Power, Development, and Institutional Change: Participatory Governance in the Lower Mekong Basin

One of the central challenges for the multitude of actors concerned with the governance of transboundary river basins is how to produce meaningful mechanisms for promoting the participation of a broad cross-section of actors in resource planning and management decisions. This paper elucidates recent efforts to enhance policies of public participation within the context of governance in the Lower Mekong basin. The paper concludes that while the obstacles to institutionalizing public participation are substantial, some modicum of genuine participation, that may in time contribute to a broader project of transformation, can emerge within intergovernmental development institutions, albeit through surprising means.     

Karl Pearson and the Scandinavian School of Statistics

The relationship between Karl Pearson and the Scandinavian statisticians was more of a competitive than a collaborative nature. We describe the leading statisticians and stochasticists of the Scandinavian school, and relate some of their work to the work of Pearson.     

The accomplishment of the Maastricht criteria with respect to initial debt

The reduction of government debt to 60% of the GDP in order to satisfy the requirements of the Maastricht Treaty for participation in the European Monetary Union is one of the primary economic-policy goals for most of the European Union countries. The first aim of the present paper is to characterize the optimal path of the primary surplus that leads to the achievement of this Maastricht target. Using optimal-control theory we are able to determine an upper bound of the public-debt-to-GDP ratio above which no retrenchment policy becomes effective. The second issue taken up is that of the sensitivity analysis with respect to the initial level of the debt-to-GDP ratio, the growth rate of the economy, the interest rate, the inflation rate, and the inverse of the velocity of the monetary base circulation.     

Do Inflation‐Linked Bonds Still Diversify?

The diversifying power of inflation-linked (IL) bonds relative to traditional asset classes has changed significantly. In this paper, we study the dynamics of conditional volatilities and correlations for three asset classes, IL bonds, nominal bonds and equities, in the USA and Europe. Using a DCC-MVGARCH for the period 1997–2007, we highlight the change that took place in 2003. Although IL bonds once had definite diversification power, they are now highly correlated with nominal bonds and have reached similar volatility levels. As a result, the two asset classes are practically substitutable. This seems to be due to more stable inflation expectations and to a more liquid IL bond market. Although diversification was a valuable reason for introducing IL bonds in a global portfolio before 2003, this is no longer the case. Dynamic portfolio optimisation using our estimates of conditional correlations and volatilities clearly demonstrates that the optimal weight of IL bonds in a portfolio decreased sharply in 2003 in favour of nominal bonds and equities.     

Numerical and analytical results for the transportation problem of Monge-Kantorovich

The Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem has a long and interesting history and has found a great variety of applications (see Rachev and Rüschendorf (1998a,b)). Some interesting characterizations of optimal solutions to the transportation problem (resp. coupling problems) have been found recently. For the squared distance and discrete distributions they relate optimal solutions to generalized Voronoi diagrams. Numerically we investigate the dependence of optimal couplings on variations of the coupling function. Numerical results confirm also a conjecture on optimal couplings in the one-dimensional case for nonconvex coupling functions. A proof of this conjecture is given under some technical conditions. Received: November 1999     

Structure of the optimal income tax in the quasi-linear model

Existing numerical characterizations of the optimal income tax have been based on a limited number of model specifications. As a result, they do not reveal which properties are general. We determine the optimal tax in the quasi-linear model under weaker assumptions than have previously been used; in particular, we remove the assumption of a lower bound on the utility of zero consumption and the need to permit negative labor incomes. A Monte Carlo analysis is then conducted in which economies are selected at random and the optimal tax function constructed. The results show that in a significant proportion of economies the marginal tax rate rises at low skills and falls at high. The average tax rate is equally likely to rise or fall with skill at low skill levels, rises in the majority of cases in the centre of the skill range, and falls at high skills. These results are consistent across all the specifications we test. We then extend the analysis to show that these results also hold for Cobb-Douglas utility.     

存货购销中最优期权合约交易量研究

在分析利用期权合约规避价格波动风险的原理的基础上,分别给出存货购销两个环节中可以运用的期权策略,然后利用均值方差模型计算使投资组合达到效用最大化时所对应的最优期权合约交易量及其对经营利润的影响,研究发现：在存货采购环节,企业可以通过购入看涨期权、购入看涨期权同时售出看跌期权两种策略控制采购价格波动的风险,在存货销售环节,企业可以通过购入看跌期权、同时购入看跌期权并售出看涨期权两种策略来稳定销售利润;从最优期权合约交易量及其对企业经营利润的影响来看,期权工具在控制存货采购价格、稳定销售利润中可以发挥良好作用。     

指派问题的改进算法

指派问题是管理技术中的重要内容,指派问题的经典算法就是经典的匈牙利法。针对匈牙利法在处理有诸多指派问题的模型不能进行有效求解的情形,本文提出了匈牙利法的改进算法,并应用改进算法在人员任务分派等实例中进行了有效的求解,得到了优化分配的方案,说明模型算法的有效性和实用性。     

表上作业法和Matlab求解土方调配方案的比较

论述了表上作业法和以线性规划理论为基础的Matlab软件求解土方调配方案两种方法,通过具体事例分析,用Matlab软件求解的调配方案跟用表上作业法求得的土方调配方案是一样的,但用Matlab软件确定土方调配方案不仅速度快而且运算结果也比较精确。合理的确定土方调配方案可以缩短工期、降低成本,提高建设项目的经济效益。     

Price Stability in Economies with Habit Persistence

This paper shows that the divine‐coincidence does not hold in a sticky price model with external habit if a time‐varying tax rate on labor income is not implemented to fully eliminate the time‐varying distortions associated with external habit and monopoly power in goods market. The required labor income tax rate is inversely related to the risk‐free real interest rate and the markup in the goods market, but it is proportional to the degree of external habit. Under this circumstance, the optimal monetary policy commands a countercyclical interest rate, having a perfect negative correlation with tax rate in the sticky price model with external habit. If a time‐invariant tax is the only fiscal instrument, then the degree of external habit entails a gap between the private marginal rate of substitution between consumption and labor and the social marginal rate of substitution, generating an endogenous trade‐off between the stabilization of welfare‐relevant output gap and inflation. Under this circumstance, price stability is not the optimal policy. The monetary policy authority should optimally try to undo the time‐varying distortions associated with external habit and monopoly power in goods market by deviating from price stability.