知识产权保护对经济增长的作用研究

实证研究加强知识产权保护是否会促进经济增长。论述知识产权保护与R&D活动以及国际贸易的交互作用,分析其在国家经济增长中发挥的作用,并确定采用R&D知识存量作为R&D活动的代理变量,采用进出口总额占GDP的比重作为国际贸易的代理变量,基于柯布道-格拉斯生产函数构建理论模型,基于影响因素分析推导并建立实证回归模型;依据传统的永续盘存法分别测算固定资本存量和R&D知识存量,利用1980年至2005年27个发达国家和22个发展中国家的面板数据,采用固定效应与随机效应相结合的方法,检验知识产权保护对经济增长的影响效果。实证研究结果表明,加强知识产权保护对经济增长有正向的促进作用,加强知识产权保护和扩大国际贸易对经济增长的促进作用显著,加强知识产权保护和R&D活动对经济增长的促进作用不显著。     

Business Cycle Accounting

We propose a simple method to help researchers develop quantitative models of economic fluctuations. The method rests on the insight that many models are equivalent to a prototype growth model with time‐varying wedges that resemble productivity, labor and investment taxes, and government consumption. Wedges that correspond to these variables—efficiency, labor, investment, and government consumption wedges—are measured and then fed back into the model so as to assess the fraction of various fluctuations they account for. Applying this method to U.S. data for the Great Depression and the 1982 recession reveals that the efficiency and labor wedges together account for essentially all of the fluctuations; the investment wedge plays a decidedly tertiary role, and the government consumption wedge plays none. Analyses of the entire postwar period and alternative model specifications support these results. Models with frictions manifested primarily as investment wedges are thus not promising for the study of U.S. business cycles.     

What's News in Business Cycles

In the context of a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model, we perform classical maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimations of the contribution of anticipated shocks to business cycles in the postwar United States. Our identification approach relies on the fact that forward‐looking agents react to anticipated changes in exogenous fundamentals before such changes materialize. It further allows us to distinguish changes in fundamentals by their anticipation horizon. We find that anticipated shocks account for about half of predicted aggregate fluctuations in output, consumption, investment, and employment.     

中国经济周期研究:1954￣2004

本文从中国的基本国情——存在大量农村剩余劳动力出发,提出了分析我国经济周期性波动的基本理论框架:基于劳动力转移的真实经济周期理论。在此基础上,分别考察了1954￣1975年、1976￣2004年两个时间段经济周期波动的典型事实,并进行了计量检验。本文的主要结论是,尽管自1954年以来我国的GDP增长率与投资增长率就表现出显著的共同周期现象,但是,1976年以后的周期与以往存在着明显的不同:劳动力转移、投资增长和经济增长三者的相互作用成为推动我国经济周期性波动的基本经济机制,经济周期因而表现为高度同步的GDP周期、投资周期和劳动力转移周期。这种现象说明,宏观经济政策应该将稳定投资、加快体制改革作为基本的出发点。     

The Role of Automatic Stabilizers in the U.S. Business Cycle

Most countries have automatic rules in their tax‐and‐transfer systems that are partly intended to stabilize economic fluctuations. This paper measures their effect on the dynamics of the business cycle. We put forward a model that merges the standard incomplete‐markets model of consumption and inequality with the new Keynesian model of nominal rigidities and business cycles, and that includes most of the main potential stabilizers in the U.S. data and the theoretical channels by which they may work. We find that the conventional argument that stabilizing disposable income will stabilize aggregate demand plays a negligible role in the dynamics of the business cycle, whereas tax‐and‐transfer programs that affect inequality and social insurance can have a larger effect on aggregate volatility. However, as currently designed, the set of stabilizers in place in the United States has had little effect on the volatility of aggregate output fluctuations or on their welfare costs despite stabilizing aggregate consumption. The stabilizers have a more important role when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound, and they affect welfare significantly through the provision of social insurance.     

Sticky Price Models of the Business Cycle: Can the Contract Multiplier Solve the Persistence Problem?

We construct a quantitative equilibrium model with firms setting prices in a staggered fashion and use it to ask whether monetary shocks can generate business cycle fluctuations. These fluctuations include persistent movements in output along with the other defining features of business cycles, like volatile investment and smooth consumption. We assume that prices are exogenously sticky for a short time. Persistent output fluctuations require endogenous price stickiness in the sense that firms choose not to change prices much when they can do so. We find that for a wide range of parameter values, the amount of endogenous stickiness is small. Thus, we find that in a standard quantitative model, staggered price‐setting, alone, does not generate business cycle fluctuations.     

