Xi's profile大音希声PhotosBlogListsMore Tools Help

Xi Chen

Occupation
Location
卜凯学派中国农情研究网
http://web.cenet.org.cn/web/ecocxi/

Video

 

Windows Media Player

大音希声

一个人如果真的热爱知识,一定要重视多少人获得他的知识超过多少人认为他很厉害...
Photo 1 of 45
June 28

康奈尔/LSE发展经济学大会:不平等研究的新方向

本届会议将在康奈尔美丽的伊萨卡校区召开,与会著名学者包括Tony Atkinson,Francois Bourguignon,James Foster,Amartya Sen,Tony Shorrocks, Joseph Stiglitz, Shlomo Yitzhaki,以及康大发展经济学领域的学者.欢迎关注!
Cornell University/London School of Economics
Inequality: New Directions
Ithaca, New York, USA
September 12-13, 2009
It is now four decades since the seminal publications of the modern theory of inequality measurement: Serge Kolm's "The Optimal Production of Social Justice", Tony Atkinson's "On the Measurement of Inequality", and Amartya Sen's "On Economic Inequality."
The conference Inequality: New Directions will provide the opportunity to take stock and to look to the challenges and research avenues that lie ahead. It will include contributions from Tony Atkinson, Francois Bourguignon, Udo Ebert, James Foster, Serge Kolm, Patrick Moyes, Amartya Sen, Tony Shorrocks, Joseph Stiglitz, Shlomo Yitzhaki.
The organizers include Frank Cowell at LSE and Ravi Kanbur at Cornell.
 
June 26

一位英国科学家的中国缘

Dialogue 09/06/19 The Man Who Loved China

http://www.cctv.com/program/e_dialogue/20090619/109751.shtml

中央9台对作家Simon Winchester的专访。Simon的著作《The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom》让我们从另一个视角感受一个在中国的自然科学、社会科学界几乎家喻户晓的英国人的中国缘,他就是李约瑟(Joseph Needham)。更重要的是,他提出的著名谜题:为什么资本主义和现代科学起源于后来居上的西欧,而不是传统的人类文明,如中国或其他文明?
 

        

 

 
June 13

在亚当.斯密墓前

    63-8日,我访问了爱丁堡,并参加由爱丁堡大学、康奈尔大学、英国皇家科学院联合举办的“相对性、不平等与公共政策”国际研讨会。这使我有机会与包括Andrew Oswald, Matthew Rabin, Imran Rasul, Aldo Rustichini, 以及Shlomo Yitzhaki等在内的该领域国际著名学者作深入交流。会议的源头之一来自经济学界近来的争论:富人通过攀比和对穷人的相对剥夺引起了很大的负外部性,我们在制定最优税率时是否应当考虑这些因素,倡导基于此的一定幅度的再分配,以减小日益增大的社会负外部性。

    在会后的一天内,我寻访了对人类社会与人文科学产生重要影响的大卫.休谟的埋葬地,以及经济学的开创者亚当.斯密的墓地。其实,没有大卫.休谟的早期发现和培养,可能就不会有后来亚当.斯密对经济学、逻辑学、道德哲学的巨大贡献。据我所知,当年亚当.斯密正是因为受到大卫.休谟的深入影响,而从牛津大学转往苏格兰的格拉斯哥大学,并开始一生中最重要的贡献。今天,亚当.斯密静静的躺在Canongate教堂的后院,并不起眼,也并不像人们想象的那样接受着喧嚣的膜拜。他仍然幸运的拥有着幽静的思考之所。

