国外科学数据管理情况研究

科学数据对于国家科技创新发展和社会经济进步具有重要的战略意义。科学数据的有效管理能够提升科学数据的利用率和创新效率,促进数据共享。本文对美国、英国、德国、法国、加拿大等主要国家科学数据管理进行调研,总结各国促进数据开放和数据管理的政策法规、数据管理机构和平台的建设情况,以及各国相关人才的培养方案。最后,从政策法规、机构建设和人才培养等方面,对我国科学数据管理工作提出了一些建议。     

英国构建国家创新评价体系的发展现状与趋势

文章结合欧盟传统的创新指标，分析了英国的创新与其他发达国家存在着的差距，提出了英国悖论（UK Paradox）：即没有创新的经济成功。然后，进一步从对这一悖论的原因分析入手，对英国的隐性创新、开放创新、创新“需求侧”、柔性创新进行概括性研究。为了实现对创新全面科学的评价，为对我国建立创新评价指标体系提供借鉴，文章介绍了英国创新需求指标体系，创新投入、企业创新和创新环境指标体系，以及柔性创新指标体系等，并在此基础上对英国的经验进行了简要总结，供国内相关创新管理者和研究人员参考。     

河北冀中南经济区科技创新评价体系的构建与对策

本文在分析河北冀中南经济区经济发展的系统结构、运行及其环境的基础上,通过对河北省冀中南经济区的科技创新环境、科技创新资源、科技创新效率、科技创新产出、科技创新影响力进行研究,提出经济区科技创新合评价的指标体系以及具体测算方法,建立了一套监测科技创新统计制度。经济区科技创新定量评价对于科学制定经济区科技发展战略和政策、推动经济区科技进步和经济社会发展具有重要意义。     

欧洲创新体系的测度与评估——基于欧洲创新记分牌的指标、方法和应用情况的分析

欧洲创新记分牌（EIS）是欧洲理事会要求建立的综合创新评价体系,每年对欧盟整体创新绩效与世界其它主要创新体的差距,以及欧洲各国的创新表现进行评估。本文概述了欧盟通过欧洲创新记分牌开展创新能力监测和评估的实践,分析了EIS指标体系的构建思想,研究了EIS指标体系的演变趋势,探讨了EIS的分析框架、指标计算方法和最新评估结论,在此基础上,作者提出了构建我国国家创新监测与评估体系的几点思考。     

科技管理者信用评价指标体系及模型研究

科技信用评价是我国科技管理体制改革创新的内容之一。从科技管理的特点出发,分析设计了科技管理者信用评价指标体系,阐明了其指标涵义和评价标度。并采用层次分析法建立了科技管理者的信用评价模型,提出了4级评价标准以及对应的物理意义。     

《欧盟创新记分牌2020》视角下的中国创新能力研究

由欧盟委员会发布的欧盟创新记分牌是评价全球主要经济体科技创新的重要国际报告之一。基于最新发布的2020年度报告,本文对有关创新指标体系的构建与框架进行了分析,对世界主要经济体的创新趋势进行了总结提炼,深入探讨了中国创新能力的发展现状,重点分析了中国创新评价指标及结构性差异。通过与创新领先国家对比相似性和差异性,对我国科技创新政策进行了若干思考,提出强化创新主体地位、优化产业结构布局、加大开放创新力度等建议。     

我国科技创新能力评价研究

西方发达国家和国际组织非常重视对现代科技的统计与分析,其评价结果对于提升科技创新能力具有十分重要的意义。我国科技部的全国科技进步统计监测指标体系,在实践中也取得了较好的效果,成为国家经济与科技决策的重要参考依据。为进一步加快转变经济发展方式,促进国民经济又好又快发展,很有必要对现行指标体系进行完善和修订,增强其宏观决策参考的科学性。借鉴已有研究成果,构建科技创新能力评价指标体系,并应用因子分析方法,对各地区科技创新能力进行综合评价。结合评价结果和研究现状,深入剖析科技创新能力评价存在的问题,在理论研究、指标设计、评价方法、数据库建设等方面,提出进一步完善科技创新评价的对策建议。     

