ON THE THEORY OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

When considering engaging in conflict to secure control of a resource, a group needs to predict the amount of post‐conflict leakage due to infiltration by members of losing groups. We use this insight to explain why conflict often takes place along ethnic lines, why some ethnic groups are more often in conflict than others (and some never are), and why the same groups are sometimes in conflict and sometimes at peace. In our theory ethnic markers help enforce group membership: in homogeneous societies members of the losing group can more easily pass themselves as members of the winning group, and this reduces the chances of conflict as an equilibrium outcome. We derive a number of implications of the model relating social, political, and economic indicators such as the incidence of conflict, the distance between ethnic groups, group sizes, income inequality, and expropriable resources. One of the insights is that the incidence of ethnic conflict is nonmonotonic in expropriable resources as a fraction of total resources, with a low incidence for either low or high values. We use the model’s predictions to interpret historical examples of conflict associated with skin pigmentation, body size, language, and religion.     

Income Pooling between Australian Young Adults and Their Parents

We test whether young adults who co‐reside with their parents derive influence over household‐level expenditure by earning income. We propose a new variant of the Engel curve consistent with the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, which allows a simple test of income pooling. Our tests suggest that young adults and parents mostly pool their income — pooling is not rejected for 8 out of 12 expenditure categories. We are more likely to reject income pooling between young adults and their parents in those expenditure categories where the model fit is highest, so our results may be interpreted as an upper bound on income pooling. We also apply our tests to income pooling between husbands and wives and find that pooling holds for 9 out of 12 expenditure categories. We find the opposite relationship with fit — expenditure categories where fit is poor are those where we are most likely to reject income pooling.     

ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND THE SPREAD OF CIVIL WAR

This paper theoretically and empirically investigates the relationship between local‐level ethnic composition and the spread of conflict. Cross‐country literature on conflict finds that ethnic diversity, and ethnic polarization in particular, are associated with greater incidence of conflict. However, the question remains as to where within ethnically diverse countries conflict begins and where and how it spreads. To study this question, I present a model in which local ethnic groups' decision to attack depends on three key variables: ethnic population shares, ethnic groups' weapons ratio, and the share of co‐ethnic successes in the battles that took place in the previous period. The model generates three predictions: conflict starts in ethnically homogeneous areas and only later spreads to ethnically heterogeneous areas; neighbor co‐ethnics' success increases subsequent probability of winning and may lead to attack; and greater ethnic diversity is associated with costlier conflict. I find strong support for these predictions using detailed municipal‐level data on attacks and ethnic polarization during the initial spread of the Bosnian Civil War. Moreover, my conflict model is able to predict the sequence of actual conflict outcomes with reasonably high accuracy. (JEL: D39, D74, J15, R12)     

WORKERS,WARRIORS, AND CRIMINALS: SOCIAL CONFLICT IN GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM

We incorporate appropriation activities (social conflict) into canonical models of trade and study how economic shocks and policies affect the intensity of conflict. We show that not all shocks that could make society richer reduce conflict: positive shocks to labor‐intensive industries diminish conflict, while positive shocks to capital‐intensive industries increase it. The key requirement is that conflict activities be more labor intensive than the economy as this determines how shocks affect the returns and costs of conflict. Our theory is consistent with several observed patterns of conflict and implies that empirical work should take into account the relative factor intensities of the productive and conflict sectors in each country. Incorporating appropriation into a canonic general equilibrium model affects what policies may be deemed desirable: in order to reduce conflict and generate Pareto‐improvements policy must be distortionary, while reforms that appear efficiency‐enhancing under the unrealistic assumption of perfect property rights may backfire. This offers one explanation for why reforms based on traditional models without appropriation may be delayed and become unpopular when implemented, and why societies may sympathize with seemingly inefficient redistribution.     

ENTRY AND ASYMMETRIC LOBBYING: WHY GOVERNMENTS PICK LOSERS

Governments frequently intervene to support domestic industries, but a surprising amount of this support goes to ailing sectors. We explain this with a lobbying model that allows for entry and sunk costs. Specifically, policy is influenced by pressure groups that incur lobbying expenses to create rents. In expanding industries, entry tends to erode such rents, but in declining industries, sunk costs rule out entry as long as the rents are not too high. This asymmetric appropriability of rents means losers lobby harder. Thus it is not that government policy picks losers, it is that losers pick government policy. JEL: H32, P16.     

