International currency speculation,market stability and efficiency in the 1920s: A time series approach

Vector autoregressive time-series modelling methodology is applied to the 1920s exchange-rate data for France, Germany, the U.S.A., Belgium, and Holland. A Wald test is found to conclusively reject the hypothesis that the forward rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate for all five currencies. Details are given of various external shocks that may have influenced the exchange rates and these are dealt with by a set of dummy variables. The data series exhibit some rapid depreciations and nonstationarities of interest to econometricians and time series analysts.     

美国以自然资源保护为宗旨的土地休耕经验

美国土地休耕制度包括一系列水土保持计划和以土壤侵蚀度为主要指标的水土保持评价标准,它通过一系列耕地保护计划来推行。回顾美国农业耕作土地采取休耕政策及其实施情况,讨论了值得我国学习和借鉴的土地休耕计划的政策的成本费用等问题。     

Stackelberg price leadership in spatial competition

This paper examines Stackelberg price leadership in a spatially competitive model with infinitely many stores on an infinite line. A Stackelberg price leader charges significantly more than the pure Nash equilibrium price, induces its neighbors to charge somewhat more than the pure Nash equilibrium price, and increases its profits. Under Nash equilibrium, collusion of two stores makes a difference to prices only if the colluding stores are nearest neighbors. Under Stackelberg price leadership, collusion makes a difference to prices even if the stores are not nearest neighbors.     

Barriers to use of policy-relevant information by decision makers

This paper identifies the major barriers which hinder or prevent the application of policy-relevant information, derived from analytical techniques, to practical decisions by actual decision makers. The focus of the report is on Technology Assessment (TA), as an analytical technique which has not yet received the level of utilization which its practitioners have hoped for. However, TA borrows from the older analytic disciplines of technological forecasting and systems analysis, and is related to others such as cost-benefit analysis. Because of the similarities with these other disciplines, many of the barriers which hinder the application of these older techniques also act as barriers to the greater     

Four strategies for the age of smart services

Most industrial manufacturers realize that the real money isn't in products but in services. Companies such as General Electric and IBM have famously made the transition: A large proportion of their revenues and margins come from providing value-added services to customers. But other companies attempting to do the same might miss the boat. It is not enough, the authors say, just to provide services. Businesses must now provide "smart services"--building intelligence (awareness and connectivity) into the products themselves. Citing examples such as Heidelberger Druckmaschinen's Internet-connected printing presses and Eaton Electrical's home-monitoring service, the authors demonstrate how a product that can report its status back to its maker represents an opportunity for the manufacturer to cultivate richer, longer-term relationships with customers. Four business models will emerge in this new, networked world. If you go it alone, it may be as an embedded innovator- that is, your networked product sends back information that can help you optimize service delivery, eliminate waste and inefficiency, and raise service margins. Or, you may pursue a more aggressive solutionist business model- that is, you position your networked product as a "complete solution provider," able to deliver a broader scope of high-value services than those provided by the embedded innovator's product. In the case of a system that aggregates and processes data from multiple products in a building or home, you may be either an aggregator or a synergist, partnering with others to pursue a smart-services opportunity. An aggregator's product is the hub, collecting and processing usage information- and creating a high-value body of data. A synergist's product is the spoke, contributing valuable data or functionality. Woe to the company that takes none of these paths; it'll soon find its former customers locked in--and happily--to other smart service providers.