《美国经济评论》20篇百年经典经济论文导读

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美国经济周期稳定化研究述评.

美国经济周期稳定化研究述评.论文报告：美国经济周期稳定化研究述评一、引言二、美国经济周期的发展历程及特点1.美国经济周期的起源2.美国经济周期的特点3.美国经济周期的演变三、美国经济周期中的稳定化措施1.货币政策2.财政政策3.结构性改革四、美国经济周期稳定化措施的评价1.货币政策的优缺点2.财政政策的优缺点3.结构性改革对经济的影响五、美国经济周期稳定化措施的案例分析1.2008年全球金融危机2.1990年代初的股市泡沫3.2001年的经济衰退4.20世纪70年代的经济萧条5.1960年代的经济繁荣六、结论引言作为经济学家，经济周期的稳定化一直是我们关注的重要问题之一。

在过去几十年，美国经济的周期波动频率不断降低，与此同时，美国经济中的通货膨胀率和失业率也趋于稳定。

这种趋势在全球范围内也是普遍存在的。

因此，本论文将围绕美国经济周期的稳定化问题展开研究，并对美国在经济周期波动时期采取的稳定化措施进行评价，最终分析其有效性和可行性。

美国经济周期的发展历程及特点1.美国经济周期的起源美国经济周期的起源可以追溯到19世纪初，发生了一系列的经济萧条和经济衰退。

这些经济周期的起因都是由于生产过剩和金融危机等原因导致的。

这种经济周期的不稳定性，在19世纪末到20世纪初逐渐得到了缓解，主要原因是美国经济结构的变化，劳动力市场的稳定以及生产技术不断创新等因素的作用。

2.美国经济周期的特点近年来的研究表明，美国经济周期具有一定的稳定性，主要表现在以下几个方面：（1）周期波动频率降低：过去几十年，美国经济中的周期波动频率不断降低，经济周期的周期越来越长，经济危机的发生也越来越稀少。

（2）通货膨胀率稳定：近年来，美国的通货膨胀率趋于稳定，这主要是由于美国的货币政策比较稳定，缺乏大幅度的通货膨胀。

（3）失业率稳定：经济周期频率降低以及就业稳定的政策措施的实施，是导致失业率趋于稳定的两个主要因素。

3.美国经济周期的演变美国的经济周期在演变过程中，最初的周期都是和生产规模的波动相联系，后来和金融市场因素的波动相联系变得更为显著。

对美国经济的再认识

美国经济的基本面分析：宏观与微观
美国经济在 #$$$ 年第三季度突然结束了连续 !$ 多年 () 的高速增长，并从 #$$! 年开始进入负增长。但是，进入今年第一这是否意味着季度以来，又出现了高于 () 以上的经济增长率。美国经济在经过了短短一年减速之后又重新回到快速增长的轨道上来了？回答当然是否定的，因为美国自今年第一季度以来的经济增长并不正常，对此，我们不妨分析如下： !* 经济增长的动力不足数据显示，美国自今年第一季度以来的增长属于存货出清式增长，其动力主要来之于以下两个方面：其一是库存增长率 “’ ・!! ” 的下降；其二则是事件之后消费者受悲观预期影响消费偏好发生变化所致。从统计资料看，第一季度总私人投资对经济增长的贡献率大约为 +* !# 个百分点，其中存货投资调整一项的贡献却高达这也就是说，如果扣除存货调整一项，整个私人 +* (, 个百分点。投资对 -./ 增长的贡献应为 & $* +0) 。发生这种情况的根本原因在于实际私人投资的持续下降。据统计，今年第一季度，美国非居民固定资产投资比上年第四季度下降了 1* #) 。不仅如此，伴随着私人投资下降趋势，企业利润也不断下降，失业率高居企业利润却没有得到相应的增长，第不下。尽管 -./ 增长强劲，一季度企业税后利润仅比上年第四季度微增 $* ’) ，与去年同期相比，则下降了 !,* +) 。值得注意的是，税后利润的下降不仅仅与销售收入下降有关，更重要的是由于利润率在下降，这表
美国经济的金融面分析：虚拟经济最终还是要服从实际经济
在 !""" 年之前，有许多人从美国股市长期走牛的事实中得出了新经济可以摆脱传统经济周期的看法，并且深信股票市场的牛气可以带动经济景气持续繁荣。这种看法有一定的道理，但却带有较大的片面性。说它有一定的道理，是因为在美国新经济的崛起和发展过程中，股票市场功不可没。说它有片面性，是因为虚拟经济最终还是要服从实际经济。 $9 股票市场在新经济时代获得了新的功能从历史至今，世界成熟市场经济国家股票市场的功能一直处在不断的演变与进化之中。最初，人们认为股票市场的功能就是为企业筹措资本。企业通过发行股票筹措资本之所以必要，关键在于发行股票获得的资金属于公司自有的资金，而通过银行贷款获得的资金则是债权人的资金。这也就是说，股权融资和银行债权融资不仅存在成本的差异，而且还有支配权的差异评论 #$$#% !! & !#

美国经济及QE3对全球经济影响论文

浅析美国经济及QE3对全球经济的影响2012年，全球进入新一轮的经济衰退期。

美国也正经历自1933年经济大萧条以来最为严重的经济衰退。

全球三大经济体——美国、欧盟、中国，像高速行驶的火车，经济连续十年高增长。

由此而引发的产能过剩，产业结构失调，工业技术进步缓慢，是此一轮经济衰退的根本原因。

继2010年美国联邦储备系统（federal reserve system，简称fed），在以雷曼兄弟倒闭为标志的“金融危机”增发6000亿美元的货币量化宽松（简称qe2）之后，2012年美国经济因欧盟成员国一系列的债务危机影响，经济再度落入低谷。

尤其是美国制造业，制造业指数3年来首次跌破50，至49.7。

（见图1.1）此外，美国6月公布的零售数据已连续三个月下降，这是自08年以来持续时间最长的连续下降。

（见图1.2）全球市场都增强了对fed推行新一轮货币量化宽松（简称qe3）的预期。

首先，如果推行qe3其货币发行量会有多大根据卡甘模型货币需求函数：mt-pt=-γ（ept+1-pt）其中mt是t期货币量的对数；pt是t期物价水平的对数（t期为2010年qe2），而γ是决定货币需求对通货膨胀率敏感度的参数。

mt-pt是实际货币余额的对数，而pt+1-pt是t期和t+1期（目前盛炒的qe3）之间的通货膨胀率（2010年qe2时美国的cpi为0.1%，截止5月美国的cpi为1.8%）。

如果通货膨胀上升1%，那么实际货币余额就减少γ%。

ept+1是预期的物价水平，实际货币余额取决于预期的通货膨胀率。

也就是说美联储的预期通货膨胀率是2%现在低于2%说明预期的货币余额远远大于实际货币余额。

根据菲利普斯曲线，当π每增加1%那么失业率就相对减小1%（这个只是理论值，并且必须在cpi远小于正常cpi的时候，以此来看qe2的推出是起到效率最大化的。

美国的失业率从15%降低到了8.2%附近，通货膨胀率从0.1%上升到2.5%那么菲利普斯曲线的斜率应当是2.4：6.8，可能存在不精确。

美国的经济与政治论文2000字

美国的经济与政治论文2000字美国的经济与政治论文2000字美国经济破记录地持续增长是由于美国经济中确实存在着某些新的因素，包括美国目前在高科技领域中的领先地位，下面是由店铺整理的美国的经济与政治论文2000字，谢谢你的阅读。

美国的经济与政治论文2000字篇一美国经济的现实真相“实际上，美国的真实失业率高达16%左右，而如果我们幸运的话，美国经济年增速是0.7%。

”伯南克今年8月初大醉于华盛顿“埃尔伍德角落酒吧”(Elwood's Corner Tavern)，道出了美国经济的真实情况，“如果大家都知道这个事实的话，很可能会使全球金融市场，甚至那些能自我维持经济增长的新兴经济体崩溃。