Labour Market Policies: Welfare,Incomes, Employment

The — in some ways innovative — objective of this paper is the study of the dynamics of the disequilibria provoked by the emergence of involuntary unemployment in the labour market, and the role of the economic policy authorities (through welfare, incomes and employment policies), with the aim of discovering if there is an explicit or implicit consistency between the role of these authorities, their actions and the pursuit of maximum employment (or elimination of the disequilibria). We seek to show, in other words, whether the actions of the government authorities conform to their accepted meaning (the aim of reducing the disequilibria) or whether, on the contrary, it may not be possible to put forward a different interpretation, if sociopolitical variables are introduced into the analysis, thus placing in the foreground different and alternative objecties such as “conflict control” and/or the reaching of a consensus between the different social partners. The paper therefore begins by analysing separately the historical-theoretical characteristics of the individual policies considered — welfare, incomes and employment — in their evolution (with particular reference to the last two decades), and then attempts an interpretative key in synthesis, by resorting to a specific model derived from the theories of disequilibria.     

MARKET DISTORTIONS AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY

In this paper, we investigate how government transparency depends on economic distortions. We first consider an abstract class of economies in which a benevolent policy maker is privately informed about the exogenous state of the economy and contemplates whether to release this information. Our key result is that distortions limit communication: even if transparency is ex ante Pareto superior to opaqueness, it cannot constitute an equilibrium when distortions are sufficiently high. We next confirm this broad insight in two applied contexts, in which monopoly power and income taxes are the specific sources of distortions.     

对低收入者和高收入者之间的收入不平等程度分析

20世纪90年代以来 ,我国居民收入的不平等程度越来越严重 ,在农村和城市内部 ,低收入群体和高收入群体的收入差距是不断扩大的 ,高收入群体占有的收入份额在迅速上升 ,而低收入群体占有的收入份额在不断下降;在城乡之间 ,收入分配结构也在向有利于城市居民方面变动 ,城乡居民收入差距不断扩大 ,城市人占有的收入份额越来越多 ,而农民占有的收入份额却不断变小。造成收入分配不平等程度日益严重的原因既有产业结构变动因素 ,也有体制改革和宏观经济政策调整因素。为了防止收入分配的过度分化 ,政府应该适度干预市场 ,通过公共政策来调节收入分配 ,并帮助穷者。     

A systems simulation model of the Kenyan economy

This paper describes a systems simulation model of the national economy of Kenya. The model contains an input/output production component linked to a consumption component, disaggregated into nine income classes. Capital formation and government are integrated into the model as interactive elements. The model is demand driven and thus growth rates in the productive sectors are generated endogenously as a function of demand. The model has been used by the Kenyan Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning for forecasting and policy evaluation problems. A contributory factor in the successful implementation of the model is its ability to supply detailed quantitative forecasts which, in a developing country, are not readily available from routine sources. In addition, the model deals explicitly with income distribution and inflation consequences which are issues of current concern to local development planners.     

基于低碳视角的政府监管与制造商生产的演化博弈研究

政府制定的监管政策对制造商生产策略的选择具有重要影响。本文基于低碳视角，引入政府碳税系数、补贴系数、低碳产品生产成本等参数，针对税收与补贴混合政策、单一税收政策和单一补贴政策三种模式，分别建立了政府与制造商之间决策行为的演化博弈模型，对比分析了不同监管政策下政府和制造商达到均衡所需条件的差异，并进一步探讨了影响政府、制造商决策的关键因素。研究结果表明，当初始生产低碳产品的制造商比例相同时，政府实施混合政策比单一税收政策或补贴政策对制造商生产低碳产品的激励作用更加明显。政府监管与政府低碳税收、高碳产品罚款和监管成本有关，制造商生产低碳产品受到产品成本、收益的影响。研究结论不仅为政府制定低碳产品政策提供了科学依据，也为制造商选择低碳产品策略给予了决策支撑。     

