Table of Content

15 May 2012, Volume 0 Issue 05

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What Is the Essence of the Socialist Economy? On Professor Hu Jun’s Essentialism of Socialist “Labor Exchange of Equal Amount”

WEI Xing-hua

2012, 0(05):  1511. 

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Professor Hu Jun has been upholding and claiming for many years that the “labor exchange of equal amount”in the distribution according to work is the nature of socialist economic relations, as opposed to the exchange of equal value, so as to exclude the view on commodity exchange relationship, which cannot be established. This theoretical point of view of him is against Marx’s. The labor exchange of equal amount in the distribution according to work is, according to what Marx said, the“bourgeois right”as the same principle of the commodity exchange of equal value, being one of the“defects”associated with the “traces of the old society”. This view is also mutually exclusive with Deng Xiaoping’s socialist essentialism. Professor Hu employs the essentialism of socialist“labor exchange of equal amount”to deny the real existence of the value relationship of commodity in China, asserting that the scientific truth about the demise of commodity relations under the socialist system proposed by Marx and Engels has become a reality in China. This is not consistent with China’s actual situation. Professor Hu claimed that this theoretical point of view has won a great deal of attention and recognition from both the Party and academia as“the most outstanding innovative idea”and“important academic contribution”, and has“provided theoretical groundwork”and“made theoretical preparations”for Deng Xiaoping’s socialist market economic theory and China’s reform objectives, this does not conform to the facts either.

A Research of Factor Market Allocation and China’s Income Gap between Urban and Rural Residents

LAI Wen-yan

2012, 0(05):  1512. 

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In the situation of China’s Urban and rural factor market being artificially divided, the movements of labor, land, capital and other factors between urban and rural areas are restricted. Such incorrect allocation of factors leads to lower allocation efficiency, which makes the internal mechanism of economic convergence between urban and rural areas unable to play a role. By selecting certain statistical indicators to decompose China’s urban-rural income factors from 1990 to 2011, this paper uses the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the impact of factor market allocation on the income gap between urban and rural residents. According to the research, the factors of land and labor have the greatest impact on urban-rural income gap. Therefore, some countermeasures should be taken to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents, such as improving factor market allocation system, promoting the rational allocation of labor, land, capital and other factors, improving the government’s macro-control functions, etc.

A Study of the Effects of China’s Tax Policy on Energy Saving and Emission Reduction

ZHU Ying-chun

2012, 0(05):  1513. 

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Tax policy is one of the important instruments in China to promote the energy saving and emission reduction. By applying the econometric tools of Engle-Granger cointegration test, this paper carries out an empirical study on the effects of China’s tax policy on energy saving and emission reduction. The results indicate that from the long term, there exists a kind of cointegration relationship between the tax revenue of energy saving and emission reduction and the energy consumption of per unit GDP, but the effects of each tax on energy saving and emission reduction are quite different. Among them, the effect of value-added tax is significant, but there is still room for its improvement, while the consumption tax and resources tax do not play their proper roles. Therefore, it is suggested to adopt a series of measures to promoting the effects of tax policies, such as comprehensively reforming the resources tax system, expanding the scope of consumption tax, optimizing the value-added tax rates, and so on.

An Analysis of Soft Constraints on Educational Budget under the Legal Expenditure Policies

LUO Chun-mei

2012, 0(05):  1514. 

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The legal expenditure policy in the educational sector is the mandatory rules for educational budget. The investigations on the total and incremental educational input show that the problems of soft budget constraints are occurring in China’s current educational funding. The effects of the policies are greatly reduced because of vague policy itself, “shrinking style” of budget estimate strategy, the management style of over emphasizing input while overlooking performance, lack of coordination between department regulations and the Budget Law, etc.. Therefore, we need re-normalize the legal expenditure policy based on the premise of recognizing its reality, at the same time we should also establish the performance-oriented budget management mode, and gradually widen the sources of educational funds.

Is the Limit of Four Times the Primary Interest Rate of Loan Reasonable?

