Africa’s single aviation market: The progress so far

To promote the development of air transport at the continental level, several policies were introduced, leading to the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) in late 1999, which had the liberalisation of the intra-African aviation spaces as its main objective. Even though notable progress has been achieved towards more market-oriented aviation policies, at the pan-African level some markets are still restrictive and inconsistent with the YD, particularly with respect to the granting of 5th freedom rights. This paper aims to examine recent developments in the aviation sector in Africa, with a focus on the implementation of the YD. The obstacles to liberalisation are discussed and several measures for facilitating Africa’s move towards multilateral open skies are investigated. These include, among others, a greater collaboration and co-operation among African airlines, as well as between African airlines and foreign ones; redefinition of the role and responsibilities of different institutions which are instrumental in implementing the YD and some further issues such as ownership guidelines.     

Probabilistic assessment of fleet-level noise impacts of projected technology improvements

Demand projections for civil aviation have forecast increases in operations in future decades. Increases in demand are beneficial to the growth and advancement of the aviation industry, but also come with the threat of significant increase in environmental impacts. In response, the industry is focusing on programs to develop technologies for reductions in fuel burn, NO_x emissions, and noise. While aircraft-level impacts are an obvious metric of success, it is difficult to make informed robust technology investment decisions with respect to noise without understanding the fleet-level impacts. Fleet-level predictions of noise for technology explorations are especially complicated because it is computationally expensive, highly combinatorial, and airport-specific. Recently, rapid automated airport noise models have been developed, which can be simulated using Design of Experiments (DOE). The results of these simulations are used to generate surrogate models for airport noise contour area, which can be summed to yield a fleet-level impact. These models make use of simplifying assumptions to provide estimates of airport-level noise that are substantially cheaper to compute. They can be used to perform parametric trade-off analyses in conjunction with the equivalency assumption. Equivalency asserts that environmental impacts of a technology infused aircraft can be represented by scaled operations of the baseline aircraft in the same class. This simple assumption allows for the modeling of technology and market penetration factors under the same units: operations. This research uses surrogate models in conjunction with the equivalency assumption to examine two potential technology scenarios in a target forecast year, simulating technology and market performance factors to identify vehicle classes that could have the greatest impact in reducing contour area. Results show that technology and market performance of future notional Small Single Aisle and Large Single Aisle vehicle aircraft have the highest positive correlations with potential reductions in contour area.     

The impact of agricultural policy on farm income concentration: the case of regional implementation of the CAP direct payments in Italy

One of the objectives of agricultural policy worldwide concerns the support of farm income. Common Agricultural Policy direct payments (DPs) are the main instruments to support farm income in the European Union. This article addresses their role in the concentration of farm income. This is done by calculating the Gini coefficient and its disaggregation in a large sample of Italian farms in the period between 2006 and 2007. Although this approach has been used to develop ex‐post analysis in previous studies, this article is innovative given that it is used here in an ex ante analysis aimed at evaluating the likely impact of a recent reform proposal. This latter requests changing the current model to a regional model of DPs application to make payment rates (i.e., payment per hectare) homogeneous among farms in the same region. The analysis shows that DPs and farm incomes are both very concentrated but that DPs allow for an income concentration reduction in Italian farms. The shift to a regional implementation reduces DPs concentration and, to a limited extent, farm income concentration. Of the considered regionalization scenarios, those that redistribute DPs among regions are the most effective in reducing concentration. The extension of the Gini considered approach to an ex ante setting seems effective because it provides insights that could feed the policy debate regarding the forthcoming reform.     

