中国制造业的垂直专业化与出口增长

基于Hummels et al．（2001）的分析框架,本文利用OECD（2009）提供的投入产出数据库,测算了中国制造业的垂直专业化水平,估计了中国制造业出口增长的来源,并与31个其他经济体进行了比较。测算结果表明：（1）中国制造业的垂直专业化水平较低,但增长迅速,从1995年的0．151上升到2005年的0．261,增长了72．39％,高于绝大多数国家和地区;（2）中国高技术制造业的垂直专业化水平从1995年的0．177,提高到2005年的0．411,增长了131．5％,几乎高于所有其他国家和地区。对制造业出口增长来源的估计发现：（1）中国制造业出口增长的28．85％来自国外增加值的贡献,高于所有的发展中国家,但比大多数发达国家低;（2）中国高技术制造业出口增长的41．2％来自国外增加值的贡献,高于所有发展中国家,超过或接近多数发达国家。     

中国服务业垂直专业化份额及来源

垂直专业化是衡量跨国生产分工的重要指标,服务业垂直专业化份额及来源是全球价值链研究中的重要内容.笔者利用世界投入产出数据,测算了中国服务业整体和行业层面的垂直专业化份额及其国别(地区)来源.研究发现:中国服务业整体垂直专业化份额呈上升趋势,出口中的国外增加值来源呈现多元化趋势;新兴工业经济体和部分发达国家是中国服务业出口中国外增加值的主要来源地;来自新兴市场经济体的国外增加值份额增长较快,与中国服务业形成垂直专业化分工的潜力较大.     

中国制造业出口内涵服务价值演进及因素决定

本文利用WIOD数据库提供的基础数据,分别在细分制造业以及按照要素密集度特征分组两个层面上,测算1995—2011年中国制造业出口内涵的服务增加值总量、国内服务增加值及国外服务增加值。结果显示:(1)制造业出口内涵服务增加值率有逐步提高之势,并且这种变化在劳动密集型、资本密集型、知识和技术密集型部门间具有差异性;(2)无论是在劳动密集型、资本密集型还是知识和技术密集型部门,来自国内服务投入的增加值在服务增加值总量中均占据主导地位,但从动态变化角度看,国内服务投入增加值主导地位有"弱化"迹象,国外服务投入增加值地位有提升趋势,而且这种变化趋势同样存在部门差异性;(3)从决定因素看,制造业垂直专业化程度、服务贸易开放度、国内服务业发展水平、制造业资本有机构成、制造业创新能力以及经济发展水平等,对制造业出口内涵的服务增加值存在一定程度影响,但对内涵国内服务增加值和国外服务增加值影响具有差异性。     

中国省级出口的增加值分解及其应用

本文在全球价值链的基础上考虑国内价值链,首次构建一国内部地区出口增加值的分解框架,并据此框架进行中国省级出口的增加值分解及应用研究。结果表明:(1)各省出口价值来源中,本地增加值份额最高,回流增加值份额最低,国内垂直专业化份额和国际垂直专业化份额居中;各省经济发展水平和本地增加值份额及国际垂直专业化份额分别呈很强的负相关和正相关关系。(2)以增加值出口衡量的各省出口差距明显缩小;具有比较优势的省份-产业往往也更有优势为其他省份提供出口增加值;中国出口的低本地增加值率主要源于沿海省份制造业的增加值出口和总值出口之比较低。(3)以增加值出口和以总值出口衡量的显性比较优势呈现差异,对于许多省份-产业而言,比较优势甚至发生了逆转;对于大部分省份而言,以增加值出口衡量的出口专业化程度要低于以总值出口衡量的出口专业化程度。     

中国制造业产品服务增加值的测算及其产出效应——基于世界投入产出表的研究

利用1995~2011年的世界投入产出表,对中国制造业产品的服务增加值比例进行了测算,大部分制造业产品的服务增加值比例都有不同程度的提高,制造业的服务化水平不断提升。国内服务增加值比例在1995~2011年间呈现波动特征,而国外服务增加值比例的增幅较为明显。电气和光学设备产品的国内外服务增加值水平显著提高,其中批发贸易和经纪贸易、金融业、设备租赁及其他业务贡献的增加值较高,但还有提升空间。面板模型回归结果表明,制造业部门产品的国内外服务含量均能显著提升部门的全要素生产率和产出水平。制造业部门应继续提高产品的国内外服务增加值比例,积极利用国内外服务产品的中间投入,提升制造业部门的服务化水平。     