    时至今日,在亚当.斯密的两本传世著作《国富论》和《道德情操论》中,经济学界的同仁们明显更加推崇前者。我们的理论经济模型和经济政策或多或少的体现出《国富论》中的思想。而对于《道德情操论》,人们更多的则把她看成一部哲学或心理学作品。如今,少数的经济学家们逐渐认识到,经济学从一开始便出现了偏差。并且,从某种意义上讲,经济学已经遗忘了亚当斯密一半的思想。当追溯亚当.斯密的思想时,他首先是一个道德哲学家,道德情感在亚当斯密的理论中占有非常重要的地位。斯密自己也认为,《道德情操论》是他自己更重要的作品。虽然这部著作远早于《国富论》的出版,但斯密对《道德情操论》的修改直到临终前,如果我没有记错的话,那时应当已经是第六版了。晚年在爱丁堡的十多年间,他几乎每天都会捧起手稿作进一步的完善。一些人仍然存在对这本书与《国富论》的误解,认为斯密的思想是抵触的。其实,他们误读了两本书的分工和其中的含义。两本书在分别探索人性的两个方面。《国富论》反映人性其很小作用的时候,比如生产与贸易的过程,而《道德情操论》反映的是人们的交换中情感和本性起决定作用的情境,比如我下面提及的近来的研究领域。

    今天,我们对道德情感的重新认识的强大动力来源于对制度如何演化、社会资本如何形成和发展、现有贫困与不平等测度是否存在严重缺陷等深入认知的渴求。比如,从《道德情操论》中我们可以借鉴到,道德和制度的共同演化过程是构建自由社会和经济所不可或缺的。我们分析人性的原因正是由于人的多维度,体现为激情和道德情操复杂的互动,而道德和制度的互动演生过程是经济秩序的基础。忽略了这些就会很自然的忽略他所讲的道德情操以及其背后的文化因素,从而遗漏了对社会资本的讨论。再比如,斯密在《道德情操论》中所到:每一个人都应当具备如下的基本权利,即在公共场合毫不羞愧的露面。事实上,基于对功用的效用函数的修补并不能从长期中有助于人们理解人与人之间的相互作用,比如由于贫富差距拉大导致的攀比等行为,并进而导致的穷人的状况更加恶化。近期在中国西部乡村的关于送礼、婚丧嫁娶、献血等社会行为的系列实证文章就是为了让人们进一步了解人性认知的重要性。本次的爱丁堡会议也释放出这样一个强音,包括实验经济学、激励与组织经济学领域的相应文献正日益增加。在这个地位、面子的外部性大行其道的世界,我们需要从人性本身入手。当然,《道德情操论》对经济学界的帮助将远不止这些。

 

位于Canongate教堂后院的斯密之墓(爱丁堡东面的死火山以及北面的大海环绕其四周)

注意斯密前的这段文字

 

爱丁堡大学孔子学院

与出席大会的魏尚进老师、张晓波老师

 

May 21

我们真的主宰自己的行为吗?

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.
 
 
May 15

持续贫困和社会流动性

让我们开始吧。。。

2008-2011 Theme Project

Persistent Poverty and Upward Mobility

ISS Theme Projects

Cornell University

A rich vein of social science explores longstanding questions about the nature of persistent poverty and its (quasi-)complement, upward socioeconomic mobility. Economic, geographic, political, psychological and sociocultural phenomena all appear highly salient to the experience of mobility or persistent poverty in different settings, but most research focuses on just one or another of these mechanisms in isolation. To what extent can these alternative mechanisms be modeled simultaneously? What do we know about the effectiveness of different interventions intended to promote upward mobility and to reduce persistent poverty? Where has a (perhaps latent) consensus emerged, and where does the evidence remain inconclusive? These are the core questions around which the2008-2011 theme project on Persistent Poverty and Upward Mobility is organized.

Our team will structure interactions around four key sub-themes that heavily influence the path dynamics followed by the poor: health and nutritional status, educational attainment, labor productivity-enhancing technologies and markets, and risk exposure. The first two of these reflect human-embodied capital that affects the productivity of individual workers and explains much variation in well-being and behaviors. The latter two are the joint product of individual-level variables, such as wealth, and community-level factors related to the formal and informal institutions and technologies that incentivize and constrain individual and collective behaviors. Our investigations will tackle issues of theory, measurement, causal inference and policy analysis as they relate to each of these sub-themes.

The core activities of the theme project will encompass cutting-edge individual and collaborative research by team members, visitors, affiliates and (undergraduate and graduate) students stimulated through informal interactions, weekly lunchtime seminars, two major conferences and team-taught courses. We will complement these research and instructional activities with public outreach aimed at extending the fruits of this research to the broader community.


