Health and political regimes: Evidence from quantile regression

This study investigates how political regimes affect health conditions such as infant and child mortality rates and life expectancy using data from 180 countries observed between 1960 and 2013. Panel quantile regression is used to examine the effects at different intervals throughout the distribution of health outcomes. The estimation results indicate that democracy has significant positive effects on health outcomes and that its impacts are greater when health outcomes are worse. These results are robust to different democracy and health indices. The effects of different types of democracies and dictatorships are also considered, that is parliamentary, mixed (semi-presidential) and presidential democracies, and civilian, military and royal dictatorships. The parliamentary form of democracy has the largest positive impact on health outcomes at the worst quantile of health outcomes, although the difference in the impacts of the three types of democracies is not necessarily large. Furthermore, all types of dictatorships have a negative impact on health outcomes, with military dictatorship having the worst outcome when health outcomes are worse. Finally, the effects of democratization on health outcomes are significantly positive when the health outcomes are worse.     

Effects of scale economies and production seasonality on optimal hub locations: the case of regional fresh produce aggregation

Interest in supporting local and regional food systems is rising and food hubs have attracted considerable attention among Federal, State, and local policymakers. This study explores the problem of endogenous hub location in fresh produce value chains in the Northeastern United States. To overcome limitations in the literature, we incorporate the effects of economies of scale and production seasonality into our models. Three experimental models are designed to examine the effects of alternatively applying yearly, quarterly, and monthly data on model solutions. We explicitly assess how interactions of scale economies and seasonality influence the structure and spatial attributes of an optimal regional produce aggregation hub system. The three models generate marketed different solutions and in many respects they lead to different conclusions about developing local/regional supply chains. The monthly model allows for production seasonality and actual hub operation cycle frequency and thus leads to more efficient hub solution with rich policy implications.     

互联网金融规制与市场有效性改善*——来自中国网络借贷行业的证据

中国的互联网金融经历了一个先创新发展后监管规制的过程，本文通过对网络借贷行业的实证研究，分析监管规则的出台实施对新型互联网融资市场有效性的影响。实证结果表明，网络借贷平台资金的银行存管、持有ICP证等强制性规定缓解了投资者、平台企业与借款人之间的信息不对称，对克服早期平台间通过竞相承诺高回报率来吸引投资者导致的“柠檬市场”问题、对解决网贷市场上缺乏平台风险性高低有效信号的问题都起到了正向作用，有助于互联网融资市场的有效性提高。     

Best classification algorithms in peer-to-peer lending

A proper credit scoring technique is vital to the long-term success of all kinds of financial institutions, including peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. The main contribution of our paper is the robust ranking of 10 different classification techniques based on a real-world P2P lending data set. Our data set comes from the Lending Club covering the 2009–2013 period, which contains 212,252 records and 23 different variables. Unlike other researchers, we use a data sample which contains the final loan resolution for all loans. We built our research using a 5-fold cross-validation method and 6 different classification performance measurements. Our results show that logistic regression, artificial neural networks, and linear discriminant analysis are the three best algorithms based on the Lending Club data. Conversely, we identify k-nearest neighbors and classification and regression tree as the two worst classification methods.     

What is happening in Paris? Airbnb,hotels, and the Parisian market: A case study

Airbnb has been the subject of heated discussions among tourism and hospitality scholars. In order to understand the true impact of P2Psharing on the tourism and hospitality landscape, it is important to understand that market in detail first. Therefore, in this paper, we explore the development of the Airbnb market over the last seven years in Paris, the most popular destination for Airbnb guests with more than 40,000 accommodation rentals. This research note is a summary of our findings on the Paris market. Our study shows different growth and seasonality patterns for Airbnb and hotels and dissimilarities in the geographical location of the offers. The findings indicate that the two products are not in direct competition and that their relationship might be more complex than previously thought. We trust that exploring the nature of the competitive relationship would be a valuable avenue for further investigation.     

The mechanism of credit risk contagion among internet P2P lending platforms based on a SEIR model with time-lag

The credit risk contagion of Internet peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms is an important part of Internet financial risk management and supervision. This study analyzes the contagion path of credit risk in Internet P2P lending. Based on complex network theory and the theory of infectious disease dynamics, the characteristics of Internet P2P lending development are combined to construct a SEIR model of credit risk transmission among Internet P2P lending platforms with time lag, and the robustness of the model is analyzed and proven. The influence of platform correlations, the susceptible immune rate, the platform elimination rate, contagion latency, the saturation coefficient, and the susceptibility input rate on credit risk contagion behavior among Internet P2P lending platforms is analyzed, using the equilibrium point and threshold value. The impact of each variable is analyzed by simulation. Corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to prevent and control credit risk contagion among these platforms.     

高校女生体育课堂教学的现状及对策

调查发现女生中只有33．97％对体育课有兴趣，原因是：体育意识不成熟、教材存在重复现象、有严重的心理障碍、没有突破传统的教学方法、课外活动缺乏行之有效的组织管理等。应采取的措施有：明确高校体育教育理念、加强思想教育、改革体育教学模式、合理选择教学内容和方法等。     

Changing composition of human capital The Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland1

We show that business education/occupations have expanded and that technical education/occupations have contracted in the Czech Republic and Poland since 1990. We interpret these changes as an adjustment necessary for their transition to a market economy. We do not find the same pattern in Hungary, which we attribute to the earlier timing of its transition. We construct an aggregate model in which labour reallocates in response to changing demand structure. When calibrated with the Czech and Polish data, the model generates a large movement of workers with technical education and experience into business occupations in the early 1990s. The discounted sum of output loss due to the gap between the demand structure and the composition of existing human capital amounts to between 8 and 40 percent of 1990 GDP.     

绩效与不足:建国初期农村信用合作社的借贷活动的历史考察——以鄂湘赣三省为中心

农村信用合作社是建国初期农村金融体系的重要组成部分，它的产生是新中国乡村借贷关系转型和现代化的标志之一。信用社借贷有利于农户的生产生活经营，推动了农村经济的恢复与发展，但其也存在一定的缺陷。     

The dynamics of moonlighting in Russia1

This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to analyse the dynamics of moonlighting by the working‐age population. We find that moonlighting is transitory and that a desire to switch jobs expressed in the past is positively related to moonlighting in the present and to actual job changes in the future. We also find that workers who moonlighted as self‐employed in the past represent 26.5 percent of the new self‐employed. These results suggest that moonlighting in Russia can be seen as an effective incubator for setting up new self‐employed businesses, thereby providing long‐term benefits for the economy.