HU Yuan-cheng

2012, 0(05):  1515. 

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On the basis of the observation of the real earnings rates and the debt repayment ability of China’s enterprises, considering the maintenance of the normal order of the borrowing and lending markets, this paper believes that a 20 percent level of interest rate or rate of return is a suitable cutoff point for the up limit, which is in line with Chin’s conditions. For this reason, we recommend that the primary interest rate of three times of the loan should be adopted to determine the up limit of annual rate of private borrowing and lending allowed by policy, this is relatively consistent with China’s current reality.

The Effect of RMB Exchange Rate Changes on China’s Output and Regional Differences: Based on Provincial Panel Data Analysis

ZHU Yong-hang

2012, 0(05):  1516. 

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On the basis of the construction of a multi-variable production function model containing both inside and outside production under the open economic conditions, and making use of the provincial panel data from 1994 to 2008, this paper conducts an empirical test of the impact of the real Renminbi (RMB) exchange rate changes on China’s actual output and the regional differences of this effect. The results show that the elasticity coefficient of real output to RMB real efficient exchange rate (REER) is -0.179, implying that the appreciation of RMB is to the disadvantages of China’s output growth. In the meantime, the elasticity coefficients of the real output in the four economic regions, eastern, central, western and northeastern China, are -0.280, -0.080, -0.339 and -0.115 respectively. This signifies that the appreciation of RMB can bring unfavorable impacts on the actual output of all the four regions, but with significant difference. And RMB appreciation will further widen the economic gap between the eastern China and western China.

Rule of Law, Government Control and Corporate Investment Efficiency

CAI Ji-fu

2012, 0(05):  1517. 

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On the premise of taking into account the motives and actions of governments at different levels, taking the observed data of 3183 listed companies at Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as the samples, this paper empirically studies the micro mechanism of inefficient investment by enterprises ruled by law and regulations and its economic consequences. The results show that compared with the listed companies controlled by central government or not controlled by government, the degree of investment distortion of local government-controlled listed companies is larger. The improvement of rule of law can restrain the inefficient investment by listed companies, which is much stronger in the listed companies controlled by local governments. However, as far as the value influence of corporate investment, whether in the listed companies controlled by the central government or in the listed companies controlled by local government or not-controlled by government, the improvement of rule of law on the efficiency of corporate investment is not ultimately reflected on the increase of corporate value, which indicates that it can only decrease but not eliminate the inefficient investment by the listed companies. Therefore, the improvement of rule of law has a limited effect on the improvement of investment efficiency of China’s listed companies.

Factors Affecting Online Sales: A Comparative Study between Niche and Popular Markets

ZHOU Geng

2012, 0(05):  1518. 

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The Long Tail Theory suggests that the Internet contributes greatly to the development of the niche market. However, some recent researches believe that the there is ready sale for popular products online. In order to verify the different performances of online vendors in the two types of markets, this paper conducts an analysis on the sales data of more than 641 thousand kinds of products sold by 791 shops on Taobao. The results show that online sales are influenced by such factors as reputation, product variety, price, public praise and recommendations. And these influences also present significant difference in the niche market and popular market. Of which, the factors of reputation, product diversity, price, and public praise have a greater impact on the sales of niche products. The recommendations based on past data have a positive effect on the sales of popular products and a negative effect on the sales of niche products. In addition, it is found that online sales have the advantage of backwardness.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on China’s Urban-Rural Income Gap:An Empirical Test Based on China’s Provincial Panel Data

SHENG Bin

2012, 0(05):  1519. 

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The analysis based on the dual labor market model indicates that the impact of FDI on the urban-rural income gap depends on the supply elasticity of high-skilled and low-skilled labor force as well as the influence of FDI on their demands respectively. Meanwhile, the empirical study with the panel data of China’s 29 provinces and cities from 1998 to 2010 also indicates that on the whole FDI is conductive to narrow the urban-rural income gap, especially in the east coastal region. In addition, FDI is able to increase the income of rural labors by improving the rural employment structure, thus narrows the urban-rural income gap. The inflow of FDI is also helpful to narrow the urban-rural income gap of the east coastal region which heavily relies on the development of processing trade through the trade effect; but on the other hand, FDI will enlarge the urban-rural income gap through the unbalanced human capital effects.

