Liquefied Natural Gas: Redefining Nature,Restructuring Geopolitics,Returning to the Periphery?

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry began as a means of making use of natural gas resources in socially remote regions and of natural gas associated with oil production. Natural gas was transformed from a waste product into LNG that could be moved thousands of miles to market, redefining “waste” as a valuable raw material. As the newest large-scale LNG exporter, the United States entered the LNG industry based on another redefinition of nature: the extraction of natural gas previously economically and technologically inaccessible in shale formations. Hydraulic fracturing and new drilling technologies have created reserves of natural gas that are driving down prices with excess production and provoking a search for new markets via LNG exports. Liquefied natural gas is reshaping economies, communities, industries, and ecosystems in the United States and in other parts of the world. This article analyzes the role of the LNG industry with a particular focus on the economic and geopolitical consequences for the United States. The United States is returning to its historical role of energy exporter. Some view the return to this role as an economic and geopolitical boon that will enhance the U.S. economy and the nation’s global standing. A contrasting interpretation sees the United States sliding into the extractive periphery, serving the energy demands of a growing China, much like the United States once did for Europe and especially Great Britain. This view condemns what it views as the exploitation of U.S. natural resources to meet China’s energy needs while leaving large areas of the United States with depleted resources, damaged ecosystems, and disrupted communities.     

President’s Tweets,US-China economic conflict and stock market Volatility: Evidence from China and G5 countries

This study provides empirical evidence that the tweets from US President Donald J. Trump influence the trading decisions of investors worldwide. We examine the effects of Trump’s tweets related to China on stock market volatility in China and the G5 countries. Our results show that Trump’s original tweets related to the US-China economic conflict expand volatility in stock markets worldwide, and the US-China trade friction intensifies this effect. Furthermore, Trump’s tweets with different sentiments have different impacts on the returns of global stock markets. Our findings confirm that international investors may make their investment decisions based on information conveyed in these tweets.     

Trump versus Reagan – the global dimension

• ? Could the Trump era resemble the 1980s? ‘Reaganomics’ boosted world growth – but not necessarily in the ways people think – and not for emerging markets (EMs), a larger part of today's world economy. Growth then was also aided by factors such as declining interest rates, which are missing today, and we doubt that deregulation will lead to a productivity surge. US asset prices, meanwhile, were depressed in 1981, unlike now, so the big gains of the 1980s are unlikely to be repeated. EM assets should do better than back then, though.
• ? Optimistic observers – and to some extent, markets – have been drawing parallels between the policy mixes of the Trump and Reagan administrations, and talking up the prospects of stronger global growth. But while the US did support world growth in the 1980s, this was arguably more due to Keynesian' demand‐side policies than supply‐side ones: Reagan's record on supply‐side policies was mixed.
• ? The US is still an important driver of global activity, but markets may be too optimistic about the effect of Trump's policies on world growth. Any Trump fiscal stimulus will occur against a much less favourable background than that of the 1980s, when US growth also benefitted from a variety of factors missing now.
• ? It is also unclear whether Trump's administration will tolerate large expansions of the current account and fiscal deficits as the ‘price’ for more growth. And we are sceptical about the prospects of big gains from deregulation: US economic dynamism has waned, but the policies so far proposed in this area look potentially misdirected.
• ? Over the coming years asset market performance is unlikely to mirror that of the 1980s: valuations suggest less room for dollar appreciation and stock market gains this time around. But emerging market (EM) assets may do better – the soaring dollar and high US rates that hit EMs in the 1980s are unlikely to be repeated. And our analysis suggests even modestly better US growth will support commodity prices and EM growth.

     

浅析中美高校贷款

中国和美国这两个国家,不仅是经济大国,也是教育大国。他们有不同的经济政治制度,也有不同的文化背景。这两个国家的高校贷款问题也是不一样的。本文将从高校贷款产生和现状,高校贷款利率,高校贷款形式三方面进行比较。     

我国风险投资业的发展现状分析

与美国相比,我国的风险投资还处于起步阶段。因此,我国应借鉴美国的经验,结合我国国情,加大政府扶持力度,制定相关的风险投资政策来引导市场,使中国在世界经济竞争中处于主导地位。     

中、美高校教师工资水平比较研究

针对当前社会对高校教师工资水平的关注和意见,结合中国正在推行的事业单位收入分配制度改革,通过中美两国高校教师工资水平在各行业中的相对位置,并以GDP为介入因素进行国际比较,对中国高校教师工资的合理水平提出初步判断。     

National skill-creation systems and career paths for service workers: hotels in the United States,Germany and the United Kingdom

Creating sufficient opportunities for individuals to develop their capabilities and earn a living wage is one of the central challenges facing all countries. However, some types of vocational education and training (VET) institutions may be more effective than others in promoting the development of career-enhancing ‘transferable’ skills. In order to investigate the links between national skill-creation systems and individual career paths, this study focuses on three countries with very different VET systems: the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The comparison is based on closely matched samples of three- and four-star hotels. The results suggest that individual career development and outcomes, such as wages and turnover rates, are strongly influenced by the interplay of three key elements – the breadth, relevance to employment and degree of standardization – of national initial VET systems. Our analysis identifies strengths and weaknesses of the different systems and key lessons for improvement.     