”两个多月过去了，现在美国的经济增长看来“没有那么幸运”，衰退已经逼近美国。

尤其是“占领华尔街运动”爆发之后，美国经济会受到怎样的冲击，没人敢说。

更可悲的是，美国华尔街控制的主流媒体更是对此轻描淡写，把示威人群说成“乌合之众”，没有信仰和主张闹事;势态扩展至欧洲，它们却说“比预期规模要小”。

真滑稽。

金融危机过程中，我们经常听到的一个词是“好于预期”。

现在，这个词又被用到了对“占领华尔街运动”的描述上。

什么是“好于预期”?我的理解是，事情还在变坏，但变坏的程度比预期要好。

这与其说是对经济的一种判断，不如说是对市场情绪的一种“心理安慰”。

美国太懂得如何管理市场经济了，它们对于数据本身的在意程度，远远小于对市场信心的在意程度。

但是，我们中国人经常被“好于预期”的说法搞得昏头昏脑，而将“好于预期”理解为“转好”，理解为“复苏”。

所以，我们在中国媒体上看到的许多专家的说法，都充满乐观情绪。

这势必导致我们经常性的误判，甚至导致政策的偏差。

“除了华盛顿特区的大人物之外，他们不希望让任何人知道美国经济实际上糟糕透顶。

美国高筑的债台越来越严重，而不是缓解，这些问题预计将使美国经济陷于困境之中，而且拖累整整一代人。

”这就是伯南克给出的结论。

《美国经济评论》20篇百年经典经济论文导读

《美国经济评论》20篇百年经典经济论文导读2014-09-13经济学茶座由美国经济学联合会主办的《美国经济评论》创刊于1911年，是在美国影响最大，也是世界知名遐迩的经济学期刊之一。

为纪念创刊100周年，期刊特邀了阿罗（K.J.Arrow）、伯恩黑姆（D.Bernheim）、费尔德斯坦（M.S.Feldstein）、麦克法登（D.L.McFadden）、波特巴（J.M.Poterba）与索洛（R.M.Solow）等六位著名经济学家，成立了“20篇最佳论文”评选委员会，在该刊100年来刊登的数千篇文章中，甄选出对经济学发展与实践产生深远、重大影响，且富有创造性的20篇最佳论文。

2011年第1期《美国经济评论》出版了百年纪念特刊，开辟了百年论坛专栏，并公布了中选结果。

膺选论文都名重一时，代表了每一时期经济学的最高学术水平,同时整体再现了百年来在经济学领域艰辛跋涉、不断探索的历史发展轨迹，反映了美国主流经济学的基本走向。

为了提选最具开创意义和积厚流广的论文，评委会首先使用了JSTOR （JournalStorage）系统的论文引用和查询数量作为参考指标进行初选。

其后，为避免因论文引用与查询数量指标的内在缺陷可能导致早期刊发的经济学家的文章被漏选或误选，评委会对若干著名经济学家的相关文章也给予了重点关注。

最后，评委会每个人以自己对于质量和重要性的判断为标准，从已选论文中再作遴选，授予20篇论文为百年最佳论文。

其中，12篇论文为诺贝尔经济学奖得主独著或合著的经典论文。

现给出这20篇膺选最佳论文的导读，以飨读者，让读者感受这些经济学经典文献所蕴含的内在价值。

论文导读按文章发表先后顺序排列：《生产理论》（1982）C.W.柯布与P.H.道格拉斯著本文研究了1899-1922年间美国制造业的资本、劳动与产出的关系，分析了这一时期劳动与资本两类要素对产出的影响，首次提出并使用了此后以其名字命名的不变弹性柯布－道格拉斯（Cobb－Douglas）生产函数，其一般形式为：P＝ALαKβ,式中，P、L、K分别为产量、劳动、资本，A、α、β为三个参数。