Persistent Poverty and Upward Mobility
Small Grant Awards

During April 2009, the team sponsored a grant competition for doctoral graduate students working on topics related to the theme project. The successful awards support 9 doctoral students. Grant recipients will present their research in the seminars of the theme project in April 2010.

Jamie Bleck Government Education, Upward Mobility, and State Accountability in the Context of Education for All
Xi Chen Applied Economics
Blood Donation, Status Seeking and Health Outcomes: A Tale of Three Villages in Rural China
Brian Dillon Economics Subjective Expectations and Farmer Welfare in an East African Cash Crop Market
Matthew Erie Anthropology The Role of Public Interest Law in China’s “Rule of Law” Movement: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of Legal Aid
Don Leonard Government Foreign Military Intervention and the Fiscal Dynamics of Public Goods Provision in Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Scott Sanders Development Sociology Patterns of Persistent Poverty in Post- Đổi mới Vietnam
Michael Spiller Sociology
College Funding, Poverty and Social Mobility: The Crucial Role of College Persistence
Russell Toth Economics The “Missing Middle” in Many Less-Developed Countries Highlights a Missing Focus for Economic Mobility and Poverty Reduction
Shuang Zhang Economics Earnings Mobility and Labor Market Transition in Urban China



May 09

China and the Changing Landscape of the World Economy

China and the Changing Landscape of the World Economy
Co-organised by
UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland
Irish Institute for Chinese Studies at UCD
23-24 July 2009
University College Dublin, Ireland

The rapid development of emerging markets is changing the landscape of the world economy and may
have profound implications for international relations. China is often regarded as the most influential
emerging market economy because during the last three decades it has become integrated into the world
economic system and its success and failure now affect the well-beings of other nations in the world. As
the financial crisis in the US and EU intensifies, the economic prosperity of the world depends to a large
extent on the sustained development of the Chinese economy and other emerging markets, and vice versa.
The main theme of the Inaugural CEA (Europe) Conference and the 20th Annual Conference of CEA
(UK) concerns China’s role as a new engine for global economic growth and its impact on the rest of the world.

Several distinguished scholars have expressed their interests in giving keynote speeches at our conference:
George A. Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Laureate, University of California, Berkeley
Dwight Perkins, Department of Economics, Harvard University
Yongding Yu, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Thomas Rawski, University of Pittsburgh

Topics covered may include but are not limited to:
China and the Global Financial Crisis
Implications of the Global Recession for the Chinese Economy
China’s Economic Reform, Growth Patterns and New Challenges
China’s Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Response to the Current Global Crisis
Income Distribution, Healthcare and Social Welfare Reforms
Globalisation and International Integration
Trade and Foreign Direct Investment
Innovation, Technology and Development
Financial Sector and Tax Reforms
Real Estate, Capital Market and Corporate Governance
Labour Market Reform and Human Resource Management
Urbanisation and Rural-Urban Migration
Rural Development and Land Reform
Sustainable Development and the Natural Environment

May 01

献血与社会地位

我最近的一项研究表明,在中国西部贫困地区的有偿献血行为是由贫困、不平等导致的。传统的不平等指数并不能很好的刻画,而相对剥夺则是一个更合适的概念。此外,农村社会内部的攀比和羊群行为进一步加剧了这一恶性循环。该文章将在不久的AAEA年会宣读,欢迎大家的评论和宝贵建议(请发送到cxi82816@hotmail.com)。文章链接如下: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/handle/49411

 

Blood for Social Status: Preliminary Evidence from Rural China 

Xi Chen

Cornell University

http://web.cenet.org.cn/web/ecocxi/

 

Xiaobo Zhang

International Food Policy Research Institute

http://www.ifpri.org/srstaff/ZhangX.asp

 