1994～2006年中国入选《财富》500强企业分析

随着全球化的脚步,中国经济的发展,进入500强的榜单是中国企业奋斗的目标之一。尽管近20年来,中国企业在榜单出现的绝对数量越来越多,排名也在逐渐上升,但是仍有众多行业中并未出现中国企业,且入选企业自身也与世界顶尖企业存在一定的差距。文中分析1994-2006年中国入选500强企业的变化及其行业分布、经营状况等,并对美、日、欧入选企业进行分析,最后提出中国企业发展的启示。     

Implementing the third way

This article examines the transfer of NPM strategies by comparing Service Charter initiatives in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. These three countries, together with Canada and New Zealand,are partofwhathas beendescribedas the ‘core’ new public management (NPM) policy community (Common 1998). Service Charters are an NPM strategy intended to change the culture of public service delivery to focus on the needs of the users, identified as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. The objectives are to make service providers more responsive to users by guaranteeing specific standards for service delivery, providing a substitute for competition and a benchmark for measuring service quality. The first section examines the historical and political context of the development of the Citizen's Charter and Service First programmes in the UK, customer service plans in the USA and Government Service Charters in Australia. The second section explores the similarities and differences between these charter initiatives based on analysis of public documents. There is evidence of convergence at the ideological level as managerial values underpin the service charter frameworks in all three jurisdictions (Walsh 1994; Pollitt 1995; Kettl 1997). Despite drawing from a similar toolkit influenced by private sector techniques, significant differences between the country contextshaveresultedindivergent strategies. Timing in the three countries examined suggests that national politics rather than global policy convergence is more significant in explaining the development of service charters. This case study provides evidence of policy transfer rather than policy convergence (Common 1998). The final section considers the limitations of the customer service model. Monitoring quality iscentral to theprogrammes in all three countries. Performance monitoring is essentially a quantitative methodology that requires criteria and indicators for measuring the quality of service delivery and programme outcomes. Two problems are considered. The first is the difficulty of specifying and measuring service quality. The second is that quality indicators derived from services marketing and management research do not take into account the characteristics of public services.     

Uncovering stakeholders in public–private relations on social media: a case study of the 2015 Volkswagen scandal

While researchers have focused on the nature of interpersonal communication on social media, few have investigated the patterns and structures of interactions among stakeholders engaged in an unexpected event. On September 18, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of violation of the U.S. Clean Air Act to Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., citing Volkswagen’s inappropriate software that circumvented the United States’ emission standards. This research is systemically designed to examine the evolutionary structures of interpersonal issue networks on social media by focusing on the 2015 Volkswagen scandal on social media. The interpersonal network emerged and evolved to build a discourse on issues by stakeholders after the event. By using longitudinal data collected from the Volkswagen USA’s Facebook page between September 17 and 20, 2015, this research tests four hypothesized network structures, which are reciprocity, transitivity, popularity, and activity, which assess the evolution of interpersonal issue networks. The results of exponential random graph models, analyzing 4131 stakeholders, show that interpersonal issue networks on social media have evolved overtime into a set of reciprocal relations and stakeholders transmitting critical information to bystanders. The findings imply that stakeholders who have Volkswagen’s cars and stocks play a critical role in placating the scandal by mutually interacting with diverse bystanders on social media.     

关于提高独立学院图书馆馆员素质的几点思考

高校图书馆馆员的素质对高校图书馆现代化发展至关重要,提高图书馆馆员的素质能进一步促进图书馆功能的发挥.文章结合广西工学院鹿山学院实际情况,对独立学院图书馆馆员素质现状进行分析,并就如何提高独立学院图书馆馆员的素质提出了几点思路     

priva used in the USA

What are the prospects for privatisation in the United States? Robert W. Poole Jr, of the Reason Foundation, argues that the most important opportunities are with the states rather than the federal government.     

