Is the natural resource production a blessing or curse for China's urbanization? Evidence from a space–time panel data model

This paper provides an analytical framework to evaluate under what conditions the natural resource production could promote or hinder urbanization process, focusing on factors mostly relevant for China. Considering both structure breaks and cross-sectional dependence as well as spatial spillovers, the study deploys a comprehensive approach to rigorously prove the validity of the proposed space–time panel data model that includes the second generation panel unit root test and panel cointegration, panel threshold regression and spatial panel Durbin model. The results not only offer strong evidences that the natural resource production non-linearly impacts on urbanization process, but also show that there exists a dynamic response over time and space as well as space–time diffusion impact, in which these percentages are different from each other confirming an asymmetric effect of the natural resource production on urbanization process.     

分割生产、垂直型投资与产业内贸易

文章在Dixit-Stiglitz垄断竞争的框架下,分析了在产品的生产环节可以任意分割的条件下,跨国公司在国内外配置生产环节的决定因素,并分析了为分割生产而进行的垂直型投资对贸易和消费者福利产生的动态影响.研究结果表明,与对垂直型投资的传统研究不同,为分割生产进行的垂直型投资和贸易的动态关系始终是替代关系,跨国公司出于自身利益考虑的分割生产行为正好使消费者福利水平达到最大.     

How environmental concern influences the investment decision: an application of capital theory

We develop a conceptual analysis of long-run decisions about the economy and the environment. In particular, we focus on the innovation of a new technique of production. We base our study on three components. First, capital theory as means of describing production. Second, joint production as implied by the laws of thermodynamics. Third, the time structure of the produced waste by-product, characterised by the magnitude of its degradation rate. The crucial variable in our analysis is the decision maker's time horizon. We show that, unlike in the no pollution case or in the flow pollution case, extending the time horizon when there is a polluting capital bad may make it less likely that a new technique of production is introduced. We conclude that fully taking into account dynamic aspects of environmental pollution considerably increases the complexity of economic valuation and the need for environmental precaution when making an investment decision.     

Allocation of resources in a team

The informational efficiency of “price” and “demand” messages in a resource allocation mechanism is studied here with the aid of the theory of teams¹. In the usual analysis of adjustment mechanisms (tâtonnement, decomposition), the adjustment process is assumed to run to completion, so that all the allocation and resource decisions can be made on the basis of enough information to guarantee optimal decisions². If, however, decisions must be made before the adjustment process is completed, say, after only a few iterations, then the decisions must be taken with limited information, and thus under conditions of uncertainty. This paper discusses a simple model in an attempt to examine explicitly these problems of uncertainty and limited information. A set of enterprise managers are assumed to produce various commodities, using scarce resources allocated to the enterprises by a resource manager. The enterprise managers also make decisions that affect their individual outputs. Varous kinds of communication among the managers, together with the corresponding information structures, are formulated, including the communication of price and demand messages. Optimal decision rules for the managers are calculated for the objective of maximizing the expected value of an index of total output. (It is assumed that the production functions and the supplies of scarce resources are stochastic, but are observed by the respective managers.) It is shown that optimal decision rules based on a single exchange of price and demand messages, between the resource manager on the one hand and the enterprise managers on the other, produces as good results as rules based on (1) complete information for the resource manager, and (2) information about the supplies of resources on the part of the enterprise managers. Furthermore, these price and demand messages produce approximately fully optimal results when the number of enterprises is large. However, the optimal decisions of the enterprise managers do not maximize profits, at least relative to any price that is the same for all enterprises. An assumption that the production functions are quadratic plays a key role.     

An economic manufacturing quantity model with probabilistic deterioration in a production system

This paper develops an economic manufacturing quantity (EMQ) model with deterioration and exponential demand in a production system over a finite time horizon under the effect of inflation and time value of money. The production rate is a dynamic variable (varying with time) in a production system. Due to a long run process, the machinery system is converted from in-control state to out-of-control state which results the production of improper items. The improper items are reworked at a fixed cost to make it as proper. With the increasing value of time, the production of improper item also increases. To reduce the production of the improper items, the systems have to be more reliable and with less amount of failure. In this direction, the model considers that the development cost, production cost, and material cost are dependent on the reliability parameter. The deterioration of the product is considered probabilistic to make the research a more realistic one. By considering the reliability parameter as a decision variable, we try to obtain the associated profit of the system which we have to maximize. To derive the maximization procedure, we use Euler–Lagrange formula from control theory. We outline some numerical examples along with graphical representations and sensitivity analysis to illustrate the model.     

On the Dynamics of Recycling and Natural Resources

We study the dynamic impact of recycling through its effect on the production set of the economy and its relationship with natural resources. The contribution of renewable and recyclable resources for sustainability is studied. Although in the short run recycling may alleviate resource scarcity, in the long run it is not enough to compensate for the exhaustibility of non-renewable resources and the possibility of obtaining non-decreasing output paths crucially depends on the extent to which production rests on renewable resources. Furthermore, recycling interacts with natural resource growth, surprisingly not always favoring sustainability. The Production and Recycling Function is a generalization of the traditional production function, providing an integrated view of regular production and recycling and representing the production set of the economy when a recycling technology is available.     

