中国高等教育发展水平的空间差异研究

在我国高等教育快速发展的同时，高等教育区域发展不均衡、资源配置不公平等现象越来越突出。采用熵权法从教育规模、经费投入、基础设施和师资力量四个维度构建地区高等教育综合发展指数，对2004—2013年我国地区高等教育发展水平进行全局空间自相关分析、局部空间自相关分析和三维趋势分析，结果表明：我国高等教育发展水平在总体上呈现显著的空间正相关特征，且空间关联性逐渐增强；虽然落后地区与发达地区的差距有所减小，但高等教育发展的空间异质性明显，落后地区仍然占很大比重。因此，我国高等教育发达地区未能有效发挥空间辐射和带动作用，空间溢出效应不明显，高等教育发展的空间结构有待改善。国家应避免高等教育区域差距继续拉大，落后地区应加快高等教育发展，发达地区应有效发挥辐射带动作用，努力缩小高等教育的空间差距。     

Analysing job creation effects of scaling up infrastructure spending in South Africa

In a first for South Africa, this article draws on literature on infrastructure productivity to model dynamic economy-wide employment impacts of infrastructure investment funded with different fiscal tools. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, the South African investment plan is modelled, given the infrastructure externality. Alternative fiscal scenarios to finance the policy are modelled in the article. In the long run, unemployment decreases for all types of workers under one of the scenarios. In the short run, only elementary occupation workers benefit from a decrease in unemployment; for the rest, unemployment rises.     

基于DEA-Tobit模型的马铃薯生产效率分析——以甘肃省定西市为例

随着社会的进步和农村经济的发展,农业生产效率已成为制约农民收入、造成农村落后的关键因素。中国是马铃薯的生产大国,其生产效率的提高对我国马铃薯产业的持续发展和保障我国的粮食安全有着很重要的意义。研究基于2014年对甘肃省定西市样本农户马铃薯种植的调查数据,采用DEA模型测算农户种植马铃薯的生产效率,并利用Tobit模型对影响马铃薯生产效率的因素进行分析。研究表明:农户生产马铃薯的综合技术效率较低,规模效率成为制约其生产效率提升的瓶颈;家庭纯收入、马铃薯的种植比例和引进新品种3个变量在0.01水平下对生产效率的影响达到显著;户主的年纪在0.05水平下对生产效率的影响达到显著;马铃薯的收购价格、农户是否参加合作社和种植培训、离农贸市场距离与马铃薯的生产效率间存在不显著的正相关关系。基于以上调研提出了鼓励土地流转、提高生产技术水平、加大农民生产技能培训力度、多方面增加农民收入和合理布局农产品贸易市场等政策性建议。     

The effect of firm scale and CSR geographical scope of impact on consumers' response

The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping consumer perception and attitude has received many attentions both in the academia and practitioner world. While this domain has invited numerous research, but research highlighting how consumers react toward learning the size of a firm conducting CSR and geographical scope of the CSR impact is still scarce. We investigate how consumers shape their attitude and consumption behavior after knowing that the CSR action is done by a small, locally-owned business that brings impact to the local community through an experimental study. Our study adds a shade in understanding how the effect of a firm size and geographical scope of CSR impact might increase consumers' favorable attitude and behavior toward the business and its products. Our findings show that when consumers learn that the firm conducting CSR is a small, locally-owned (in coffee shop business) that directs its action toward local beneficiaries, they demonstrate more favorable attitudes toward the action and the firm, which manifest in the form of better intentions to acquire the product as well as willingness to pay premium prices for it. Our findings confirm the US consumers' love affair with local businesses, in particular. While the findings generally benefit small, locally-owned businesses, they also suggest recommendations for large, multinational businesses to design their marketing strategy in an attempt to increase favorable reactions from consumers.     

西北地区农村居民点景观格局指数的尺度效应及其最佳粒度选择分析——以西安市为例

文章以西安市2013年土地利用调查数据为源数据,基于arcgis10.0与Fragstats3.4软件,运用景观空间格局的分析方法,从斑块、类型等2个水平上分析西安市农村居民点景观空间格局粒度效应。结果表明:(1)粒度效应敏感的指数有斑块密度、斑块个数、分离度指数、邻近度指数,粒度效应比较敏感的指数有平均斑块面积、最大斑块指数,粒度效应最不敏感的指数有形状指数、聚集度指数及结合度指数。(2)大致可将上述9种景观指数分为3类:第一类,随着粒度的增大,景观指数值表现为下降的变化趋势;第二类,随着粒度的增大,景观指数值呈逐渐增大的趋势;第三类,随着尺度的增大,具有显著的尺度转折,可预测性差。(3)随着粒度的粗化,农村居民点破碎度降低,优势度增加,形状变得规则,分布趋向分散。该研究区农村居民点最佳尺度范围为60~90m,适宜粒度为90m。     

Subnational institutional environment,scale competition and MNEs’ ownership levels in transition economy: evidence from China

Abstract

This paper shows that the effect of market scale competition on the ownership levels of foreign-funded enterprises is conditioned on sub-national institutional environment in China. Analysis is based on the idea that multinational enterprises subject to the dual pressures of institutional isomorphism and competition in the host country. The provincial panel data from 2001 to 2012 is used for empirical tests. This study indicates that the weaker the legal property rights protection and legal enforcement of contracts, and the higher the opening up, the more the large foreign-funded enterprises decrease their ownership levels, whereas the negative moderating effect incurred by the reduction to government intervention in business is limited significant.     

