Excess capacity,production technology and technical inefficiency in hospitality sector

This article examines the effects of excess capacity on the production cost and technical inefficiency of hotels and restaurants in Norway. The dataset includes a daily unbalanced panel of 94 hotels and restaurants from 2003 to 2014. To accommodate inefficiency, we use an input distance function (IDF). Inefficiency in the IDF means that if inputs are overused by k% then production cost is also increased by k%. We also allow inefficiency to differ across locations and regions by using them as determinants. The results indicate that excess capacity considerably affects the cost and increases inefficiency. The marginal effect on cost increases with excess capacity, but the effect on inefficiency sets in when it exceeds 50 percent. Furthermore, we find less overuse of inputs by firms in small metro towns and the Northern region causing them to be more efficient [except for the Southern and Western regions] than their counterparts.     

呼伦贝尔草原生态功能区土地利用变化及驱动力分析

[目的]土地利用作为地球表面与人类活动连接的纽带,明确其变化特征及驱动力对于土地利用格局的优化、区域生态环境的改善和土地利用率的提高等具有重要的指导意义。[方法]文章以呼伦贝尔草原生态功能区为例,从土地利用动态度和土地利用转移矩阵来探究研究区在1990—2015年土地利用变化特征。在此基础上,运用主成分分析对研究区土地利用的年际变化进行驱动力分析。[结果]2015年草地面积为329.52万hm~2,占总面积的81.17%,是呼伦贝尔草原生态功能区的主体土地利用类型, 1990—2015年草地总量略有减少,减幅为0.04%;湿地作为研究区第二大土地利用类型,呈现先减后增、整体减少的趋势,整体减幅为0.36%;其他土地面积减少1.39万hm~2,减幅为19.05%;面积增加的土地利用类型中,耕地面积整体上呈现增加趋势,增加8 480hm~2,增幅高达102.60%;人工表面面积增加6 075hm~2,增幅为29.47%;林地面积增加了2 908hm~2,增幅10.48%。草地、湿地和其他土地利用类型表现为净转入特征,耕地、林地和人工表面用地表现为净转出特征。区域经济和农畜因素是研究区土地利用变化的主要驱动力。[结论]草地与其他土地利用类型间的相互转换是呼伦贝尔草原生态功能区土地利用变化的主要特征,区域经济和农畜因素共同影响研究区不同土地利用类型的分布。     

Crime prediction by data-driven Green’s function method

We develop an algorithm that forecasts cascading events, by employing a Green’s function scheme on the basis of the self-exciting point process model. This method is applied to open data of 10 types of crimes happened in Chicago. It shows a good prediction accuracy superior to or comparable to the standard methods which are the expectation–maximization method and prospective hotspot maps method. We find a cascade influence of the crimes that has a long-time, logarithmic tail; this result is consistent with an earlier study on burglaries. This long-tail feature cannot be reproduced by the other standard methods. In addition, a merit of the Green’s function method is the low computational cost in the case of high density of events and/or large amount of the training data.     

Credit risk pricing and the rationality of lending decision-making within dual banking systems: A parametric approach

The reduction of non-performing loans, and making correct provisions for them, plays a primary role in the management and minimization of banking credit risk. However, these actions depend primarily upon the cost at which banks may dispose of these bad loans. Hence, this study aims to perceive the price of banks’ credit risk via estimating the shadow price of non-performing loans. We assess and compare the perceived price of the credit risk of Islamic and conventional banks operating in 9 countries from the Middle East and Asia, using a quadratic directional distance function. Following this, we evaluate the impact of different settings of directional vectors on shadow prices by conducting a risk-sensitivity analysis. Applying bootstrap regression, the factors affecting NPLs’ prices are further investigated. The paper concludes that the estimation of the shadow prices of bad loans can provide important elements in favor of credit risk management and, therefore, credit risk mitigation.     