海外油气投资目标筛选决策支持系统研究

受全球一体化趋势的影响，油气资源与世界经济、政治、外交和军事的关系更加密切，围绕油气资源展开的国际竞争变得异常激烈。随着不确定外部环境的无序演化，油气安全的影响因素日益复杂。海外油气资源的争夺和中国海外油气资源供给渠道的稳定，需要科学的投资目标筛选决策。基于海外油气投资环境的动态演化和石油公司跨国经营非合作博弈特点，全方位构建了包含动态指标的海外油气目标国家投资环境评价指标体系，运用多层次灰色模型建立了海外油气投资目标筛选模型，通过编程建立和实现其决策支持功能。为系统评估海外油气资源争夺的战略机遇提供了方法借鉴。     

Papers to appear in forthcoming issues

Decisions concerning the production level of a substitue for a natural resource must often be taken well ahead of the time when the substitute is supplied. If the natural resource is owned by a monopolist, this may lead to an equilibrium in which the resource extracting firm takes the output path of the substitute as given. In this equilibrium the transition from resource extraction to substitute production takes place gradually. Furthermore, the price path of this equilibrium is lower than the price path one finds when the decision period of substitute production is ignored.     

Optimal project adjustment and selection

These days companies are competing in a fast changing environment. To keep its competitiveness, the company needs not only to seek and select new investment opportunities but also to adjust its existing projects. This paper discusses an optimal project selection and adjusting problem under capital and land resource limitations. Due to the complex and dynamic nature of the economic environment, the project parameters such as initial outlays, upgrade expenditures and net cash flows are treated as random variables. Net present value method is employed to calculate the investment return, and a mean–variance optimal adjustment and selection model is developed. To solve the proposed optimization problem with big number decision variables, a cellular binary particle swarm optimization which hybridizes cellular automation and particle swarm optimization is proposed. As an illustration of the proposed algorithm, a numerical example is also presented.     

A difficulty with the “command” allocation mechanism

This paper studies the implementation of taut economic plans under uncertainty in a simple dynamic model of resource allocation. It argues that the “command” mechanism is unable to control the stochastic system, causing unexpected shocks to accumulate, disrupting the production process and leading to increasing divergence between plan and performance. The principal source of this problem is lack of feedback from the state of the system to the allocation decision. Two market-like mechanisms are also analized. Both stabilize the system and minimize the impact of uncertainty on its performance, showing that the difficulty is indeed with the “command” allocation mechanism.     

组织衰落如何影响组织创新:集权结构、冗余资源与环境丰腴性的作用

以往研究主要从组织成长视角探讨组织创新路径,鲜有文献研究组织衰落对组织创新的影响及其作用机制。基于前景理论、行为理论和公开市场理论等,探讨组织衰落驱动组织创新的机理,并从企业内部因素（集权结构、冗余资源）和外部条件（环境丰腴性）两方面探析组织衰落与组织创新关系的调节机制。实证结果显示：组织衰落与组织创新之间存在正相关关系;企业内部因素（集权结构和冗余资源）对组织衰落与组织创新的关系存在正向调节作用;企业外部条件（环境丰腴性）正向调节组织衰落与组织创新之间的关系。研究结果进一步丰富了组织创新路径理论,并对企业如何挖掘组织衰落的价值以促进创新实践具有一定的决策参考作用。     

Performance of the Norwegian dairy farms: A dynamic stochastic approach

From a theoretical perspective, it is well stated that the farm's decision on the use of inputs depends on the farmer's ability to make an efficient decision over time. The existing literature in performance analysis of the dairy farms based on static modeling and thus ignores the inter-temporal nature of production decisions. This paper aims to construct a dynamic stochastic production frontier incorporating the sluggish adjustment of inputs, to measure the performance of dairy farms in Norway. The empirical application focused on the farm-level analysis of the Norwegian dairy sector for 2000- 2018. The dynamic frontier estimated using the system Generalized Method of Moments estimator. The analysis shows that the static model in the previous studies underestimates the performance of the dairy farms.     