Carbon Emissions Embodied in Sino-US Trade and Trade Environment Effect: An Empirical Analysis Based on Environmental Input-Output Approach

GAO Jing

2012, 0(05):  1520. 

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The huge trade surplus of Sino-US trade has brought not only some trade problems, but also a series of environmental problems. By applying the environmental input-output model, this paper calculates the carbon dioxide emissions embodied in Sino-US trade and draws the conclusion as follows: among Sino-US trade most of the pollution trade terms of Chinese industries is bigger than 1 and the trade terms are becoming worse and worse; the industries with larger export scale and stronger trade competitiveness have the smaller exported carbon emission intensity, there is no necessary connection between China’s products exported to US and the pollutants; the FDI from America to China has not caused the transfer of American polluting industry into China, while the global FDI transferred into China has made the theory of “pollution haven” become true in China; the carbon emission speed in China’s export is lower than China’s export speed, the carbon emission intensity of exported unit is on a declining curve; in order to change the status of China as a country of pollution surplus, China should strengthen the control of imported pollution products from U.S., change the extensive production methods actively, and speed up the production of clean products at the higher-end of the value chain.

An Analysis of Causes of Professional Embezzlement Committed by Executives of State-Owned Enterprise Based on the Fraud Triangle Theory

ZHANG Rui

2012, 0(05):  1521. 

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According to the fraud “triangle theory”, the causes of professional embezzlements committed by executives of China’s state-owned enterprises are mainly from pressure, opportunities and excuses. Among them, pressure is a huge psychological burden and desire generated by the combined action of the self-interested value orientation of the economic man and the value??-oriented market economy in the pursuit of wealth. Opportunity refers mainly to the weak restrain on the asset operation responsibility of the executives, the cultural atmosphere of advocating the status and authority in the enterprises, and the lack of necessary power balance and internal control, all of them are caused by the system defects of the company systems under the public ownership. Excuses mainly have such forms as “kickbacks”, “borrowed money” and unreasonable design of remuneration and incentive systems, etc.. The effective way to prevent executives of state-owned enterprises from committing professional embezzlement is to select the personnel with excellent conduct and ability as executives, create the corporate culture of honesty and trustworthiness, perfect a variety of mechanisms and systems, urge the effective implementation of the system, and maintain the normal operation of the mechanism.

An Exploratory Study of Structuring Internal-Control in China’s Accounting Firms

ZHANG Long-ping

2012, 0(05):  1522. 

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The internal control in accounting firms is an institutional protection to improve their quality control ability, risk control ability and market competitiveness. Starting from the system theory and taking the auditing operation process as the core, this paper analyzes the urgency of structuring the internal control in accounting firms and its foundational theories. On the basis of the existing internal-control theories and combining the characteristics of the CPA profession, this paper also analyzes the definition, goals and boundary of internal control in accounting firms and the path and principles for the construction.

An Empirical Analysis of Impacts of EVA-Based Performance Evaluation on Over-Investment Behavior of Central SOEs

ZHANG Xian-zhi

2012, 0(05):  1523. 

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Corporate investment behavior is closely related to the performance evaluation of the management. A good performance evaluation method can affect and improve the investment efficiency of the enterprises. Combining the EVA-based performance evaluation system promoted comprehensively by SASAC among the central SOEs and making use of the data of the listed companies held by China’s central SOEs, this paper conducts an empirical test of the effect of EVA on enterprise’s over-investment. The study finds that the implementation of EVA performance evaluation has significant governance effect, which can inhibit the over-investment behaviors of the central SOEs. Based on the above conclusions, this paper offers some recommendations from the two aspects of EVA index correction and the investment decisions of the central SOEs.