Trading activities,productivity and markups: Evidence for Spanish manufacturing

This work analyses the firms' internationalisation strategies of importing intermediates and exporting output, and the potential rewards of these activities in terms of total factor productivity (TFP), as a proxy for marginal costs, and markups. It further deepens into the study of the relationship between internationalisation strategies and markups by disentangling whether it operates through affecting firms' marginal costs and/or firms' prices. The panel database employed in this paper is the Spanish Survey on Business Strategies (ESEE) for the period 2006–14. Results in the paper distinguish between SMEs and large firms and indicate that there is high persistence in the performance of these activities and in firms' TFP and markups. For SMEs, we obtain rewards from importing inputs as well as exporting output in terms of TFP and markups. For large firms, we obtain rewards in TFP from the importing activity and rewards in markups from the exporting activity. Finally, we find evidence that the effects of internationalisation strategies on markups are due to both a price channel and a marginal cost channel.     

基于SFA模型的河南省粮食产量时空变化及投入要素影响

[目的]粮食问题影响着一个国家的国民经济发展和人民生产、生活,农业在整个社会生产活动中占有重要地位,河南省是全国农业大省,对河南省粮食产量进行分析具有重要的现实意义。[方法]以2005—2015年河南省各县粮食产量和投入要素为研究对象,将研究数据面板化,利用线性相关、随机前沿生产函数模型、脱钩分析等方法,运用ArcGIS 10.1、Eviews 8.0和SPSS 19.0等软件,对河南省各县粮食产量时空变化、投入要素影响程度和脱钩效应进行分析。[结果]模型运算结果表明文章选用模型效果较好,能够反映粮食产量的时空变化以及其与投入要素之间的关系,且符合河南省粮食产量实际情况。研究结果表明:(1)从时间上来看, 2005—2015年河南省粮食产量总体呈线性上升趋势;(2)从空间上来看,河南省中部、北部、东部和南部粮食产量较高,西部受地势因素影响粮食产量较低;(3)粮食产量与化肥施用折纯量、粮食播种面积、农民经营性收入、农药施用量、农业机械总动力和乡村农业人口呈正相关关系,与农村用电量呈负相关关系;(4)化肥施用折纯量、农村用电量、农药施用量存在脱钩效应,粮食播种面积、农民经营性收入、农业机械总动力不存在脱钩效应。[结论]应保持目前粮食播种面积不变,提高农业机械总动力,突出投入要素的影响,同时对河南省各县进行区域功能定位。     

The Evolving Structure of Chinese R&D Funding and its Implications for the Productivity of Agricultural Biotechnology Research

China’s research and development (R&D) policy has changed considerably over recent decades, and great changes occurred in 2006 when the main programme objective of China’s R&D changed from the 863 Programme and 973 Programme to the National Science and Technology Major Project. One topic that has drawn extensive attention is whether the investment reform improved R&D productivity in China. Using a unique panel dataset from 160 universities, this paper examines the effect of the investment reform on productivity improvement in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We use a panel count data model with a dynamic feedback mechanism to model the knowledge production process. Strong evidence indicates that the investment reform greatly contributes to knowledge output production in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We also find that the input quality is more important than the absolute quantity; human research capacity exhibits the greatest contribution to the output of patents; past knowledge accumulation helps produce more patents; and entry barriers to patent production exist in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. Moreover, the patent explosion in China may have been largely caused by improvements in the human capital input quality.     

房价上涨如何影响了工业产出

为探究房价上涨对工业生产的作用机制,首先基于理论视角对房价如何影响房地产投资、劳动力成本进而影响工业产出进行了论证,基于2003年~2017年全国时间序列数据,构建VAR模型实证检验了房价上涨对工业产出的影响机理。结果表明:房价上涨对工业产出具有"先促进,后抑制"的作用;房价上涨,一方面通过促进房地产投资增长抑制工业产出,另一方面通过提高工业企业劳动力成本抑制工业产出;短期内工业产出对房价的冲击响应较为灵敏且强烈,但长期来看房地产投资、劳动力成本的影响力会逐渐显现,且房地产投资最终成为了解释工业产出的主导因素。     

Probabilistic wind forecasting up to three months ahead using ensemble predictions for geopotential height