美国经济评论century paper1

American Economic Review 101 (February 2011): 1–8/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1100 Y ears of the American Economic Review:The T op 20 ArticlesBy Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein,Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow* The Top 20 Committee, consisting of Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow, was appointed by Robert Moffitt with the task of selecting the “Top 20” articles pub-lished in the American Economic Review during its first hundred years. We decided against trying to define formally the criteria for inclusion: they surely comprise sheer intellectual quality, influence on the ideas and practices of economists, and general significance or breadth; but it would be fruitless to try to specify the marginal rates of substitution among these and other qualities. We were looking for 20 admirable and important articles.As a starting point we used citation counts and numbers of searches in JSTOR.This is obviously important and relevant information, but not decisive on its own.Citation counts are biased in favor of subfields of economics with the largest popu-lations. There is also a bias in favor of moderately recent articles, if only because the number of potential readers and writers has been increasing in time; very recent articles suffer from the fact that citations build up over time. In any case we were expected to use our judgment about quality and significance. So we used the citation and JSTOR data only to give us a large group of eligibles. We worried especially about overlooking articles in the very early days of the AER, some by great names in the history of economics. But we found, just to take one striking example, that although Irving Fisher published several articles in the journal, they were all minor or ephemeral pieces.In the event, our early ballots showed an encouraging unanimity or near-unanim-ity, especially about the leading candidates. We very quickly converged on the Top15 articles. There were occasional differences of opinion, only to be expected from agroup with diverse interests, as we filled in the remaining three to five places. Here is our final list, arranged alphabetically, along with a brief reminder about each. There are few, if any, surprises.* Arrow: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford, CA 94305; Bernheim: Stanford University Department of Economics, Economics Building, 247 Stanford, California 94305; Feldstein: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138; McFadden: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics, 508-1 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720; Poterba: MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52, Room 350, Cambridge MA 02142; Solow: MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52, Cambridge MA 02142. We thank Jeffrey Hovis and Andrew McLetchie of JSTOR for their assistance. The 20 articles featured in this paper are available in the online version at /articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1.1that approach creates the appropriate incentives for management. Many implica-tions of this hypothesis are developed.Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” American Economic Review, 53(5): 941–73.This paper provided a framework for thinking about the economics of the market for medical care using the language and tools of modern microeconomics. It argued that the aforementioned market is beset by market failures because consumers are exposed to risks that are not fully insurable (in large part due to problems of moral hazard), and because they lack the information and expertise required to assess risks and treatments. It hypothesized that various salient features of the institutions governing the provision of medical care are best understood as social adaptations aimed at redressing the resulting inefficiencies. It also noted that in some cases those institutional adaptations undermine competition and perversely contribute to ineffi-ciency. Though written well prior to the emergence of the formal literature on asym-metric information, the paper anticipated many of the central issues that continue to occupy health economists today.Cobb, Charles W., and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. “A Theory of Production.” American Economic Review, 18(1): 139–65.The cliché surely applies here: this paper needs no introduction. The convenience and success of the constant-elasticity Cobb-Douglas function has spread its use from representing production possibilities, which was of course its original use, to representing utility functions and to much else throughout empirical and theoretical economics. Cobb and Douglas explored the elementary properties and implications of the functional form, and pointed to the approximate constancy of the relative shares of labor and capital in total income as the validating empirical fact.Deaton, Angus S., and John Muellbauer. 1980. “An Almost Ideal Demand System.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 312–26.A vast industry in applied econometrics analyzes the demand for specific prod-ucts, and the impact on consumers of public and private policies that alter market equilibrium. This paper, building on the traditions of Cobb-Douglas, Stone, and Gorman, introduces a practical system of demand equations that are consistent with preference maximization and have sufficient flexibility to support full welfare analy-sis of policies that have an impact on consumers. The Deaton-Muellbauer system is now the standard for empirical analysis of consumer demand.3 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERDiamond, Peter A.1965. “National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model.” American Economic Review, 55(5): 1126–50.Building on Paul Samuelson’s seminal work concerning consumption loans between individuals of different generations, this paper pioneered the analysis of overlapping generations (OLG) models with durable capital goods. It illumi-nated the properties of such models through two fundamental contributions. First, it demonstrated that the competitive equilibria of infinite horizon OLG models can be inefficient, even in the absence of conventional market failures. Second, it identified the mechanisms through which both external and internal debt can potentially reduce the capital stock. In clarifying the general equilibrium effects of displacing physical capital with government debt in individuals’ portfolios, it resolved a long-standing debate concerning the feasibility of using internal debt to shift the burden of paying for public expenditures to future generations.Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency.” American Economic Review, 61(1): 8–27. Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules.” American Economic Review, 61(3): 261–78.This paper, in two parts, is the foundation of the theory of optimal taxation and public production in the presence of second-best limitations on redistribution and private production. Diamond and Mirrlees show how the tax system can be tuned to minimize distortions and disincentives, and eliminate production inef-ficiencies. By subjecting tax systems to rigorous microeconomic analysis, this paper opened research on tax mechanism design and minimization of the burden of taxes.Dixit, Avinash K., and Joseph E. Stiglitz.1977. “Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity.” American Economic Review, 67(3): 297–308. Under monopolistic competition with differentiated goods and increasing returns to scale in each good, is there too much or too little product differentiation? This paper uses classical tools of microeconomics to answer this question, and in doing so, provides the foundation for an entire literature in which products are endogenous in number and attributes, and general equilibrium welfare analysis can be used to examine the consequences of tastes for variety.Friedman, Milton.1968. “The Role of Monetary Policy.” American Economic Review, 58(1): 1–17.This presidential address is the origin of the “vertical long-run Phillips curve,” along with a contemporary paper by Edmund S. Phelps. It introduced the idea of a “natural” rate of unemployment as the only rate compatible with the sustained coin-cidence of actual and expected rates of inflation. This is the basis of the conclusion that the Phillips curve is vertical in the long run, allowing only a temporary trade-off between unemployment and inflation. From this followed possible implications for4THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 the conduct of macro-policy, especially monetary policy. An enormous amount of research and discussion followed.Grossman, Sanford J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz.1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 393–408. As pointed out by a number of scholars, in a world of dispersed information, the equilibrium price will itself in general be a source of information to participants, since it incorporates whatever information other participants have. Grossman and Stiglitz examine the implication for the case where information can be acquired at a cost. If there is an equilibrium, some will choose to get informed and others not; the two courses of action must be indifferent. (Very special assumptions are made about the risk aversion characteristics of the population and about its heterogeneity.) In particular, if some individuals can acquire perfect information at a finite cost, then no equilibrium exists, since, if information is acquired by some, it will be reflected in the price and so can be acquired costlessly by others, while if no one acquires information, it will pay any individual to acquire it.Harris, John R., and Michael P. Todaro.1970. “Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.” American Economic Review, 60(1): 126–42. This widely cited paper starts with the puzzle that in poor developing countries one observes individuals migrating from agricultural areas to urban areas, even though they would have positive marginal product in agriculture but face a substan-tial probability of unemployment in the urban area. The first step in the explanation is to note that there are politically determined minimum wages in the urban areas that prevent wages from adjusting to achieve full employment for all those who come to the urban areas. The equilibrium distribution of potential workers between the rural and urban areas equates the marginal product of labor in agriculture to the expected wage in the urban area, i.e., the product of the wage and the probability of employment.Hayek, F. A. 1945.