中美新科技创新政策比较

2006年几乎在同一时间,中美两国分别发布了《国家中长期科学和技术发展规划纲要》和《美国竞争力计划》,研究在未来的探索、发明及创新上的国家科技发展的新政策,以及为此而提出的变革构想及发展路径。通过考察两国新政策的制定背景和主要内容,比较分析各自特点,提出我国未来科技创新政策应当注意的问题。     

国家海洋创新能力与海洋经济协调关系测度研究

建立国家海洋科技创新与海洋经济发展两个系统评价指标体系，在海洋科技创新与海洋经济各项投入产出指标的基础上，创新性地增加海洋创新绩效和海洋经济潜力分指数，对海洋创新效率及海洋经济发展质量和潜力予以考察。在协调度模型的基础上，采用均方差法测算评价指标体系中各指标权重，进而测算2004-2018年我国海洋创新与海洋经济协调度和协调发展度。结果表明，我国海洋科技创新与海洋经济发展水平逐年提高，协调关系由中度失调衰退转变为良好协调发展，协调程度变化大致分为两个阶段：2004-2006年海洋创新滞后于海洋经济发展；2007-2018年海洋创新驱动海洋经济发展。在此基础上，提出加大海洋创新投入与提高海洋创新绩效、加快海洋经济结构调整与产业升级、统筹海洋创新与海洋经济协调发展等对策建议。     

国家集成创新能力评价指标体系研究——我国自主创新的一个子系统

国家集成创新能力作为我国国家创新能力的一个组成部分,是我国建设创新型国家的重要动力来源.本文首先界定了国家集成创新能力概念,进而以概念内涵为依据,在国家创新系统框架内,尝试构建国家集成创新能力评价指标体系.指标体系共设四十八个指标,按性质分别归入三个维度中,这三个维度体现了国家集成创新投入、产出及两部门之间的联系和相互作用.该指标体系旨在突出国家在引导和有效配置知识资源,以及促进创新主体间学习和知识扩散中发挥的重要作用.由此而设置的各个指标是评价国家集成创新绩效的主要测度因素.该指标体系是对我国自主创新能力评价指标体系研究的进一步深化.     

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.     

Planned adaptation in risk regulation: An initial survey of US environmental, health, and safety regulation

In principle, we want regulatory programs to be based on current realities, as reflected for example in the best knowledge of relevant experts. That would imply that old rules now on the books should be consistent with today's knowledge base, not just what was known when a rule or standard was originally set. This paper reports on a survey of US programs, examining how often existing rules are actually updated in light of better knowledge, and identifies five programs that attempt to make policy routinely adaptive. These programs exhibit what we term Planned Adaptation: they both revise rules when relevant new knowledge appears, and take steps to produce such improved knowledge. While Planned Adaptation is rare, it is used in several nationally prominent programs, including air pollution, airplane safety, and drug safety. Planned Adaptation is a policy tool that deserves more attention.     

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.     

