Fiscal competition in a transition economy

The paper analyses fiscal competition for mobile capital between identical regions in a transition country. A framework similar to Keen-Marchand (1997) is used to analyse welfare effects of regional competition. It is shown that in very early transition when the share of the old sector is overwhelming, consumers in a transition economy may be better off in a competitive equilibrium. The decision-makers, however, would prefer to coordinate their fiscal policies.tax competition; fiscal competition; transition

The effect of deposit insurance on market discipline: Evidence from a natural experiment on deposit flows

We explore how the introduction of explicit deposit insurance affects deposit flows into and out of banks of varying risk levels. Using evidence from a natural experiment in Russia, we employ a difference-in-difference estimator to isolate the change in the deposit flows of a newly insured group (households) relative to an uninsured “control” group (firms). This approach improves on earlier studies seeking to identify the effect of deposit insurance on market discipline. We find that the relative sensitivity of households to bank capitalization diminished markedly with the introduction of an insurance program covering their deposits. This was not true for firms, however. We then show the finding is not an artifact of the two groups responding differently to a minor banking crisis that arose at roughly the same time.deposit insurance; market discipline

S&T activities and firm performance - microeconomic evidence from manufacturing in Shanghai

This paper examines the impact of R&D expenditure and technology import on the level and the growth of productivity, as well as on the general economic performance in manufacturing firms with various ownership structures in Shanghai, China. The empirical analyses are based on the firm-level information of a sample of manufacturing firms for the period 1998–2003. We find clear-cut evidence indicating that firms with foreign participation have a productivity advantage over their domestic counterparts. The expenditures on technology import not only have a direct and positive effect on productivity, but also indirectly enhance the absorptive capacity of firms to facilitate in-house R&D activities. This is particularly true for firms with foreign participation, or for firms in sectors with relatively high technical standards. Furthermore, R&D expenditure and technology import may also have positive effects on profitability and export performance, depending on the ownership structure of the firm and the technical standard in the sector.Science and Technology policy; Science and Technology investment; R&D

McCallum rule and Chinese monetary policy

This paper evaluates the usefulness of a McCallum monetary policy rule based on money supply for maintaining price stability in mainland China. We examine whether excess money relative to rulebased values provides information that improves the forecasting of price developments. The results suggest that our monetary variable helps in predicting both consumer and corporate goods price inflation, but the results for consumer prices depend on the forecasting period. Nevertheless, growth of the Chinese monetary base has tracked the McCallum rule quite closely. Moreover, results using a structural vector autoregression suggest that our measure of excess money supply could be used to identify monetary policy shocks in the Chinese economy.McCallum rule; monetary policy; China

Sequential reform strategy: The case of Azerbaijan

The aim is to review transition literature for evidence that supports sequential reform strategy, as presented in this report. The second part discusses the findings in the context of Azerbaijan, a formerly socialist transition economy with interesting initial conditions. Evidence of the country's current need to focus on improving public services fits well with the sequential reform view. The authors argue that constraints captured by initial conditions (human resources, administrative capacities, traditions, etc.) necessitate sequencing of reforms and outline general aspects of a sequential reform strategy designed to expedite the transition process. The literature survey supports the Washington Consensus recommendations for starting transition with macroeconomic reforms, but over time initial conditions inevitably constrain and necessitate sequencing. In other words, reform efforts initially need to be directed across the widest possible front, but later in transition the emphasis of reform efforts needs to shift from one area to another. In the later stages, emphasis needs to be laid on improvement of public sector governance to support and promote macroeconomic reforms and formation of a healthy corporate sector. Democratic institutions arise with economic growth generated by the corporate sector.transition economics; sequencing; governance; macroeconomic reforms; structural reforms; private sector; democracy; Azerbaijan

China's new labour contract law: No harm to employment?

In January 2008, China adopted a new labour contract law. This new law represents the most significant reform to the legislation on employment relations in mainland China in more than a decade. The paper provides a theoretical framework on the inter-linkages between labour market regulation, option value and the choice and timing of employment. All in all, the paper demonstrates that the Labour Contract Law in its own right will have only small impacts upon employment in the fast-growing Chinese economy. Rather, induced increasing unit labour costs represent the real issue and may reduce employment.China; labour contract law; real options; employment

Some benefits of reducing inflation in transition economies

We analyse welfare effects of the interactions between the tax system and inflation in Poland and in Ukraine, using the framework developed by Feldstein (1997, 1999). This approach stresses the fact that inflation increases distortions created by the tax system, in particular distortions to intertemporal saving decisions. We find that the effects are much smaller in the two transition countries than in developed marketeconomies. The reason is that taxation of investment returns is much more limited. Our results suggest that taxes on investment returns should be avoided in any future redesign of the tax system.

Do better institutions improve bank efficiency? Evidence from a transitional economy

The pace of transition in China over the last two decades has led to great variation across the country in terms of institutional and financial development. In this paper, using a panel of Chinese provinces during the period 1993–2006, we empirically investigate the determinants of the efficiency of the banking sector from an institutional perspective. The most important institutional developments in China are the emergence and gradual dominance of the market economy, financial deepening, the growth of a private sector, the establishment of secure property rights, and rule of law. We find that institutional variables play an important role in affecting banking efficiencies, and that banks tend to operate more efficiently in those regions with a greater private sector presence and more property rights awareness, while the role of financial deepening and rule of law is less straightforward.institutional development; bank efficiency; Chinese banks

Investigating the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis in transition: Do we understand what we see?

This paper studies the Balassa-Samuelson effect in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Time series and panel cointegration techniques are used to show that the BS effect works reasonably well in these transition economies during the period 1991:Q1 to 2001:Q2. However, productivity growth does not fully translate into price in-creases due to the structure of CPI indexes. We thus argue that productivity growth will not hinder the ability of the five EU accession candidates to meet the Maastricht criterion on inflation in the medium term. Moreover, the observed appreciation of the CPI-deflated real exchange rate is found to be systematically higher compared to the real appreciation justi-fied by the Balassa-Samuelson effect, particularly in the cases of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This may be partly explained by the trend appreciation of the tradable-goods-price-based real exchange rate, increases in non-tradable sector prices due to price liberali-sation and demand-side pressures, and the evolution of the nominal exchange rate due to the exchange rate regime and magnitude of capital inflows.Balassa-Samuelson effect; productivity; real exchange rate; transition; panel cointegration

Changing economic structures and impacts of shocks — evidence from a DSGE model for China

We construct a small-scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that features price rigidities, habit formation in consumption and costs in capital adjustment, and calibrate the model with data for the Chinese economy. Our interest centers on the impact of technology and monetary policy shocks for different structures of the Chinese economy. In particular, we evaluate how a rebalancing of the economy from investment-led to consumption-led growth would affect the economic dynamics after a shock occurs. Our findings suggest that a rebalancing would reduce the volatility of the real economy in the event of a technology shock, which provides support for policies aiming to increase the consumption share in China.DSGE; rebalancing; monetary policy shocks; technology shocks; China