We develop a method for forecasting the distribution of the daily surface wind speed at timescales from 15-days to 3-months in France. On such long-term timescales, ensemble predictions of the surface wind speed have poor performance, however, the wind speed distribution may be related to the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, for which the ensemble forecasts have better skill. The information from the large-scale circulation, represented by the 500 hPa geopotential height, is summarized into a single index by first running a PCA and then a polynomial regression. We estimate, over 20 years of daily data, the conditional probability density of the wind speed at a specific location given the index. We then use the ECMWF seasonal forecast ensemble to predict the index for horizons from 15-days to 3-months. These predictions are plugged into the conditional density to obtain a distributional forecast of surface wind. These probabilistic forecasts remain sharper than the climatology up to 1-month forecast horizon. Using a statistical postprocessing method to recalibrate the ensemble leads to further improvement of our probabilistic forecast, which then remains calibrated and sharper than the climatology up to 3-months horizon, particularly in the north of France in winter and fall.     

产业政策对企业研发创新的影响研究——基于促进创新型产业政策"信心效应"的视角

信心是影响产业政策实施效果背后的重要无形因素。本文从“信心效应”的新视角出发，基于2012—2017年中国A股上市公司面板数据，以《中国制造2025》为一项准自然实验，使用双重差分法研究促进创新型产业政策对企业研发创新的影响。研究结果表明：促进创新型产业政策的颁布能够通过“外部信心效应”和“内部信心效应”促进受支持企业研发投入增加；通过与受支持企业自身的营运性信心和社会性信心叠加，信心效应的影响分别出现U型与倒U型的差异；信心效应在促进创新型产业政策对受支持企业研发产出数量和实质性的影响中都发挥了作用。研究结论不仅丰富了相关文献，也为新时期产业政策的制定与实践以及企业行为调整提供了有益的启示。     

Towards a fairer manager performance measure: a DEA application in the retail industry

Abstract

Retailers need to determine the performance of their individual stores and, beyond the stores, the managers in charge of running them. The aim of this paper is to develop performance standards that can be applied to fairly distribute rewards to managers regarding their performances by taking into account store neighbourhood characteristics. In order to propose a fairer measure of store performance, the authors introduce and explore the concepts of organizational justice and store efficiency. They use real data from a French supermarket chain and a geomarketing approach. The two-step Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model results are compared with a retailer’s ranking. The retailer tends to favour points of sale having a more important sales area, with more employees and operating in a more densely populated area with a higher buying power. The ranking stemming from the DEA model links store performance to other geo-demographic variables.     

要素市场分割对货币政策区域产出效应的影响——基于全国省际静态面板数据的实证研究

在区域经济结构改革的背景下，要素资源的不完全流通性加剧了货币政策区域非对称性。本文使用2003-2015年省际面板数据回归分析要素市场分割对我国货币政策区域产出效应的影响，认为要素市场分割对我国货币政策产出效应产生了抵消作用。而后对比东中西部地区抵消效应发现：在扩张性货币政策条件下，资本品需求规模和收益率更高，劳动力市场更加活跃、再配置空间更大的东部地区，要素市场分割对货币政策效应的抵消作用更大。     

我国区域间产业竞争力比较研究

产业竞争是市场经济和区域竞争最基本的表现之一，具有竞争优势的产业或产业群的形成是区域经济发展的核心，区域产业结构调整的最终目的是为了提高在区域间的产业竞争力。本文通过研制的区域间投入产出联结模型，比较和分析了我国各区域各产业在各区域市场中的占有率情况，以揭示我国当前区域间产业竞争力的总体状况和表现。     

基于数据包络分析法的绩效评估技术研究——来自军工上市公司的实证分析

本文认为,一种行之有效的绩效评估方法是开展高质量绩效审计的重要前提,而数据包络分析法(简称DEA方法)可以为绩效评估提供很好的定量分析工具。数据包络分析法属于非参数方法,无需事先假设函数关系,其评估不受人为因素影响,多用于对多投入和多产出的不同决策单元的效率进行评估。固定规模报酬下的多投入、多产出的效率评估模型(C2R模型)就是以数据包络分析法为思想基础的一个著名模型。文章以军工板块航天系9家上市公司为决策单元,利用C2R模型进行了运营效率评估,并通过对C2R模型计算结果进行效率分析、投影值分析及敏感度分析,构建了基于数据包络分析法的组织绩效评估技术框架。