数字时代商业生态系统何以共创价值——基于动态能力与资源行动视角的单案例研究

本研究以“探索数字时代商业生态系统价值共创的作用机理与实现路径”为研究问题，以海尔智家为案例研究对象，基于动态能力、资产编排与资源协奏组合视角，使用探索性单案例研究，解析了商业生态系统价值共创实现机理。研究结果：①在动态视角下剖析了商业生态系统发展扩张、不断利用资源建立领先优势的过程路径，明确了个体、组织、系统层面的价值共创类型细分，构建了数字时代商业生态系统价值共创机理模型。②探索出资源行动与动态能力存在的协同演化关系：资产编排补充了资源协奏对资源的感知过程，动态能力填补了资源协奏对环境的感知过程，三种视角嵌套耦合共同完成了商业生态系统资源-能力-价值的动态创造过程解释。③数字技术与数据资产重新定义了资源与能力，拓展了资源协奏在数字时代的适用范围。本研究为数字时代商业生态系统管理资源以实现价值共创提供了指导方向。     

DYNAMIC MECHANISM DESIGN FOR A GLOBAL COMMONS

We model dynamic mechanisms for a global commons. Countries value both consumption and conservation of an open access resource. A country's relative value of consumption to conservation is privately observed and evolves stochastically. An optimal quota maximizes world welfare subject to being implementable by Perfect Bayesian equilibria. With complete information, the optimal quota is first best; it allocates more of the resource each period to countries with high consumption value. Under incomplete information, the optimal quota is fully compressed: Identical countries receive the same quota even as environmental costs and resource needs differ. This is true even when private information is negligible.     

Willingness to Pay and the Cost of Commitment: An Empirical Specification and Test

In a static setting, willingness to pay for an environmental improvement is equal to compensating variation. In a dynamic setting, however, willingness to pay may also contain a commitment cost. In this paper we incorporate the dynamic nature of the value formation process into a stated preference study designed to test whether there is an important dynamic component (commitment cost) in stated preference values. The results clearly indicate that stated preference values can contain commitment costs and that these can be quite large: respondents offered the opportunity to delay their purchasing decisions until more information became available were willing to pay significantly less for improved water quality than those facing a now-or-never decision. These results have important consequences for the design and interpretation of stated preference data.     

When the public good conflicts with an apparent preference for unsustainable behaviour

The example of peatlands is used to demonstrate the challenges facing the sustainable management of natural resources in situations where the fragility of an environment is not appreciated by all stakeholders. We reveal, through the use of a survey applying both contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments, that many local people and others within the wider population, value peatlands as an example of a cultural landscape. However, there is a reluctance to stop extracting peat for domestic fuel even though the activity is undermining the ecological sustainability of this same landscape. This resistance is shown to arise because the cutting of peat is a well-established land use and a cessation of peat cutting is perceived to require the abandonment of traditional rights. In addition, the activity is widely regarded as more benign than industrial scale cutting for energy. The value attached to the landscape is an opportunity for conservation policy, but for this to succeed there must be an acknowledgement of local interests.     

Attributing technological bias to public goods

This note reports a modification of one use of the translog production function reported by Binswanger (1973, 1978). The method employed in this study recognizes that changes in factor shares over time are affected by a variety of decision variables including research and extension. In addition, some of the changes attributed to technical change may in fact be due to a change in the resource environment the individual decision maker faces, including the stock of public goods infrastructure. The study also investigates shifts in technological change which may be attributed to changes in the political climate.     

Exhaustible resources,technology choice and industrialization of developing countries

How should the world economy adapt to the increased demand for exhaustible resources from countries like China and India? To address that issue, this paper presents a dynamic model of the world economy with two technologies for production; a resource technology, which uses an exhaustible resource as an input and an alternative technology, which does not. I find that both the time path of resource extraction and the adoption of the alternative technology depend on the optimal allocation of capital across the technologies, and on the size of the capital stock in relation to the resource stock. In particular, if the capital stock is low, only the resource technology is used initially and the alternative technology is adopted with a delay. Next, I use the model to analyze the effects of industrialization of developing countries on the extraction of oil and technology choice for energy production. As a result of industrialization, the alternative technology for energy production is adopted earlier.     

货币时间价值在投资决策中的应用

货币时间价值的客观存在不仅在理论界得到了公认,而且其产生的作用时刻影响着人们的日常经济生活。不管是企业的项目投资,还是个人的理财投资,都不可忽视货币时间价值。在进行方案抉择的时候,要优先选用包含货币时间价值的动态指标(净现值、获利指数和内涵报酬率)进行评价,选择最优方案,做出科学的投资决策。企业和个人要牢固树立货币时间价值观念,利用它为企业和个人决策服务,促进企业和个人合理利用有限资金,创造更高的效益。     

Continuing Vocational Training Forms and Establishment Productivity in Germany

Abstract. This paper provides evidence of the productivity effects of different continuing vocational training forms in Germany. Using the waves 1997–2001 of the IAB establishment panel, it is found that formal external courses have the largest positive impact on productivity. Formal internal courses and quality circles have a smaller positive impact. Self‐induced learning, participation at seminars and talks and job rotation do not enhance productivity while training on the job has a negative productivity impact. Establishments with an inefficient production structure decide to offer training in order to boost productivity. This paper also shows that taking into account selectivity of the training decision, unobserved time‐invariant heterogeneity, human resource practices, as well as establishment and employee characteristics has an important impact on the measurement results.