“The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, 35(4): 519–30.The author addresses the fundamental question of the nature of the economic system and, in particular, its role in dealing with resource allocation when a fun-damental knowledge base is distributed in small bits among a large population. The knowledge needed includes consumer valuations, production relations, and resource availabilities. In particular, general scientific principles, where expert opinion might be best, are only a small part of the knowledge base. The author argues for the importance of a price system in achieving coordination and effi-ciency in resource use without implying an impossible aggregation of information in a central place.Jorgenson, Dale W. 1963. “Capital Theory and Investment Behavior.” American Economic Review, 53(2): 247–59.5 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERThis paper provided a theoretical framework for investment behavior based on a neoclassical theory of optimal capital accumulation. The paper introduced the user cost of capital as the key variable that combines the cost of finance (interest rates and equity yields) and tax rules (tax rates, depreciation schedules) and combined this user cost measure with the Cobb-Douglas production technology to obtain a desired stock of capital. Jorgenson then used the resulting implied optimal capi-tal stock to derive an econometric equation for investment. Generalizations of the Jorgenson framework (e.g., to allow for more general production functions) made this the standard approach to the empirical study of the determinants of investment. The user cost of capital also became the key concept for the theoretical study of the effects of alternative tax rules.Krueger, Anne O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.” American Economic Review, 64(3): 291–303.Many government policies, such as import licenses in developing nations, create rents for some market participants. While the presence of such rents and the distortions that they create have long been noted, this paper recognized the importance of “rent-seeking behavior” and explored its welfare implications. The paper’s central finding is that competitive rent-seeking increases the welfare costs of policies such as trade restrictions. In the context of import restrictions, this result strengthens the case for the use of tariffs rather than import quotas, since quotas create the possibility of rent-seeking behavior. By identifying the impor-tance of rent-seeking activities and providing a framework for analyzing their welfare costs, this paper expanded the economic analysis of the government’s choice of policy instrument to achieve particular goals. It also helped to launch a voluminous literature on the role of corruption and governance in the process of economic development.Krugman, Paul. 1980. “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade.” American Economic Review, 70(5): 950–59.The classical theory that foreign trade is determined by comparative advantage fails to explain some important observations, for example, that there is consider-able trade in both directions within what is usually regarded as a single indus-try, and that countries tend to export goods for which the domestic demand is higher. Krugman investigates the determination of foreign trade under increasing returns; he assumes no difference in production conditions between countries. Prices are determined by imperfect competition with costless product differentia-tion. Using simple models, he formalizes foreign trade. When transport costs are introduced, he shows that each country will specialize, so no two will produce the same goods. The larger country will have terms of trade turned in its favor, and wages will be higher there. Some extensions of the model allow varieties within a single industry. It can then be shown that intra-industry trade can emerge and that countries will tend to export those commodities for which the domestic demand is highest.6THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 Kuznets, Simon.1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.” American Economic Review, 45(1): 1–28.Data from developing economies indicate that the earlier phases of economic development tend to be characterized by increasing income inequality, as those engaged in the small but growing modern sector of the economy pull away from those still left in agriculture and other subsistence activities. The degree of inequal-ity reaches a peak, however, and then diminishes with further development, as the modern sector comes to dominate the economy and perhaps more so if it creates room for redistributive activity. The resulting “Kuznets curve” has been the subject of much empirical research and discussion within development economics.Lucas, Robert E., Jr.1973. “Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs.” American Economic Review, 63(3): 326–34.This article introduces a tight but stylized model in which market participants must make decisions without knowing whether local changes in price signal changes in relative price or merely reflect changes in the general price level; they do, however, know the statistical properties of both processes. From this basis emerges a natural-rate model in which the ratio of real-output change to price-level change in response to exogenous shifts in aggregate expenditure depends on the relative variance of those processes. Time-series cross-section data for a number of countries provide some weak evidence consistent with the basic conclusion. The underlying assump-tion has gone out of favor, but the modeling technique has been very influential.Modigliani, Franco, and Merton H. Miller. 1958. “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment.” American Economic Review, 48(3): 261–97.A central question in corporate finance is how a firm’s financial choices, such as its use of debt rather than equity financing, affect its cost of capital and conse-quently its investment behavior. This paper developed a new framework for address-ing this question by asking how different debt-equity choices would affect the total market value of all of the cash flows that the firm provided to its investors, both bond-holders and stock-holders. The paper’s central result is that, in a setting with complete capital markets and in the absence of tax-induced distortions, a firm’s total market value is invariant to its borrowing behavior. This powerful result can be demonstrated constructively, by developing a straightforward set of borrowing or lending transactions that an equity investor can undertake to offset the consequences of changes in corporate borrowing. The analytical approach in this paper is one of the key foundations for the modern field of financial economics.Mundell, Robert A.1961. “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas.” American Economic Review, 51(4): 657–65.This paper explains that selecting the optimal geographic area for a single cur-rency involves balancing two considerations. Macroeconomic stability is enhanced if the currency area has a high degree of internal factor mobility relative to the cross-border factor mobility. Taken by itself, this could lead to an excessively large7 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERnumber of currency areas, in the sense that there would be substantial transaction costs and valuation costs involved in making cross-area purchases. The optimal size of a currency area involves balancing these two considerations. Mundell discussed the potential application of this to the European countries some 30 years before the euro was introduced.Ross, Stephen A.1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.” American Economic Review, 63(2): 134–39.This paper was the first to describe and analyze the canonical principal-agent problem with moral hazard, which has since become a cornerstone of microeco-nomic theory. It solved for the optimal compensation scheme using the first-order approach, and compared the solution to the first-best arrangement, noting that the two generally diverge due to the principal’s need to motivate the agent. It charac-terized the class of utility functions for which the principal’s solution is first-best optimal regardless of the payoff structure, as well as the class of payoff structures for which the solution is first-best optimal regardless of the utility functions. In only a handful of terse pages, it anticipated many of the central issues with which the subsequent literature was concerned.Shiller, Robert J.1981. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” American Economic Review, 71(3): 421–36. Standard models of asset market equilibrium imply that the value of a share of corporate stock equals the present discounted value of that stock’s expected future payouts. This paper applied an ingenious test of this present value relationship, which compared the variance of annual stock price movements with the variance in corporate dividend payouts, to the US equity market for the period 1870–1979. The results suggested that historical stock price volatility was much greater than the volatility of dividend payouts would appear to warrant. This empirical finding stimulated a wide range of follow-on research exploring various aspects of the effi-cient markets hypothesis, testing for time-varying discount rates in capital markets, and investigating the econometric properties of stock market returns and corporate payouts.REFERENCESAlchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972. “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Orga-nization.” American Economic Review, 62(5): 777–95.Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” American Eco-nomic Review, 53(5): 941–73.Cobb, Charles W., and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. “A Theory of Production.” American Economic Review, 18(1): 139–65.Deaton, Angus S., and John Muellbauer. 1980. “An Almost Ideal Demand System.” American Eco-nomic Review, 70(3): 312–26.Diamond, Peter A. 1965. “National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model.” American Economic Review, 55(5): 1126–50.Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Produc-tion Efficiency.” American Economic Review, 61(1): 8–27.8THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules.” American Economic Review, 61(3): 261–78.Dixit, Avinash K., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1977. “Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity.” American Economic Review, 67(3): 297–308.Friedman, Milton. 1968. “The Role of Monetary Policy.” American Economic Review, 58(1): 1–17. Grossman, Sanford J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 393–408.Harris, John R., and Michael P. Todaro. 1970. “Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.” American Economic Review, 60(1): 126–42.Hayek, F. A. 1945. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, 35(4): 519–30. Jorgenson, Dale W. 1963. “Capital Theory and Investment Behavior.” American Economic Review, 53(2): 247–59.Krueger, Anne O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.” American Economic Review, 64(3): 291–303.Krugman, Paul. 1980. “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade.” American Economic Review, 70(5): 950–59.Kuznets, Simon. 1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.” American Economic Review, 45(1): 1–28.Lucas, Robert E., Jr. 1973. “Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs.” American Economic Review, 63(3): 326–34.Modigliani, Franco, and Merton H. Miller. 1958. “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment.” American Economic Review, 48(3): 261–97.Mundell, Robert A. 1961. “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas.” American Economic Review, 51(4): 657–65.Ross, Stephen A. 1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.” American Eco-nomic Review, 63(2): 134–39.Shiller, Robert J. 1981. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” American Economic Review, 71(3): 421–36.This article has been cited by:1.David N. Laband, Suman Majumdar. 2012. Who Are the Giants on Whose Shoulders We Stand?.Kyklos65:2, 236-244. [CrossRef]2.JERRY EVENSKY. 2011. HES PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: WHAT’S WRONG WITHECONOMICS?. Journal of the History of Economic Thought34:01, 1-20. [CrossRef]。

