企业内部控制评价指标体系研究

通过对国内外内部控制研究文献的分析,从五要素即内部环境、风险评估、控制活动、信息与沟通及内部监督出发构建含5个一级指标21个二级指标的初始评价指标体系.然后通过探索性因子分析和验证性性因子分析对其可靠性及合理性进行检验,证明了该模型具有良好信度和效度等.最后将所构建的评价指标应用于同性质的企业并对其内部控制进行评价,结果验证所构建的企业内部控制指标体系的适用价值.     

澳门旅游高等教育合作办学机制研究

本研究结合澳门本土地缘特点、文化特点、产业特点、教育特点,对澳门旅游高等教育进行SWOT分析。研究发现澳门旅游高等教育与本澳高校之间,可利用本土地缘优势,实现本土高校之间图书资源共享、教材共建、研讨会交流学术成果等方式的合作;与外地高校之间,可通过电子文献资源共享,交换生与学分互认,短期游学或实习,师资拼盘共建课程体系等方式进行合作;与政府之间,可在政策、经费支持、学术团队支持等方面进行合作;与企业之间,可通过资源共享、优势互补等方面进行互惠合作。通过几种合作机制的探讨以期实现澳门旅游高等教育的跨越式发展。     

THE GINI CONCENTRATION INDEX: A REVIEW OF THE INFERENCE LITERATURE

More than a century ago, Corrado Gini proposed his well-known concentration index for measuring the degree of inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. His index is still extremely relevant and widely used in several fields of research and application. In this paper, we focus on the inferential properties of the Gini index, and discuss the main directions of analysis proposed in the literature. The aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the main developments on the inferential aspects of the Gini concentration ratio. We feel that this work can provide a valuable contribution to those scholars who are approaching the large amount of literature on the inferential properties of the Gini index.     

Soft drink prices,sales, body mass index and diabetes: Evidence from a panel of low-, middle- and high-income countries

We take advantage of four different cross-country datasets containing data on 78 countries for the period 1999–2014, in order to assess the relationship of carbonated soft drinks’ sales, as well as their prices, with body mass index (BMI), overweight, obesity and diabetes. Using an ecological study design and multivariate regression longitudinal estimation approaches, we find that carbonated soft drink sales were significantly positively related to BMI, overweight and obesity – but only in the low and lower-middle income countries. This finding was robust to a number of sensitivity and falsification checks. In this sub-sample, an increase in per capita soft drink sales by 1 litre per year was related to an increase of BMI by about 0.009 kg/m² (p < 0.1).. This is a small effect, implying that halving annual consumption per capita in this group of countries would result in a drop of BMI by only about 0.03 kg/m². Although soft drink prices were negatively related to weight-related outcomes in the sample of higher middle income and high income countries, this finding was not robust to falsification checks. The results thus suggest that sales restrictions to steer consumers away from soft drinks could indeed have a beneficial health effects in poorer countries, although the effect magnitude appears to be very small. However, given potential limitations of using ecological research design, results from individual level studies would be required to further ascertain the role of soft drink sales and prices in obesity and diabetes.     

Granting preferential market access in services sequentially versus jointly with goods

Despite the cost and resource‐effectiveness of joint trade negotiations and complementarities between goods and services‐trade flows, more than 12% of the 132 WTO‐notified services‐trade agreements (STAs) in force until August 2015 were entered into effect sequentially to goods‐trade accords. This stylised fact motivates our study of the determinants of joint versus sequential negotiation/accession of goods and services accords, a subject hitherto unexplored in the growing literature on the determinants of STA membership. Our results suggest larger marginal effects of fundamental economic, geographic, institutional, doing business and services regulatory factors on the propensity of joint negotiation/accession compared to STA formation alone. Moreover, cultural‐distance variables are only found to affect the likelihood of joint preferential liberalisation of goods and services trade, without influencing STA‐only membership.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

基于高光谱曲线的马铃薯与其他主要作物光谱差异性分析

[目的]文章以马铃薯关键生长期——结薯期为测量时点,以马铃薯和玉米、大豆、水稻为研究对象,开展高光谱曲线特征差异性研究。[方法]为更好地描述马铃薯与其他作物的光谱差异,创建高光谱反射率差异性指数、高光谱一阶导数差异性指数、高光谱红边幅值差异性指数、高光谱曲率差异性指数及高光谱植被指数差异性指数。[结果](1)马铃薯与玉米、大豆、水稻3种作物光谱曲线具有明显差异,马铃薯与玉米的反射率值在480nm附近蓝色波段位置差异最显著,差异性指数值为67.866%,与大豆、水稻的最大差异性指数值分别为49.068%、57.559%,均位于550nm附近绿色波峰位置;(2)作物光谱曲线经一阶导数变换运算,马铃薯与其他作物间的光谱差异被显著放大,在近红外波段放大程度最显著;(3)马铃薯与玉米、大豆、水稻高光谱曲率差异性指数最大值均位于波长750nm附近,差异性指数值分别为78.365%、63.471%、80.882%;(4)常用植被指数中,比值植被指数、增强型植被指数可显著区分马铃薯与玉米、大豆、水稻。[结论]差异性分析结果为农作物空间分布遥感识别提供了技术支撑。     

Relationship between oil,stock prices and exchange rates: A vine copula based GARCH method

In this paper, we apply a vine copula approach to investigate the dynamic relationship between energy, stock and currency markets. Dependence modeling using vine copulas offers a greater flexibility and permits the modeling of complex dependency patterns for high-dimensional distributions. Using a sample of more than 10 years of daily return observations of the WTI crude oil, the Dow Jones Industrial average stock index and the trade weighted US dollar index returns, we find evidence of a significant and symmetric relationship between these variables. Considering different sample periods show that the dynamic of the relationship between returns is not constant over time. Our results indicate also that the dependence structure is highly affected by the financial crisis and Great Recession, over 2007–2009. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that the application of the vine copula model improves the accuracy of VaR estimates, compared to traditional approaches.     

Competition and efficiency in the MENA banking region: a non-structural DEA approach

The goal of this article is to empirically assess the relationship between competition and efficiency in the banking sector of Middle East and North African (MENA) countries spanning the period 1997–2011. To measure the level of competition, the article estimates the non-structural indicator known as the H-statistic, while the level of bank efficiency is estimated through the nonparametric methodology of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (BDEA), respectively. The empirical results are robust under six econometric methodologies, providing sufficient evidence for the presence of a one-way (negative) Granger causality, running from efficiency to competition. The empirical findings lead to the rejection of the ‘Efficient Structure Hypothesis’, implying that increases in competition do not precede increases in cost efficiency.     

Productivity changes in pre-crisis Western European banks: Does scale effect really matter?

Insofar as the completion of the Single Market for Financial Services, it has presented new challenges for European Banking industries. In this study, we use a recently developed generalized metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (gMMPI) to provide insights on productivity growth. We extend the gMMPI to broaden the index's capacity by decomposing various sources of productivity change in the metafrontier context. The sample contains commercial banks from 12 Western European countries prior to the recent financial crisis. A key advantage of our extension is that it introduces the role of scale effects. The empirical results show that an average bank's productivity growth arises mainly from technical changes and scale effects. Moreover, smaller and larger banks grow faster than medium ones. In addition, conservative banks tend to grow faster. These findings suggest that a more competitive and integrated financial market induced by financial deregulation is indeed able to improve banks’ productivity.