Leveraging the social welfare chain to provide resilience during disaster

Due to the rampant increase in disasters globally, resilience in supply chain and logistics is receiving greater research attention in various parts of the world. This paper considers the role and contribution of social welfare supply chains in providing resilience. This is a causal phenomenon which has been studied through an exploratory research by building a framework from extant literature, a case study on an Indian non-governmental organization and tested through a social network analysis. We show how in the wake of a disaster, these social welfare supply chains become enablers. The paper provides an inkling into how to improve community resilience in times of disaster. Further, we show how these supply chains use social cohesion embedded in the structure to provide efficiency, diversity and adaptability, thereby bringing resilience into the supply system. Another contribution of this study is the use of visualisation and analysis of social media representation tools for social network analysis in operations.     

Entrepreneurship,income distribution and economic growth

Traditionally different factors and variables have been considered in the economic growth models. Following Solow’s model, economists considered physical capital and technology during 1950s–1980s. With the introduction of endogenous growth models, new forms of capital were introduced in the production function; human capital, public capital and more recently social capital. However, the consideration of qualitative variables is necessary to improve the economic growth analysis. The improvement of statistical information has favored their introduction in the economic growth models. Recently, “entrepreneurship” concept has been considered in this type of analysis. Entrepreneurship considers the capacity and ability to create new business and production activity. It is an activity not an occupation. Some authors like Schumpeter have included it in their models and they have analysed its effects on economic growth. But it is also necessary to include the role of social climate, that in a schumpterian way it could be represented by income distribution. The main objective of the paper is to analyze the relationship between entrepreneurship, income distribution and economic growth following the ideas developed by Schumpeter and we will contrast them from a empirical analysis using the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) data.     

Supply chain finance schemes in the procurement of agricultural products

Product, information, and finance flows are all interrelated within the modern supply chain; thus, it is now more than ever of paramount importance for practitioners to integrate procurement and financial decisions. This challenge is exemplified in many agricultural supply chains, where operational risks are significant and access to capital differs sharply across firms. We study three management tactics that some large food/beverage manufacturers – situated downstream in these chains – have used to meet the challenge: ordinary fixed price contracts (or soft tolling) with direct suppliers, hard tolling and contract farming where the manufacturer intervenes upstream, providing capital, and coordinating procurement decisions. We place these upstream intervention schemes in the theoretical context of supply chain finance (SCF) and model their application to a three-echelon agricultural supply chain. We perform a numerical study in order to understand how the structure of capital constraints in the chain may influence the manufacturer's choice of SCF scheme. The numerical study is based on a business case that reflects the barley–malt supply chain of Heineken N.V. Despite greater coordination opportunities, we show that upstream intervention is not necessarily preferable for the manufacturer. Nevertheless, the preferred SCF scheme can be inferred on the basis of relatively simple characterization of the capital constraints in the supply chain.     

生产资料价格与国民经济运行指标关联关系的实证研究

当前,我国宏观经济调控处于"稳增长"与"稳物价"的微妙平衡,而生产资料作为国家经济建设的基础物质条件,其供需变化不仅与经济增长相关,也与社会物价水平密切相关。本文依据2001年至2010年10年间的生产资料价格数据,对生产资料价格与主要宏观经济指标的关联关系及其与PPI、CPI等价格指标的传导规律进行了实证研究,并在此基础上提出了有利于我国稳定通胀预期、把握价格规律的政策建议。     

震后重建为契机的城市政策转型:墨西哥城案例的启示

1985墨西哥城发生8.1级地震,是世界上为数不多的发生在国家首都的中心地区、并使人口和公共设施都受到严重损害的地震。地震发生时墨西哥正处于快速城市化和经济衰退时期、正要推出一系列改革的起步阶段,面对如此巨大的损失,震后重建的政策调整显得尤为关键。以首都重建为契机,墨西哥政府开始关注城市宏观发展策略、可负担性住房和法规健全等问题,并且通过一系列震后改革策略来推进城市管治思路的转型。事实上,这些震后推出的新政策对城市发展产生了深远的影响:城市中心职能外迁促进了城市功能的有机疏散;以低收入住房为主的住房政策推动了城市的郊区化,同时也使城市中心区住房产权发生了本质性转变;从立法角度对城市进行灾害危险性分区,并对建筑单体构造性能进行严格规定。同样发生在发展中国家高速城市化时期的灾害,墨西哥震后重建的经验和教训将对中国城市防灾抗灾提供重要的借鉴意义。     

Embedded entrepreneurs and post-disaster community recovery

Entrepreneurs can and do play an important role in promoting community recovery after disasters. Research, however, has not adequately explored the behavior and practices of post-disaster entrepreneurs or acknowledged the role of entrepreneurs in overall disaster recovery. We attempt to fill this gap by highlighting the behavior and practices of entrepreneurs who contribute to recovery, specifically, we argue that post-disaster entrepreneurs: (a) supply needed resources to disaster victims, (b) leverage social capital to navigate extreme uncertainty, (c) are motivated by high place attachment, and (d) exhibit both commercial and social goals. They are able to successfully perform these functions because of the embedded nature of entrepreneurship. We offer evidence based on fieldwork conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina and following the tornadoes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri.     