美国经济评论century paper3

American Economic Review 101 (February 2011): 36–48/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.36Some Unsettled Problems of IrrigationBy Katharine Coman*[Geologist Nathaniel] Shaler called the Cordilleran area, comprising the western third of the United States, the “curse of the Continent.” West of the hundredth merid-ian, precipitation, except for certain favored sections, is insufficient for agriculture or for forest growth, and pasturage can be reckoned on for the spring and early summer only. From the mesas and foothills of the Rockies to the western slope of the Sierras, arid or semi-arid conditions prevail. The average annual rainfall varies from two inches in the deserts of the southwest to 20 inches on the Great Plains, but nowhere except on the north Pacific coast does it furnish a reliance for the farmer.On the western slopes of the mountain ranges, where the moisture-laden winds of the Pacific ascend to colder altitudes, there is considerable rain. The precipitation of autumn and winter is held in vast beds of snow and ice until the fervid suns of May and June release the flow. Then springs and torrents rush down to the lowlands, the rivers overflow their banks, and the valleys are flooded. How to conserve this excess water to serve the needs of summer-grown crops is the problem of arid America.The first Americans who attempted to farm the desert were the pioneers of the Mormon migration. Brigham Young and the 140 devoted saints who followed his lead across the Wasatch Mountains to the new Zion on the mesa above Great Salt Lake had no knowledge of irrigation; but agriculture was a sine qua non to a settle-ment so remote from civilization. Within two hours of their arrival they began to plow for a belated planting. “We found the land so dry,” wrote Lorenzo Snow, “that to plow it was impossible, and in attempting to do so some of the plow beams were broken. We therefore had to distribute the water over the land before it could be bro-ken.” The simple device worked satisfactorily and was used thereafter, not only to soften the soil but to water the crops. The damming of City Creek marked the begin-ning of irrigation in the Great Basin. Thereafter water supply was regarded even more than character of soil and means of transportation in determining the location of the successive “stakes” planted in the wilderness. Irrigating works were built, as were roads and bridges and sawmills, by cooperative effort, each colonist contribut-ing labor or material or money as he best could. New and struggling communities were not infrequently financed by the Church, stock being taken in exchange for funds advanced. The Mormon communities have now some six million acres under irrigation in the arid West and are producing wheat and alfalfa, sugar beets, peaches, cherries, and strawberries, out of all proportion to their ratio in the agricultural pop-ulation of the United States.* Coman (1857–1915), Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481. Originally appearing in March 1911, this is a reprint of the first article published in the first issue of the American Economic Review, volume 1, issue 1, pp. 1–19.During her time at Wellesley (1883–1900), Coman served as professor of history, chair of the economics depart-ment, and dean of the college.3637 Vol. 101 no. 1comAn: somE unsEttlEd pRoBlEms oF iRRigAtionMeantime the American pioneers in California were profiting by the irrigating experience of their Spanish predecessors. Dr. John Marsh, a Yankee and a Harvard graduate, secured a Spanish grant to a good square mile of land at the foot of Mt. Diablo and set about its cultivation with a zeal that soon made him one of the wealth-iest landowners in the province. His orchards and vineyards and irrigated fields were the marvel of the hijos del pais. Sutter’s ranch on American Fork was an equally convincing demonstration of what brains could do by adding water to the soil and climate of California. Water rights were free as air, and every ranchero used the streams that the winter rains sent across the lowlands, according to his own conve-nience. Only in the pueblos, San José and Los Angeles, was there endeavor to treat the scant supply as a common property to be developed by the building of dams and ditches under the direction of the public authorities. The advent of the gold seekers made heavy demands upon the water resources of the Sierras. Running water was a prime necessity in placer mining, the new market afforded by the mining communi-ties induced a far more extensive agriculture, and water rights became, for the first time, a matter of serious concern. The water needed to operate the sluices and long toms had to be conducted to the diggings in flumes, sometimes many miles in length and representing a considerable investment of labor and capital. Mining custom, which the California Legislature formulated into law, established the principle of “first come first served.” A notice posted at the point of diversion, stating date of posting and the amount of water to be taken out, constituted a claim to a specified number of miners’ inches. The law required that the claim should be registered with the county officer within 60 days of the posting, and the courts later decided that the claimant must prove that the construction of ditches, canals, or flumes had been undertaken immediately and prosecuted with diligence, and that the water drawn off was being put to a beneficial use. Notwithstanding these precautions, the m iners’ custom, notably when applied to agricultural districts, gave rise to strife and uncertainties that seriously handicapped industrial development. It had become evident that land with no assured water supply was of little value for agriculture. The streams that might be utilized within the resources of individual ranchmen were soon monopolized, and works of greater cost were needed to construct diversion dams, build main canals, and set up pumping machinery for the irrigation of the thousands of acres of fertile land that lay back from the water courses. In the hope of encouraging the development of the Great Valley between the Sierras and the Coast Range, a region all untouched by the Spanish regime, the Legislature (1862) passed an act authorizing the incorporation of canal companies and the construction of canals “for the transportation of passengers and freights, or for the purpose of irrigation and water power, or for the conveyance of water for mining or manufac-turing purposes, or for all of such purposes.” Under this liberal enactment, several irrigation companies were organized on the basis of claims to the flow of the San Joaquin and its tributary rivers.The common law doctrine of riparian rights was adopted by the courts of California in the early years of American occupation with no question as to its appli-cability to the new conditions. Practice vested in the adjacent landowner not only right to a continuous and undiminished flow, but to diversion for his own use and also for sale to agriculturists less fortunately situated. The effect was to give an extraordinary advantage to first comers and to speculators in this most valuable of38tHE AmERicAn Economic REViEW FEBRuARy 2011 natural resources. Subsequent cultivators, men who were proposing to convert cattle ranches and wheat fields into orchards and vegetable gardens, were obliged to be content with what was left or to defend their secondary claims by force. Appeal to the courts involved long and costly suits with inconclusive results, since the process of adjudication must be gone over whenever a new claimant appeared or an old claim was revived or extended. Agricultural enterprise in California is still retarded by the uncertainty of water rights and the heavy costs of litigation. Any one of the tens and hundreds of appropriators along a single stream may bring suit to enlarge his share, and the law offers no remedy to the revival of old disputes. Often the small farmer cannot afford the contest, and the victory goes by default to the wealthy ranchman or the well capitalized company. The doctrine of riparian rights even as modified by 50 years of court decisions is hopelessly inadequate, and the water users have had to resort to private agreements with mutual recognition of all the rights appurtenant to the supply in question. The doctrine of appropriation, the only doctrine suited to an arid agriculture, has never been formally recognized in California, much less the superior right of the public to the water supply which is precipitated on the mountain heights, collected in state-owned lakes and rivers, and which is indispensable to the future development of the commonwealth.By 1875 all the easily irrigated lands of the Cordilleran area were occupied, and it had become evident that the homestead law which had worked so satisfactorily in the Mississippi Valley was quite inapplicable to the conditions presented to the set-tler in the arid regions. The Desert Land Act was passed (1877) with intent to offer a sufficient reward to induce the man taking up public land to put in irrigating works.A full section of arid land, four times the amount permitted under the preemption or homestead acts, might be acquired by paying 25 cents per acre at the time of entry, redeeming the same by irrigation, within three years, and then paying the final charge of one dollar per acre. Residence on the holding was not required.1The Desert Land Act was put through Congress by men who knew little of west-ern conditions, on the assumption that water would always be found upon the land and in such form that it could be readily diverted to the fields; but few regions are so fortunately situated. Irrigation on a scale necessary to utilize distant mountain streams or to pump the subterranean flow required more capital and engineering skill than the ranchmen possessed and usually developed a capacity for watering tens of thousands of acres. The organization of irrigation companies followed. Hydrographic engineering was a new art, construction was not infrequently faulty, water rights uncertain, and the quantity of water available often grossly exaggerated. The promoters of these schemes relied on the fact that the settlers could do nothing toward completing their titles without water, and they devised contracts by which the farmer paid a flat rate per acre, regardless of the amount of water furnished. The temptation to contract to irrigate more land than could be provided for proved irresistible, and many of the settlers were ruined. Such promoters soon discovered, however, that they had killed the goose that laid the golden egg, for without water users there could be no revenue.1 The act was amended in 1891, reducing the holding to 320 acres and introducing the residence requirement.39 Vol. 101 no. 1comAn: somE unsEttlEd pRoBlEms oF iRRigAtionThe decade of 1880 to 1890 was the boom period of irrigation. The energies of the West were turned from the dwindling returns of cattle ranches and mining properties to the latent possibilities of the desert. Speculation ran riot. The capac-ity of lakes and streams was overestimated, and the agricultural value of land and climate exaggerated by overenthusiastic promoters; stocks and bonds were sold broadcast among investors who appreciated the significance of irrigation, but had no means of testing the legal or financial status of any individual proposition. The great majority of these projects failed, and the money contributed by thousands of small investors was irretrievably lost. Nothing goes to wreck more quickly than irri-gation works where repairs are not maintained; the ditches fill with sand or silt, the flumes warp in the sun, and the cement dams disintegrate under the alternate action of frost and heat. Many of the promoters, as well as the investors, had reason to ask themselves the unanswerable conundrum: What is the difference between a boom and a boomerang?Of far more interest than the physical problems of irrigation or its speculative possibilities is the slow but steady growth of custom and legislation away from the doctrine of riparian rights and priority claims to the recognition of the paramount importance of beneficial use and the public good. The first scientific study of irriga-tion as an economic problem was made by J. W. Powell, Chief of US Geographical Survey, in his report on the lands of the Arid Region, published by the government in 1879. Powell had spent a decade in the exploration of the great desert region between the Colorado River and the Snake, and his conclusions were worthy of con-sideration. He estimated that 8 percent or about 60 million acres of the Cordilleran area was both fertile and susceptible of irrigation, a conclusion not greatly in excess of the latest calculations of irrigation experts. Since the isolated farmer was unequal to the task of building and maintaining the dams and ditches needed, Powell pro-posed that Congress “authorize the organization of irrigation districts by homestead settlements upon the public lands requiring irrigation for agricultural purposes.” Any nine or more persons applying for a tract of land with the intention of construct-ing irrigation works were entitled to register for 80 acres each, in a continuous tract, the lands to be patented when evidence of successful irrigation was submitted. His observation of irrigation in Utah convinced Powell that a cooperative undertaking of this nature was not only practicable but the best means of preventing land monop-oly, and he deemed such legislation essential “if these lands are to be reserved for actual settlers, in small quantities, to provide homes for poor men, on the principle involved in the homestead laws.” Thus early was attention called to the inadequacy of the Desert Land Act, the desirability of encouraging a more democratic form of irrigation by cooperating communities, the necessity of attaching the water right to the land in order to guard against monopolization of both land and water, and the importance of a scientific classification of the public lands into irrigable, pasture, timber, and mineral, so that the diverse interests might be promoted by appropriate legislation. Powell was, unfortunately, 20 years in advance of public sentiment, and his farseeing recommendations attracted little attention at Washington.What might be accomplished by cooperative effort had already been demon-strated in the Mormon communities and in the Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado; but the first legislative enactment in furtherance of cooperative construction was the Wright Act, the California law of 1887. This provided that irrigation districts might40tHE AmERicAn Economic REViEW FEBRuARy 2011 be organized under state supervision wherever a majority of the resident freeholders should petition for the privilege. The district, once established, had authority to issue bonds, secured by a mortgage on the lands in question, for the purchase or construc-tion of waterworks, and further, to levy taxes assessed on the real estate represented sufficient to meet interest