STUDENT DEBT EFFECTS ON FINANCIAL WELL‐BEING: RESEARCH AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Reviewing the data regarding effects of student debt on students’ financial outcomes following college – whether successful graduation or premature exit – makes clear that there is a price to pay for having to borrow money to go to college. Indebted college graduates have lower net worth, less home equity, and compromised ability to accumulate assets, as compared to their peers with the same level of education but no student debt. They may also experience poorer educational outcomes, with independent effects on earning power and, then, later wealth accumulation. Especially given the relationship between initial household wealth and children's later educational outcomes, these findings about the post‐college financial outcomes of indebted students and graduates raise the specter of ongoing, sustained, and cross‐generational perpetuation of societal divides. In the United States, higher education is valued not just as a good in itself, but also as a means to the end of greater economic security and the primary lever for economic mobility. Evaluating student loans through this lens underscores the long‐term, volatile, and often hidden effects of student loan dependence and raises the stakes for consideration of alternative approaches to higher education finance.     

Regional information and market efficiency: the case of spread betting in United States college football

Using game results over a seven year span (1999–2006), we find that United States college football teams in arid regions “win” against the spread in 56.64% of games in which they host a team from a humid region. This result provides statistically significant evidence for both weak and strong form inefficiency in the spread betting markets of such games. By examining other cases of intraregional and interregional competition within the sport, we conclude that this inefficiency does not arise from the effects of travel or home field advantage. Rather, the result indicates that climate aridity is an observed characteristic for which college football betting markets do not accurately control. It is quite rare to find strong form market inefficiency arise from a single variable rather than from an elaborate, multivariable betting strategy. Therefore, the effect of climate aridity upon college football spread betting market efficiency can be characterized as dramatic. It is conjectured that remote market participants may need to “experience” certain types of relevant regional information, such as climate, to act in a market efficient manner.     

The impact of liquidity on inflation-linked bonds: A hypothetical indexed bonds approach

Sovereigns mainly issue inflation-linked bonds (ILB) in order to save money. More than 15 years’ experience with this financial instrument in the United States has led to the conclusion that these bonds are characterized by low liquidity issues. Recently, various papers have started to analyze the impact of liquidity on ILB yields. This paper develops a new strategy for estimating the liquidity premium based on Campbell and Shiller's (1996) hypothetical ILB yields. We find significant effects of ILB-specific liquidity measures for the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Based on these findings, we derive the liquidity premium in ILB yields, liquidity-adjusted estimates for the break-even inflation rate and the inflation risk premium. In the United States, for instance, the average of the liquidity premium is 0.56%-points, and the average liquidity-adjusted break-even inflation rate and inflation risk premium amount to 2.67%-points and 0.22%-points, respectively.     

Unplanned buying and in-store stimuli in supermarkets

Manufacturers and retailers in industrialized countries spend large sums on advertising and/or in-store promotion in the hope of increasing sales of their merchandise through ‘impulse’ buying. Results are reported in this paper of the unplanned buying behaviour of 450 consumers in 15 major supermarkets in South Africa compared with similar studies in the United States and the United Kingdom. The findings indicate that unplanned buying is higher in the United States than in South Africa, but that the importance of in-store stimuli holds true across cultures. Analysis of other variables such as brand loyalty, specific outlet, and presence of a shopping list is also reported on a cross-cultural basis.     

美国与中国货币政策工具选择的差异分析

综合近十年美国与中国在货币政策运用方面的表现,文章认为存在着注重利率的调节和注重准备金率的调节两种不同取向。文中对这种差异从利率市场化、货币政策目标及金融市场发展程度三个层面分析,并分析两国在货币政策使用的效果,最后提出我国货币政策的调整应该依据具体的经济情况、加强中国利率市场化以及建立风险防范机制三点建议。     

Understanding the increasing affluence of women

Increasingly, women are emerging as major donors in their own right. For example in May 1998, five women with Harvard ties, in partnership with the University, established a $15m matching fund to encourage other women to make significant gifts to the University. There are three major economic reasons for targeting women seriously for an organisation's fundraising efforts: women have increasing economic power; women outlive men; women have a new awareness of the power of the dollars they control. Research done in both the United States (Martha Taylor and Sandra Shaw) and the United Kingdom (Stephen Pidgeon and Pauline Lockier) demonstrates that women and men have different ‘philanthropic triggers’. Many women have tended to contribute significant volunteer time and service to the institutions about which they care rather than significant gifts of money. Often, women are interested in not only how their gift benefits a specific institution, but also how it benefits society in general. Women often rely not on formal relationships with institutions, but on their perceived value of the institution's goals and impact. This paper provides a context for looking at women as donors.     

城市型社会背景下的城镇化:他国的经验与中国的选择

“十二五”期间,中国城市化率将突破50％,我国将加入城市型社会行列.本文通过对英国、美国、日本和巴西四个城市型国家城市化的考察,探究了城市型国家的共性特征.我国城镇化面临极其复杂的形势,应走质量型城市化道路,治理城市病,防止“被城市化”现象发生.