The problem of private under-investment in innovation: A policy mind map

This paper reviews the major finance-related causes of private under-investment in innovation and the consequent alternative choices for public policy. The focus is on (i) incentive-based arguments that address the problem of limited appropriability of new knowledge, and (ii) the lacking access to external sources of finance caused by imperfections in the capital market. Drawing a policy mind map, which aims to enhance the mutual awareness and coordination of policy makers at the crossroads of technology and corporate finance, the paper is organised along the following chain of thought: (i) causes and rationales, (ii) aims and targets, (iii) critical constraints, and (iv) the main finance-related instruments of innovation policy.     

我国商业银行碳金融业务创新研究

为应对全球气候的剧烈变化,世界各国纷纷采纳以低碳经济为核心的新经济发展模式。而随着我国低碳经济的发展,碳金融成为低碳经济发展模式的最重要形式,并推动着我国社会经济的转型和升级。本文针对我国银行业低碳金融发展状况,分析了我国商业银行开展碳金融业务的必要性,探讨了碳金融业务开展的主要障碍,并为商业银行在低碳金融领域进行一系列有益的探索和尝试,提出了相应策略。     

The Trickle-down Effect: Ideology and the Development of Premium Water Networks in China’s Cities

This article examines the relationship between networked infrastructure and uneven development in transitional cities through a study of premium water networks in China. Beginning in the mid-1990s, select buildings and housing enclaves began to bypass municipal tap water supply systems through the construction of small-scale secondary pipe networks for purified drinking water. I focus on the early development of these premium water networks to highlight the ideological interplay between a new more market-based approach to networked supply and the existing model characterized by relatively universal and uniform access within cities. I illustrate how this dual water supply model was well suited to the ideological conditions and contradictions associated with China’s economic liberalization in the 1990s. While the emergence of premium water networks can be linked to ascendant forms of market reasoning in the environmental and social spheres, I also argue that they were enabled by unresolved ideological tensions associated with China’s transitional program. Rather than providing a basis for resistance in the early development of premium water supply, the socialist legacy in urban water supply left its mark more in the noticeable absence of debate regarding the distributional outcomes. By examining premium water networks in relation to the politics of ideology in China’s transitional period, my analysis highlights the complex and sometimes unexpected ways that ideologies can influence the development of new infrastructural spaces and processes of splintering urbanism.     

Social Capital as Collateral: Banking on the Poor

Group‐based micro finance is a field in which the place of social capital in development has been given a central focus. The formation of micro group is based on tapping into the information that group members have about each other, thus relying on social capital. Group‐based micro finance has also been explained as a means of creating social capital. This article, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's conception of social capital, in contrast to the widely accepted notion of it, critically examines the link between social capital and group‐based micro finance. It argues that group‐based MF is not favored by the marginalized poor, and it serves as a mechanism in the production and reproduction of social conflict and inequality.     

企业社会资本的自愿供给:一个静态博弈模型

本文在相关文献的基础上，重新界定了社会资本的内涵，并采用完全信息静态博弈模型研究了企业网络中社会资本的自愿供给问题。模型分析表明，在企业社会资本的供给决策过程中，纳什均衡解是可以达到的，但它小于帕累托最优解。论文还指出，企业的规模是影响企业社会资本均衡供给水平的重要因素之一。     

信用评级标准化与信用迁移矩阵各要素间关系研究综述

标准化的信用评级可以将融资过程与信用分析过程相分离，为资金供需双方的信息缺口开辟通渠，降低信息搜寻成本和融资企业的交易成本，提高金融管理效率和金融市场效率。本文对信用评级标准化与信用迁移矩阵的样本总体、周期因素、成熟效应、资产波动性、等级漂移等关键要素间的关系进行了综合评述。     

汽车行业供应链金融服务研究

汽车产业是"十一五"规划重点产业之一,2009年中国汽车销售量已达到世界第一。汽车行业由于自身生产批量大、技术发展快、资本密度高、固定投入大和投资周期长等特点,与现有的"供应链金融"产品不是十分适合。文章从"供应链金融"的内涵出发,通过比较汽车行业与其他行业的不同,分析汽车行业主要的供应链模式,提出可能存在的风险和相关改进意见。     

供应链金融与中小企业融资问题研究

中小企业在促进就业、推动经济发展和社会稳定方面发挥着十分重要的作用。但是,融资困难制约着中小企业的发展,基于此,对中小企业融资困难进行成因分析,探讨供应链金融的特点与优势,提出发展供应链金融推进中小企业融资的策略。     

