Bailouts: The lesser of two evils?

This paper investigates the relation between bailouts and regulation. Regulation, by limiting the room for government intervention in the market, can affect the likelihood and size of a bailout. While a higher level of regulation is associated with a lower likelihood of a direct acquisition, such countries resort to a higher use of State aid. The findings suggest the more transparent nature of direct acquisitions, makes them the lesser of two evils. In this light, policymakers should monitor State Aid and bailouts together, with the aim of making the former more transparent.     

The Rule of Law Approach to Government Governance in China*

Chinese government governance involves the two dimensions of autonomy and co-governance. The process of moving from government management to government governance is a synchronous process of moving from government by a legal system to a “rule of law” government. Such governance coincides with the rule of law in terms of fundamental guarantees, governance frameworks, intrinsic values, external forms, goal pursuits and construction paths and lays the foundation for the realization of government governance. The multi-subject structure, multiplicity of rules and regulations, interaction of processes, diversity of modes and complexity of disputes in this form of governance place new demands on the construction of the rule of law. In response to these needs, we should improve the government’s functional orientation and the disposition of its powers by means of statute law; expand the types of administrative bodies and improve the laws on administrative organizations; enrich the sources of law; use consensus rules to improve controlling rules; be guided by interactivity in improving the administrative procedure system; normalize diversified administrative behavior; and establish multiple dispute resolution mechanisms and strengthen right relief. This will highlight the rule of law path taken by government governance. In the course of the integration and interaction of such governance with the rule of law, we will need to coordinate our responses to its latent risks, such as governance pitfalls and the limitations of the rule of law.     

政府职能定位与国有企业改革

在社会主义市场经济条件下 ,政府是无法同时胜任弥补市场缺陷职能和国有资产所有者代表职能的 ,合理的选择是把国有资产所有者代表职能交由全国人大派出的、与政府独立的“国资委”承担。据此 ,社会主义市场经济条件下的国有企业可以分为由政府以弥补市场缺陷为目的举办的国有企业Ⅰ和由“国资委”以实现国有资产保值增值为目的举办的国有企业Ⅱ两种类型。国有企业改革拟走国有企业Ⅰ和国有企业Ⅱ分开的路子     

关于建立新型国有资产管理体制的思考

全国人民代表大会的性质决定了它可以充当国有资产的初始委托人 ,具有执行国有资产所有者的职能 ,因此 ,国有资产管理机构应设置于全国人民代表大会 ,从而在国体层次上解决“政企分开”。根据委托———代理理论 ,新型国有资产管理体制应采用非多层级结构的组织形式 ,以保证国有资产增值最大化。应模拟企业经营管理者职业化机制 ,培育和塑造国有资产“人格化”管理者 ,使其在有效的激励和约束机制下 ,监督国有资产运行效率的提高。     

Fiscal deficits under financial pressure and insolvency: Evidence for Italy,Greece and Spain

This article attempts to re-evaluate the sustainability of the fiscal deficit as well as the long-run macroeconomic relationship between government spending and revenues for three South-European economies under financial market pressure and insolvency; Italy, Greece and Spain. The empirical analysis uses annual data from 1970 to 2010 and employs various cointegration techniques to account for possible linear and nonlinear effects in fiscal policy actions. The evidence for all three countries suggests that, allowing for structural break, (i) the fiscal deficits are weakly sustainable in the long-run, (ii) the spend-and-tax hypothesis is supported and (iii) the budgetary adjustment process is asymmetric in Italy and Spain.     

国有资产管理模式改革探讨

我国实行的国有资产分级管理模式存在着各级管理机构定位不清,国有资产管理机构职责不明,国企和非国企地位不明确等诸多问题,不符合WTO规则和市场经济发展的要求。国有资产管理应以实现国有资本的保值增值为目的。国有资产管理模式必须实现由国有资产管理向国有资本运营转变,实现向国有资产管理模式的“管资本”目标转变,使国有资本在扩张中能够保值增值。     

Asset building and livelihood rebuilding in post-disaster Sichuan,China

In May 2008, a severe earthquake struck Sichuan Province, devastating many rural communities. Mudslides followed in 2010, undermining some attempts to rebuild. Despite rapid reconstruction efforts by the Chinese central government, many survivors faced uncertainty and substantial challenges. To support rural survivors' efforts to regain livelihoods and hope, social workers launched several asset-building initiatives in the area. The use of asset building as a strategy to address poverty emerged in the United States in the 1990s and spread to Chinese communities in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but there have been only a few efforts to apply the strategy in rural China. This article discusses the conceptual framework of asset building and details asset-building efforts in disaster-stricken rural communities. The article also documents an evolution in the concept of assets and proposes that the concept should be broadened further to include two additional types of assets: social and cultural.     

