效果,反而进一步促进了农户家庭贫困脆弱性增加。从区域异质性看,政府转移支付对贫困脆弱性的正向促进作用主要体现在中、西部地区,并且以中部地区尤为明显。从家庭特征看,政府转移支付主要促使收入贫困农户、非融资约束农户、非土地流转农户、非组织参与农户家庭贫困脆弱性增加,并且对绝对贫困农户的促进效应要大于相对贫困农户。对非收入贫困户、土地流转户和组织参与户家庭贫困脆弱性的影响不显著。从户主特征看,政府转移支付主要对户主健康家庭、自雇户主家庭的贫困脆弱性产生正向促进效应,对稳定受雇户主家庭贫困脆弱性的影响不显著。     

Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability

We examine whether the U.S. and German state governments pursue sustainable fiscal policies taking into account fiscal transfers. Using panel data techniques we investigate whether the debt‐to‐GDP ratio had a positive influence on the primary surplus (Bohn model). We show that including/excluding fiscal transfers changes the results. If fiscal transfers are not included in the primary surplus, the test results do not indicate that the U.S. and German state governments pursued sustainable fiscal policies. Our results also suggest that fiscal transfers were positively related to debt. These findings indicate that intergovernmental transfers have implicitly subsidized debts.     

Understanding Changes in the Distribution and Redistribution of Income: A Unifying Decomposition Framework

In recent decades income inequality has increased in many developed countries but the role of tax and transfer reforms is often poorly understood. We propose a new method allowing for the decomposition of historical changes in income distribution and redistribution measures into: (i) the immediate effect of tax‐transfer policy reforms in the absence of behavioral responses; (ii) the effect of labor supply responses induced by these reforms; and (iii) a third component allowing us to explore the effect of changes in the distribution of a wide range of determinants, including the effect of employment changes not induced by policy reforms. The application of the decomposition to Australia reveals that the direct effect of tax‐transfer policy reforms accounts for half of the observed increase in income inequality between 1999 and 2008, while the increased dispersion of wages and capital incomes also played an important role.     

Inter-local relations and trans-scaling through finance in Poland

Inter-local cooperation is difficult to measure. In Poland, however, the data-set concerning financial transfers between local government budgets (one of the most popular quantitative measures of cooperation) has never been described in scientific literature. This paper aims at contributing to fill this gap. On the basis of the budget expenditures of all Polish local governments, we applied two research methods: OLS regression and Heckman two-stage regression. The results show that the decision whether to get into cooperation, and the decision on the extent of involvement are driven by different factors.     

On the efficiency of intra-industry information transfers: The dilution of the overreaction anomaly

We revisit the stock market anomaly documented by Thomas and Zhang (2008) and show that the apparent mispricing of information transfers has decayed over time, as the US markets experienced rapid improvements in the efficiency of the underlying price formation processes. Utilizing recent advancements in market microstructure research to estimate firm-specific proxies for market efficiency, we demonstrate that the existence of the overreaction anomaly (where stock prices of late announcers in response to the earnings reported by early announcers in the same industry are negatively related to subsequent price responses of late announcers to their own earnings reports) is specific to an earlier sample period and results from the inefficient incorporation of information into prices, largely attributable to an environment with high barriers to arbitrage. Our results indicate that the pricing efficiency of intra-industry information transfers has increased in the recent years of increased liquidity and markedly higher trading activity.     

承接“二个转移”推进内蒙古优势特色产业升级的思考

近年来,以跨国公司为主导的国际资本扩大了在中国西部地区的产业转移。与此同时,中国东部地区基于降低营运成本等考虑,也加快了向中西部地区的产业转移。内蒙古面对国际、国内产业转移的良好机遇,凭借其资源优势成为热点承接地区。承接"二个转移",对于提升内蒙古优势特色产业的产业竞争力具有重要意义。内蒙古应积极优化投资环境、引导产业投向、增强产业配套能力,推进承接"二个转移",并以此带动本地区优势特色产业的优化升级。     

当前我国收入分配领域存在的突出问题与对策

当前我国收入分配领域存在居民收入和劳动报酬两个比重偏低,垄断行业收入畸高名不副实,社会转移分配平衡收入差距作用不足,群体间收入差距呈现全范围多层次的扩大趋势等突出问题,解决这些问题需要用发展和改革的眼光、思路和办法促进经济健康发展,坚持以人为本的分配理念努力提高普通劳动者收入,完善社会主义市场经济体制创造平等致富的环境,紧紧抓住社会转移分配的灵魂"公平",全方位缩小收入差距,使劳动者通过第三次分配获得捐赠性收入,通过第四次分配获得财产性收入。