Targeting Conservation Investments in Heterogeneous Landscapes: A Distance-Function Approach and Application to Watershed Management

To achieve an environmental objective at least cost, decision makers must integrate information about spatially variable biophysical and economic conditions. Although the biophysical attributes that contribute to an environmental outcome are often known, the way in which these attributes interact to produce the outcome is often unknown. We introduce a nonparametric conservation targeting approach that relies on distance functions to cost-efficiently allocate conservation funds. We apply the approach empirically to the case of conservation contracting for water-quality objectives. The contract portfolios derived from the application have many desirable properties, including intuitive appeal and robust performance across plausible parametric scoring measures.     

Aggregate Dividend Behavior and Permanent Earnings Hypothesis

The study examines the aggregate dividend behavior of U.S. corporations based on the permanent earnings hypothesis. Using annual data of aggregate earnings and dividends from 1871–1993, I find that although managers change dividends proportional to permanent earnings changes, they make revisions with a larger percentage change in dividends than in permanent earnings. The results from the post‐war data show that firms follow a partial adjustment policy with a long‐term dividend payout target in mind and make revisions with a delay. The quarterly data analysis yields results similar to those of the post‐war annual data.     

Urban Influence on Costs of Production in the Corn Belt

This article determines the relative technical efficiency of rural- and urban-influenced crop/livestock enterprises in the Corn Belt. Farmers in urban-influenced locations are less technically efficient than farmers in rural locations. During 1998–2000, stochastic production frontier procedures indicate that a 10% increase in urban influence leads to a close to 4% decrease in technical efficiency. The most successful urban-influenced farms have controlled costs as effectively as rural farms. They have tended to de-emphasize that nondairy livestock activities—particularly beef and hogs—do not rely extensively on off-farm income, and have relatively large, less residential/lifestyle operations compared to less successful urban-influenced farmers. However, our statistical analysis clearly bears out the refrain in popular literature that urban proximity raises the cost for, and decreases the viability of, traditional farms.     

Measurement of formal harmonization progress:: The IASC experience

As a result of globalization, the accounting profession has become increasingly aware of the need to establish a single set of accounting standards that would be valid in the international arena. Recent events highlight the timeliness of this study, which provides an empirical measurement of International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) progress throughout its harmonization history. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, a new measure of the advances achieved through formal harmonization and second, to use this methodology to evaluate the IASC achievements all through its standard-setting activity. Our results prove that the IASC has made great progress in regard to the level of harmony achieved through the accounting standards it has issued or revised. Nevertheless, we conclude that the IASC needs to continue working towards greater formal harmonization. Our study also indicates research directions that could advance the study of formal harmonization. This specific area of research has generally been disregarded in the existing literature, a trend we would like to see reversed, considering that its application can provide valuable insight for standard-setting processes, especially now that the accounting community is so conscious of the need to advance the harmonization process.     

蜜月游市场特征的相关与回归分析——针对北京常住居民蜜月游市场

在我国,蜜月游市场发展迅猛,潜力巨大,收益率颇高.特别值得注意的是,我们调研发现:高收入者与非高收入者共享蜜月游这一高端旅游产品.为此我们进行了相关的定量分析,以进一步研究其发展脉络,揭示其变动趋势,为政府主管部门及相关旅游企业提供决策依据.     

区域经济发展差距:新经济地理、要素流动与经济政策

改革开放后,中国区域经济发展差距主要表现为区域间差距的扩大,而非区域内部差距的扩大。这一现象的发生是多方面原因共同作用的结果:在新经济地理因素的影响下,具有区位优势的东部沿海地区吸引了中西部地区大量的生产要素进行跨区域流动,加上中央政府的政策导向作用,使得中国经济发展差距呈现出逐步扩大的趋势。因此,中央政府应该采取有力措施,以便在全国形成合理的区域分工,进而达到缩小区域经济发展差距的目标。     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

用违约距离判别信用风险:一个实证研究

本文选取了在中国A股市场上市的4家具有一定代表性的ST公司和4家对照公司，并通过计算从2003年到2005年的静态违约距离和不变增长率假设下的违约距离，发现后者比前者具有更好的判别能力；同时对影响违约距离大小的输入变量进行了敏感性分析，发现违约距离对股票收益波动率的变化最为敏感，因而精确计算波动率是关键。     

On Choosing and Bounding Probability Metrics

When studying convergence of measures, an important issue is the choice of probability metric. We provide a summary and some new results concerning bounds among some important probability metrics/distances that are used by statisticians and probabilists. Knowledge of other metrics can provide a means of deriving bounds for another one in an applied problem. Considering other metrics can also provide alternate insights. We also give examples that show that rates of convergence can strongly depend on the metric chosen. Careful consideration is necessary when choosing a metric.     

基于模糊偏序关系的消费者偏好测评

了解消费者偏好是企业营销活动的基础性工作。本文首先利用模糊偏序关系的排序方法,解决消费者偏好的心理测度的模糊性问题,论证了用模糊偏序关系对心理测度进行评价是一种较好的方法;然后利用决策理论中的condorect函数把个人偏好合成群体偏好;最后用实例验证了该方法对消费者偏好进行评价的可行性。