经济增长与高技术产业出口技术含量关系的实证研究

本文对1993—2009年46个国家和地区高技术产业出口技术含量测度结果发现,发达国家的高技术产业出口技术含量高于发展中国家,发展中国家高技术产业出口技术含量明显超出其收入水平,印度已成为领先国家之一,而中国高技术出口技术含量相对较低。进一步的实证检验表明,经济增长对高技术出口技术含量提升具有长期协整关系,高技术产业出口技术含量的自我提升过程具有显著的收敛性,发展中国家自我提升力表现出明显的追赶效应。     

中国出口技术含量动态变迁及国际比较

在当今全球价值链深入发展的背景下,一国生产的出口产品大量使用国外中间投入品,出口产品中内含技术不一定都来自本国,科学衡量出口技术含量水平和结构需要基于生产工序的数据。本文构建了基于生产工序的技术含量新测度方法,并利用1995—2011年全球投入产出表数据测算了中国及其他主要国家的出口技术含量水平及结构,研究发现:(1)自1995年以来,中国出口确实出现了一定的自身技术水平升级和优化。中国整体和各行业的全部技术含量、国内技术含量和国内技术含量指数都呈现增长态势,表现出向发达国家平均水平的弱收敛趋势;(2)从各行业技术含量相对排名位次来看,中国出口的技术含量几乎锁定在世界最低端,远低于美日等发达国家,根本无法对美日等发达国家构成技术威胁。     

中国高技术产业垂直专业化影响因素研究——基于各行业和各地区面板协整的实证检验

文章选取中国高技术产业1995-2008年行业和地区两个层面的面板数据,运用面板单位根检验、面板协整检验、面板FMOLS估计方法和面板DOLS估计方法对高技术产业垂直专业化的影响因素进行了经验分析。研究表明,外向度和资本密集度对高技术产业垂直专业化有着显著的正向影响,但对各行业和各地区垂直专业化的影响程度存在一定差异。为此,政府应采取相关政策措施,促进高技术产业垂直专业化趋势的不断深化。     

垂直专业化对出口技术复杂度的影响及其机制——基于中国高技术产业的经验证据

垂直专业化分工如何影响出口技术复杂度?本文利用中国高技术产业1998～2015年省级层面数据进行的研究发现:垂直专业化有效地提升了中国高技术产业出口技术复杂度,但在金融危机后垂直专业化的提升效应减弱了。垂直专业化对高技术产业出口技术复杂度的提升效应可以通过研发投入和劳动生产率机制实现,但垂直专业化的研发效应较弱,通过研发投入机制对出口技术复杂度的提升效应较为有限。此外,垂直专业化对出口技术复杂度的影响存在企业异质性,对绩效较好企业的影响效果更显著,而对不同规模企业的影响差异不明显。因此,为提高各地区高技术产业出口技术复杂度水平,政府在制定政策时需要适度考虑地区企业的特征因素,以充分发挥垂直专业化的提升效应。     

我国高技术产业投融资体系存在的问题

一、“十一五”时期高技术产业的融资需求总量与结构预测1995～2002年的数据显示,我国高技术产业增加值占GDP的比重随GDP增长,呈现不断上升的趋势,根据回归得到两者之间的关系(高技术产业增加值占GDP的比重=GDP×(3.2×10-5)以及2010年GDP比2000年翻一番的远景目标进行预测,到2010年我国高技术产业增加值占GDP的比重将达到5.73%,总额达到10244.73亿元。按照1995～2002年高技术产业     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

Types of technology

Technology is a concept rife with confusion. Here, I argue that technologies can be distinguished as a combination of type of producer and an idealized artefact life history. Using this definition, a number of technologies are identified. The first technology historically, in the Protostomes, was the production of individual or family dwellings. Next came objects such as spider webs for trapping prey. Stigmergy followed, with the social insects, as a collective endeavour to construct a mega-structure using simple rules of accretion. Some birds and primates began to make tools, or simple technological objects whose function is closely related to their form. Humans are distinguished by their ability to make machines. Traditional technology took place once people voluntarily organised into groups with specialised knowledge to produce more complex objects and structures. Monumental objects like ceremonial pyramids came with the command economies of the early agrarian societies, which also resulted in a new category of artefact, the network. Finally, with modern civilizations came ad hoc accretion, or population-level adding-on, to make truly complex technological systems. Developing a theoretical framework within which artefacts, production processes and ways of interacting with them are identified should help the study of technology to become more scientific.