ABSTRACT

Evidence from developing countries has shown that relative concern matters for wellbeing. Overconsumption of positional goods due to status seeking contributes to an overall loss of welfare. Rural western China serves as an ideal destination to observe relative concern and induced social phenomenon. In Guizhou province, the negative effect of positional spending is even more intense when households living close to subsistence are compelled to donate blood to keep up with the Jones. Utilizing a census-type household survey data in 26 natural villages in rural Guizhou, we find that poverty leads to blood donation, especially through differentiated poverty depth. Meanwhile, social status seeking is intensified through income inequality, relative deprivation, and positional spending within a reference group, which renders more blood donation participation and at a higher level. The intensified blood donation is more saliently induced by relative deprivation than by income inequality, suggesting that further attention should be paid to what the most suitable inequality measure is in policy design or evaluation. The result is robust to different measures of relative deprivation. Further, the herd effect of blood donation exists, suggesting weak agents in making blood donation decisions. Interestingly, shortly after shocks such as unanticipated gift giving expenditure and livestock death, people are more likely to donate blood, while they generally do not engage in blood donation to cover anticipated large social expenditure such as house building and wedding.

 

Keywords: Blood Donation, Social Status, Poverty, Inequality, Relative Deprivation, Rural China

JEL: I32, J22, D13, D63

 

 

Figure: Relative Deprivation and Blood Donation Participation

Note: The left figure and right figure respectively show their relationship using equation (13) without / with potential effects of shocks and social events.

April 26

战火中的南京城门

《南京!南京!》中以较大篇幅描述了国民党的坚守将士们对日军的抵抗。他们的英勇最终被证明只是徒劳,纵有久攻不下的光华门、水西门、中山门,纵有紫金山第一、第二高峰的有利地势,但当时国民党军高层的最终溃败只是时间问题。我们今天真的很难判断,当年在日军围困南京城的那段时间内,国军将士的死亡有多少是死于对外的战场,又有多少是死于逃窜时的仓惶内斗。在南京时,每当我驻足于城墙,都会感慨大半个世纪前的沧桑。忽喇喇似大厦倾,昏惨惨似灯将尽。一场欢喜忽悲辛。叹事世,终难定!终难定...
推荐这部再次震撼我的影片。

 
April 24

烧毁美元的时候?Have Fun!

  
April 16

数量?质量?—中国经济“复苏”之痛

我忧心的同时,对照了一下自己不久前(2009年1月24日)写下的博文投资是看待2009年中国经济的“钥匙”

April 09

阿马蒂亚.森在康奈尔的演讲

Capitalism and Confusion
The first George Staller Lecture
April 13, 4:30 pm
Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall at Cornell University
Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences
 

ITHACA, N.Y. – Amartya Sen, noted economist, philosopher and public intellectual, will give the first annual George Staller Lecture, April 13, at 4:30 p.m. in the Call Auditorium in Kennedy Hall at Cornell University. 

Sen, the Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, has been a major figure in economics and moral philosophy during his expansive academic career. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998 "for his contributions to welfare economics." His research has ranged over a number of fields, including development economics, social choice theory, public health, gender studies, moral and political philosophy, and the economics of peace and war. 

His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and he has been awarded an honorary degree or made an honorary fellow by more than 100 universities and colleges around the world. He has served as president of the Econometric Society and the Indian, American and International Economic Associations. He is a former honorary president and current honorary advisor of OXFAM.

The George Staller lecture series honors Staller, a Cornell Ph.D. and professor emeritus and a renowned teacher and scholar of Eastern European and Soviet economies. The series, established by the Department of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, is made possible by a gift from Russell B. Hawkins '77.

March 20

Relativity, Inequality and Public Policy

Cornell University/University of Edinburgh
A Conference on Relativity, Inequality and Public Policy
Edinburgh, Scotland, June 5-7, 2009
 

In economics, “relativity” is the idea that it is position relative to others that motivates behavior and determines individual and therefore social wellbeing. This idea has distinguished pedigree, going back in modern times to Duesenberry’s relative income hypothesis, and even further back to Adam Smith’s claim that “a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt.”

However, in the last two decades research has accelerated on relative concerns and their interactions with inequality, and their implications for public policy. Conventional welfare economics with interdependent preferences has progressed alongside new departures in theoretical and experimental behavioral economics, and in the economics of happiness. Progressivity in taxation can be seen in a new light if inequality interacts with relativity to produce socially inefficient outcomes. At the same time, the debate between paternalism and libertarianism is also sharpened if people have feelings of envy towards their fellow beings because of their relative positions in society.
 
