Mandatory IFRS adoption and management forecasts: The impact of enforcement changes

We examine how concurrent enforcement changes affect the positive relationship between mandatory IFRS adoption and firms’ voluntary disclosure. We show that the increase in the issuance of management forecasts after IFRS adoption is smaller for firms from IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes than for those from countries without such changes. We find no difference in the increase of forecast informativeness between firms from IFRS-mandating countries without concurrent enforcement changes and firms from non-IFRS-mandating countries; however, firms domiciled in IFRS-mandating countries with concurrent enforcement changes exhibit a significantly smaller increase in forecast informativeness. Our findings suggest that better IFRS enforcement distinctly weakens (strengthens) the positive effect of IFRS adoption on voluntary (mandatory) disclosure.     

Are China’s regional agricultural productivities converging: How and why?

This article tests the hypotheses of convergence to a single level of total factor productivity (TFP), and a steady state of TFP growth rate in China’s agricultural sector. Based on multilateral TFP estimates we found that China’s agricultural sector has rebounded in recent years from a slower TFP growth in the 2005–2007 period. While convergence test results confirm a “catch-up” effect that provinces with lower TFP levels tend to grow faster than others, estimated rates of β convergence are conditional on how we capture the heterogeneity effect across regions. The rates of β convergence range from 0.016 to 0.039 under different model specifications. Estimates show that higher growth rates of educational attainment, R&D, and intermediate goods density (per unit of labor) can enhance TFP growth. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of an overall σ convergence, indicating that TFP levels are not converging except in the South region. It implies that to catch up with leading provinces, it would require extra efforts for those lagging behind by increasing their region-specific research investment, promoting rural educational attainment, and enhancing embodied technical change.     

信息企业特征分析

信息产业是21世纪世界竞争的焦点。信息企业作为信息产业的微观参与主体,是与工业企业、商业企业、农业企业等并列的一种企业类型。信息企业的主要活动空间是信息市场,主要产出是信息产品。信息产品不同于物质产品,它主要以其知识内容满足人们的需要。信息产品的特点决定了信息企业除了具有一般企业的共性外,还具有与一般的工业企业和商业企业不同的特征。本文主要从信息产品的角度出发对信息企业的诸多特征加以探讨。     

ICT Statistics at the New Millennium—Developing Official Statistics—Measuring the Diffusion of ICT and its Impact

The paper gives a short and very rough overview of the ongoing work in the field of statistics relating to the development of information and communication technology (ICT) and its impacts on the economies and on the society as a whole. It introduces three slightly different approaches with different emphasis on describing the emergence and diffusion of ICT and the respective economic and social change. These are termed the indicators approach, the new economy approach and the intellectual capital approach. The paper also discusses the basic requirements for the establishment of a new statistical system, as well as the present obstacles and problems of this work. Finally, some remarks are presented regarding further statistical co-operation in this field.     

正交实验设计方法在B to B电子商务体系质量改进中的应用

电子商务在全球快速地发展，中国企业面临着由B to C方式向B to B方式的转变，本文采用正交实验设计的方法来解决已建成电子商务体系的质量，以满足新的需求。     

跨国公司技术联盟:动因、效应及启示

跨国公司技术联盟是在经济全球化与一体化的国际背景下发展起来的，它被愈来愈多的人认为是一种知识联盟，是一种独立的组织形式。跨国公司进行技术联盟的动因在于：获取与企业核心技术相关的上下游技术、适应网络竞争的需要及促进研究与开发等。跨国公司技术联盟既给合作方带来一定的积极效应，同时也产生相当的负面影响。在当前，跨国公司技术联盟对我国企业进行技术联盟与合作有积极的借鉴意义。     

Development in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics

This paper outlines the ICT statistical developments that the ABS has undertaken over recent years. These developments have been on both the supply side (ICT industry) and the demand side (use of IT by sector). The content of ABS ICT surveys has changed significantly over the last few years and are expected to develop further in line with industry changes and emerging policy needs.
Recent developments in household collections have been the inclusion of IT use questions in the 2001 Census of Population and Housing and in various ABS social surveys such as Children's Participation in Culture and Leisure Activities. Annual business IT use surveys are now conducted and include topics such as Internet commerce and IT security. Biennial ICT industry surveys are conducted to provide data on ICT production, imports and exports, ICT industry employment, performance and structure information. An Internet activity survey is run every six months and provides regional Internet access details and infrastructure details on Internet service providers.
A major development for 2002–03 will be the compilation of an ICT satellite account. ABS intends to produce an ICT Information Development Plan to guide its future statistical development work in the ICT field.     

Identifying “best” applicants in recruiting using data envelopment analysis

Selecting the most promising candidates to fill an open position can be a difficult task when there are many applicants. Each applicant achieves certain performance levels in various categories and the resulting information can be overwhelming. We demonstrate how data envelopment analysis (DEA) can be used as a fair screening and sorting tool to support the candidate selection and decision-making process. Each applicant is viewed as an entity with multiple achievements. Without any a priori preference or information on the multiple achievements, DEA identifies the non-dominated solutions, which, in our case, represent the “best” candidates. A DEA-aided recruiting process was developed that (1) determines the performance levels of the “best” candidates relative to other applicants; (2) evaluates the degree of excellence of “best” candidates’ performance; (3) forms consistent tradeoff information on multiple recruiting criteria among search committee members, and, then, (4) clusters the applicants.     

Sources, uses, and forms of data in the new product development process

This paper presents qualitative and exploratory research investigating the role that managing knowledge and information plays in new product development (NPD). A set of 20 in-depth interviews uncovered eight basic types of information used throughout the NPD process and three general approaches to managing information needed in the NPD process. Although some exemplary companies seem to do an outstanding job of collecting and disseminating information, the majority of firms struggle. NPD process automation solutions tackle part of the problem, ignoring nonquantitative data forms and the full picture of information use throughout the entire development process.     

Productivity Growth in the Chinese Economy by Industry and the Role of Foreign Capital

I. IntroductionIt is well known that China’s reform and open-up policy initiated in 1978 had an extremelylarge impact on the Chinese economy. This policy represented an about-face against thetraditional self-reconstruction strategy that China had maintained since the founding ofthe people’s Republic in 1949. Although China’s economy temporarily fell into confusionfor a few years after the Tian-an-men incident in 1989, China continued to record high GDPgrowth. Moreover, after Deng Xiao…