Congestion with heterogeneous commuters

We study a congestion model where a continuum of heterogeneous commuters make a binary choice between riding a bus and driving private vehicles for their commutes. Formulating the model as a large game, we establish the existence and uniqueness of a nontrivial Nash equilibrium and analyze how a gasoline tax affects the allocation of commuters between public transportation and private vehicles at the equilibrium. Based on the analysis, we provide a sufficient condition under which a gasoline tax is Pareto improving. We also prove the existence of a socially optimal policy that minimizes the aggregate loss to all commuters.     

Search in cities

The aim of this paper is to expose the recent developments of urban search models which incorporate a land market into a search-matching framework. Using these models, we will be able to explain why unemployment rates vary within a city, how city structure affects workers’ labor-market outcomes, how unemployment benefits and the job-destruction rate affect the growth of cities and why workers living far away from job centers search less intensively and experience higher unemployment rates than those residing closer to jobs. We are also able to explain why, as compared to whites, black workers spend more time commuting to work but travel less miles and search for jobs over a smaller area.     

The evolving concepts of land administration in China: Cultivated land protection perspective

This paper presents a holistic method by integrating three concepts (land resources management, assets supervision and political governance for sustainability) for investigation of land administration in China, taking into consideration of cultivated land protection for a testimony with econometric method. Theoretically, in this self-organizing integrated method, land resources management focuses on the productivity of land; land assets supervision centralizes on the realization of land usufruct rights in land transference; land political governance for sustainability concentrates on harmonious linkage of economic efficiency, social stability and environmental safety of land use. Their interrelations are complex. Methodologically, the results indicate that the theoretical model is feasible to explain variations of cultivated land protection with these three concepts. Cultivated land decreases with increasing land value increment multiples, and is positive with political governance concept, but not in a linear fashion. Finally the results suggest that roles of government in land administration need to be changed and strengthened, supporting complete compensation for land expropriation and modification to policies of cultivated land.     

The Black Enterprise Magazine Ranking of Colleges for African Americans: A Structural Analysis

This paper assesses the Black Enterprise Magazine (BE) ranking of the “top 50 colleges for African Americans,” which it publishes biennially. Its principal objective is to evaluate the statistical consistency in the ranking over the distribution of institutions that compose it. The paper attempts to address two-related questions. Does the BE report provide an unbiased and consistent assessment of the educational value associated with the institutions included in their listing? Is the ranking method internally consistent? Two experiments were used to evaluate the consistency of the BE ranking. First, structural difference in the model used to rank the institutions in the upper and lower half of the distribution is tested. Second, structural difference in the model used to rank HBCU and non-HBCU institutions included in the BE listed ranking is tested. In both cases the null hypothesis of the same structure is rejected.     

SPATIAL DISCRIMINATION,PRODUCT SUBSTITUTABILITY AND WELFARE

The paper examines a quantity–location duopoly game in a spatial discrimination model in which the delivered goods are assumed to be imperfect substitutes or complements. By extending the range of the unit transportation cost analysed in the existing literature, it is shown that a dispersed equilibrium arises in which the choice of the optimal locations is affected by the degree of product substitutability. The interaction between the latter and the size of the transportation cost is also discussed in order to verify its welfare implications. In particular, it is shown that in this spatial framework imperfect substitutability may increase welfare.     

R／S分析在我国股票市场上的应用

长期以来，资本市场理论为线性范式所主宰，而近来的许多研究都表明，市场具有复杂的非线性动力系统的特征。本文通过对上海、深圳股票市场的R／S实证分析，揭示了我国股票市场波动的非线性特征，为进一步研究我国资本市场的非线性特征提供了依据。     

高新技术企业内部治理与研发支出相关性实证研究

研发是高新技术企业生存和发展的重要推动力,探讨研发支出与公司内部治理之间的关系对于推动企业的研发创新和公司治理均有着重要的意义。本文研究了可能影响研发支出的公司内部治理因素,并对其进行了实证检验。研究发现,信息披露透明度、独立董事比重和机构投资者持股比例对研发支出均具有较显著的影响。     

Impacts in Uganda of rising global food prices: the role of diversified staples and limited price transmission

This study assesses the potential impact of rising world food prices on the welfare of Ugandan households. While Uganda experienced sharply higher food prices in 2008, as a landlocked, food‐exporting country the causes of those price changes were mainly regional and indirect rather than directly transmitted from global markets. Using trade volumes, food prices, and household survey data we describe how Uganda, unlike some other countries, is partially shielded from direct impacts of global food price movements. Although the majority of Ugandans are net food buyers, the adverse impact at household‐level of rising global prices is moderated by the relatively large quantity and range of staples consumed that come from home production. Moreover, several of these are not widely traded. Some population groups in Uganda are vulnerable to rising food prices, however, primarily those for whom maize is an important staple, including those dependent upon humanitarian relief and the urban poor. Only a relatively small group of Ugandan households will benefit directly and immediately from rising food prices—the significant net sellers of food crops constituting between 12% and 27% of the population. In this assessment we do not estimate the level and extent of wider second round effects from these higher prices.     

Government Failure in Urban Transportation

This paper assesses governmental performance in its investment, provision and regulation of urban transportation. Attention is given to public bus and rail transit and road transportation. Evidence based on urban transport in US cities reveals substantial allocative and technical inefficiencies that have led to large public transit deficits and severe highway congestion. I argue that it is futile to expect public officials to remedy the situation by pursuing more efficient policies such as congestion pricing and weighing costs and benefits when deciding transit service. The problem is that urban transportation policy is largely shaped by entrenched political forces that inhibit constructive change. The only realistic way to improve the system is to shield it from those influences and expose it to market forces by privatising it. This position is supported by empirical evidence based on simulations for the US and the UK's early experience with privatisation.     

国际贸易应用型人才培养问题探讨

地方应用型本科院校如何针对自身实际,突出专业特色,培养应用型人才,是目前有关方面人士着力探讨的问题。文中从国际贸易人才培养的角度,提出以"模拟实验"、"外贸单证实务操作"、"校企互动"等为特色的专业规划,成为应用型人才培养过程中的重要环节和现实手段的观点,以此带动整体专业建设水平的提高。