The rise of Trump and an agenda for regulatory reform

The arrival of Trump in the White House does not augur well for the long-run prospects of the US economy. The protectionism that is gathering steam under his presidency may yield some short-term gains, but at the detriment of the long-run. Examining the discontent among ordinary voters that brought Trump to power, this paper argues that this should be treated as an opportunity for a major regulatory reform. With the advance of digital technology, we have increasing returns to scale, and that, in turn, is making our antitrust laws backfire and hurt the well-being of ordinary people, thereby sowing discontent. The paper builds a simple model to illustrate this and makes the case for revoking the older antitrust laws and replacing them with some simple profit-sharing rules at the level of the firm, and the economy.     

我国35个大中城市房价-持久收入比研究

房价收入比是反映居民购房可支付能力的重要指标。为了更真实准确反映我国居民长期承受的购房负担,本文基于持久收入假说,利用我国35个大中城市数据,建立状态空间模型,估计出持久收入意义下的房价收入比,通过情景分析确定其合理上限,并分析主要特征。研究表明：①我国房价-持久收入比的合理上限为7.6,2002-2013年35个大中城市的房价-持久收入比均值是9.2,其中28个城市已超过该上限,比值最高的北京已达到14.9;②城市越发达,则房价-持久收入比越高,居民需要承受的购房压力越大,且在时间趋势上,一线与二三线城市间的差距呈现扩大趋势;③在地理分布上,我国东部、中部、东北地区、西部大中城市的房价-持久收入比呈现从高到低的排列顺序;④相比于传统方法中根据可支配收入测算的房价收入比,房价-持久收入比与其约有10%的差异。当前我国政府应采取有效措施继续限制房价,减轻居民购房负担。     

住房价格应该纳入通货膨胀的统计范围吗？

 本文分别从度量生活成本和执行货币政策的角度研究住房价格是否应该纳入通货膨胀的统计范围。从度量生活成本的角度看,应该将住房价格纳入CPI的统计范围,然而本文的文献回顾表明,如何在CPI的统计框架下妥善处理住房价格仍然没有一致的结论。从执行货币政策的角度看,考虑到核心通货膨胀更适合作为货币政策的通货膨胀目标,本文研究了住房价格对核心通货膨胀的影响,发现住房价格对我国核心通货膨胀的影响微乎其微。这表明,如果稳定物价是货币政策的唯一目标,则货币政策无需考虑住房价格。然而,由于我国的货币政策需要兼顾多个目标且住房价格会显著影响产出水平,所以从稳定产出的角度看,货币政策仍须重视住房价格。     

租售比与房地产市场宏观调控

我国房地产业发展历程充满着关于房地产泡沫的争论。近年来,随着房价的上涨,这种争论持续升温。房地产泡沫一旦发生,将给国家的经济和社会生活带来严重的后果,因此,防范房地产泡沫的发生具有重要的现实意义。本文通过对我国房屋租售比现状的分析,指出了我国住宅销售价格过高,住宅需求更多地体现为投资和投机的需求,住房价格中存在着泡沫。在此基础之上,本文就我国房屋租售比失调的成因进行了简要的讨论,并针对房地产市场宏观调控提出了一系列建议。     

公共租赁房建设与新型城镇化

上海推进的公共租赁住房建设,是上海＂十二五＂期间住房保障体系的重要组成部分,符合深化住房制度改革和加快完善住房保障体系的总体要求,同时也与上海推进新型城镇化建设相呼应。新型城镇化的核心是＂人的城镇化＂,人的安居乐业是新型城镇化的关键所在。上海公租房政策对推动＂人的城镇化＂,具有极为重要的引导作用：强化了对非沪籍居民和中等收入阶层居住权的保障;有助于对工作者居住权利的保障;有助于带动整个区域的和谐、均衡发展。政府在推动公共租赁住房建设的过程中,还须适度扩大规模,改变产权式保障的传统思路;从严实行进出筛选机制,鼓励向上流动;坚持运作市场化、社区社会化、政策政府化;关注产业布局,突出其人才属性。     

It’s not just about where someone lives: educating student social workers about housing-related matters to promote an understanding of social justice

The links between housing and wellbeing are well established, and yet failings of current UK policy and practice can result in severely limited and inappropriate accommodation options for those in greatest need. Access to appropriate and affordable housing should therefore be a key area of concern for social work professionals: such access is closely linked to social justice and the promotion of human rights. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of detailed research on the links between housing and social work practice, and practitioners have reported feeling ill-equipped to support service-users with housing related needs. This paper draws on the illustrative example of a teaching session developed by the authors to argue that educating social work students about housing-related matters not only reduces this reported practice knowledge gap, but may also develop their understanding of social justice. In addition to supporting calls for further research, the authors therefore encourage those involved in social work education to ensure that practice in the context of housing related needs is covered clearly within the curriculum.     

Ethical Issues in Continuing Care

No abstract available for this article.     

Social programs and household size: evidence from New York city

What determines how many adults live in a house? How do people divide themselves up among households? Average household sizes vary substantially, both over time and in the cross-section. In this paper, we describe how a variety of government policies affect living arrangements, intentionally or not. Using data from a survey of households in New York City, we find that these incentives appear to have an impact. Specifically, households receiving these housing and income subsidies are smaller on average (measured by number of adults). The impacts appear to be considerably larger than those that would occur if the programs were lump-sum transfers. Small average household size can be extremely expensive in terms of physical and environmental resources, higher rents, and possibly homelessness. Thus, we encourage policymakers to pay greater heed to the provisions built into various social policies that favor smaller households.     

Price Incentives and Coordination in a Two‐Product Decentralized Supply Chain

We investigate pricing incentives for competing retailers who distribute two variants of a manufacturer's product in a decentralized supply chain. Under a two‐dimensional Hotelling model, we derive decentralized retailers' prices for the products, and distortions in pricing when compared to centrally optimal prices. We show that price distortions decrease as consumers' travel cost between retailers increases, due to less intense competition. However, price distortions do not change monotonically in consumers' switching cost between products within stores. To fix decentralized retailers' price distortions, we construct a two‐part pricing contract that coordinates the supply chain. We show that the coordinating contract is Pareto‐improving and analyze increase in the supply chain profit under coordination.     

An inventory model with random discount offerings

We consider an inventory model in which a supplier makes deal offers with random discount prices at random points in time. Assuming that discount offerings follow a Poisson process and discount price is a discrete random variable with a known distribution, we propose a continuous-review control policy for the model and derive optimality conditions for the policy parameters. The model is then extended to the case of multiple suppliers that offer discount deals with supplier-specific Poisson processes and discount prices. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate cost savings due to discount offers.