Financial Crisis and Sustainability of US Fiscal Deficit: Indicators or Tests?

Whether or not budgetary policies are sustainable and can be conducted without creating the potential for government bankruptcy is a central question for macroeconomic analysis. In this paper, we show that indicators and tests to assess government solvency should not be used alternatively. We lay out a simple and intuitive procedure to integrate simultaneously the results from the two approaches to fiscal sustainability. Indicators are forward looking, for they are based on published forecasts, thus reacting to a set of current and expected future conditions in fiscal-policy making. Tests, by contrast, are backward looking, for they are based on a sample of past data. In the event of conflicting results, indicators may signal the occurrence of a structural change in policy, which may reverse the predictions of tests. Whether the results from indicators or from tests should be given priority in the assessment of the sustainability of public debt will thus depend on the structural stability of the historical data generating process of the primary surplus. Only in the absence of a structural break in the stance of fiscal policy, the potential warning predictions of fiscal indicators should be interpreted as merely reflecting transitory factors to be eventually reversed. An application to U.S. post-World War II historical data, from 1948 to 2016, and forecasts, from 2017 to 2027, demonstrates the empirical relevance of the proposed comprehensive approach and helps add new insights to the evaluation of the U.S. fiscal position. In particular, our results suggest that the potentially unsustainable course of U.S. fiscal policy from 2008 onwards, advocated by the use of fiscal indicators, reflects systematic—not cyclical—factors. The main policy implication is that deficit increases in the U.S. from 2008 onwards cannot be regarded as a transitory phenomenon and hence do entail an urgent need for a structural change in the future stance of budgetary policy.     

Macroeconomic stabilization of primary commodities price cycles in developing economies

This paper proposes a strategy for stabilizing macroeconomic policy to address jointly the effects of changes in the prices of food, minerals and energy (oil). Our approach differs from the general literature, which analyzes the effects of a commodity boom or bust and therefore the solutions in terms of economic policy separately, that is, by type of commodity. The stabilization strategy that we propose considers a key fact affecting many open economies, namely, that they not only are affected by increases or decreases in commodity prices, but also benefit from them. Consequently, we use a structural model for an open economy with restricted households to show that welfare could be improved with a fiscal rule incorporating transfers to stabilize household consumption. This strategy noticeably dominates an aggressive monetary policy focused only on stabilizing inflation and a fiscal policy that has an excessive bias toward saving income from exports.     

从政府的作为来看老年产业的发展

我国已进入老龄化社会,老年人数量庞大,然而老年产业却迟迟未发展起来。本文认为政府在老年产业的发展中扮演着重要的角色,主要体现在两点:一是对老年人消费观念的影响,二是对老年产业本身发展的影响。本文主要从这两点进行分析,并提出自己的建议,如搞地区试点,对国资投资领域进行阶段性扩展等等。     

北京郊区农村固定资产投资分析研究

本文分析了北京郊区农村固定资产投资的基本情况,认为尽管近年来北京对郊区农村固定资产投资逐年增加,促进了农村经济的发展和农民生活水平的提高,但还存在着投资比重低、来源单一、区域分布不平衡、用于公共服务设施的比重低等问题,需要进一步加大公共财政投入,调整投资结构,提高资金使用效率,吸引社会资金投入农村。     

The Impact of Structural Reform on County Government Service Provision*

Objective. This study examines the effect that county government structure has on county spending in an environment of rapid population growth. In particular, it looks at the consequence of changing from a traditional commission noncharter form to an appointed administrator/elected executive commission type with a home rule charter. Methods. This study uses a pooled time‐series design to analyze the spending behavior of seven rapid‐growth counties in Florida that adopted a modernized structure between 1980 and 1990. Results. The findings indicate that changing the form of county government leads to a statistically significant increase in total spending as well as for spending for traditional and regional services. Conclusions. In addition to the theoretical implications for studying government structural impacts, there are practical implications for county officials in rapidly growing areas who view the adoption of modernized structures as a means to facilitate the expansion of current services and/or the addition of new services.     