论我国西部区域间经济发展格局的变动

西部大开发的10年中,西部各地区都取得了巨大的发展成就,但彼此间的发展进度并不一致,导致了经济发展格局的变动。经过数据分析发现,西部各区域间发展差距有扩大的趋势,并且经济发展重心也有较大变化。认真分析这一变化,对于因地制宜的制定区域发展政策,促进区域协调发展具有重要指导意义。     

福建省自主创新服务能力现状及提升对策

福建省自主创新服务能力与全国各地主要省市相比处于中上水平。通过实施创新服务人力资源建设工程，设立创新服务机构发展专项基金，加强创新服务机构的能力建设，推进资本市场与技术市场体系建设，营造有利于自主创新服务的政策和科技环境及加快推进自主创新服务平台建设方式，来提升自主创新能力。     

纵向财政失衡、FDI竞争与医疗卫生服务供给水平——兼论标尺竞争机制下地区间的策略性行为北大核心CSSCI

关于医疗卫生服务供给不足的原因一直是社会各界高度关注的重点话题,现行的财政分权制度常被认为是最主要的原因。本文尝试将表征现行财政分权制度特征的三个要素,即纵向财政失衡、地区FDI竞争和地区间竞争模仿的策略性行为,与医疗卫生服务供给水平纳入同一分析框架,在对其理论机制分析的基础上,利用2007-2018年277个地级及以上城市面板数据,实证考察它们之间的关系特征及机制路径。研究发现,纵向财政失衡与地区FDI竞争对医疗卫生服务供给水平均存在显著的抑制作用,同时,地区FDI竞争对纵向财政失衡的负向抑制作用具有正向调节效应。进一步分析发现,地方政府间的标尺竞争使其在医疗卫生服务供给行为上表现出明显的策略模仿,医疗卫生服务供给水平呈明显的空间溢出效应。异质性分析发现,发达地区医疗卫生服务供给水平受抑制的主因是FDI竞争所致,欠发达地区则主要缘于纵向财政失衡的显著影响。机制分析发现,纵向财政失衡通过作用于财政支出结构与医疗卫生支出效率两种方式实现对医疗卫生服务供给水平的抑制,而FDI竞争则主要是通过扭曲财政支出结构的方式实现其抑制作用。本文的研究丰富了医疗卫生服务供给不足制度性成因探寻的文献,对于如何全面推进新一轮财税体制改革、深化医疗卫生体制改革、优化政绩考核指标等具有借鉴意义。     

黑龙江省对俄经贸合作面临八大发展机遇

当前,黑龙江省对俄经贸合作在中俄两国合作发展经贸关系、共建经贸环境,两国经济和有关政策,我省的突出优势等三个层面面临着八个发展机遇。我们应充分开发和利用这些机遇,推进对俄经贸合作的战略升级。     

外国直接投资与中国区域经济发展的实证分析

20世纪90年代以来FDI对中国经济发展影响越来越大。本文利用1991-2003年时间序列和横断面数据,就FDI对中国区域经济发展的短期效应和长期效应进行实证分析。结果表明在这段时间里FDI对中国区域经济非均衡发展有显著的影响,FDI促进中国区域经济发展,但是在区域间的非均衡分布又加剧了区域经济的非均衡发展。最后提出吸引更多的FDI到中西部地区、缩小区域经济差距、促进区域经济均衡发展的政策建议。     

Unemployment disparities and regional wage flexibility: comparing EU members and EU-accession countries

This paper provides empirical evidence on regional labor market flexibility in Europe and, in particular, in the EU-accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Whereas substantial regional disparities in unemployment are found for pre-accession EU member countries as well as for accession countries, an empirical analysis taking account of spatial effects shows that regional wage flexibility is significantly higher for accession countries. Moreover, unemployment disparities are found to be less persistent in the accession countries.

中国参与区域经济合作的历史进程及战略深化

20世纪90年代以来,与国内不断深入的改革开放历史进程相适应,面对席卷全球的世界经济一体化和新一轮区域经济一体化浪潮,中国开始了积极参与区域经济合作的艰辛探索,历经10多年的辛勤耕耘,取得了可喜成果,初步构建了多层次、多种机制的“米”字型区域经济合作基本框架。但中国的区域经济合作战略带有一定程度的“模糊性”和“软弱性”,总体上表现为一种务实的运动和一个具体的进程,没有清晰的议程和核心的目标。本文对中国参与区域经济合作的历史进程及当前的战略深化进行了初步探讨,并提出了自己的看法和见解。