Measuring tax distortions with neutrality-based effective tax rates

In public economics, effective tax rates (ETRs) are often used to measure the combined effects of tax rates, tax bases, and the time effect of taxation. Until now, the modelling of comparable figures for revealing tax effects and tax-induced distortions is not solved satisfactorily. This paper derives an ETR approach based on neutral tax systems. In contrast to traditional measures of ETRs, the neutrality-based ETR discloses preferential or discriminatory taxation of investments regardless of their pre-tax rate of return. Moreover, comparing different ETRs exposes the degree of tax-induced investment distortions.

基于利率风险的保险公司资产负债管理研究

应用无套利分析方法和二叉树方法对退保期权进行了定价,使用数值方法得到了中国市场的三次多项式利率期限结构模型,并应用以上结果建立了基于利率风险的久期缺口免疫模型,并使用保险公司实际资产负债数据对模型效果进行了检验。     

Combining estimates from multiple early studies to obtain estimates of response: using shrinkage estimates to obtain estimates of response

Development of anti-cancer therapies usually involve small to moderate size studies to provide initial estimates of response rates before initiating larger studies to better quantify response. These early trials often each contain a single tumor type, possibly using other stratification factors. Response rate for a given tumor type is routinely reported as the percentage of patients meeting a clinical criteria (e.g. tumor shrinkage), without any regard to response in the other studies. These estimates (called maximum likelihood estimates or MLEs) on average approximate the true value, but have variances that are usually large, especially for small to moderate size studies. The approach presented here is offered as a way to improve overall estimation of response rates when several small trials are considered by reducing the total uncertainty.The shrinkage estimators considered here (James-Stein/empirical Bayes and hierarchical Bayes) are alternatives that use information from all studies to provide potentially better estimates for each study. While these estimates introduce a small bias, they have a considerably smaller variance, and thus tend to be better in terms of total mean squared error. These procedures provide a better view of drug performance in that group of tumor types as a whole, as opposed to estimating each response rate individually without consideration of the others. In technical terms, the vector of estimated response rates is nearer the vector of true values, on average, than the vector of the usual unbiased MLEs applied to such trials.     

Bayesian dynamic models for survival data with a cure fraction

In this paper, we propose a new class of semi-parametric cure rate models. Specifically, we construct dynamic models for piecewise hazard functions over a finite partition of the time axis. Allowing the size of partition and the levels of baseline hazard to be random, our proposed models provide a great flexibility in controlling the degree of parametricity in the right tail of the survival distribution and the amount of correlations among the log-baseline hazard levels. Several properties of the proposed models are derived, and propriety of the implied posteriors with improper noninformative priors for regression coefficients based on the proposed models is established for the fixed partition of the time axis. In addition, an efficient reversible jump computational algorithm is developed for carrying out posterior computation. A real data set from a melanoma clinical trial is analyzed in detail to further demonstrate the proposed methodology.     

利率政策对股市个人投资者行为影响的实证检验

以中国部分基本利率调整为研究对象,采用事件研究分析法,对相关时间段内的股市个人投资者交易频率和交易额度的累积差异情况进行了计算。结果显示利率变动前后投资者的交易频率和交易额度均有显著变化,但变化时期短,从而验证了利率政策对个体投资者行为有显著影响,同时表明了投资者行为存在非理性特征,揭示出中国证券市场存在非有效性,为中国宏观货币政策的调整提供借鉴。     

生育率最优路径、劳动力供给转型与经济增长

通过内生化劳动力和人力资本,以Q-Q理论为基础,根据生育率在劳动力供给和人力资本积累中的联动关系以及劳动力供给转型规律,利用动态最优控制原理,解释了殖民解放以来发展中国家先上升后下降的人口再生产过程及经济效应。结果表明:生育率的最优路径呈倒U型;整个路径存在两个鞍点均衡,只有当人力资本积累跨越某个门槛值时,第一个鞍点均衡才能过渡到另一个鞍点均衡;均衡的产出水平与劳动力折旧率成正比,与人力资本折旧率成反比。     

Exchange rate and wage policies in Central and Eastern Europe

After the eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) and due to increasing labor market integration, wage determination in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has become a key issue in European economic policy making. In addition, a controversial discussion concerning the monetary integration of CEE countries into the EMU has emerged. Both issues have earned particular academic and political interest because Eastern and Western Europe are at different stages of economic development and volatile international capital flows seem to require either a higher degree of wage or exchange rate flexibility. Based on the Scandinavian model of wage adjustment by Lindbeck (1979), we analyze the role of exchange rates in the wage determination process of the Central and Eastern European countries to identify which exchange rate strategy contributes to faster wage convergence in Europe. Panel estimations suggest that workers in countries with fixed exchange rates are likely to benefit in the long run from higher wage increases.     

上市公司破产重整中债权人利益保护的实证分析

新<破产法>构建重整制度后,上市公司成为了适用该制度的主要主体.破产重整虽以社会利益为首位,但仍应对债权人的利益加以平衡保护.本文以新<破产法>实施以来被法院裁定破产重整的26家上市公司为样本,通过实证分析指出,在买壳上市的模式下,债权人由于不能分享上市公司壳资源所带来的价值,其利益实际上是处于被忽视的地位.对此,应该修改现有的债权人重整利益是否合理的评价机制以实现对债权人利益的有效保护.     

基于技术变革分类的技术追赶过程研究

本文基于技术变革分类,提出渐进型、破坏型、革命型三种技术追赶路径,并提炼各路径不同发展阶段的创新重点及动态演化特征。借助曲线拟合方法,初步获得三种技术追赶路径的创新演化特征。在渐进型技术追赶过程中,创新率的最大值出现在路径后期,之后虽有下降,但幅度不大;在破坏型技术追赶过程中,尽管创新率曲线呈线性特征,但从散点图特征来看,仍然存在先高、后低、再升高的趋势;在革命型技术追赶过程中,创新率迅速提高至峰值后,迅速下降。     

How stressful are economic competitions in the lab? An investigation with physiological measures

Competition is ubiquitous in economic life. Yet, negative consequences of competitive environments have been reported and everyday experience suggests that competitive situations can be very stressful. It is, however, an open question whether or not economic competitions in the laboratory indeed elicit physiological stress reactions. Our study examined subjectively perceived stress and physiological changes induced by a well-established economic laboratory competition paradigm (first used in Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007) in a mixed-gender sample of 111 healthy participants. A mental arithmetic task was performed first under a piece rate (i.e., non-competitive) payment scheme and afterwards under a tournament condition. In a third round, participants decided how to be paid (i.e., piece rate or tournament). Our results indicate that compared to a control group, which performed only the non-competitive condition, the competitive game condition elicited subjective and physiological reactions that are indicative of mild stress, i.e., an increase in heart rate and a decrease of calmness and mood. Furthermore, reactions that are thought to reflect an active coping style were related to the self-selection into competition in the third round of the game. We speculate that real-life economic competitions might be even stronger stressors and the way how people cope with this kind of stress might be related to competitiveness in real-life economic contexts.