医药零售行业经营困境和对策分析--以深圳市医药零售市场为研究背景

近年深圳市的医药零售行业出现了前所未有的良好发展势头,医药零售连锁经营走在全国前面。但是,由于国家宏观政策等主客观因素,医药零售行业在发展中遭遇区域分割和地方保护主义壁垒、连锁经营的规模不经济、发展资金缺乏等经营困境。为有效解决这些问题,须从提升公司核心竞争能力,建立现代公司组织管理体系,重视无形资产的输出,重视定点药店的开发,整合外部资源,构筑公司联盟和加强政府部门监督着手。     

政府的规范目的：追求和实现公共利益

现实中的政府部门或政府官员未必是大公无私的利他主义者,但在规范意义上,政府应当追求公共利益。政府合法存在的最重要的理由是追求和实现公共利益,保障公民的基本权利不受侵犯。政府应当追求公共利益实际上也就设定了政府的行为边界。政府的权力应当是有限的,只能将其行为严格限定在与社会公共事务有关的领域。政府的基本任务是努力满足社会成员的公共需要,为他们提供优质的公共物品和公共服务,从而实现公共利益。     

From passive assistance to capacity building: assessing the Child Development Fund in Hong Kong

Poverty was not a major issue in Hong Kong before the 1990s. After the Asian financial crisis, the government admitted that poverty was growing and demanded attention. While passive assistance was maintained, increasing emphasis was placed on capacity building to promote self-reliance. The Child Development Fund was introduced to combat intergenerational poverty by developing children's capacity and assets, especially through mentorship. On the basis of published data and interviews with social workers, the project should be considered a success, but it was not without problems. The contribution of social workers to the project was significant but received little government recognition.     

Channels of monetary policy transmission in Vietnam

Since the economic reforms launched in 1986, the Vietnamese economy has registered impressive economic growth. While foreign investment is providing much needed capital, through the conduct of monetary policy, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), which is an integral part of the government of Vietnam, is also playing an important role in nurturing the economic growth. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the success of the SBV policies. Monetary policy actions affect all sectors of real economies with a significant lag. Without a good understanding of the transmission mechanism, monetary policy actions may not achieve the desired outcomes. Using quarterly data from 1995 to 2010, this paper focuses on monetary policy transmission mechanisms in Vietnam. Specifically, we consider the dynamic response of the Vietnamese economy to interest rate, exchange rate and foreign shocks. The estimated results based on structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) methodology suggest that monetary shocks tend to have a strong influence on Vietnam’s output. We find that Vietnam’s monetary policy is relatively more susceptible to foreign shocks.     

Rule of Law Construction and Assessment at the Local Level

Going beyond the analytical model of the holistic state in rule of law discussion, we can classify the rule of law into national and local levels based on the stages and increments of its execution. The phenomenon of the local rule of law reflects the stages and incremental progress of building a rule of law China. It has a realistic foundation in society and a profound basis in legal theory. Comprehensively advancing the rule of law in China necessitates giving encouragement and support to construction of the rule of law at the local level. The attempts and experiments of local government enable us to explore and innovate the developmental model of the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. The rule of law at the local level is embodied in three dimensions: “text—action—concept.” Assessment mechanisms and indicators for the local construction of the rule of law should also be established in accordance with this framework. The building of the rule of law at the local level should be synchronized with assessment of the rule of law. We need to optimize top-level design, conduct evaluations of local legislation, improve local rule of law work performance assessment and use a rule of law index to assess the local rule of law in an overall manner.     

Fiscal transparency and tax ethics: does better information lead to greater compliance?

By relying on WVS data and using multilevel mixed modeling, the paper tests the hypothesis that access to larger flows of information about government fiscal accounts and financial transactions increases citizens’ willingness to pay taxes. By supporting such an hypothesis, our analysis suggests that in the presence of more information, the implicit contract between the government and taxpayers displays less stringent incentives and participation constraints and causes part of the contract, namely tax morale, to be enhanced. This finding supports the implementation of fiscal transparency policies, whose possible design is discussed.     

Disaster impact and recovery: what children and young people can tell us

Christchurch's earthquakes revealed children's vulnerability to disaster but also their ability to respond and play an active role in recovery. We argue that children's voices need to be heard and given priority in the recovery process because the disaster impacts on them and their families in ways that are not recognised or well understood. We report the findings of a study undertaken with 94 Christchurch children. Its aim was to give voice to children's experiences of post-earthquake Christchurch and in doing so contribute to post-disaster recovery. The experiences of these Christchurch children offer other children, parents, government and agencies valuable insights into how to manage the recovery process in ways that best meet children's needs. In the post-disaster recovery period, decision-makers need to recognise children as authentic actors in the recovery process and should commit to hearing children's voices throughout the rebuilding. Children and young people's resilience and positive commitment to Christchurch are assets that should be capitalised on in the longer-term recovery process.     

我国不良资产的现况及资产管理公司未来行为分析

资产管理公司在过去两年多时间里取得的成绩是令人瞩目的 ,但资产管理公司在运营中遇到的困难仍旧很多。还需进一步解决资产管理公司技术和人才缺乏的问题 ,防范资产管理公司自身道德风险 ,合理定位处置权和融资权 ,协调政府与市场的关系 ,抓住有利时机 ,积极稳妥地进行债转股与资产证券化。