Human Capital,Trade Openness and Growth in Argentina in the 20th Century

We estimate a production function that accounts for the economic performance of the country in the 20th century. We elaborate long term time series whereas most of the recent empirical studies on growth are based on cross section analysis. This approach allows us to follow the various regime changes that can be identified in the rich economic history of Argentina. To evaluate Total Factor Productivity (TFP) we initially test the classical Solow Model. We estimate the speed of convergence of TFP and obtain a non convergence result. This speed of convergence has declined since the 1930s, and we find a phenomenon of divergence in the period 1970–90. We then analyse the impact on production of additional variables recently highlighted in the endogenous growth literature such as the process of catch up of foreign technical progress, human capital and trade openness. Chow tests for this extended production function give us a strong probability of changes in the growth regimes. The estimation, that takes into consideration the break points identified, shows that the impact of trade openness and foreign technology is not stable throughout the century. In what concerns the impact of education on economic growth, we find a strong effect of primary education on growth, and a weaker effect of secondary-university education.     

The Granular Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations

This paper proposes that idiosyncratic firm‐level shocks can explain an important part of aggregate movements and provide a microfoundation for aggregate shocks. Existing research has focused on using aggregate shocks to explain business cycles, arguing that individual firm shocks average out in the aggregate. I show that this argument breaks down if the distribution of firm sizes is fat‐tailed, as documented empirically. The idiosyncratic movements of the largest 100 firms in the United States appear to explain about one‐third of variations in output growth. This “granular” hypothesis suggests new directions for macroeconomic research, in particular that macroeconomic questions can be clarified by looking at the behavior of large firms. This paper's ideas and analytical results may also be useful for thinking about the fluctuations of other economic aggregates, such as exports or the trade balance.     

Cyclicality of capital-intensive industries: a system dynamics simulation study of the paper industry

This paper provides a view on the cyclicality of capital-intensive industries that could add considerably to our understanding of how cycles in prices, profits and capacity come about. Previous studies of business cycles focus on macro-economic systems or on the agricultural sector. Causes for fluctuations are typically believed to be mainly exogenous in nature. We seek to extend the existing literature on industrial cycles by developing a model that incorporates endogenously generated cyclicality. A simulation model of the paper industry is developed, and validated on the basis of data for the US paper industry.     

动态通胀目标、货币供应机制与中国经济波动——基于动态随机一般均衡的分析

本文建立了一个包含动态通胀目标的货币政策DSGE模型,运用脉冲响应、方差分解、历史分解和反事实仿真方法研究了生产率冲击、消费需求冲击、通胀目标冲击、货币供给冲击对中国经济波动的影响。研究表明,DSGE模型对于分析中国的宏观经济和货币政策具有一定的适用性,中国的货币供应机制中存在不可观察动态内生通胀目标,并且动态通胀目标对生产率冲击做出正向响应的同时,对消费需求冲击做出负向响应;反事实仿真分析表明,具有动态通胀目标的货币供应机制能够起到稳定通货膨胀的作用。     

Land‐Price Dynamics and Macroeconomic Fluctuations

We argue that positive co‐movements between land prices and business investment are a driving force behind the broad impact of land‐price dynamics on the macroeconomy. We develop an economic mechanism that captures the co‐movements by incorporating two key features into a DSGE model: We introduce land as a collateral asset in firms' credit constraints, and we identify a shock that drives most of the observed fluctuations in land prices. Our estimates imply that these two features combine to generate an empirically important mechanism that amplifies and propagates macroeconomic fluctuations through the joint dynamics of land prices and business investment.     

UNDERSTANDING CHANGES IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CYCLE DYNAMICS

The volatility of economic activity in most G7 economies has moderated over the past 40 years. Also, despite large increases in trade and openness, G7 business cycles have not become more synchronized. After documenting these facts, we interpret G7 output data using a structural VAR that separately identifies common international shocks, the domestic effects of spillovers from foreign idiosyncratic shocks, and the effects of domestic idiosyncratic shocks. This analysis suggests that, with the exception of Japan, a significant portion of the widespread reduction in volatility is associated with a reduction in the magnitude of the common international shocks. Had the common international shocks in the 1980s and 1990s been as large as they were in the 1960s and 1970s, G7 business cycles would have been substantially more volatile and more highly synchronized than they actually were. (JEL: C3, E5)     