on the bonds and the annual costs of maintenance. The conduct of routine business was vested in elected trustees, but extraordinary con-tracts must be submitted to vote and ratified by the freeholders. Extravagant hopes were entertained of this system, and many districts were organized, but few have proven entirely successful. In many instances worthless or contested water rights were purchased, and the district was involved in long and costly litigation. In others, engineering works of great difficulty were undertaken with small comprehension of the expense involved, and the original bond issue was swallowed up in the prelimi-nary works. In order to get the water within reach of the farmers, a new issue was made necessary, and the trustees found the marketing of second mortgage bonds on property as yet undeveloped a piece of financiering quite beyond their powers. In the effort to push the enterprise through to completion, they not infrequently resorted to illegal means, and the district was in consequence dissolved. The crisis of 1893 involved in financial ruin still other districts that had been successfully managed up to that time.Some of these difficulties were peculiar to California, where confusion as to water rights and the hostility of private companies presented well-nigh insuperable diffi-culties, but others are universal. It is not an easy matter to get a group of landowners, geographically selected with reference to drainage basin, to cooperate intelligently and to wait patiently the result of an engineering problem; and again, the resources of such a community are rarely adequate to the carrying through of any but the simpler works. The irrigation district has since been legalized in half a dozen western states, and many bankrupt companies have been bought out by farmers thus associated; but nowhere is the device regarded as the solution of the larger financial problems of irrigation. The irrigation district can only succeed where cost of construction is light, and where soil and climate render the lands highly productive, as in southern California. Western men were becoming convinced that if the homestead law was to have any meaning west of the hundredth meridian, government must come to the aid of the settler, first in the adjudication of water rights, and second in the construction of the more costly irrigation works.Under the influence of Greeley and its daughter colonies, the state of Colorado (1876) had set aside the riparian right and announced the doctrine of appropriation,dedicating the water of every natural stream to the use of the people. A brief experi-ence of the hardships and loss involved in water wars and lawsuits determined the farmers of Colorado to insist on the public adjudication of conflicting claims. The state is now divided into districts according to drainage, and disputes as to priority and the prorating of water are referred to the corresponding water commissioners, from whose decision the aggrieved may appeal to the courts. But Colorado has as yet made no provision for the scientific measurement of the flow of streams, the capacity of canals, the acreage of land served, and the agricultural duty of the water furnished. The early settlers were accustomed to put in claims for a water supply far in excess of their needs, and the sum total of these claims was often in excess of the maximum output of the stream. The important water resources of the state are41 Vol. 101 no. 1comAn: somE unsEttlEd pRoBlEms oF iRRigAtionthus pledged to two and three times their utmost capacity, and the land now being developed can only be provided with water by the construction of mammoth reser-voirs. Colorado, however, took the lead in adopting the principle of appropriation as fundamental to any final adjudication of water rights. This doctrine and the necessity of public control were soon recognized in Congressional legislation (e.g., the Desert Land Act and the Timber Culture Act), and these principles may be regarded as now fully established for the arid region.The water code of Wyoming, adopted with its constitution in 1890, was the first thoroughgoing attempt to put the vexed question of water titles on a scientific and equitable basis and to render the water right inseparable from land ownership. Under this law, application for diversion of any portion of a lake or stream must be registered with the state engineer, and no claim has any validity until ratified by his office. The registration of a claim gives prescriptive right, but to secure legal title, the claimant must prove that the projected works have been constructed within the specified time and that the water is being used for a beneficent purpose. The state engineer is obliged to reject the application and to refuse registration in case the flow of the stream in question is all appropriated, or if he has reason to believe that the claimant is financially unequal to its development. Otherwise the certificate of registration might be used to promote a fraudulent undertaking. The adjudication of disputes is vested in a Board of Control made up of the state engineer and the super-intendents of the four water districts. Evidence as to the capacity of the stream and of the several diversion ditches, together with the agricultural requirements of the lands to be furnished, are ascertained by scientific survey. The superintendent of the division in which the disputed claims lie hears testimony as to priority of use, quan-tity utilized, etc., and prepares a list of existing claims. The decision of the Board of Control amounts to a formal decree defining all rights, and on this basis certificates of title are issued. Appeal may be made, however, from the Board of Control to the courts. This comprehensive and highly satisfactory system has been adopted with various minor modifications in Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, the two Dakotas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Oregon and has gone far to straighten out the confused tangle of riparian rights, priority rights, excess claims, etc. The Wyoming plan has done all that law can do toward determining the legal status of irrigation in the com-monwealths adopting it, and the practice of enforcing unauthorized claims by armed gangs and dynamiting the dams of rival companies is fast fading into the dramatic if disastrous past.The legal problems of irrigation are thus in a fair way to settlement, but the finan-cial problems remain. The furnishing of water by a private monopoly is no more satisfactory to an agricultural district than to a municipality, and the danger of inad-equate supply and exorbitant charges is no less a menace. In southern Spain, where this system obtains and water is sold at auction, the water rates mount in a dry season to an all but prohibitive point. In a wet summer, on the contrary, when the farmers have no need of the artificial supply, they fall so low that the company does not realize enough revenue to offset running expenses. The California law of 1862 empowered water companies “to establish, collect and receive rates, water rents or tolls, which shall be subject to regulation by the board of supervisors of the county or counties in which the work is situated, but which shall not be reduced by the supervisors so low as to yield to the stockholders less than one and one half percent42tHE AmERicAn Economic REViEW FEBRuARy 2011 per month on the capital actually invested.” This method of adjusting charges has not proven entirely satisfactory to either producer or consumer of the water sup-ply. Eighteen percent, a not unusual rate of profit in the early days of California, is excessive now that there is abundant capital on hand for such investments, while the “capital actually invested” means an overestimate of the present value of the prop-erty. No redress was provided in case the supply furnished is insufficient to meet all engagements, and in the not infrequent cases where the canal crosses county lines, the several boards of supervisors may come to different conclusions as to the justice of a given rate. Finally, the courts have ruled that a contract negotiated between company and water user cannot be set aside by the dictum of a public officer, and many farmers have been induced to accept a “contracting-out” clause which renders the arbitrament of the supervisors invalid. However, in the last analysis, the pros-perity of the community served is recognized by sane promoters to be the ultimate source of revenue, and charges are regulated by what the farmer can afford to pay rather than by what the water monopoly might possibly extort, while in many dis-tricts the waterworks are owned and rates fixed by the farmers themselves.On the other hand the financial future of the irrigation company is often far from reassuring. Irrigation works are usually built in advance of settlement, and returns sufficient to pay interest on the cost of construction cannot be expected until the number of consumers has reached the full capacity of the flow. Even where all con-ditions are favorable, water abundant, works adequately built, and soil and climate promising, the promoters of water companies aiming to supply settlers on public lands are often balked of dividends by the “sooners,” who seek out each new p roject in advance of the constructing engineers and locate their claims as soon as the sur-veyors’ stakes are driven. By more or less fraudulent compliance with the homestead act, they manage to get possession of the best land under the prospective canal. They have no intention of developing their holdings and use little or no water for irrigation but hold their patents for a rise in value and thus retard legitimate settlement. An arrangement far more satisfactory both to the farmers and to the purveyor of water obtains where both land and water supply are owned by the same company. Thus the Crocker estate in the San Joaquin valley is being sold in small tracts of five, ten, and 20 acres to actual colonists, and the deed of sale guarantees sufficient water for irrigation at the flat rate of one dollar per acre per year. The same terms are accorded under the Miller & Lux irrigation project and on some of the great California wheat ranches that are now being divided into fruit farms. The system is an admirable one, ensuring to the cultivator the indispensable water supply at a reasonable and unvary-ing price and to the owner of the works an adequate return on his investment. Long and intimate acquaintance with the vexations that beset irrigation projects inspired Senator Carey of Wyoming to urge upon Congress the legislation which has finally put the private irrigation of public lands on a rational basis. Under the Carey Act (1894), the federal government offers to make over to any one of the arid states complying with certain provisions as to reclamation and settlement one million acres of the public land or such portion thereof as has been demonstrated by actual survey to be susceptible of irrigation. The land commission of the state participating in this privilege is made responsible for the projects undertaken. The adequacy of the water right, the character of the works, the financial standing of the undertaking company are all passed upon and the prescribed specifications accepted43 Vol. 101 no. 1comAn: somE unsEttlEd pRoBlEms oF iRRigAtionin a written contract before the lands covered by the project may be offered for sale or advertisements issued. The lands are sold by the state officials in tracts of from 20 to 160 acres, at a rate fixed by each state and to bona fide settlers.2 Persons filing on these lands must furnish proof of at least 30 days’ residence and the cultivation of one eighth of the tract before receiving clear title. Furthermore, they must have signed a contract with the water company agreeing to purchase the water right at a specified charge per acre. Ten years is allowed for the water right payment, but this obligation may be anticipated or passed on with the title in case the holding is sold to a later incumbent. The settlers are purchasing not water only but the irrigating sys-tem. The price put upon this perpetual possession varies according to the exigencies of construction from $25 to $50 per acre, estimated on the supposition that, all the lands being taken up, the returns will cover the cost of the works and a fair profit on the investment. The capital once recovered, the promoting company proceeds to a new venture, leaving the settlers owners of the works. The water rights are converted into water stock, and a water-users’ association is organized in which the farmers hold stock in proportion to their respective acreage. This cooperative company, like the irrigation district, is responsible for the maintenance of canals, the distribution of water, and for any repairs that may prove necessary.Idaho inaugurated the Carey Act system with signal success, and the sagebrush plains of the Snake River Desert were brought under cultivation with marvelous rapidity. The example of Wyoming and Idaho was followed by Montana, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, California, and New Mexico. The achievements of irrigation under the Carey Act have been highly gratifying to its sponsors, and the guaran-tees provided have given to this class of irrigation securities a recognized financial status. The farmers’ water right contracts, secured by a first mortgage on the land, are deposited as security for bonds issued in the ratio of one and a half to one. The annual payments are collected by the representatives of the bondholders and applied, year by year, to meet interest and the ten annual payments on the principal; but the value of the irrigation system as appraised by the state engineer is the ultimate secu-rity. Notwithstanding these precautions, a Carey Act project may fail to fulfill its obligations, in case it is unable to market bonds sufficient to complete the works, or the difficulties of construction prove unexpectedly great, or untoward floods carry away the dam and costly repairs are necessitated. It is evident, furthermore, that the ultimate source of revenue is the earning capacity of the lands under the project. If these are not rapidly taken up, or if the conditions of soil and climate are such as to render tillage unremunerative, water right payments will not be forthcoming, and the only asset recoverable may be a discredited irrigation system and the underlying lands. The recent collapse of the Conrad Land and Water Company and the Big Lost River Irrigation Company, which went into the hands of receivers with outstanding bond issues of $150,000 and $1,355,000 respectively, are cases in point.National interest in the reclamation of arid lands culminated in the Reclamation Act (1902) whereby the proceeds of public land sales, in excess of the educational obligations already assumed, are devoted to the reclamation of agricultural lands in 17 arid and semi-arid states. The Reclamation Service was organized under the2 Oregon makes no charge for the land but requires the cultivation of one fourth the area.。