企业环境研发、产品差异化与政府环境管制

气候变暖已成为全球日益关注的重要问题之一,实施环境管制政策是政府控制企业碳排放量的重要手段。基于东道国企业和外资企业产品差异化竞争假设,建立了企业环境研发策略(环境研发卡特尔策略和独立环境研发策略)与政府环境管制的三阶段博弈模型,运用逆向求解法求得各阶段均衡解,比较了不同环境研发策略下企业环境研发水平(及碳减排量)、政策环境管制水平及国家福利。结果表明:企业环境研发投入越多,政府最优碳排放税越低;碳排放对环境造成的损害越大,政府最优排放税越高,企业越致力于环境研发。对关键参数赋值和模拟后进一步发现,总体而言,环境研发卡特尔策略要优于独立环境研发策略,但随着产品差异化程度的缩小和环境研发溢出程度的降低,环境研发卡特尔策略优于独立环境研发策略的程度也在缩小。因此,本文的研究可为外资企业和东道国企业产品策略选择和环境研发策略选择提供理论依据,也可为政府政策制定提供参考。     

Can governments make credible promises? Insights from infrastructure projects in emerging economies

Despite deregulation and privatization, governments in emerging economies continue to play important roles in private infrastructure projects, thereby exposing private investors to the risk of government reneging. The government's role as deal maker—and deal breaker—in infrastructure investments stems from its role as financier, customer, supplier, competitor, and/or regulator. (The only role governments have shed as a result of recent economic reforms is that of producer.) Based on the literature, I propose three explanations for government reneging: (1) economic uncertainty, which necessitates contract renegotiation; (2) the logic of the “obsolescing bargain,” which makes deals less attractive to governments ex post than they were ex ante; and (3) political change, which puts new leaders in charge with incentives to renege on old promises. I assert that these risks can be contained, respectively, through contract design, investment strategy, and institutional design. Using this framework, I conclude that Enron's strategy in the controversial Dabhol project in India was sensitive to first of the three factors and relatively less mindful of the other two. The policy implication for MNCs is that they should be attentive to all three factors that cause government reneging rather than just one or two.     

ECONOMICS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT IN A MULTI‐REGION WORLD

This paper develops a model that integrates the climate and the global economy—an integrated assessment model—with which different policy scenarios can be analyzed and compared. The model is a dynamic stochastic general‐equilibrium setup with a continuum of regions. Thus, it is a full stochastic general‐equilibrium version of RICE, Nordhaus’s pioneering multi‐region integrated assessment model. Like RICE, our model features traded fossil fuel but otherwise has no markets across regions—there is no insurance nor any intertemporal trade across them. The extreme form of market incompleteness is not fully realistic but arguably not a bad approximation of reality. Its major advantage is that, along with a set of reasonable assumptions on preferences, technology, and nature, it allows a closed‐form model solution. We use the model to assess the welfare consequences of carbon taxes that differ across as well as within oil‐consuming and ‐producing regions. We show that, surprisingly, only taxes on oil producers can improve the climate: taxes on oil consumers have no effect at all. The calibrated model suggests large differences in views on climate policy across regions.     

Using a Grey model optimized by Differential Evolution algorithm to forecast the per capita annual net income of rural households in China

China is a major developing country where farmers account for over 57% of the population. Thus, promoting a rural economy is crucial if the Chinese government is to improve the quality of life of the nation as a whole. To frame scientific and effective rural policy or economic plans, it is useful and necessary for the government to predict the income of rural households. However, making such a prediction is challenging because rural households income is influenced by many factors, such as natural disasters. Based on the Grey Theory and the Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm, this study first developed a high-precision hybrid model, DE-GM(1,1) to forecast the per capita annual net income of rural households in China. By applying the DE algorithm to the optimization of the parameter λ, which was generally set equal to 0.5 in GM(1,1), we obtained more accurate forecasting results. Furthermore, the DE-Rolling-GM(1,1) was constructed by introducing the Rolling Mechanism. By analyzing the historical data of per capita annual net income of rural households in China from 1991 to 2008, we found that DE-Rolling-GM(1,1) can significantly improve the prediction precision when compared to traditional models.     

