福建省碳排放的因素分解实证研究

本文基于1994—2008年的时间序列统计数据,采用对数平均权重的Divisia分解法将影响福建省碳排放的因素分解为能源结构因素、能源排放强度、能源效率和经济发展,建立福建省人均碳排放的因素分解模型,定量衡量各因素对福建省人均碳排放的贡献大小,得出经济发展是福建人均碳排放最大的拉动因素,能源效率是抑制福建人均碳排放最重要的因素,而能源结构对福建人均碳排放的影响相对较小但今后贡献可能增大等结论。     

省域碳排放影响因素分析及减碳机制探讨——以浙江省为例

论文基于1990—2015年浙江省碳排放时间序列数据,采用STIRPAT模型,探讨驱动浙江碳排放量增长的主要影响因素和各因素的影响程度,明确碳排放控制的主要领域。结果表明人均GDP、人口规模、能源强度、能源结构、产业结构对碳排放量增加有正向驱动作用,而城镇化率对碳排放量增加有负向驱动作用。人均GDP和人口规模对碳排放量增长的贡献最大,但2000年后人口规模的驱动作用逐渐减弱,经济规模扩大成为碳排放量的主要增长因素。能源强度和城镇化率对碳排放量减少的贡献最大,能源结构的贡献率较低。基于此,提出了提升经济发展质量、促进城镇发展转型、提高能源管理效率等具有针对性的减碳对策。     

中国碳排放量影响因素研究——基于省级面板数据的分析

采用中国30个省（市、区）2000～2010年的相关数据,运用面板数据模型对中国碳排放量的影响因素进行实证研究。面板协整检验表明：区域碳排放量与人均GDP、产业结构、人口数量、能源价格、能源效率和人均可支配收入之间存在长期稳定的内生经济关系。运用面板模型估计各因素的影响系数分析,认为对中国东部、中部、西部地区碳排放量影响最大的三大因素为人均GDP、人口数量和能源效率。     

基于因素分解模型的黑龙江省碳排放影响因素分析

长期以来,能源消费是碳排放的主要来源。通过对影响黑龙江省碳排放的主要因素进行分析,指出粗放型的经济发展模式和以重工业为主导的产业结构是黑龙江省碳排放量增长的主要拉动因素,能源效率的提高成为影响黑龙江省碳排放量的主要抑制因素。转变经济发展模式、优化产业结构和能源结构、提高能源效率可以有效抑制黑龙江省碳排放的增长。     

中国人均能源碳排放因素分解及减排途径分析

以1981-2008年中国一次能源消费总量、人口数和GDP数据为基础,通过实证分析经济发展、能源强度和能源结构对这一时期人均碳排放的贡献发现:经济发展拉动了人均能源碳排放的增长,能源强度的降低抑制了人均能源碳排放的增长,能源结构的变化在研究期内先对人均能源碳排放起促进作用,然后起抑制作用,其拐点出现在1997年,但研究期内贡献不显著.近年来,能源结构的贡献却有逐步增强的趋势.     

浙江省能源消费碳排放动态特征及影响因素研究

采用IPCC推荐的碳排放计算公式,测算了2000年到2011年浙江省能源消费碳排放量,分析了人均碳排放量和碳排放强度的动态特征,并利用LMDI分析其排放变化的影响因素。研究期间,浙江省人均能源消费碳排放量不断上升,碳排放强度呈现下降的趋势,浙江省碳排放处于碳排放强度倒U型曲线高峰到人均碳排放量倒U型曲线高峰阶段的过渡期。经济发展对人均碳排放量增长起到拉动作用,产业结构、能耗强度、能源结构、碳排放系数变化起到抑制作用。产业结构、能耗强度和单位能源消耗碳排放强度变化均对碳排放强度下降产生正向驱动作用。     

低碳经济发展的驱动因素研究——以浙江省为例

本文从人口规模、经济发展水平、能源强度、单位能耗碳排放量、能源消费结构、产业结构、城市化、国际贸易分工等方面探讨了低碳经济发展的主要驱动因素,对STIRPAT模型进行了扩展,利用1990~2008年浙江省的统计数据,对低碳经济发展的驱动因素及其贡献率进行了实证研究。研究结果表明:人均GDP、能源强度、人口规模、单位能耗碳排放量和能源消费结构对碳排放总量有显著正向影响,其中人均实际GDP的影响最大,能源强度的影响较大,人口规模和单位能耗碳排放量的影响较小,能源消费结构的影响最小,而产业结构、城市化水平、国际贸易分工对碳排放总量的影响不显著;人均实际GDP持续增长是碳排放增长的最大正向驱动因素,对碳排放增长的贡献率最大,能源强度变动是碳排放增长的最大负向驱动因素,能源强度变动对碳排放增长具有一定的抑制作用。     

吉林省能源消费碳排放相关影响因素分析及预测——基于灰色关联分析和GM(1,1)模型

采用灰色关联分析方法对吉林省2000~2012年能源消费人均碳排放量与能源消费价格、能源消费结构、能源消费强度、经济发展水平、产业结构和城市化水平等相关影响因素的关联度进行分析,并利用GM(1,1)模型对吉林省2016~2018年人均碳排放量进行了预测。预测结果显示,各相关影响因素在保持现状的情况下,能源消费人均碳排放量未来将会以更高的年均增长速度持续增长。为此,文章根据灰色关联度分析结果,从能源消费价格、能源消费结构、产业结构和能源消费强度几个碳排放相关影响因素入手,提出了降低吉林省能源消费碳排放的政策建议。     

我国居民间接能源消费碳排放的测算及分解分析

利用消费者生活方式方法(CLA),测算1993~2007年我国居民间接能源消费碳排放量,以及城镇和农村居民人均碳排放量的变化趋势。以1993年为基年,对我国居民间接能源消费碳排放量的变化进行分解分析。结果表明:(1)居民间接能源消费碳排放量整体呈上升趋势,城镇和农村居民人均碳排放量也逐年增加,其中2007年城镇居民是农村居民人均碳排放量的三倍。(2)研究期间,人均消费水平城镇化率、居民消费结构和人口规模是拉动居民间接能源消费碳排放量增加的主要因素,而能源消费强度和碳排放强度是抑制碳排放量增加的主要因素。其中2003~2007年碳排放强度起到正效应;居民消费结构表现为负效应,对减少碳排放起到一定作用。     

关于我国碳排放量及影响因素的实证分析

采用加权最小二乘法与向量自回归方法构建了在低碳经济环境下我国碳排放量及其影响因素之间关系的对比性实证分析模型,并进一步利用脉冲响应函数和方差分解探索影响系数大小和时期变化规律。研究表明,一方面,我国碳排放量与其影响因素之间存在一种长期均衡稳定的关系,其中最重要的因素是人均GDP、能源效率和产业结构,其次是人口数量和人均收入;另一方面,通过脉冲响应函数和方差分解得出我国碳排放量对人均GDP、能源效率和产业结构的冲击反应比较敏感,而对人口数量和人均收入水平随时期变化的响应则比较稳定,各变量影响系数在短期和长期存在明显差异。     

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.     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

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     

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.