Computing the finite-time expected discounted penalty function for a family of Lévy risk processes

Ever since the first introduction of the expected discounted penalty function (EDPF), it has been widely acknowledged that it contains information that is relevant from a risk management perspective. Expressions for the EDPF are now available for a wide range of models, in particular for a general class of Lévy risk processes. Yet, in order to capitalize on this potential for applications, these expressions must be computationally tractable enough as to allow for the evaluation of associated risk measures such as Value at Risk (VaR) or Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR). Most of the models studied so far offer few interesting examples for which computation of the associated EDPF can be carried out to the last instances where evaluation of risk measures is possible. Another drawback of existing examples is that the expressions are available for an infinite-time horizon EDPF only. Yet, realistic applications would require the computation of an EDPF over a finite-time horizon. In this paper we address these two issues by studying examples of risk processes for which numerical evaluation of the EDPF can be readily implemented. These examples are based on the recently introduced meromorphic processes, including the beta and theta families of Lévy processes, whose construction is tailor-made for computational ease. We provide expressions for the EDPF associated with these processes and we discuss in detail how a finite-time horizon EDPF can be computed for these families. We also provide numerical examples for different choices of parameters in order to illustrate how ruin-based risk measures can be computed for these families of Lévy risk processes.     

股票价格稳定性的非参数平滑估计

股票的优质性主要由股票价格的稳定性来决定。通过建立条件风险函数非参数平滑估计的估计方法,证明条件风险函数平滑后的非参数估计值具有一致性和渐进正态性,并将此方法扩展到了截尾数据中。通过蒙特卡罗模拟表明条件风险函数平滑后的非参数估计值在非截尾数据以及截尾数据中的有限样本行为都要优于非平滑的估计值。实证分析中用截尾数据条件风险函数非参数平滑估计方法非参数估计中国14大行业股票价格的稳定性,发现房地产行业的股票价格最不稳定,建筑材料行业的股票价格表现最稳定     

旅游产品散论

目前学界对旅游产品的概念存在不少分歧,本文择取如下问题加以讨论:旅游产品是否包含媒介要素、是否是一种经历或体验、是否是商品、是否包含目的地出售的实物形态商品以及是否包含旅游资源.本文认为,媒介要素是旅游产品的必要组成部分,不能把旅游产品看作经历或体验,旅游产品是商品,旅游产品中不包含旅游地出售的旅游纪念品等实物形态商品,也不包括旅游资源.本文着重讨论了旅游资源与旅游产品的关系,提出旅游资源不是旅游产品或产品的一部分,而是、也仅仅是旅游产品生产要素中狭义的土地要素.     

论新时期国家审计模式改革

文章根据我国“入世”后对政府职能转变的新要求，在简介世界各国国家审计主要模式的基础上，对我国现行国家审计模式的现状进行分析，并就我国国家审计模式的改革提出了建议。     

Statistical manipulability of social choice functions

We consider the proportion of profiles at which an anonymous neutral social choice function cannot be manipulated to any coalition's advantage. We fix the number of alternatives and consider the limit as the number of individuals goes to infinity, and assume that the limit of the fraction of all profiles in the domain is 1. We show that there is a continuous function on “profile vectors’ which gives the maximum probability of strategy-proofness, and that this is strictly between 0 and 1 for three alternatives. We also analyze a number of common social choice functions along these lines.     

Nonlinear Taylor rules in Central Eastern European countries

This study applies sequential panel selection method (SPSM), proposed by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) Chortareas, G., and G. Kapetanios. 2009. “Getting PPP Right: Identifying Mean-Reverting Real Exchange Rates in Panels.” Journal of Banking and Finance 33: 390–404.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], to investigate to test the validity of Taylor rules to assess the nonstationary properties of the convergence of the real exchange rates for 10 Central Eastern European countries. The SPSM can be used to decompose a panel of real exchange rate series into two groups: a group of stationary series and a group of nonstationary series. We identify the stationary processes in the panel and demonstrate that Taylor rules holds for 7 of the 10 countries studied. These results imply that the choices and effectiveness of the monetary policies in Central Eastern European economies are highly influenced by external factors originating from the United States. Additionally, our findings highlight that their real exchange rate convergence is a mean reversion toward equilibrium values of Taylor rules in a nonlinear manner.