房地产价格波动的微观传导效应研究——基于融资约束的视角

本文利用全国各省区及七十个大中城市房地产价格数据,匹配以上市公司的房屋和土地使用权数据,从微观层面考察融资约束在房地产价格传导机制中所发挥的作用及其经济后果.本文研究表明房地产价格波动对我国企业融资和投资行为具有显著的传导效应,其效应扩散程度主要取决于企业的融资约束状况,当企业所拥有的房地产价值上涨时,融资约束程度高的企业外部债务融资更多,具有更高的投资水平,表现出更强的过度投资倾向.本文进一步考察传导效应的资源配置后果,发现企业的绩效并未有实质性的改善,说明抵押资产价格传导效应可能存在负面经济后果.本文还发现,随着房地产价格的波动,融资约束程度高的企业也体现出更大的投资波动幅度,这说明融资约束有可能放大经济周期性波动程度,证实了Kiyotaki和Moore(1997)的理论推断.     

Labour‐market Institutions and Macroeconomic Shocks

Abstract. Macroeconomic shocks and labour‐market institutions jointly determine employment growth and economic performance. The effect of shocks depends on the nature of these institutions and the effect of institutional change depends on the macroeconomic environment. It follows that a given set of institutions may be appropriate in one epoch and not in another. We derive a dynamic model of labour demand in which the effect of firing costs on labour demand depends on the macroeconomic environment: when the level of macroeconomic activity is expected to drop and/or the trend rate of productivity growth is small, a rise in firing costs affects mainly (and adversely) the hiring decision and not the layoff decision. This makes firing costs harmful to employment when it may appear most appropriate. In contrast, firing costs can raise employment during periods of high growth and positive shocks. Our hypothesis is supported by empirical results using OECD data.     

金砖四国FDI与经济增长关系的实证分析

外国直接投资(FDI)是发展中国家谋求经济起飞的重要资源,外国直接投资通过资本形成和技术进步促进东道国经济增长,而东道国经济增长又进一步带动外国直接投资的流入。本文从数量分析的角度,利用协整理论考察了巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国四国的FDI与经济增长的关系,并建立误差修正模型刻画它们的动态均衡关系。实证分析表明:长期内,巴西、印度和俄罗斯的FDI与经济增长之间存在显著的Granger因果关系,而中国的FDI与经济增长之间则不存在稳定的Granger因果关系;短期内,巴西和俄罗斯两国的FDI与经济增长具有显著的互补性,但中国的经济增长只能单方面吸引FDI的流入,印度的FDI也只能单方面对经济增长起推动作用。     

CYCLICAL BEHAVIOR OF UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE HELP WANTED INDEX: A CROSS SPECTRAL ANALYSIS

The unemployment rate and the help-wanted index are two frequently used indicators of the state of the labor market. Traditional regression techniques used in the analysis of the relationship between these two indicators and their cyclical behavior with business fluctuations have yielded varying results. Spectral analysis is used in this article to examine the cyclical behavior of the labor market indicators with respect to each other and with respect to a measure of aggregate economic activity in the United States. Very strong relationships are found, lending support to the rationale of using such indicators as labor market proxies. This application of spectral analysis also provides an illustration of the potential fruitfulness of spectral analysis in examining the cyclical relationships between economic time series.     

Trustworthiness as an economic asset

The evaluation of trust in economic decision making remains on the periphery of mainstream economic analysis and teaching. Yet business managers use trustworthiness in daily exchanges to create competitive advantages for their firms. An exploratory empirical test of Barney and Hansen’s three levels of trust (weak, semistrong, and strong) and Lewicki and Bunker’s portfolio of governance mechanisms revealed that strong-form trust exists in day-to-day business relationships along with other governance mechanisms. Identity-based transactions were more prevalent than were weak trust market exchanges in important economic transactions.     

资源配置最优控制模型研究

针对我国当前所面临的资金短缺和劳动力过剩的实际情况,本文从经济发展的内在规律和长期趋势出发,建立经济发展过程中的资源配置最优控制模型,并通过对模型的实证分析,探索在各种资源约束下经济发展最优化的有效途径,为制定经济发展规划、各种资源的最佳配置等方面提供一定的参考。     

BUSINESS COMBINATION DECISIONS: A U.S./CANADA STUDY*

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the motives behind business combination decisions. Twenty-one favorable characteristics associated with the motivations for business combinations were selected to serve as the basis for an empirical survey. Our analysis revealed that there are seven motivational variables of varying import and that the motivations underlying business combination decisions are similar for U.S. and Canadian executives.