An Alternative Approach to Valence Advantage in Spatial Competition

This paper explores a two‐candidate spatial voting model, where one candidate has a valence advantage. Contrary to previous models, we introduce a multiplicative advantage, rather than an additive one. This takes into account the possible interaction between the quality of a candidate and his policy platform. This leads to a strikingly different model, in which all extreme voters support the favored candidate.     

浅谈军队物资网络化采购

军队物资网络化采购，是指军队物资采购机构借助有关信息技术和网络工具，从供应商处采购军队物资的活动。由于突破了时间、空间和信息三大障碍，扩大了竞争范围，提高了采购效率和效益，降低了采购成本，军队物资网络化采购已经成为一种不可阻挡的趋势。     

Fiscal,monetary policy and the conditional risk premium in short-term interest rate differentials: an application of Tobin's portfolio theory

This paper proposes a Multivariate-Arch in Mean model to analyze the potential channels through which domestic fiscal and monetary policy as well as changes in the international economic environment may affect interest rate differentials across countries. This technique is illustrated by analyzing the behavior of short-term interest rates in a number of European countries prior to the introduction of the common currency. The key feature of our results is that macroeconomic variables exert both a direct and indirect influence on the short-term interest rate differential. This indirect effect is captured through the conditional volatility of the differential, which is itself a statistically significant determinant of the level of the differential. This relationship is likely to be overlooked by more traditional models that focus solely on the first order moments of the process.     

How does a public innovator license a foreign rival?

This paper uniquely considers the optimal two‐part fee of a public firm innovator licensing to a more efficient foreign rival. This is both theoretically interesting and empirically relevant. While previous research emphasises the importance of fixed fees for public firms, we show that, in this case, ad valorem fees typically dominate both fixed fees and per unit royalties. This domination carries over when a private domestic competitor is also added to the market.     

Banks' Inefficiency and Economic Growth: A Micro‐Macro Approach

This paper offers a methodological contribution to the empirical analysis of the relationship between banking and economic growth by suggesting a new indicator for the state of development of the banking system based on a measure of bank microeconomic efficiency. This choice helps to overcome the problem of causality and to capture the effects of banks' activity on growth. This new approach is then applied to analyse the relationship between the banking system and economic growth in the Italian regions, through a dynamic panel technique. The empirical results show the existence of an independent effect exerted by the efficiency of banks on regional growth.     

The political economy of expulsion: the regulation of Jewish moneylending in medieval England

This paper develops an analytic narrative examining an institution known as ‘The Exchequer of the Jewry’. The prohibition on usury resulted in most moneylending activities being concentrated within the Jewish community. The king set up the Exchequer of the Jewry in order to extract these monopoly profits. This institution lasted for almost 100 years but collapsed during the second part of the thirteenth century. This collapse resulted in the expulsion of the Anglo-Jewish population. This paper provides a rational choice account of the institutional trajectory of the Exchequer of the Jewry. This account explains why it ultimately failed to provide a suitable framework for the development of capital markets in medieval England.     

Militarism,Realism, Just War,or Nonviolence? Critical Geopolitics and the Problem of Normativity

Despite illuminating multiple modalities by which armed conflict is discursively justified, critical geopolitics can be criticised for providing a weak normative engagement with the social institution and practices of warfare. This has limited the impact of this school of thought outside of geography and critical security studies at a time when the ethics of military intervention have been prominent in public debate. This article explores the moral discourse of critical geopolitics through an examination of Gerard Toal's writings on Iraq and Bosnia. This scholarship is reviewed in the light of Coates's typology of major traditions of moral reflection on war – militarism, realism, just war theory, and pacifism/nonviolence. This analysis interrogates Toal's narratives, in which American military intervention was advocated in the Former Yugoslavia and opposed in Iraq. This suggests that rather than a thoroughgoing commitment to pacifism/nonviolence, or a blanket cynicism about American foreign policy, Toal's thinking includes an underlying attachment to some form of just war reasoning. However, its implicit and partial appropriation leads to a certain incoherence and selectivity that calls for further reflection. This presents a challenge to critical geopolitics. If it chooses to engage more explicitly with just war theory, its insights into identity and militarism could in turn inform a reworking of aspects of the theory, thereby facilitating critical geopolitics' engagement with wider public anti-militaristic modes of discourse. However, as this risks blunting the political potential of the project and repeating the mistakes of twentieth-century geopolitical thought, the paper concludes with a call for a wholehearted commitment to nonviolence.     

