The distributional impact of unification and the 1992–93 recession on West German households

The 1992–93 recession in the western states of Germany has been attributed, in substantial measure, to the macroeconomic consequences of policies to finance unification. Studies of the costs of unification have not attempted to measure the burden of the recession. We estimate a dynamic, panel model of household incomes using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and use it to forecast what these incomes would have been in 1992–94 without a recession. Using a ratio of actual to forecast incomes, we compare the relative burden of the recession across households. Our findings suggest that western households below the median income bore the brunt of the combined impact of unification and the recession of 1992–93.
JEL classification: P3, D3, E3.     

The fleeting nature of permanent reinvestment: Accounting for the undistributed earnings of foreign subsidiaries

Over the last decade, an increasing percentage of the profits reported by U.S. corporations were earned by their foreign subsidiaries and retained outside the United States resulting in the deferral of income taxes. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 provided a temporary federal tax incentive to remit such earnings, which resulted in the repatriation of $140 billion by the 30 firms comprising the Dow Jones Industrial Average. An analysis of the financial reporting disclosures made by these firms reveals that a tax expense was not fully recognized on a substantial portion of the earnings until repatriation because of an exception for foreign reinvestments deemed to be essentially permanent in duration. The implications of the currently acceptable accounting for undistributed foreign earnings are discussed as well as recommendations to improve the relevancy and reliability of the disclosures required for this exception to comprehensive recognition of deferred taxes.     

江苏居民收入分配差距及其治理分析

改革开放以来,江苏居民收入普遍提高,人民生活得到很大改善,但近年来居民收入开始出现差距并且日益扩大,已成为影响社会稳定和经济发展的重要问题。文章首先分析了江苏居民收入分配的现状,然后剖析了影响居民收入分配差距过大的成因,在此基础上提出了防止居民收入差距过大的治理对策。     

Crossing spatial analyses and livestock economics to understand deforestation processes in the Brazilian Amazon: the case of São Félix do Xingú in South Pará

The Amazon is the largest tropical forest area on Earth, and has been undergoing rapid deforestation for the last four decades. In the Brazilian Amazon, large‐scale pasture for cattle ranching and soybean production are the main land uses, leading to a yearly deforestation rate of 0.5%. These conversions are mostly located in frontier areas distributed along the so‐called “arc of deforestation”. Within this large zone, various land use change processes are interacting through several modes of land valuation and organisation. From several case studies in the State of Pará (Brazil), the current project aims at analysing how landscape dynamics are related to infrastructure development, ecological conditions, zoning policies and to the evolution and the organisation of the production, consumption and marketing chains of livestock products. This paper presents the results for one test site, the region of São Félix do Xingú, South of Pará This region is the focus of land speculation, cattle expansion, and deforestation. Road construction, investments in electrical energy, financial credit for cattle, and the land reform policies have all fuelled this process. All these factors make this region one of the most dynamic agricultural frontiers in the Brazilian Amazon. The main objective of the paper is to improve our understanding of deforestation processes by crossing spatial analyses and 1ivestock economics.studies, and to characterise the role and impact of various natural and anthropic factors in the location and development of the main types of farmers, and their policy implications.     

浅谈我国个人所得税存在的问题及对策

从1994年税制改革以来，个人所得税对于促进对外经济技术交流与合作，缓解社会分配不公的矛盾，增加财政收入等都发挥了积极作用。但是随着形式的发展，也暴露出不少问题和矛盾。     

The effects of transition on the distribution of income in China

Using two large samples for 1988 and 1995 we decompose the Gini coefficient of household income according to type of income with the purpose of analyzing reasons for the rapid increase of inequality. The results show that the change in relative size of money income and its changed profile are found to be the major processes behind the rapid increase of income inequality in rural China. Changes in housing allocation and an increased number of retirees in combination with higher benefits have made inequality increase in urban China and in China as a whole. JEL classification: D31, P27.     

National Income Accounting and Public Policy

Modern national income accounting was designed in the early 20th century for the purpose of providing improved indicators about the performance of the economy so that government policy makers could better control the economy. The way that performance is measured affects the types of policies used to try to accomplish policy goals. Two attributes of national income accounting are analyzed for their effects on economic policy. First, government production is included in the national income accounts at cost, rather than at market value as private sector output is measured. This biases policy toward a larger public sector. Second, output is measured as a homogeneous dollar amount. This biases policy toward focusing on increasing quantities of inputs and outputs in the production process, rather than on innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the true engines of economic progress. Economic policy could be improved by focusing less on national income as an indicator of policy, and more on the underlying processes that foster economic progress.     

对加拿大货币需求的数量分析

在特定的经济条件下，全社会货币需求量以及这个量的变动规律，是一国政府制定并执行货币政策和财政政策时所要考虑的重要参数。战后以来，西方国家政府一般是通过货币政策和财政政策的执行，最终影响产出量和就业水平。分析影响货币需求变动的因素及其变量之间的数量关系，是正确地预测货币需求变动的关键。加拿大的货币需求与其相关的经济因素之间的关系；加拿大货币供求与经济增长之间的关系。     

LABOUR SUPPLY ESTIMATION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract. Economists devote considerable energies towards refining their econometric techniques to overcome difficulties connected with conducting empirical research. Despite advances in technique. it is not clear whether further refinement in this direction is worthwhile for policy purposes. It may be that no further amount of statistical adjustment of inadequate data will increase understanding, and that better data is simply necessary to add to our knowledge. But rarely is sufficient credit paid to new forms of data. In short, econometric technique is emphasized to the neglect of data innovation, as if new data were merely lying about waiting for an ingenious suggestion for use. This paper surveys advances of the last twenty five years in estimating labour supply for policy purposes with a view towards appreciating the relative contribution of both improvements in econometric technique as well as developments of new data.
After briefly detailing the key parameters which economists have sought to estimate, we describe the early 'first generation' research (circa 1970), which is plagued by problems of unobservable variables, measurement errors, truncation and selectivity bias, and non linear budget constraints. 'Second generation' research constitute attempts to resolve one or more of these difficulties, and the respective contribution of econometric technique and new data is acknowledged and assessed, including the contribution of data generated by large scale social experiments in which participants are randomly assigned to different guaranteed income plans and their labour supply behaviour measured.     

The Relation between Market Values,Earnings Forecasts,and Reported Earnings*

Recently, much of the research into the relation between market values and accounting numbers has used, or at least made reference to, the residual income model (RIM). Two basic types of empirical research have developed. The “historical” type explores the relation between market values and reported accounting numbers, often using the linear dynamics in Ohlson 1995 and Feltham and Ohlson 1995 and 1996. The “forecast” type explores the relation between market value and the present value of the book value of equity, a truncated sequence of residual income forecasts, and an estimate of the terminal value at the truncation date. The analysis in this paper integrates these two approaches. We expand the Feltham and Ohlson 1996 model by including one‐ and two‐period‐ahead residual income forecasts to infer “other” information regarding future revenues from past investments and future growth opportunities. This approach results in a model in which the difference between market value and book value of equity is a function of current residual income, one‐ and two‐period‐ahead residual income, current capital investment, and start‐of‐period operating assets. The existence of both persistence in revenues from current and prior investments and growth in future positive net present value investment opportunities leads us to hypothesize a negative coefficient on the one‐period‐ahead residual income forecast and a positive coefficient on the two‐period‐ahead residual income forecast. Our empirical results strongly support our hypotheses with respect to the forecast coefficients.