中国的工业改革与效率变化-方法、数据、文献和现有的结果

全要素生产率是理解经济增长的方式和结构的重要指标之一,中国的工业改革正好为经济学家关注和考察不同所有制的企业形式以及改革政策对生产率变动的不同影响提供了丰富的经验基础。在1978年开始的旨在向市场经济转型的中国经济体制改革正在彻底地改变着它的工业部门面临的市场结构和工业组织,并不断造就着一个与世界经济更加融合的制造业部门。新的和更有竞争力的工业部门在竞争中不断获得了高速增长和扩张的机会,使得中国工业部门的生产率改善主要依赖着非国有企业的成长和它的活力。中国工业改革的成就不是挽救了国有企业,而是收缩了国有企业部门的"战线",诱致了一个非国有的新兴工业部门的崛起。     

Prevention versus Treatment under Precautionary Regulation: A Case Study of Groundwater Contamination under Uncertainty

Policy discussions on agricultural pollution problems characterize prevention as more cost effective and precautionary than ex post treatment. We derive conditions under which treatment alone is more cost effective in situations involving multiple sources of emissions, multiple sites affected, and a commonly used precautionary approach to uncertainty. We also show that a greater degree of precaution can result in less reliance on prevention. An empirical case study indicates that treatment alone is the most cost-effective means of dealing with nitrate in most Maryland community water system wells. The use of leaching prevention measures is restricted to the most intensive poultry producing areas. The incremental cost of precaution is substantial.     

Modeling Conditional Yield Densities

Given the increasing interest in agricultural risk, many have sought improved methods to characterize conditional crop-yield densities. While most have postulated the Beta as a flexible alternative to the Normal, others have chosen nonparametric methods. Unfortunately, yield data tends not to be sufficiently abundant to invalidate many reasonable parametric models. This is problematic because conclusions from economic analyses, which require estimated conditional yield densities, tend not to be invariant to the modeling assumption. We propose a semiparametric estimator that, because of its theoretical properties and our simulation results, enables one to empirically proceed with a higher degree of confidence.     

Stochastic Technology, Risk Preferences, and Adoption of Site-Specific Technologies

A model of farmer decision making is developed to determine the extent to which uncertainties about soil fertility and weather affect the value of site-specific technologies (SSTs) using jointly estimated risk and technology parameters. Uncertainty can lead risk-averse farmers to apply more fertilizers and generate more pollution than in the certainty case. Ignoring uncertainty and risk aversion would overestimate the economic and environmental benefits of SSTs and underestimate the subsidy required to induce adoption. Accounting for uncertainties and risk preferences might explain the low observed adoption rates of SSTs. Improving the accuracy of SSTs would increase the incentives for adoption.     

Estimating Willingness to Pay for Improved Water Quality in the Presence of Item Nonresponse Bias

This article deals with the problem of item nonresponse in contingent valuation surveys using a payment-card method, by applying a grouped-data sample-selection estimation technique that is capable of imputing the missing values conditional upon a respondent's decision to answer a willingness-to-pay question. The advantage of the technique lies in its ability to utilize all of the information in the sample, permitting a more efficient estimation in the presence of item nonresponse bias. The major determinants of willingness to pay appear to be household income, number of children, education, perception of existing water quality, and identification with environmental issues.     

对《形状和位置公差》新标准的理解和应用

通过对《形状和位置公差》新、旧国际的对比，综述了新、旧标准间的不同之处、便于迅速了解和应用新标准。     

Price rigidities and institutional variations in markets with posted prices

Summary Standard laboratory posted-offer markets respond slowly and incompletely to demand shocks. In these one-sided markets, where sellers control the setting of prices, very little information is transmitted via the process of exchange. For this reason, traders have trouble distinguishing randomness in their own experience from changes in market fundamentals. This paper reports the results of twelve laboratory markets conducted to assess whether some common variants to standard posted-offer rules can correct the adjustment deficiences. Although discounting, multiple postings and excess demand information all improve performance, we find that response remains poor, and efficiencies low.Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (SBR 9319842 and SBR 9320044), and the University of Virginia Bankard Fund. Data are archived at FTP address: fido.econlab.arizona.edu. We wish to thank Charles Plott and Shyam Sunder for useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

境外战略投资者参股中资银行与中国金融安全

近期，关于引入境外战略投资者是否会影响中国金融安全的讨论颇多，但研究者在讨论时所使用的金融安全概念较为模糊，不利于正确理解两者之间关系。本文从界定金融安全的概念入手，澄清了金融安全的学术含义及当前人们所关心的金融安全问题，之后对目前引进战略投资者的情况进行介绍，通过对我国的引资政策和相关数据的深度分析得出结论，认为不应该对中国金融安全过分担忧，而阻碍通过引入境外战略投资者促进银行业改革的战略。     

China’s Labor Market on Crossroad

I.IntroductionSincethelate1990s,China’slabor market has comeundergreat pressure,asreflected by anincreasing unemployment rate,and adeclining labor force participation rate.The causesofthe severe unemployment are threefold.First,due to the macro-economic downturn andrapid industrial structural change in the late1990s,state-owned enterprises(SOEs),whichlost their comparative advantage and competitiveness,have been unable to fully utilizetheir production capacity,and have become loss-makers.Se…