Value of supply disruption information and information accuracy

In this paper, we examine the factors that influence the value of supply disruption information, investigate how information accuracy influences this value, and provide managerial suggestions to practitioners. The study is motivated by the fact that although accurate disruption information creates benefits, fully accurate disruption information may be difficult and costly to obtain. Furthermore, inaccurate disruption information can decrease the financial benefit of prior knowledge and even lead to negative performance. To perform the analysis, we adopt a newsvendor model within a single product setting where the focal firm can source from a supply network and has a given resilience capacity. The results show that information accuracy, specifically information bias and information variance, plays an important role in determining the value of disruption information. This influence varies at different levels of disruption severity and resilience capacity, and our results imply that higher amounts of resilience capacity actually may be detrimental to a firm without accurate information about a disruption's influence. Thus, for companies with a high resilience capacity, obtaining quality information is critical for effectively coping with disruptions.     

A resilient social economy? Insights from the community food sector in the UK

At a time of global economic and environmental crisis, academic and policy debates are re-emphasizing the potential of the social economy in providing an alternative development model that reconnects communities with their resource-base and enhances their ‘resilience’. The goal of this paper is to explore this potential through a focus on the practices and values of those who are concretely involved in the social economy. Based on data collected on five community food enterprises in Oxfordshire, UK, the analysis focuses on the perceptions of social entrepreneurs in relation to the ‘alternativeness’ of the social economy, its potential for expansion and its resilience. The research highlights the capacity of social entrepreneurs to empower local communities through a process of collective mobilization of local resources. Theoretically, this study generates new insights into the nature and meanings of resilience as a process of creation of more self-reliant communities of people, places, tools, skills and knowledge. From a policy and practice perspective, the paper raises the need for regional development strategies that capture the gains of these isolated initiatives, particularly in relation to their innovative capacity to create a shared vision that fosters synergies between local ecological, social and economic resources.     

Adaptation analysis for environmental change in coastal communities

Small islands and coastal communities around the world are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, mainly from storm surge attributed to more frequent and severe coastal storms, and mounting sea-level rise. Coastal hazards including inundation, salinisation of the water supply, and land erosion all threaten vital infrastructure that support coastal communities. This research, part of the International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) C-Change project “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean”, develops and applies a multicriteria decision evaluation and support system for evaluating adaptation options for coastal communities. The paper estimates vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity measures associated with adaptation strategies in coastal communities with respect to their environmental, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. Results are determined using a multi-participant formulation of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for identifying multicriteria decisions as adaptation strategies in a specific coastal context. The application of the framework is conducted for the coastal community of Little Anse on Isle Madame, Nova Scotia. Specifically, the state of the Little Anse breakwater is analysed and adaptation options for protecting, accommodating, and retreating are presented and evaluated in the face of predicted storm scenarios. The results indicate that, in the case of Little Anse, the strategic decision to protect the community by a new breakwater arm provides preferred measures for resilience and adaptive capacity.     

The financing of small firm product innovation within the UK

This paper investigates the funding environment facing product innovating small manufacturing firms and both supports and contradicts a number of “stylised facts” which have emerged over the last decade. Amongst the key findings it appears that, whilst innovators were no more nor less likely to have sought external funds, they were significantly less likely to have successfully accessed bank finance. This finding is of particular gravity since bank debt remains the primary source of external finance employed. Further, the paper notes the low use of genuine risk capital to fund product innovation and raises the question as to what extent this reflects supply or demand side deficiencies. The role of public subsidies, in the form of grant funding, is also investigated with some tentative evidence pointing to the role grants play in validating technology or as leverage to access further funds.     

关于首都金融业发展策略的思考

本文着眼于提高首都整体金融发展的水平,从地区经济和金融发展的角度出发,研究分析首都金融业(包括银行、证券、保险、信托)的发展趋势及策略。文章指出,政府因势利导、宏观和谐管控,充分发挥地区金融的竞争优势,提高金融微观主体的核心竞争力,是提高首都金融业整体发展水平和金融效率,增强国际竞争力的有效途径。     

江苏供给侧结构性改革的金融支持政策研究

推进供给侧结构性改革,是适应和引领经济发展新常态的重大创新,是经济发展方式转变和经济结构战略性调整的关键。江苏省实施供给侧结构性改革还需要让市场在资源配置中发挥决定性作用,尤其是要发挥金融市场的力量,借助金融工具盘活金融资源,让资金从产能过剩领域流向供给不足领域。稳健运行的资本市场能够提供最直接的投资机会,及时分享供给侧结构性改革的成果,实现企业和家庭的财富创造。因此,拥有强大的资本市场、创造活跃的金融市场有助于江苏省经济转型的成功和创新能力的提升。