With this background, Cornell University and the University of Edinburgh are hosting a major international conference – “Relativity, Inequality and Public Policy” – to take stock of where we stand and to highlight the open questions. The conference will be held on June 5-7, 2009, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the main campus of the University of Edinburgh in the centre of this historic city.
 
The conference organizers are Ed Hopkins, University of Edinburgh, and Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University. Speakers at the conference include: Richard Easterlin, Robert Frank, Carol Graham, Ed McCaffery, Andrew Oswald, Matthew Rabin, Imran Rasul, Aldo Rustichini, Bernard Van Praag, Lise Vesterlund and Shlomo Yitzhaki.
 
March 06

实证研究中如何度量消费者福利?

   我们如何在实证研究中度量补偿变化(CV)、等值变化(EV),或采用消费者剩余(CS)的近似度量呢?自从Hick以来,在已有文献中,Hausman和Vartia发展出了CV/EV的精确度量法,Willig也提供了CS的近似估计法。这些方法都在上世纪70-80年代出现,并得到广泛应用。今天,这些方法仍然指导着我们的实证研究。不过,消费者福利的估计问题并没有终结,随着Integrability问题的出现,人们发现用于衡量福利的消费者需求曲线背后并没有严格的经济理论背景的支持。也就是说,需求曲线无法还原出可用于最优化的效用函数的支持。因此,理论和实证间产生了很大的裂痕。如何弥补这个严重的缝隙,duality和灵活的间接效用函数能够起到什么作用呢......

   对于有兴趣关注微观经济理论与实证如何衔接的人而言,希望我在康大应用微观经济学:福利分析课上就此问题的总结报告成为一个引子。

http://web.cenet.org.cn/web/ecocxi/index.php3?file=detail.php3&nowdir=&id=110322&detail=1

http://www.cenet.org.cn/article.asp?articleid=35693

 

February 27

经济学中的倾向评分匹配(PSM)方法

Propensity Score Matching,我试图翻译为“倾向评分匹配”,是一种近来经济学界(特别是发展经济学和劳动经济学)逐渐采用的非实验方法。顾名思义,他分为以下两步,倾向评分(Propensity Score)和匹配(Matching)。该方法对于一些没有采用实验方法区分实验组和参照组的数据采用了一种近似于实验的方法,尽可能的产生出随机分组(randomized subclassification),以控制可观测变量。如果配合二阶差分方法(DID),则可以进一步控制不随时间改变的不可观测变量。

附件中是我在康奈尔大学营养经济学和家户调查研讨课上的发言稿,总结了这种方法的使用前提、步骤和局限。
February 21

张军教授与John Whalley教授的谈话

我几乎全文转载于此。应当说,他们的谈话足以使我们这些研究中国经济的人警醒。。。
 

就在前不久,中国的年轻经济学人曾经组织过一次关于中国经济研究的大洋书面对话活动。活动的起因是 John Whalley 教授与在其数值模拟实验室工作的中国学者的一次日常学术讨论,当一些国内学者看到这个谈话的整理稿后,建议将谈话整理发表出来。Whalley 教授由于担心自己对中国经济学研究的理解不全面,他建议请几位和他熟悉的中国著名学者参与到其中来。下面是John Whalley教授的发言内容以及张军教授应邀写下的简短的评论。

John Whalley:近年来,我一直比较关注中国经济,多次到中国,和政府部门、重要的研究机构、大学的学者进行学术交流。我认为当前中国经济学研究中有一个现象需要引起关注,许多青年学者试图跟随和仿效西方经济学者的研究。但是,这些北美和欧洲杂志论文里用到的理论模型和实证研究的分析框架很多并不适用于研究中国问题,我的建议是根据中国的情况进行些调整和修正,比如在简单的经典最优化模型的基础上加入一些具有中国特质的东西,诸如集体身份认同感、全民所有的生产单位(国有企业)及其它。中国的一些青年学者似乎忽视了中国国情,一味机械地模仿国际杂志上论文的范式。仅仅简单地将新古典主义模型生搬硬套地运用于中国经济问题研究可能会导致错误。我认为当前最重要的是思考适合中国经济特色的独特的经济学。

