Inequality and Income Distribution in Global Value Chains

Global value chains (GVCs), led by transnational corporations (TNCs), have reshaped the world division of labor over the past two decades. GVCs are pervasive in low technology manufacturing, such as textile and apparel, as well as in more advanced industries like automobiles, electronics, and machines. This hierarchical division of labor generates wild competition at the lower value-added stages of production, where low wages and low profit margins prevail for workers and contract manufacturers in developing countries. At the top of the hierarchy another kind of competition prevails, centered on the ability to monitor and control intellectual property rights related to innovation, finance, and marketing. We argue that GVCs have had crucial effects on income inequality and the appropriation of rents in modern capitalism.     

解读新一轮改革的逻辑

"十八大"以后,中国进入新一轮改革时期。新一轮改革是一场问题导向式改革,新时期所出现的诸如经济增长乏力、效率低下、市场秩序混乱等新问题是新一轮改革的逻辑起点,放、激、管三管齐下是解决新问题的主要方式。新一轮改革的目标是处理好政府与市场的关系,而理顺政府与市场关系的关键在于充分发挥市场在资源配置中的决定性作用,通过市场发力形成中国经济增长的内生力,探索出一条具有中国特色的市场经济道路,这条道路就是中国模式。     

Multi-product capacitated facility location problem with general production and building costs

This research introduces the multi-product capacitated facility location problem with general production and building costs (MP-CFLPGC). The MP-CFLPGC extends previous problems found in the literature by including multiple products and general production and building cost functions that allow the modeling of different behaviors like economies of scale and congestion. The MP-CFLPGC is formulated as a mixed integer linear program (MILP). To evaluate the performance of the proposed formulation we analyze the results of a commercial optimizer on a set of 288 randomly generated test instances that resemble the Colombian cement industry supply chain. After one hour the optimizer achieved an optimality gap of 1.0 % or less in 55 % out of the 288 test instances. On average the optimality gap was 3.57 %. Additionally, we propose a randomized mathematical-programming-based heuristic for the test instances where the MILP formulation presents significantly high optimality gaps.     

Inflation targeting credibility and sovereign risk: evidence from Colombia

This article relates to the literature on sovereign risk in developing countries. In particular, we present empirical evidence to address the effect of inflation targeting credibility on sovereign risk based on the Colombian experience. The findings denote that credibility is an important improvement in the institutional framework to reduce the sovereign risk premium.     

The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self‐efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self‐efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.     

An algorithm for panel ANOVA with grouped data

In this paper, we present an algorithm suitable for analysing the variance of panel data when some observations are either given in grouped form or are missed. The analysis is carried out from the perspective of ANOVA panel data models with general errors. The classification intervals of the grouped observations may vary from one to another, thus the missing observations are in fact a particular case of grouping. The proposed Algorithm (1) estimates the parameters of the panel data models; (2) evaluates the covariance matrices of the asymptotic distribution of the time-dependent parameters assuming that the number of time periods, T, is fixed and the number of individuals, N, tends to infinity and similarly, of the individual parameters when T → ∞ and N is fixed; and, finally, (3) uses these asymptotic covariance matrix estimations to analyse the variance of the panel data.     

粮食中镉含量测定方法初探:以石墨炉原子吸收分光光度计法为例

笔者长期从事粮食中镉污染检验工作,大量实践经验表明,虽然原子吸收仪的品牌、型号各不相同,但应用原理、结构大致相同。本文以石墨炉原子吸收分光光度计法对粮食中镉的含量的检测为例进行说明,发现试样前处理、试剂空白、使用试剂、回收实验及在操作过程中的对仪器的处理等对检测结果均会产生直接影响。为确保检测结果准确性,本文对检测过程中影响检测结果的各注意事项进行了分析总结,希望能对从事镉污染检测工作的人员提供理论指导和借鉴。     

Making use of Internet interactivity to propose a dynamic presentation of web questionnaires

Quality & Quantity - New methodologies that aim to collect data in innovative ways (e.g. big data) are putting pressure on the traditional surveys based on questionnaires. In order to obtain...