In-house competition, organizational slack, and the business cycle

Multiplant firms pit their facilities against each other for production assignments. The present paper studies the consequences of this practice in a model where production is limited by capacity constraints and asymmetric information allows facilities to accumulate slack. It shows the amount of slack per unit of output to be pro-cyclical. Indeed, as capacity constraints become more acute in economic booms, the power of in-house competition for quota assignments is reduced and slack per unit of output increases, while the opposite is true in downturns. Moreover, in downturns firms may use higher cost facilities even when lower cost plants are not running at capacity since this boosts X-efficiency in low-cost plants.     

Learning Why More Learning Takes Place in Some Classrooms Than Others

Abstract. The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls for reforms of the German educational system. Understanding why students in some classrooms learn more than do those in other classrooms is an important first step in considering alternative reform strategies. Possible explanations include differences in teacher quality, class sizes and peer groups, and also differences among the types of secondary schools that parents select for their children. This paper illustrates a set of techniques that are useful in examining the roles these factors play in predicting why, net of family background and prior achievement, the average achievement of children in some classrooms is much higher than that of children in other classrooms. We illustrate the use of these techniques with a dataset from Bogotá, Colombia, that has two attractive properties. First, some teachers teach multiple classes of students. Second, students are enrolled in schools in two sectors (public and private). Application of the techniques described in this paper could shed light on the reasons why the average academic achievement of German students attending some schools is much higher than that of German students attending other schools.     

German Exchange Rate Exposure at DAX and Aggregate Levels, International Trade and the Role of Exchange Rate Adjustment Costs

Abstract. This article analyses value changes of German stock market companies in response to movements of the US dollar. The approach followed in this work extends the standard means of measuring exchange rate exposure in several ways, e.g. by using multifactor modelling instead of augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model, application of moving window panel regressions and orthogonalization of overall market risk vis-à-vis currency risk. A further innovation lies in testing the theoretical implications of exchange rate adjustment costs (hedging costs) for firm values and economic exposure. Based on time series and panel data of German Deutsche Aktien Xchange companies, Deutsche Mark/dollar rates and macroeconomic factors, we find a rather unstable, time-variant exposure of German stock market companies. Dollar sensitivity is positively affected by the ratio of exports/gross domestic product (GDP) and negatively affected by imports/GDP. Moreover, as expected from theoretical findings, firm values and exchange rate exposure are significantly reduced by adjustment costs depending on the distance of the exchange rate from the expected long-run mean.     

控制火电厂二氧化硫排放的有效途径——排污权交易

目前,我国工业二氧化硫排放量中有42%是火电厂排放的,因此高效控制火电厂的二氧化硫排放是提高空气质量的主要途径。美国利用排污权交易治理火电厂的二氧化硫排放取得了巨大的成功,不仅二氧化硫排放量大幅下降,而且排污权交易也被证明是成本最低的方法。借鉴美国的经验,可以为我国治理火电厂二氧化硫排放提供高效途径。     

Can innovation shocks determine CO2 emissions (CO2e) in the OECD economies? A new perspective

ABSTRACT

This study has attempted to address prior knowledge gaps in the environmental economics literature by integrating the innovation shocks into the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) equation for twenty-six OECD economies using data from 1990 to 2014. Foreign direct investment (FDI), exports (EXP), renewable energy consumption (REC), and GDP per capita were included as control variables. The results from multiple empirical analyses indicated that positive shocks to innovation improve, but the negative shocks disrupt environmental quality. Data analyses also showed that a positive correlation exists between income per capita of OECD economies. From the negative coefficient of income per capita (squared) and the existence of a negative nexus between FDI and CO2e, both the EKC and the Pollution Halo Hypothesis (PHH) were confirmed in sampled economies, respectively. The paper offers empirical support for the favourable impacts of REC on the quality of the environment and calls for the adoption of innovation shocks as a policy instrument to formulate better environmental policies for a sustainable future.     

我国M_2/GDP的动态增长路径、货币供应量与政策选择

本文试图求解我国M2/GDP的动态增长路径,并对与此相关的金融政策选择进行分析。研究发现,我国M2/GDP的变动路径具有Logistic曲线的基本形状,将经历先加速上升后增长速度逐渐减缓,最终趋于稳定状态的变化过程。本文估算了我国M2/GDP的增长上限及其变化拐点。研究还发现,M2/GDP的上升并不必然意味着通胀压力加大,只有M2/GDP偏离动态增长路径时,才会对通货膨胀产生影响。据此本文估算了2005年货币供应量的合理区间。本文认为,应继续实施稳健货币政策,合理确定货币总量增长速度,继续推进体制性改革等措施确保经济金融的稳定运行。     

The impact of endogenous tax treaties on foreign direct investment: theory and evidence

Abstract .  This paper investigates the effect of tax treaties on bilateral stocks of outward FDI. For this purpose we employ a numerically solvable general equilibrium model of trade and multinational firms to study the impact of tax treaties on both welfare and outward FDI. The model indicates under which factor endowment configurations countries gain in welfare when implementing a tax treaty. This motivates an empirical specification of the endogenous selection into implementing new tax treaties. Using data of bilateral OECD outward FDI between 1985 and 2000, we find a significant negative impact of newly implemented tax treaties on outward FDI stocks.     

Pricing to market behaviour in European car markets

This paper investigates PTM behaviour in European car markets for a period of great interest (1993-98), taking into account the role of invoicing currency. The results indicate that local currency price stability is a strong and pervasive phenomenon across products independently of the invoicing currency. The paper offers robustness checks, tests and arguments that justify the interpretation of this finding, at least in part, as evidence of PTM. It implies the existence of market segmentation and price discrimination, despite the completion of the single market programme on 1 January 1993.     

产学合作提高高职实践教学质量

产学合作是提高高职实践教学质量的必由之路和成功之路,是高职教育人才培养的根本途径。产学合作,为高职实践教学质量提供资源和技术支持,有助于创造出新的实践教学过程和教育方法,形成有特色的实践教学体系,确保高职教育质量及提高就业率。该文结合广东农工商职业技术学院产学合作的实践经验,归纳出产学合作“2＋0.5＋0.5”模式、运作机制以及实践教学效果。     

论在中国B2C发展的若干问题

我国电子商务的环境在不断改善,接受网上购物方式的消费者越来越多.但2001年中国B2C并没有表现出太多令人欣喜之处,甚至部分曾经领先的电子商务网站不得不面对生死存亡的抉择.造成这种现状的原因不仅仅是电子商务整体的一些原因,也包括一些影响B2C发展的特有原因.如市场发育问题、互联网的环境和条件问题、信用制度完善的问题、物流配送问题、立法问题、具体经营问题等.这些瓶颈若不能得到合理的解决,对于电子商务发展的影响将会是巨大的.