中国经济的一个重要特点是国有企业和非国有企业的部门结构,这跟外国部门结构大不相同。另外的一个特点是身份认同,集体身份认同,而非个体身份认同。我读过一些西方学者写的关于中国劳动力市场供给行为的论文,他们在论文中描述的效用函数是商品消费和休闲的函数,而没有考虑到家庭。而在中国每个人是在为家庭工作,个人的决策考虑了家庭利益,所以我们在做研究时需要给出家庭的效用函数。西方文明强调以自我为中心的个人平等自由的价值观,每一个人是一个独立的个体。而东方的儒家文化强调群体价值,家庭是组成社会的个体单位,儒家认为个体始终处于个人、家庭、社群的网络之中。

如果仅仅将西方的模型应用到中国,将会得出非常有误导性的结论。就我在中国的经历而言,我和不同年龄的中国一流学者有过深入的交流,当我和正居于决策层的一些资深中国经济学家(如六十或六十岁以上)交流时,他们对此现象也忧心忡忡,一些青年学者试图直接用西方的理论来解释中国经济的诸多问题,他们对这些青年学者能否真正了解并解释中国问题持谨慎的态度。所以,我感觉在目前正居国家决策中枢的资深经济学家和青年学者间可能存在很大的认知差异和知识结构上的代沟。青年学者希望未来几十年间中国经济学研究能更快速地向西方靠近。可是,这恰恰可能会成为中国经济学中面临的很大的问题。

目前中国一部分青年学者认为钻研模型技术比了解中国经济更重要。据我了解,可能是因为在中国,在国际学术期刊上发表论文是专业晋升中最重要的事情, 而国际期刊通常没有关注到中国经济的特性。在政治科学中,美国政治和加拿大政治是不同的课程,因为各国的政治制度是迥异的。在经济学中,通常将马达加斯和法国、美国按相同的研究方法来处理。但是,应该在经济学研究中考虑到不同国家的特点,在我看来,这一点对于中国经济学研究来说尤为重要。

近三十年来,用可计算一般均衡技术来进行政策分析一直是我的研究方向之一。在中国,一些青年学者对CGE模型存在误解,认为文章的目的就是建立一个复杂的模型。在某些人看来,对文章评价的标准不是文章的思想性,而是模型中有多少个方程,以及方程结构的细致程度。此外,对于数值模拟得出的结论的应用要审慎,这些结果是参考性的,而不是精准的,不能直接精确地用于政策决策,而仅仅是提供适当的方向性的指导。

对于上文中我提到的问题,我知道许多的中国青年学者也意识到了这点,但有时不得不因为专业上的晋级等问题而身陷误区。也有一些青年学者正在试图改变这个情况。美国金融危机加强了西方经济学者对经济现实问题的关注,我想,这对中国学者或许有些启发,特别是对于中国的青年学者而言。

 

Jun Zhang:对于经济学家,尤其是年轻的中国经济学者而言,研究经济结构和体制均不断转型中的中国经济问题是不容易的。这个难度被 John Whalley教授的评论典型地指出了。当然,这并不是说大多数中国的经济学家不这样看问题。实际上,20多年来,我总是可以听到比我年长的经济学家发表这样的看法。 

可是,作为年轻的经济学者,并不容易体会这种看法的真实性与合理性。一个可能的原因是,年轻学者总是更多地从他们阅读的他人的论文中寻找研究的题目,其结果往往是,我们可以在理论模型中修改或者变化一些东西,或者在中国的经验素材上直接使用他人经验实证的方法和技巧。这样的做法之所以很普遍,主要是因为我们大多数研究论文的作者仅希望能用现有的理论解释在中国观察到的现象,并不追求“思想进步”,也不怎么进一步去关注自己的研究对政策选择的意义和实用的价值,至少后者实际上在大多数研究者的工作中变成了可有可无的部分。

