The Impact of Public Expenditure and International Trade on Agricultural Productivity in China

The “industry nurturing agriculture” reforms and World Trade Organization accession led to dramatic growth in public expenditure and international trade in China’s agricultural sector. This article aims to estimate the effects of public expenditure and trade on agricultural productivity in China for 2004–2015. A semi-parametric production function with shape constraints is introduced to derive more accurate productivity before the productivity determinants are analyzed with an emphasis on public expenditure and trade. The empirical result shows that public expenditure and exports can effectively improve agricultural productivity, while imports have no significant effects. Policy implications are discussed in the context of supply-side reforms.     

The government revenue and government expenditure nexus: empirical evidence from nine Asian countries

The nexus between government revenue and government expenditure has been an important topic in public economics. In this paper, we investigate evidence for cointegration and causality between government revenue and government expenditure for nine Asian countries. We use the recently developed bounds testing approach to cointegration and the conventional F-test to examine Granger causality. Our empirical results suggest that for three out of the nine countries government revenue and government expenditure are cointegrated. Our results on the direction of causation are mixed: (a) for Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka in the short-run and for Nepal in both the short- and long-run we find support for the tax-and-spend hypothesis; (b) Indonesia and Sri Lanka are in conformity with the spend-and-tax hypothesis in the long-run; and (c) for other countries there is evidence of neutrality.     

Endogenous Growth and Negative Externalities

Received March 5, 2001; revised version received August 5, 2002 Published online: April 30, 2003     

Trade matters except to war neighbors: The international stock market reaction to 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

We investigate the role of international trade and proximity to war in international stock markets during the invasion of Ukraine by employing DiD designs and panel data comprising 70 stock markets. We find that differences in trade exposure to warring countries (trade effect) have a substantial and negative impact on non-European equity markets but are irrelevant for European markets. In contrast, differences in the distance to warring countries (proximity effect) have a significant and negative impact on European markets but have no bearing on non-European markets. We find that the relevance of rent from mineral, natural gas, and oil resources and the relevance of metals, ores, and fuels in exports operate as mitigators of the trade effect. Our paper provides valuable empirical evidence regarding the importance of mitigating the vulnerability of financial markets to international trade when a major war breaks out.     

美国贸易逆差:增长惯性与可持续性

美国的经常项目逆差特别是贸易逆差“历史悠久”，尤其是近年来高速增长，已引起人们广泛的关注。1990年代来的美国贸易逆差，已很难单从汇率、贸易政策及产品竞争力等单个变量来加以解释。通过运用滞后一年的时间数列回归分析及相关分析，本文得出的结论是：当期美国贸易逆差是前期美国贸易逆差的惯性增长，并且只要美国能够维持强势美元，资本与金融账户的盈余足够冲抵贸易逆差，美国的贸易逆差便具有可持续性。在本文的最后一部分，作者针对近期美国人制造的“人民币升值论”，结合近10年来中美双边贸易现实，说明美国贸易逆差与人民币汇率之间没有必然联系，人民币升值不可能改善美国的贸易收支状况。     

我国财政支出结构的优化问题研究

当前,我国正处在经济高速发展的快车道,市场经济体系逐步成熟和完善起来,市场逐步放开,市场化程度日益提高.而财政作为国家调控经济的最主要手段,尤其是财政支出方面对整个社会阶层都产生敏感而切身的利益影响.对此,运用实证分析和对比分析等方法针对我国当前财政支出结构的扭曲状况,才能进一步提出优化对策.     

西部地区大开发前后财政支出比较研究

西部大开发实施五年多来,西部地区财政支出规模、结构都发生了变化.通过比较分析西部大开发财政支出规模、结构的变化及其对西部地区经济、社会发展的影响后发现,从财政支出规模看,中央不断加大对西部的财力扶持,显著提高了西部地方政府财政支出规模;从支出结构看,基本建设、科技投入、文教事业费和行政管理费在绝对量上都有所增长,但其比重却呈现下降趋势;财政支出规模结构的变化,一方面推动地区经济发展,提高人民生活水平,另一方面加深了社会不公.基于上述分析,文章探析了今后西部财政支出的变化趋势.     

The effectiveness of government spending on education and health care in developing and transition economies

Recent studies show that corruption is associated with higher military spending [Eur. J. Polit. Econ. 17 (2001) 794] and lower government spending on education and health care [J. Publ. Econ. 69 (1998) 263]. This suggests that policies aimed at reducing corruption may lead to changes in the composition of government outlays toward more productive spending. However, little empirical evidence has been presented to support the claim that public spending improves education and health indicators in developing and transition countries. This paper uses cross-sectional data for 50 such countries to show that increased public expenditure on education and health care is associated with improvements in both access to and attainment in schools, and reduces mortality rates for infants and children. The education regressions are robust to different specifications, but the relationship between health care spending and mortality rates is weaker.     

财政分权框架下的财政政策和货币政策

本文扩展了Barro( 1 990 )和Gong和Zou( 2 0 0 2 )的模型 ,讨论财政分权框架下的政府财政政策和货币政策 ,通过消费者行为、地方政府行为和中央政府行为之间Nash均衡解 ,得到了经济增长率和各参数的隐式关系 ,并且通过数值模拟得到经济增长率与各种税收以及政府间转移支付的关系。我们发现经济增长率和收入税的关系是Laffer曲线 ,消费税对经济增长的影响是正的 ,财产税对经济增长的影响是负的。至于货币政策的影响 ,我们发现货币不再是超中性的了 ,供应量增加可以促进经济增长 ,而且经济中的货币的流通程度越高 ,经济增长率越高。最后 ,本文还讨论了多级地方政府的情况 ,分析了不同税收制度的地区对整个经济增长的不同影响。     

公共支出对我国技术效率的影响分析

文章首先应用随机前沿方法,估计了我国31省市的时变随机前沿生产函数模型,结果表明提高公共支出占GDP的比例能显著地降低技术效率,而提高公共支出的组成部分占GDP的比例对技术效率有显著的促进作用,其现实意义就是优化公共支出结构对我国的技术效率有促进作用.其次,计算了我国31省市的技术效率,结果发现东部与西部之间的技术效率差距较大,而且在进一步扩大之中.再次,对TFP变化率进行了分解,分析表明:不论是从全国还是从东中西部三地区看,对技术效率影响最大的因素都是规模经济性,而技术进步和资源配置效率影响较小.最后,根据我国目前以规模经济性对TFP变化率为主要影响因素的实际情况,指出从公共收支视角来提高技术进步和资源配置效率对TFP变化率的影响,缩短东西部技术效率的差距,是一条高效率的公共支出发展之路.