美国经济探讨及其对中国的启示

美国经济探讨及其对中国的启示美国经济探讨及其对中国的启示[摘要]本文对华尔街风云所反映出来的美国经济兴衰的历史进行探讨，并在此基础上就中国的经济发展提出思考，为中国特色社会主义市场经济发展提出可操作建议。

同时要注意到，作为从西方资本主义国家的资本运作市场得来的探讨成果，我国学者在利用这一理论分析中国相关社会现象时要考虑其适用性问题。

[关键词]编辑部论文发表,资本运作,经济危机,两条道路,制衡机制,华尔街1 探讨的意义1.1 资本主义市场有一定优势华尔街是美国经济的一个缩影，从很大程度上来说，是它将美国经济推向了世界。

华尔街所创造的财富远远超过它对财富的破坏。

对华尔街风云变幻的研究和探讨，有利于更深入、更实际地了解资本主义市场经济以及它所隐含的各种风险。

1.2 经济全球化的要求2008年，由华尔街所导致的美国经济危机最终演变成世界性的金融危机，没有一个国家可以独善其身，这也为中国人提供了一次重新认识和研究世界金融市场与资本主义运作模式的机会，以他人之利得为己之借鉴，使中国经济在经济全球化的浪潮中求得发展。

1.3 国情的需要中国坚持走中国特色社会主义市场经济的道路，这条道路必然是宏观调控这只“有形手”和市场经济这只“无形手”的综合，从而实现资源的合理配置。

走这条道路离不开对资本主义市场经济的深入研究和对金融领域的把控。

虽然中国证券市场已经走在建立成熟、开放市场的路上，但毕竟发展历史较短，与世界发达国家的证券市场相比，依然存在很大差距，中国的复杂性也给我们接受金融市场带来极大的'困难，因此，面对金融全球化的趋势，中国只能选择走认识它、学习它、融入它、影响它的道路。

2 华尔街风云的历程表现2.1 与荷兰联系紧密的历史渊源华尔街起初就是一道墙，最初是由荷兰人建立的。

美国利用荷兰人创立的股份制形式，通过公开发行股票，将分散在公众手上的资金汇聚起来实现生产，股份制沿用至今仍然是最有活力的公司组织形式。

新美国经济史论文

浅谈新美国经济史美利坚合众国是一个由五十个州和一个联邦直辖特区组成的宪政联邦共和制国家。

1776年7月4日，大陆会议在费城正式通过《独立宣言》，宣告美国诞生。

自1870年代以来，美国国民经济就高居全球第一。

今天的美国则是联合国安理会五个常任理事国之一，其在全球的政治、经济、军事、娱乐等众多领域的庞大影响力更是其他国家所无法匹敌的。

美国有高度发达的现代市场经济，其国内生产总值和对外贸易额均居世界首位。

20世纪90年代，以信息、生物技术产业为代表的新经济蓬勃发展，受此推动，美经济经历了长达十年的增长期。

2001年美经济陷入短暂衰退，之后逐步复苏。

2008年，美国国内生产总值高达14.334万亿美元（2008年，世界国家和地区第1名）。

人均GDP为47,025美元（世界国家和地区第6名）。

然而，这样一个仅有不到300年历史的移民国家，是如何在大国如林的世界崛起的？又是如何在短短不到一百年里由一个名不见经转的殖民地发展为雄霸世界，让所有国家俯首称臣的超级大国的呢？这就要从美国1776年独立战争开始说起了。

独立战争期间，由于对英贸易的滞阻，北美的制造业得到了一定发展，但从生产技术和产品质量看则仍远落后于英国。

战争结束后，英国利用自身强大的制造业和商业优势，一方面对美国的出口实施严厉的商业限制，包括禁止美国货进入西印度群岛；另一方面则向美国大量倾销英国货。

出口萎缩、市场缩小，使价格大幅下跌，商人、农场主纷纷破产，债务链条破裂，造成了严重的社会动荡，许多地方爆发了农民起义。

在美国史上，1781 年至1789 年被称为“危机时期”。

从竞争的观点来看，其实质是英国挟裹着其市场竞争的强者优势对新独立的弱小的美国进行打击，以经济殖民来代替政治、军事殖民。

美国人民最终无法忍受英国殖民者的经济专制，他们开始主张自由贸易。

一方面要求英国取消出口限制，另一方面试图摆脱英国的商业垄断，开拓南欧、北欧市场及其他全球市场，同时则加快向西部扩张，将西部广袤的土地变为农产品的生产基地，以增强美国农产品的竞争力。

_美国经济评论_创刊100年来的20篇最佳文章

经济资料译丛2011年第3期《美国经济评论》创刊100年来的20篇最佳文章 Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein,Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, Robert M. Solow①著，吴春雷、马林梅译原载：American Economic Review 101 (February 2011): 1–8/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1由Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba 和 Robert M. Solow组成的20佳文章评选委员会，受Robert Moffitt的委命，负责评选《美国经济评论》创刊100年以来所刊发的最优秀的20篇文章。

这些文章必定思想深刻、对经济学家的思想和实践产生了影响、具有普遍意义、得到应用广泛。

尽管我们并不打算将以上这些作为正式的评选标准，但是，我们无法找到更好的评判标准。

我们正在寻找的是20篇令人敬佩的、重要的文章。

一开始，我们考察了文章的引用次数和在JSTOR（过刊数据库）里的搜索量。

这样做无疑是重要的，从中可以得到相关的信息，但是这本身并不具有决定性。

越多人青睐的经济学分支，该领域的文章被引用的次数就会越多，这是一个偏向。

还有一个偏向是，发表时间适度靠近的文章被引用的次数较多，因为随着时间的推移，潜在读者和作者的数量不断增加，而非常新的文章由于发表时间较短，引用次数就会较少。

无论如何，我们都要对文章的质量和意义做出自己的判断。

因此，我们仅仅依靠引用次数和JSTOR数据库给出一组符合条件的备选文章。

我们特别担心的一点是：这样做会忽略了《美国经济评论》曾经发表过的、非常老的文章，其中的一些文章是经济学历史上的一些大师写的。

中美经济关系论文

中美经济关系论文第一篇：中美经济关系论文论中美经济关系中美两国，一个是世界上最大的发展中国家，拥有丰富的劳动力资源，明显的成本优势，广阔的市场和无可限量的发展潜力；另一个是拥有世界上最强大经济，科技实力的世界上最大的发达国家。

从美中关系史看，自冷战结束后，美国对华政策的钟摆一直在遏制与接触之间摇摆不定、在战略合作伙伴与战略竞争对手之间犹豫不决，也被美国学者定义为“非敌非友”。

中美两国的关系，直接影响到世界经济的发展。

就中美当前的关系来说，是处于一个蜜月期，但问题与冲突同样存在。

在现代国家的发展进程中，经济是一个国家强大的物质条件，是最核心，最现实也是最切实的国家利益，直接决定着国家的地位与影响力。

美中经济关系正在进入一个全新的极其复杂的阶段，简单地说，中国既是伙伴又是对手。

二战以来美国一直领导着世界经济，而今中国是世界第四大经济体，展望21世纪的世界经济，美中两国经济关系可以说是最重要的双边关系。

美中经贸关系的复杂性表现在很多方面。

首先，中国作为一个投资和出口平台的吸引力正越来越多地体现在其不断提高的生产力水平上，而拥有丰富的廉价劳动力这一因素已日益居于次要地位。

对美国出口来说，中国本身已经成为一个回报极高的市场，未来仍具有巨大的潜力。

中国可能仍然是美国企业和投资人的巨大经济机会。

另一方面，这种经济关系提出了一些困难的问题。

美国已经感受到中国经济增长带来的影响：在市场上美中企业形成竞争，美国企业受损并开始警惕中国。

就业岗位的减少、要求重新评估人民币价值、越来越多的贸易磨擦等问题无一不表明未来美中关系将遇到越来越多的困难。

两国既相互依存，又有可能发生冷战和战争，关系很敏感。

中国持有8000亿美元的美国国债，是美国最大的债权国。

但同时，中国成为了“美元的囚犯”。

中国社会科学院经济学家余永定表示：“我们被逼入死角。

中国不会使用（攻击美国的）过激的政策。

因为如果那样做，我们会先受到伤害。

”彼得森国际经济研究所的中国问题专家尼古拉斯-拉迪表示：“中国已陷入美元的陷阱。

美国经济评论视野下的中国——以 1978 年以前华人经济学家的文章为中心

题性的研究要多于整体性的研究.同时从时间角度来看,专题性研究(最早开始于１９４１年)早于最早
的整体性研究(
１９５５年).这样的研究发展特点与实际研究材料获得的难易程度一致,同时也符合研
究过程循序渐进的基本逻辑.
二、关于中国问题的专题性研究
专题性的研究主要包括四个大的方向:外贸与金融业的研究、国民生产总值与国民收入的测算、
评论»中,书评与文章占有同等重要的地位,直到１９６８年«经济文献杂志»(
JEL)创立后,书评部分才
从«美国经济评论»中移出.１９６８年以前,«美国经济评论»中一直有大量的书评,篇幅约占整期内容
的一半以上,它是一个经济学界交流思想的重要媒介.每当有学者出版新书就会向编辑部提交,由编
国慈善事业的精神»的评论文章.１９１７年经济学家缪斯(
A．C．Muhs
e)发表了题为«中国的贸易组织
和贸易控制»一文,而华人经济学家的相关研究开始于１９４１年刘大中发表的 «论中国的外汇问题».
尽管自亚当斯密以来,欧美经济学家一直掌握着现代经济学的话语权,但华人经济学家以其特有的
算值 [１６](P１６６－１６７).
总的来说,现有的研究主要着眼于刘大中的一篇或多篇文章,并没有整体地探讨改革开放之前华
人经济学者对中国问题的研究.实际上这１７篇文章有很强的时代特征和思想内涵,需要一个提纲挈
领的研究来抓住思想脉络的发展,«美国经济评论»视野下的中国也将由此展现.中国学者发表的有
AEAPa
e
r