R&D Corporate Planning: Selecting the Core Technological Competencies

This paper deals with the selection of a firm's technological competencies on which to concentrate development efforts in a long term view. The perspective is that of corporate R&D which has to identify the technological competencies relevant to future competition and select those core for the firm. This process faces a major challenge, especially to put together different issues relevant to the problem: identify future scenarios and predict how new industries will be shaped, evaluate the potential of future markets, estimate the role and relevance of the technologies involved, identify a balanced set of technologies. This paper proposes a comprehensive methodology to support the process of selection of core technological competencies.     

Evaluating a leading indicator: an application—the term spread

This paper analyzes the procedures that have previously been used to evaluate indicators. These methods determine whether the indicator correctly classifies periods when there was (not) a recession. These approaches do not show whether or not an indicator signaled a turn or failed to predict it. This paper then presents a new approach and applies it to the term spread series. The results are mixed because the indicator predicts every recession but also generates a large number of false signals. This result may explain why economists do not always place great weight on this series.     

Multinationals,Information Update,and Product Adaptation *

This paper develops a dynamic model of decision making by multinational firms. The firm chooses between exporting and producing abroad when it expands the market. Bayes learning is incorporated into this model in addition to fixed cost and transport cost Production in a foreign country gives the firm new information about the demand function. This information is applied to adjust the firm's expectation as well as output choice in the future. This process not only reduces the risk encountered by a firm in a foreign market, but also increases acceptance of the product which the firm manufactures. This paper concludes even if producing abroad loses money in the first period, the firm may still choose to set up plants in foreign countries rather than exporting, due to the dynamic information advantage associated with going multinational. [F23,F21]     

Technological evolution and economic instability: Theoretical simulations

This paper aims to study those firms which have similar characteristics at the beginning of time. The objective is to observe the relation that exists between technological evolution, firms' performances and economic instability. This is done using an adaptation of the Nelson and Winter model, in order to show the possibility of various growth trajectories, and also to underline the heterogeneity of the firms. This heterogeneity corresponds to a period of economic instability, and itself only exists as a result of the specific nature of the technological trend. The theoretical interest lies in using the structures/performances relation, by according a central place to innovation.     

Cross-market index with Factor-DCC

This paper proposes a new empirical methodology for computing a cross-market index – coined CMI – based on the Factor DCC-model. This approach solves both problems of treating high-dimensional data and estimating time-varying conditional correlations. We provide an application to a multi-asset market data composed of equities, bonds, foreign exchange rates and commodities during 1983–2013. This new methodology may be attractive to asset managers, since it provides a simple way of constructing passive portfolios customized on any asset class.     

传统产业体系蜕变与现代产业体系形成机制

本文以产业体系是企业间联系方式的定义出发,以企业竞争行为从数量竞争转向创新竞争作为传统产业体系与现代产业体系分水岭,分析了现代产业体系是保证企业创新行为为生存方式的产业体系,推断出小批量、多品种、快调整是这一阶段对外部环境的要求,信息、物流、风险投资和科技服务这四个部门服务于企业创新行为,构成了现代产业体系的基础设施,而企业则最大限度地利用外部规模经济来保证自己的创新竞争力。人均收入的提高不仅带来了对产品和服务品种的需求扩张,也提升了个人生命价值。政府需要从民族整体利益和长远利益将现代产业体系作为政策工具,政府对经济的干预不再仅仅针对需求,而是针对抑制新的市场失灵。本文分析了两种现代产业体系推进机制一内生性市场推进和外生性政府推进,并认为中国适用于政府推进。     

The cost-reduction potential of electric-power pools

This research uses a non-parametric estimation procedure developed by Johansen (1972) to provide a comparison of the costs of generating electricity by a group of utilities operating either independently or as a fully integrated power pool. This paper shows that the pool may reduce costs significantly, if firms are willing to cede control to the pool.     

