我国中央财政扶贫资金的瞄准分析

中央财政扶贫资金的瞄准一直受到众多学者的关注,文章根据翔实的实地调研的数据和信息,对中央财政扶贫资金的重点县瞄准、贫困村瞄准和贫困群体瞄准情况进行了深入分析,发现目前我国中央财政扶贫资金流出重点县的比重超过了规定的70%;贫困村识别能够在一定程度上提高瞄准精度,但由于指标式的贫困村确定方法从制度上排挤了一些真正的贫困村进入瞄准范围;项目依托式的扶贫资金到达贫困农户手中的比重最低,信贷资金不能瞄准贫困群体的问题仍然十分突出.     

财政政策DSGE模型中国化构建及其应用

事前模拟经济对财政政策变化的反应是检验政策效果的重要手段。本文通过国外经典模型中国化改进,并引入系统财政规则,构建财政政策DSGE模型。在有效税率估算校准与参数贝叶斯估计基础上,给出政策模拟检验应用示例。发现税率冲击效应模拟是税制改革实验的有效方法,资本税率可作为经济结构调整的政策工具,以及当前增加政府支出拉动增长作用微弱等结论。该研究也可为我国DSGE模型研究提供参考。     

财政政策与货币政策对国民收入的影响分析

 内容提要：财政政策和货币政策同属政府干预宏观经济最重要、使用最频繁的两大工具,可依宏观经济调控要求进行合理搭配。本文在人民币一篮子货币汇率制度框架下,用修正的M-F模型深入分析我国财政与货币政策对国民经济的综合影响。结果显示扩张的财政政策辅以扩张的货币政策是目前较理想的操作方式。用2005年7月至2010年6月的月度数据进行的实证研究结果佐证了上述理论。最后提出相关政策建议。     

城乡居民基本养老保险待遇调整方案的优化与选择

科学可持续的调待政策是城乡居民适度养老保险待遇的可靠保障。通过设计五种不同路径的调待方案,在现行政策的基础上构建城乡居民养老保险精算模型,从目标替代率、基金平衡性、缴费积极性、受益最大化等多维度对以上方案作比较并详细阐述各方案的优劣,研究结果表明差异化的调待方案有利于实现多维度目标的最优化整合。基于实证分析得出的建议是在财政补助固定的情况下,应构建差异化的待遇调整机制;此外,为保证基金短期和长期平衡,地方政府应加大对个人账户的补贴。     

联省自治运动与政治转型之困境

联省自治运动是近代中国一场追求联邦主义的宪政统一运动,其实质是最终实现中国由帝国而宪政的民主转型。但是,与美国等典型联邦制国家相比,联邦论在中国形成了语境错置和语义倒置,地方自治的阙失和民主意识的匮乏,联省自治运动与中国政制传统形成了强烈的抵牾,宪政制度的创新并未带来宪政建构进步,反而形成了转型困境。联邦制的分权功能难抵大一统的集权功能,难以完成中国的政治整合。联邦制最后成为被放弃的历史选择。     

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.     

Public sector efficiency in the design of a euro-area social benefit scheme

This study examines the importance of public sector efficiency in the design of a euro area-wide social benefit scheme. Our results reveal large-scale inefficiencies in the use of funds allocated to the scheme during the great recession and euro area sovereign debt crisis that followed, with member states wasting on average 34.6% of funds allocated to it. We therefore propose that to ensure the smooth functioning of the scheme, the fiscal union will first of all have to strengthen it at the national level by improving efficiency in the use of funds by governments. We show that this can be achieved by providing a framework for the transfer of the “critical success factors” in the policies implemented by the most efficient administrations. Furthermore, we show how public sector efficiency considerations can help ameliorate the problem of moral hazard associated with a centralized insurance scheme.     

The impact of fiscal shocks on real GDP and income inequality: What do Australian data say?

This paper examines the impact of three fiscal policy shocks on per capita real GDP and income inequality in Australia during the period 1965–2014. A small structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model is constructed for an open economy for contemporaneous identification and estimation purposes. Based on the evidence of one cointegrating vector among the variables, a structural vector error correction (SVEC) model is specified for the long run. Direct taxation, indirect taxation receipts and government spending are identified as permanent fiscal policy shocks. The convergent use of two different models (SVAR & SVEC) strengthens the credibility of the results. The results have three key policy implications. First, a reduction in direct taxation receipts increases per capita real GDP without increasing income inequality. Second, a reduction in government expenditure significantly increases income inequality. Third, the adverse effect of indirect taxation receipts on income inequality is greater than the redistributive effect of government expenditure, which questions the widely held fiscal policy strategy of using indirect taxation to finance redistributive expenditure.     

Implicit public debt thresholds: An operational proposal

Gauging the public debt-to-GDP ratio a country can sustain in the medium-run without putting fiscal sustainability at risk is a question of key relevance for policy-makers. Deviations from a safe level of debt should be watched over in order to take corrective measures. In this paper we make a proposal for an operational characterization of the “prudent debt level”. To do so, we use standard methods based on Vector Autoregressions to compute the probability that the public debt ratio exceeds a given threshold, using the Spanish case as an example. The resulting probabilities are highly and positively correlated with market risk assessment, measured by the spread with respect to the German bond. Our estimation of the “prudent debt level” is obtained as the debt-to-GDP ratio that maximizes the correlation between the probability of passing a pre-specified debt threshold and the spread. The so-obtained implicit debt threshold or “prudent debt level”, which is consistent with the medium-term debt-to-GDP ratio anchor of 60% of GDP, presents several advantages as a complement to existing DSA toolkits.     

The perfect storm? How to explain the rise of intergovernmental conflicts in Spain? (1984–2014)

As in other federal-like countries, intergovernmental relations in Spain are characterised by a series of conflicts between central and regional governments. But, which factors explain this dynamic of contention? This investigation operationalises intergovernmental conflicts through a specific dataset constituted by the volume of contestations between regional and central executives (and vice versa) in Spain before the Constitutional Court. This research demonstrates that from 1984 to 2014 the periods of absolute majority at the Congress and the victory of peripheral nationalist parties at the head of autonomous communities increased the level of intergovernmental contestations.