刘大中经济思想研究_以_美国经济评论_的5篇论文为中心_宋丽智

① ② ⑤ ⑥
Ke Chao，ChaoHsi Huang，TaChung Lius Exploratory Econometrics， History of Political Economy， 2011 ，参见 HsiangVol． 43 。，《1931 —1936 年的中国国民收入：一个根据 JSTOＲ数据库不完全统计，关于刘大中著作的书评约有 25 篇。其中 — —1933 —1959 年国民收入和经济发展》（ 1965 ）有书评 9 （ 1946 ）有书评 1 篇，《中国大陆的经济— 探索性的研究》，《1957 年美国制造业的生产函数》（ 1965 ）有书评 8 篇，《共产主义中国的经济趋势》（ 1968 ）有书评 6 篇。篇
《美国经济评论》是，他的好友蒋硕杰也在发表了 5 篇学术论文。以下为笔者统计的 3 位中国经济学《美国经济评论》家在发表论文的详细情况，以兹比照。
表1 发表日期 1941 年 6 月 1950 年 9 月 1959 年 5 月 1961 年 5 月 1973 年 5 月卷号《美国经济评论》发表论文情况刘大中在论文题目合作作者 ChingGwan Chang （张景关，音译）叶孔嘉叶孔嘉排序独撰序一独撰序一序一
美国经济评论》一、刘大中与《
《美国经济评论》创刊于 1911 年，由美国经济学会主编，被视为经济学领域最具有学术声望的重要期刊之一。一般学者若能在上面发表 1 篇论文，即标志着已经达到极高的学术造诣。至今，此刊物已历经百余年，在此刊物上发表论文的中国学者依然屈指可数。据笔者粗略统计，截至 2016 年 6 月，大致有 170 余篇论文由中国学者独撰或者合作完成。其中，最早在这一顶级刊物发表论文的中国人是林霖，他于 1937 年 3 月在同一期发表两篇学术

美国经济百年崛起历程、经验与启示

美国经济百年崛起历程、经验与启示美国是当今世界经济大国、强国，很多经验值得借鉴，但其现行很多制度和做法很大程度上是经济社会多年发展的产物，是结果而非原因。

如果强行借鉴、全部照搬，显然不一定完全适合中国。

相比之下，美国也曾是发展中国家，历史上其从小到大、由弱变强的经验和做法更值得我们借鉴参考。

一、美国经济百年崛起的标志一是国民生产总值。

在总量方面，1774—1909年大约增长了175倍，年均增速3.9%，同期英国为2.2%；1774年，英国经济总量为美国3倍，1840年降为1.5倍，1913年仅为美国的41%①；在人均国民生产总值方面，美国在15—19世纪长达400余年时间里一直低于英国，到20世纪初年才实现了反超②。

二是工业产值。

1860年，美国工业产值95亿美元左右，几乎等于欧洲各国生产总量的50%，位居世界第4，1894年跃居第一③。

20世纪初，美国工业优势更为明显，1913年工业产品产量占世界总量1/3以上，超过英、法、德、日总和，全球各地几乎都可以看到和买到美国货，世界上出现了“美国化”的说法④。

三是对外贸易与投资。

1897年后，美国的出口开始大于进口，原料出口比重也从1866年的70%降到1914年的40%，制成1/ 5品出口占比则从1866年的16%升至1914年的48%；在对外投资方面，1898年为7亿美元，1914年扩大至35亿美元。

四是钢产量。

钢产量是一个国家工业水平与实力的重要参考指标。

1860年，美国钢产量只有1.2万吨，到1867年，也不足2万吨。

然而经过贝塞麦、西门子-马丁敞炉等新方法改进后，1890年产量增至428万吨，世界产量排名第一⑤。

二、19世纪美国的经济增长1. 19世纪上半叶美国经济增长美国独立战争结束后，相当长一段时间里美国经济增长速度并不是很快，一方面受前期殖民主义影响，经济基础薄弱，主要以农业为主，“1790年，美国只有不足400万的人口，并且都散布在大面积的土地上，没有一个城市的人口达到5万人。

了解美国金融危机必读的20篇文章

了解美国金融危机必读的20篇文章困境中的资本主义作者：The Economist 来源：经济学人发表时间:2008年10月31日弄清什么出了错固然重要，然而对未来更重要的还在于弄清什么没有错165年前，一位名叫詹姆斯•威尔逊的苏格兰商人开始筹划创办一份报纸。

他的出发点是“居安思危”：“尽管财富和资本迅速增长”，科学和艺术“创造出叹为观止的奇迹”，各阶级的人们却是“踌躇未定，惶恐不安”。

威尔逊的解决之道即是自由。

他不仅敢于反对带有贸易保护性质的谷物法，同时也勇于与妄图加深本国内部个体与各阶级之间，以及本国与其他各国之间交流的隔阂，猜忌，仇恨，嫉妒的行为针锋相对。

从那时起，《经济学人》就站在了经济自由阵营一边。

现如今，经济自由受到抨击，体现经济自由的资本主义制度也正陷入困境。

本周，作为现代私有化诞生地的英国将大部分的本土银行收归国有；与此同时，正当人们对撒切尔-里根时代的结束议论纷纷之时，美国政府承诺将2500亿美元投入到本国的银行业中。

其他政府也正对他们的金融系统进行重新监管。

亚洲人指出，西方国家似乎正在朝更加集中计划的模式发展。

一位中国领导人最近说道，“老师们有麻烦了。

”经济干涉主义者对此大声疾呼：法国总统萨科奇宣称，“市场自行调节已经终结。

”“经济自由放任时代已经结束”。

并不是所有的批评都是那么直接的（更加尖锐的批评将关注点放在了国家仅仅在财政金融中所发挥的更加突出的作用），但是所有的迹象都指向了同一个方向：即政府应发挥更大的作用，私营经济的作用应更小并受到限制。

在过去的一个半世纪里，资本主义制度向数十亿人证明了它的价值所在。

资本主义盛行之处皆繁荣昌盛；衰落之处无不落后萧条。

资本主义制度总是导致各种危机，这也将一直持续下去。

尽管最近的这次危机极具破坏性，但是世界应该利用这次危机学会如何更好地驾驭和控制它。

捍卫自由所采取的极端措施而矛盾之处就在于：就短期来看，捍卫资本主义制度就意味着采取国家干预。

对美国经济前景的不同看法经济论文

对美国经济前景的不同看法经济论文对美国经济前景的不同看法经济论文[摘要] 针对美国经济发展前景，国际社会存在截然不同的两种看法。

乐观者认为，今年美国的经济将增长3%左右，有的甚至预计会增长4%，明年达到3.5%以上。

悲观论者中，一部分人认为美国经济仍处于复苏之中，进程十分缓慢，但不会出现经济再次负增长的所谓“双底”现象。

还有一部分人认为，虽然美国不会重蹈日本泡沫破灭后经济持续萎靡不振的复辙，但美经济前景暗淡，将再现“双底”现象。

在美国经济今年一季度出现6.1%的强劲复苏后，国际社会大多认为今年将是美经济强劲增长并有力拉动世界经济复苏的一年。

然而３月以来，美经济却险象环生，大公司假账丑闻不断、股市暴跌不休、美元汇率大幅贬值、投资者信心受到重挫、消费信心下降。

今年下半年和明年美经济如何再次成为世界关注的焦点，对美国经济的前景，国际社会存在截然不同的两种看法。

一、乐观论对美国经济持乐观态度的主要是政府决策部门和一些经济研究机构，其理由有：1．美经济基本面仍然健康。

美经济是主要发达国家中最“有韧性、有活力的经济”。

从工业生产看，今年以来已连续6个月出现增长，其中6月份工业产值比上月增长０.８%，5月份的工业产值已从早先公布的0.2%增幅修正为0.4%。

消费依然平稳增长，住房销售旺盛，汽车、电视机和服装等进口大增。

今年1－3月美国劳动生产率增长8.4%，大大高于1996-20001平均年增长2.43%的水平，说明90年代后期对信息技术的投资明显改善了生产率。

股市反应的主要不是实际盈利，而是预期盈利，而生产率的提高必然会反映到上市公司的市盈率上来。

2．美宏观经济政策有利经济回升。

去年一年内连续降息11次，美国联邦基金利率下降了4.5个百分点，仅为1.75%，达到40年来的最低点，使企业和个人约节省500多亿美元的借贷成本，房屋按揭、汽车无息分期付款和公司融资的条件相当优惠。

美国的基准利率在未来的几个月内不会改变，由于通胀较低，利率还有下降的空间，对经济复苏应该继续产生重要的支撑作用。