Factors of trade in Europe

We analyze how a set of determinants affect trade among European countries over the period 1992–2008. The factors encompass variables from the areas of geography, culture, institutions, infrastructure, and trade direction. Trade is analyzed for four types of goods: primary goods, parts and components, capital goods, and consumer goods. For each type of good we also distinguish its definition in terms of flows, intensive margin, and extensive margin. Methodologically, we first derive country-pair fixed effects over all possible pairs of export–import partners, and in the second stage we relate fixed effects with a set of influential factors. We show (i) the intuitive and varying effects of geographical, cultural, and institutional factors; (ii) the beneficial effects of soft and hard infrastructure; and (iii) the key importance of trade between old and new EU members.     

Re-examining the economic determinants of alcohol consumption in Canada: controlling for the presence of common correlated effects

Alcoholic beverages represent both an important source of revenue and a driver of expenditure for provincial governments in Canada. As a result, the pricing of alcoholic beverages has substantial public policy implications. In this context, we re-examine existing work estimating the demand for three classes of alcoholic beverage (beer, wine, and spirits) by controlling for common correlated effects. The results reveal that any conclusions regarding the government’s ability to influence alcohol consumption is sensitive to the assumption that the relationship between the demand for alcoholic beverages and economic variables is identical across provinces.     

Interest rate dynamic effect on stock returns and central bank transparency: Evidence from emerging markets

Interest rate dynamic effect on stock returns is examined under different levels of central bank transparency under an asset pricing context. Using a large set of emerging countries in a panel data framework, we provide evidence for a negative link between stock returns and interest rate differences. However, this negative effect is reduced significantly under a transparent central bank, underlying a non-linear impact on stock returns. Our study is focused on a period from 1998 to 2008 where fundamental changes in the level of central banks’ transparency were occurred. Our findings imply that restrictive monetary policies under high levels of transparency lead to smoother reductions on stock returns with significant benefits for financial stability.     

Applying LSA text mining technique in envisioning social impacts of emerging technologies: The case of drone technology

This research proposes a novel method of identifying and understanding the holistic overview of emerging technologies’ unintended consequences. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) text mining technique is employed to yield multiple groups of contextually similar terms from future-oriented data sources, comprising both experts’ and the public's concerns regarding future technologies. Resulting term clusters are considered as new abstractions, or so-called scenarios, of future social impacts. Furthermore, the study acquires greater depth and breadth in conceptualizing social impacts through considering condition- and value-related terms as key linking factors to previous social impact-related literature. Our proposed methodology seeks to gain insights into the utilization of future-oriented data sources for the foresight activity, hoping to mitigate public skepticism and pursue a better social acceptance of emerging technologies.     

从“大数据”到“智能数据”——剖析德国国家智能数据创新实验室的定位和模式

面对全球范围的"大数据之争",德国具备信息技术产业及市场快速增长、信息技术服务业和软件业世界领先、传统制造业数字化基础良好等优势条件,亦有明显的结构性缺陷。为落实"数字变革战略",实施"数字议程",提升德国在大数据领域的核心竞争力,德国联邦政府联合科技界和产业界代表,启动了全新的国家尖端研究平台一一"智能数据创新实验室",提出"智能数据"创新理念,通过推动产学研合作,对大数据进行进阶的智能化处理,以抢占未来的战略发展高地。本文对该平台的定位和模式进行了剖析,供国内有关部门参考。     

How should Engel's law be formulated?

Engel's law expresses a “negative stochastic association” of income and the proportion of income that is spent on food. However, there are many quite different notions of “negative stochastic association” and consequently there are different ways of defining Engel's law. We relate these different concepts to Engel's original statistical analysis and show that one must give credit to Engel for the first non-parametric statistical analysis of budget-data.     

Rivaroxaban for non-valvular atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism in the Netherlands: a real-world data based cost-effectiveness analysis

Background: Non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) have been included in international guidelines as important alternatives to vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) for the treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and stroke prevention in non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, NOACs are widely used next to VKAs. The objective of this study is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of treatment with rivaroxaban compared to VKAs in NVAF and VTE patients in the Netherlands, using data from international prospective observational phase IV studies.

Methods: Two models were developed to represent NVAF and VTE patients, populated with patients from the XANTUS (NCT01606995) and XALIA (NCT01619007) international prospective observational studies. The 1-year cost-effectiveness of rivaroxaban use, compared to VKAs, was explored in a population consisting of NVAF and VTE patients (base case) as well as for four scenarios with sub-populations: NVAF patients only, VTE patients only, NVAF patients with unstable international normalized ratio (INR), and NVAF patients using an INR self-measuring device.

Results: In the base case, rivaroxaban saved €72,350 and gained 21 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) in a simulation of 2,000 patients over the use of VKAs. Ergo, rivaroxaban was dominant over VKAs. The probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed a probability of 85% for rivaroxaban being dominant and 100% at a willingness-to-pay threshold of €20,000/QALY. Rivaroxaban appeared to be dominant in all scenarios as well, except for the NVAF-patients-only scenario where the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was €157/QALY.

Conclusions: In patients with NVAF or VTE, rivaroxaban treatment is likely to be cost-effective and a potentially cost-saving alternative to VKA in the Netherlands.     

基于动态面板数据模型分析FDI的环境效应

外商直接投资在对中国经济增长起到积极推动作用的同时,我们也不可忽视其可能会对我国环境造成的影响。文章通过构建环境污染综合指数,并且以东中西部为三个横截面建立动态面板数据模型来分析外商直接投资对各个地区环境的影响。结果显示,外商直接投资和东部中部地区的环境污染指数之间有正相关关系,和西部地区的环境污染指数之间是一个负相关关系。     

基于Excel的道路工程计算技术

围绕数据组织、数据的联动检索技术、Excel高级函数、Excel自定义函数、Excel VBA程序的开发过程,系统地建立了基于Excel的道路工程计算的框架模板。     

中国旅游地理研究：成果应用转化和研究技术革新

旅游的产业属性决定了旅游地理研究的实践性,在服务国家战略和产业实践需求的过程中,中国旅游地理学科呈现出研究领域、方法和应用的新特征。本文围绕旅游规划、旅游资源、旅游大数据和旅游实验方法等进行总结与展望,认为：（1）旅游规划是透视旅游地理研究发展的重要视角,旅游规划的知识域主要包括旅游开发战略与对策、旅游业与旅游企业、乡村旅游与乡村振兴等12个方面;（2）新时代文化和旅游资源普查面临文旅资源保护和整合利用的重大现实需求,为旅游地理研究带来了文旅资源的内涵与分类评价、普查信息集成与应用、普查技术与组织方式等新命题;（3）大数据背景下要求旅游地理探寻新科学问题,重点要关注大数据旅游统计测量模型和指标规则的规范,数据伦理与信息茧房,大数据旅游现象的地理效应和相关空间格局等研究;（4）实验研究方法在认识论层面从描述走向解释预测,在方法论层面从调查走向直接测量,为认识和理解旅游情境下人地关系的核心科学问题提供了“科学化”的研究路径。因此,面对新时代战略要求和旅游业发展趋势,旅游地理学应加强产业实践、研究方法和学科交叉研究,提升学科服务国家战略和社会经济发展的支撑能力。