因此,模仿现有的范式和技巧不一定伤害论文的质量而又可以满足现有经济学期刊的基本要求。在中国,我们常常看到,年轻经济学者的学术研究与公共政策研究者或者政策咨询者之间的联系是非常薄弱的,甚至在很多情况下没有什么关系。这反映出大多数年轻经济学者对问题的关注并非来自于对政府政策的关注,而可能来自于他人的论文和现有的文献。

我们自己,包括像John Whalley这样的海外的经济学家,总是希望中国的经济学家能对经济理论的发展有贡献。这样的想法自然是假设中国的经济发展和转型过程对经济理论的发展有独特的经验价值。这个假设在当代经济学家内部当然是有争议的。如果我们接受这样的假设,而且我相信更多的经济学家会接受这个假设,那么观察和研究中国经济的方式就值得我们不断去检讨,我们需要寻找更多的发现理论的机会。对经济学而言,中国的贡献肯定是来自我们能提出的(新的)思想和理论而不是来自对现有理论的直接应用。

当然,我们必须清醒的是,在中国的经济学学术范式转型期间,John Whalley教授指出的那种情况并不一定十分糟糕,也不会一成不变。状况是在改善。总的来说,在中国,我们总是可以发现,到了一定的年龄之后,年长的经济学家总是比年轻的经济学家能更好地体会中国的制度环境,能较好地观察现实、对政策有更多的感悟,也相对更能关注大的和更重要的问题。这说明经验、阅历和观察中国的时间积累均可能在影响着对中国经济研究的态度和方式。

 
 
 
February 16

“节俭悖论”在当下的美国仍然是悖论吗?

转自Robert Frank在纽约时报的周末专栏。“节俭悖论”应当只有在政府相对私人部门无法有效率的拯救经济时适用,美国近年来的情况可能不属于这种情况。不过,我想说的是,中国未必不符合“节俭悖论”所描述的情形。简单的来说,两国储蓄率的巨大差异可以解释其中的不同。
 
Go Ahead and Save. Let the Government Spend.
Robert Frank
February 04

在SAEA2009年会发言

1月31日至2月2日,我赶赴亚特兰大,参加了SEAE2009年会,并在大会上做了题为Do Consumers Really Care about Biotech Food Label? What Do We Know? What Else Should We Know?的发言。本文于去年8月完成,是我近期在该领域的最后一篇学术文章,文中以较大篇幅完善了计量估计,并提出了七个有待研究的问题及研究进展。本届SAEA年会由德克萨斯农工大学与乔治亚大学等承办,集中了SAAS系统的各个学会,SAEA只是其中之一。
 

下榻的酒店

会场外的签到台

论文演讲中

January 24

投资是看待2009年中国经济的“钥匙”

      国务院总理温家宝在19日召开的国务院第二次全体会议上再次强调“今年是我国进入新世纪以来经济发展最困难的一年”。 这里我不打算讨论贸易顺差在2009年是否会存在,以及对经济增长的贡献率会有多少,因为出口可以被看作外生变量,而我目前尚无法估计2009年的外部经济究竟会怎样。就投资与消费的比较而言,前者占GDP比例更高(50% Vs. 40%),同时就目前的增速而言也相对较高(例如2008年固定资本形成增速很可能降到10%左右,而消费增速应当低于8%)。因而,投资仍然值得格外关注。
     在此,我只是对2008年以来固定资产形成的增速的下降产生兴趣。考虑到投资总额在GDP中几乎占了一半,这就不难理解为什么中央近期不断的加大各项投资的力度,即使社会各界质疑投资的效果以及经济刺激计划的“花钱人”主要是地方政府。是的,这部分钱很少交由私人,况且近期经济刺激能再多大程度上带动其他投资、消费和贸易仍不得而知,但中央政府仍然出手了。这就告诉我们,理解中国经济增长的“钥匙”仍然是投资,尤其是在全球的经济紧缩期。
     那么为什么固定资产形成的增速明显下降了呢?我列出的清单是
1.外部需求的下降对固定资产形成的反乘数效应。
2.房地产业投资兴旺后的回调
3.能源价格的价格扭曲得到逐步改善,能源价格的逐步市场化使我们"优势"渐失
4.环保力度加大,一些项目关停
......