The greenhouse effect: Damages,costs and abatement

The buildup of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — CO₂ in particular-appears to be having an adverse impact on the global climate. This paper briefly reviews current expectations with regard to physical and biological effects, their potential costs to society, and likely costs of abatement. For a worst case scenario it is impossible to assess, in economic terms, the full range of possible non-linear synergistic effects. In the most favorable (although not necessarily likely) case (of slow-paced climate change), however, it seems likely that the impacts are within the affordable range, at least in the industrialized countries of the world. In the third world the notion of affordability is of doubtful relevance, making the problem of quantitative evaluation almost impossible. We tentatively assess the lower limit of quantifiable climate-induced damages at $30 to $35 per ton of CO₂ equivalent, worldwide, with the major damages being concentrated in regions most adversely affected by sea-level rise. The non-quantifiable environmental damages are also significant and should by no means be disregarded.The costs and benefits of (1) reducing CFC use and (2) reducing fossil fuel consumption, as a means of abatement, are considered in some detail. This strategy has remarkably high indirect benefits in terms of reduced air pollution damage and even direct cost savings to consumers. The indirect benefits of reduced air pollution and its associated health and environmental effects from fossil-fuel combustion in the industrialized countries range from $20 to $60 per ton of CO₂ eliminated. In addition, there is good evidence that modest (e.g. 25%) reductions in CO₂ emissions may be achievable by the U.S. (and, by implication, for other countries) by a combination of increased energy efficiency and restructuring that would permit simultaneous direct economic benefits (savings) to energy consumers of the order of $50 per ton of CO₂ saved. A higher level of overall emissions reduction — possibly approaching 50% — could probably be achieved, at little or not net cost, by taking advantage of these savings.We suggest the use of taxes on fossil fuel extraction (or a carbon tax) as a reasonable way of inducing the structural changes that would be required to achieve significant reduction in energy use and CO₂ emissions. To minimize the economic burden (and create a political constituency in support of the approach) we suggest the substitution of resource-based taxes in general for other types of taxes (on labor, income, real estate, or trade) that are now the main sources of government revenue. While it is conceded that it would be difficult to calculate the optimal tax on extractive resources, we do not think this is a necessary prerequisite to policy-making. In fact, we note that the existing tax system has never been optimized according to theoretical principles, and is far from optimal by any reasonable criteria.During the academic year 1989–90 Dr. Ayres was at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.During the summer of 1989 Mr. Walter was a member of the Young Scientists' Summer Program at IIASA.     

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.”     

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: TRACING THE FLOW OF BASIC RESEARCH THROUGH MANUFACTURING AND TRADE

This paper describes flows of basic research through the US economy during the late 20th century. In addition, the paper studies the effect of the flows on scientific papers in industries and fields. This article differs from others in its use of measures of science rather than technology. Together, its results present a picture of the structure of basic research flows in a modern, science-intensive economy. Basic research flows are large within petrochemicals and drugs, and within software and communications. Flows of chemistry, physics, and engineering are common throughout all industries – biology and medicine are almost confined to petrochemicals and drugs; and computer science is nearly as restricted to software and communications. In general, basic research flows are more concentrated within scientific fields than within industries. Our findings concerning the production of scientific papers indicate that the effect of a 1% change in academic R&D spillovers significantly exceeds that of industrial spillovers. In addition, within-field effects exceed effects between-fields, while within- and between-industry effects are roughly equal. It follows that scientific fields limit basic research flows more than industries do, perhaps because large firms implicitly span a range of industries.     

Valuing Mangrove-Fishery Linkages – A Case Study of Campeche, Mexico

This paper explores the value of mangrove systems as a breeding and nursery habitat for off-shore fisheries, focusing on mangrove-shrimp production linkages in Campeche State, Mexico. We develop an open access fishery model to account explicitly for the effect of mangrove area on carrying capacity and thus production. From the long-run equilibrium conditions of the model we are able to establish the key parameters determining the comparative static effects of a change in mangrove area on this equilibrium. We then estimate empirically the effects of changes in mangrove area in the Laguna de Terminos on the production and value of shrimp harvests in Campeche over 1980–90. Our findings suggest that mangroves are an important and essential input into the Campeche shrimp fishery, but that the low levels of deforestation between 1980 and 1990 mean that the resulting losses to the shrimp fishery are still comparatively small. Over-exploitation of the fishery due to open access conditions remains the more pervasive threat, and without better management any long-run benefits of protecting mangrove habitat are likely to be dissipated.     

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.     

An Economic Analysis and Simulation of Woodfuel Management in the Sahel

This paper presents an economic framework and a computationalmethodology for assessing the evolution of woodfuel supply costsand the spatial distribution of biomass in a Sahelian woodlandsetting. Spatial data on standing stock and the costs oftransport to market are used to construct a supply curve for fuelto a fuel-consuming location. Given an exogenously specifieddemand, the model simulates, period by period, the extraction,regeneration, and transport of wood fuels. The model is appliedto evaluate the benefits and ecological impacts of scenarios forwoodland management around the city of N'Djamena, Chad.