产品市场竞争与财务保守行为——以燕京啤酒为例的分析

企业财务保守行为近年来在资本结构研究中颇受关注。本文构造了一个两阶段模型 ,考察当企业必须加大投资的条件下 ,产品市场未来竞争程度与企业当前债务规模的关系。模型表明 ,当企业预期未来竞争程度越激烈 ,当前选择的债务规模也越低 ,从而产生财务保守行为。本文对燕京啤酒财务保守行为进行了分析 ,证实了本文的模型。     

Paired difference analysis of size economies in UK credit unions

This study utilizes a paired difference approach to investigate for the existence of scale economies in UK credit unions. The analysis is conducted for both credit unions in aggregate as well as a number of sub-groups with the latter defined in terms of the trade organization to which credit unions are affiliated. This decomposition was viewed as particularly important in that the respective umbrella organizations have different growth strategies. The analysis revealed that significant efficiency gains are available through credit unions adopting a policy of asset growth. This finding held good irrespective of the umbrella organization to which credit unions belong although the analysis also revealed that the opportunity for efficiency gains was not so pronounced for the members of one of the trade organizations - the National Federation of Credit Unions. This finding was due to the NFCU's much more overt emphasis on self-help and community development, particularly in areas of economic disadvantage.     

Inventories and Risk in African Manufacturing

Using a panel data set for Zimbabwe which includes firm-specific measures of contractual risk, we show that contractual risk has a major effect on the holding input stocks and, to a lesser extent, the constitution of cash reserves. This is consistent with inventories being a hedge against stockout risk. By contrast, firms facing more inter-annual market risk hold less inventories. This suggests that African manufacturers prefer adapting to long-term market fluctuations as they materialise rather than building up inventories. This interpretation is consistent with the finding that high market risk firms also have a low capacity utilisation rate.     

THE EXTENT OF THE WORLD COFFEE MARKET

This paper employs a novel method to determine whether the prices of various types of coffee are co-integrated. In the spirit of Stigler's arbitrage definition of the market, an attempt is made to test whether all the prices co-integrate in pairs, implying that there is a single market for coffee. This test for co-integration is carried out using both linear and non-linear approaches. This finding demonstrates that the conclusions drawn from the linear and non-linear tests may be drastically different.     

Optimal remedies in international trade agreements

This paper takes a mechanism-design approach to characterize a politically optimal trade agreement under the assumption that governments have private information about the fluctuating political pressure they face from domestic interest groups to restrict trade. The optimal mechanism under these changing circumstances involves a remedy system for breach of trade agreements that specifies less-than-proportional retaliations against deviating parties. This result is in contrast to the conventional wisdom in the literature regarding the efficiency of the Reciprocity Principle as a rule of renegotiation in trade agreements. I also consider an institutional structure in which only commensurate retaliations are practical but governments can employ a public randomizing device to authorize retaliations. I show that it is optimal to authorize retaliations only randomly. This suggests a role for the WTO dispute settlement process as a public randomizing device.     

A model of the G-3

This paper presents a model of the G3 countries with a theoretically consistent model of the supply side, including a single regional model of the Euro area based on consistent aggregation. This is estimated using recent developments in econometrics for handling non-stationary data. It also uses alternative approaches to expectations formation, with an emphasis on bounded rationality. This retains the assumption of informed agents without making the extreme informational requirements of the REH. Our simulations show that under learning, the response of the economy to shocks may be extremely long lasting.