Service Competitiveness – An Anglo-US Study

This article reports on the latest in a series of international comparisons of management practices and performance outcomes of industries in various countries. Here, it is the service industries in the UK and the US which come under the microscope. Among the companies surveyed, there were more world-class performers in the US than the UK, but also more low performers. The concluding part of the article is diagnostic – the authors also suggest measures which could improve performance.     

Rates of Return to Schooling in China

This study uses data from a 1988 survey of Chinese individuals to estimate rates of return to schooling in China. The Mincer-type rate of return to schooling was estimated at 4.02 percent in the rural areas and 3.29 percent in the urban areas; these are fairly low estimates compared with similar estimates in other countries. The rate of return to schooling for females was significantly higher than that for males in urban areas. In addition, members of the Communist Party in urban areas had significantly lower returns to schooling compared with non-members.     

Mortgage-Backed Futures and Options

This paper empirically tests valuation models for the mortgage-backed futures-options contracts that traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) from June of 1989 until March of 1992. A simple contingent-claim model is shown to produce call option values on mortgage-backed futures (MBF) contracts that are unbiased estimates of actual futures-options prices. The ability of the MBF contract to hedge positions in current coupon Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA) securities relative to the effectiveness of cross-hedging GNMA positions with T-note and T-bond futures contracts is also examined.     

Net foreign assets of Dutch commercial banks: A comment

Conclusion The article provides a contribution to the discussion on the net foreign assets of the commerical banks, by drawing renewed attention to the possible passivity of the banking sector, which has gained topicality with the striking developments of 1989. Indeed, the banking sector may be considerably more reactive in regards to net foreign assets formation than has been assumed by various authors and in macroeconometric models on the basis of portfolio optimizing behaviour. However, due to the above-mentioned methodological and empirical shortcomings, Bakkers's study certainly does not provide the final answer to this question.     

专门化、多样化和中国地区工业产业增长的关系

本文通过分析中国29个省（除西藏外）的30个工业产业在1988－1997期间的数据。揭示了工业结构和经济增长之间的关系。本文除研究了传统的生产要素的影响外，重点探讨了产业专门化、专业多样化、竞争度和一省发展的初始水平等因素的作用。结果表明，一个产业外部工业环境的多样性和产业内的竞争度有利于产业的增长，但产业专门影响为负。工业结构对于增长的影响在很大程度上依赖于产业的性质及其地理位置。     

REGULATORY NEGOTIATION IN AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE REFORM

Tort reform of the motor accident insurance compensation scheme in the Australian state of New South Wales in 1999 came about as a result of an untested experiment in regulatory negotiation. This article is a first-hand account of the successful attempt to craft a consensual modification of the scheme through deliberations among a working group of service provider representatives. The author, a Canadian lawyer, investigated the prospects for change, acted as chief negotiator, and observed the legislative process that led to the final law reform.     

Testing for Unit Roots with Breaks: Evidence on the Great Crash and the Unit Root Hypothesis Reconsidered

Nelson and Plosser (1982), in a classic paper, failed to find strong evidence against the null hypothesis of a generating process with a unit autoregressive root for thirteen US macroeconomic time series. Perron (1989) claimed that such evidence was available for a majority of these series if the alternative hypothesis was of trend stationarity with a break in 1929. Zivot and Andrews (1992) treated the break date as endogenous, then finding strong evidence agcainst the null for a minority of these series. Our own analysis extends theirs by permitting a break under the null as well as the alternative hypothesis, and allowing for the sequential nature of the testing. Our empirical findings complete the circle. We find no strong evidence against the unit root hypothesis for any of the thirteen Nelson–Plosser series.     

Employment Contacts and Minority-White Wage Differences

We study effects of job contacts on wages in inner-city Boston in 1989 and in the 1982 NLSY. Race/Hispanicity differences in wages are not explained by an absence of contacts among minority youths. Rather, in the Boston data, lower wages of black youths are explained by lower "returns" to their contacts. In the NLSY there is little evidence of lower return to black youths' contacts, but there is evidence of lower returns to Hispanic youths' contacts.