Socio-economic and biophysical determinants of land degradation in Vietnam: An integrated causal analysis at the national level

Recognizing the socio-economic and biophysical causes of land degradation at the national level is important for cause-targeted strategies when designing policies for combating land degradation. This study aims to identify the biophysical and socio-economic factors that significantly affect land degradation across Vietnam and to interpret the causalities underlying the effects. The dependent variables considered in the study are spatial, the extent and intensity of degradation in three land-use zones (agriculture, forest and severely degraded abandonment). The hypothesized explanatory variables are common economic and demographic drivers and bio-physical factors such as soil, terrain constraints, and neighborhood land-use structures that are often neglected in many large-scale land degradation assessments. Instead of using a single inferential statistic technique, we used multi-linear regression and binary logistic regression in a complementary manner to increase the detectability and credibility of the degradation cause analyses. The results showed agricultural production growth had strong and consistent effects on land degradation extent and intensity. Population growth, especially in rural areas, had a strong effect on the extent of overall land degradation. The importance of a neighboring forest was revealed for its ability to reduce land degradation intensity in abandoned, unproductive lands. The concrete faceting of the causal analysis for each land-use zone as social–ecological stratum allowed us to combine the defined social–ecological contexts, contemporary theories, and hypotheses in the field to clarify the causal factors of a complex phenomenon like land degradation. The study demonstrates these contemporary inferential statistics can be complementarily used to sufficiently detect and understand land degradation causes at the national level. The results suggest implications for national land management policy: internalizing land degradation costs in the farming system evaluation for payment for ecosystem services policy, restricting forest conversion, and improving extension services and education in agrarian communities.     

Endogenous ranking and equilibrium Lorenz curve across (ex-ante) identical countries: A generalization

This paper proposes a symmetry-breaking model of trade with a finite number of identical countries and a continuum of tradeable consumption goods, which differ in their dependence on nontradeable intermediate inputs, “producer services”. Productivity of each country is endogenous due to country-specific external economies of scale in its service sector. It is shown that, in any stable equilibrium, the countries sort themselves into specializing in different sets of tradeable goods and that a strict ranking of countries in per capita income, TFP, the service sector share, and the capital–labor ratio emerge endogenously. Furthermore, the distribution of country shares, the Lorenz curve, is unique and analytically solvable in the limit, as the number of countries grows unbounded. Using this limit as an approximation allows us to study what determines the shape of distribution, perform various comparative statics and to evaluate the welfare effects of trade. In doing so, this paper extends the analysis of Matsuyama (Econometrica, 81:5 (September 2013), 2009–2031) for more general and flexible forms of scale economies. It turns out that the technique introduced in Matsuyama (Econometrica, 81:5 (September 2013), 2009–2031) is useful for the equilibrium characterization in this general case as well. Although some results of comparative statics and on welfare inevitably need to be modified, they change in ways that illuminate the underlying mechanism of symmetry-breaking.     

Economies of traffic density and scale in the integrated air cargo industry: The cost structures of FedEx Express and UPS Airlines

This paper examines the cost structures of the leading integrated air cargo carriers, FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. A total cost model is estimated for the two carriers using quarterly data on domestic operations and costs over a nine-year period (2003–2011). The estimated model indicates that the integrated industry exhibits increasing returns to traffic density and constant returns to scale. Accounting for carrier-specific differences in cost structure and network size, FedEx Express is found to be more cost-efficient than UPS Airlines. Looking at the carriers individually, UPS Airlines exhibits substantial economies of traffic density and constant returns to scale while FedEx Express' cost structure is characterized by weak economies of density and constant returns to scale. The combined effect of returns to density and returns to scale on the cost structures of integrated carriers is captured by economies of size. Both FedEx Express and UPS Airlines exhibit economies of size, indicating that carriers in the integrated industry can be more cost efficient by making appropriate adjustments to their network size as their output grows. Moreover, the relative cost-efficiencies of the carriers are reversed when their network-size differences are not controlled.     

An estimation of returns to scale of airport airsides under multiple optimal solutions in DEA

The returns to scale (RTS) nature of 37 Chinese airport airsides are investigated in this paper. Multiple optimal solutions in DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) models may lead to error RTS estimation. To address this problem, we use the (Zhu and Shen, 1995) RTS method. The empirical study shows that all those airsides with two runways operate under decreasing RTS and those airsides with only one runway either operate in the area of increasing RTS or in the area of constant RTS.