Firm productivity and agglomeration economies: evidence from Egyptian data

This paper attempts to shed the light on the nexus between firms’ productivity and economies of agglomeration in Egypt. Using a large dataset of firms in 342 firms’ four-digit activities in 27 regions (62,108 firms), we introduce three measures of agglomeration which are urbanization or firm diversification measured by the number of firms by governorate, localization and specialization measured by the average productivity by governorate and sector (generating externalities and knowledge spillovers) and finally competition measured by the number of firm operating in the same governorate and the same sector. We find strong evidence for the existence of agglomeration in Egypt after controlling for firm age, location, economic activity and legal status. In the Egyptian context, productivity spillovers gained from agglomeration measures outweighed the negative effects of competition implied by congestion. The latter is chiefly due to the lack of good infrastructure. When regressions are run by firm size, location and activity, our main findings show first that micro and small firms are more likely to benefit from localization and diversification compared to medium and large firms. Service firms benefit more from high level of diversification while manufacturing firms gain more benefits from knowledge spillovers and specialization in Egypt.     

Simple formulas for standard errors that cluster by both firm and time

When estimating finance panel regressions, it is common practice to adjust standard errors for correlation either across firms or across time. These procedures are valid only if the residuals are correlated either across time or across firms, but not across both. This paper shows that it is very easy to calculate standard errors that are robust to simultaneous correlation along two dimensions, such as firms and time. The covariance estimator is equal to the estimator that clusters by firm, plus the estimator that clusters by time, minus the usual heteroskedasticity-robust ordinary least squares (OLS) covariance matrix. Any statistical package with a clustering command can be used to easily calculate these standard errors.     

纳米TiO_2的表面处理方法及改性效果表征

分析了纳米 TiO_2 的团聚与分散机理 ,介绍了纳米 Ti O_2 的表面处理方法及表面处理效果的表征方法。     

我国区域金融结构转变与区域经济发展的实证分析

本文首先用格兰杰因果检验方法分析了我国区域金融结构转变与区域经济发展之间的关系,得出我国区域金融结构转变是被动的适应区域经济发展的结果,而不是导源于金融的自由化。然后针对分析结果提出优化我国区域金融结构的建议。     

赤道原则-国际金融公司政策的延伸

赤道原则是国际项目融资的环境与社会的最低行业标准。它的制订与执行由国际金融公司主导,它的核心内容基本上援引了国际金融公司的政策和指南,国际金融公司环境与社会政策的评审结果关乎着赤道原则的命运。国际金融公司也帮助赤道银行培训赤道原则专家,国际金融公司的政策与实践直接影响赤道原则的性质。它把自己定位为开发性金融规则的提倡者,是由于现实因素的推动,客观上提高了银行的公众形象,也提高了国际金融公司自身的形象。     

Sequential control of time series by functionals of kernal-weighted empirical processes under local alternatives

Motivated in part by applications in model selection in statistical genetics and sequential monitoring of financial data, we study an empirical process framework for a class of stopping rules which rely on kernel-weighted averages of past data. We are interested in the asymptotic distribution for time series data and an analysis of the joint influence of the smoothing policy and the alternative defining the deviation from the null model (in-control state). We employ a certain type of local alternative which provides meaningful insights. Our results hold true for short memory processes which satisfy a weak mixing condition. By relying on an empirical process framework we obtain both asymptotic laws for the classical fixed sample design and the sequential monitoring design. As a by-product we establish the asymptotic distribution of the Nadaraya-Watson kernel smoother when the regressors do not get dense as the sample size increases.Acknowledgements The author is grateful to two anonymous referees for their constructive comments, which improved the paper. One referee draws my attention to Lifshits paper. The financial support of the Collaborative Research Centre Reduction of Complexity in Multivariate Data Structures (SFB 475) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) is greatly acknowledged.     

State competition in higher education: A race to the top,or a race to the bottom?

How does competition affect higher education? This paper explores this question for public and private universities. Theory indicates that competition can push higher education policy in one of two different directions. On the one hand, competition may increase spending. For states, this would occur if states treat higher education as developmental; for private universities this would occur if they view spending as a means to attract students and prestige. On the other hand, competition may decrease spending if states treat higher education spending as redistributive, and competition may decrease spending by private schools if lower spending enhances their ability to attract students with low tuition. To determine which of these perspectives is most valid, we examine higher education policy choices in the 1980s and 1990s. We find that states appear to act as if higher education funding is redistributive while private schools appear to compete more on the basis of tuition than spending. These results demonstrate the important effects competition and governance structure have on higher education.Received: August 2001, Accepted: May 2002, JEL Classification: I2, I22, H72, I3     

发展政策性金融有待解决的三大难题

我国未来政策性金融的发展前景取决于三大难题的解决,即政策性金融的生存空间、业务领域、保障机制。本文认为,政策性金融是市场机制有益的和必要的补充,政策性金融的存在使一国的金融体系得以完善。市场的不足内生了政策性金融的生存空间和具体的业务领域,政策性金融作为一种特殊的金融制度安排,具有战略意义,但政策性金融的可持续发展有赖于专门法律制度的构建和完善。     

"退而更化":中国合作金融的改良之路

合作金融的现代化从社会哲学上看,涉及到如何处理现代化与传统之间的紧张关系;涉及到否定传统、移植西方体制的思维方式对错的问题.从回答这个基本社会哲学问题入手,检讨中国传统合作金融组织——舍会的珍贵遗产,申明白愿原则是合作金融的灵魂以及这个灵魂对当今中国合作金融的改良所具有的价值.在此基础上,本文提出了以组建中国农村合作银行为核心的政策建议,而中国农业银行出售非农业务、回归农村,与农村信用社进行资本重组与业务整舍,是现实可行的一条最佳途径.     

交易费用视角下的金融集聚效应

从交易费用视角看,产业集聚可以扩大市场广度,增加市场深度,从而拓展市场范围,促进分工的进一步发展并实现分工的利益.金融集聚作为产业集聚的一种形式,通过和当地服务业、制造业的互动拓展了金融产业的市场广度;通过金融企业之间的竞争合作关系增加了金融产业的市场深度,对区域金融产业产生积极的集聚效应,促进了地区金融业的良性发展.