财务保守行为:基于中国上市公司的实证研究

财务保守行为是指企业在较长的一段时间内持续地采用低财务杠杆的财务政策的一种行为。与传统的资本结构管理观点相比,保守的财务政策更加注重获得财务灵活性以防范风险和捕捉未来的投资机会,是一种崭新的资本结构管理的观点。本文运用LOGIT非线性回归模型,基于中国上市公司的经验数据,分别从产业组织、资本市场和治理结构3个方面考察了影响财务保守行为的主要因素并进行了理论分析。实证结果表明:由产品市场竞争决定的企业本身的内源融资能力是财务保守行为产生的最为重要的原因,而这种能力主要取决于企业所处的市场环境、政府管制和产业组织情况;资本市场的估价状况对于财务保守行为有重大的影响,我国股价高估的资本市场环境,以及二元割裂、一股独大的治理结构使得非流通股股东偏好从增发和配股中获取利益,客观上造成了上市公司的股权融资偏好行为,而这种偏好表现在资本结构上,就是财务保守行为,可以称之为企业融资战略对于财务保守行为的影响;最后,我们没有发现足够的证据支持财务保守行为和公司竞争战略之间有足够的联系,说明我国的上市公司在资本结构管理方面较少地考虑到资本结构和产品市场竞争之间的互动与协调,企业战略管理的水平尚待进一步地提高。     

The Cost of Children When Children are a Choice

The standard methods of measuring the cost of children are flawed because of the endogeneity of fertility decisions and because — even if they were exogenous — children bring (or may bring) utility to the household. This paper presents a simple structural model of household allocation of time and income to ‘children’s (quantity and quality) production’. From the estimates one can compute the cost of children as the market value of resources devoted to children. Some policy simulations illustrate the relevance of accounting for the endogeneity of children.     

UNCERTAINTY,PERSISTENCE, AND HETEROGENEITY: A PANEL DATA PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this paper is to review newly developed identification and estimation tools that are relevant for the analysis of dynamic dependence structures of income risk. I present an application to nonlinear permanent–transitory models of household income using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), but the empirical approach is more generally applicable. Household income processes are of interest because the size of shocks, the nature of their persistence, and cross‐household heterogeneity are all important to understand how income inequality varies with age and cohort and how it translates into consumption inequality. I argue that going from an econometrics of autocovariances to an econometrics of flexible distributions is feasible and has the potential to reveal richer aspects of risk—for example, nonlinear persistence of unusual shocks.     

LIQUIDITY AND INEFFICIENT INVESTMENT

We study consumer liquidity in a general equilibrium model where the friction is the nonpledgeability of future income. Liquidity helps to overcome the absence of a double coincidence of wants. Consumers over‐hoard liquidity and the resulting competitive equilibrium is constrained inefficient. Fiscal policy following a large negative shock can increase ex‐ante welfare. If the government cannot commit, the ex‐post optimal fiscal policy will be too small from an ex‐ante perspective. The model throws light on the holding of foreign reserves in international markets.     

The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents

We study the dynamics of the distribution of wealth in an overlapping generation economy with finitely lived agents and intergenerational transmission of wealth. Financial markets are incomplete, exposing agents to both labor and capital income risk. We show that the stationary wealth distribution is a Pareto distribution in the right tail and that it is capital income risk, rather than labor income, that drives the properties of the right tail of the wealth distribution. We also study analytically the dependence of the distribution of wealth—of wealth inequality in particular—on various fiscal policy instruments like capital income taxes and estate taxes, and on different degrees of social mobility. We show that capital income and estate taxes can significantly reduce wealth inequality, as do institutions favoring social mobility. Finally, we calibrate the economy to match the Lorenz curve of the wealth distribution of the U.S. economy.     

开放经济中跨国公司的最优所得税模型

通过对不同避免双重征税方法下最优所得税模型的建立,解析了政府最优政策的收入函数,得到税收竞争均衡中的公司所得课税政策.对小型开放经济而言,在扣除法和抵免法,以及免税法与抵免法的不对称体系下,对跨国公司从源征收公司所得税都是最优选择.由此,得到不同于国际税收经典理论的结论.