Undergraduate Economics Education in English and Welsh Universities

A professor experienced in both the United Kingdom's and the United States' educational systems, the author describes and compares the two countries' economic education objectives and practices.     

The Permits Game: Conveying the Logic of Marketable Pollution Permits

A classroom game, the Permits Game is an interactive technique to help students understand how the market can be used to arrive at a cost-effective method for pollution control.     

Teaching Macroeconomics After the Crisis: A Survey Among Undergraduate Instructors in Europe and the United States

The Great Recession raised questions of what and how macroeconomists teach at academic institutions around the globe, and what changes in the macroeconomics curriculum should be made. The authors conducted a survey of undergraduate macroeconomics instructors affiliated with colleges and universities in Europe and the United States at the end of 2010. The results show that courses feature very much the same lineups of models as they did before the crisis. A notable exception concerns public debt dynamics, which receives considerably more emphasis. The finer fabric of undergraduate macroeconomics teaching, however, shows substantial shifts: A host of topics related to financial markets has entered the curriculum, and there is more interest in economic history, the history of economic thought, and case studies.     

The Music Industry as a Vehicle for Economic Analysis

Student dissatisfaction with teaching of economics—particularly with macroeconomics—during the current financial crisis mirrors dissatisfaction that was expressed during the last big crisis, the Great Depression. Then and now, a good number of students have felt that their lectures bear little relation to the economic crisis raging outside the halls of academe. The economics profession seems unusual, when compared with some other professions, in complaints that the teaching is irrelevant to practical lives. There appear to be few complaints among physics students that their education does not prepare them for practical pursuits, such as engineering. But economics, particularly macroeconomics, is different from physics not because of the mode of teaching but because the subject matter is harder to conceptualize. Models have to be frequently discarded and fundamentally new ones have to be brought to bear to make them relevant to changed circumstances. Student dissatisfaction with economics, however, is, despite some vocal complaints, not intense overall, and enrollments are growing. Students mostly recognize that their teachers are struggling with the conceptual difficulties that are inherent in the field. Teachers can encourage such recognition and best serve their students if they refer regularly and respectfully to the history of economic thought, conveying the reasons for the theoretical constructs of other times and the tentativeness of current theories.     

金融风暴中的风险管理与防范

2007年7月以来,美国次贷危机持续笼罩全球金融市场,导致美国房价大跌,资金紧缩,对世界股票市场、期货市场造成极大的冲击.随着金融危机对全球实体经济影响的日益加深,我国银行业也出现投资资产价值下降、零售业务放缓等迹象.因而,我国银行业应针对信贷管理中存在的薄弱环节,采取积极的措施,防范金融风险,保障商业银行健康发展.     

Recent topics in Applied Financial Economics

This note discusses topics concerning recent evolutions in financial economics research. It focuses in particular on the progress of quantitative finance and applied economics in the context of the global financial crisis. To this end, I examine various important topics in Economics and Finance and discuss several empirical studies on the statistical properties of macroeconomic and financial data through the application of different econometric methodologies. I analyse their empirical findings and discuss their conclusions.     

当前世界性金融危机的马克思主义解读及其启示

国内外关于当前世界性金融危机的成因解释大多仅停留在技术和操作层面上,唯有马克思主义金融危机理论才指出了其本质和根源。虽然其也提出了一些化解措施,但由于时代不同,指导价值在现实的操作层面会略显不足。从战略的高度看当前世界性金融危机,首先,要对当前世界性的金融危机有一个准确认知;其次,要推进金融体制在改革中吸取西方资本主义国家在技术和操作层面上失败的教训;最后,要提防被当前金融危机下的意识形态之争所迷惑,坚定不移地走马克思主义中国化的创新之路。     

金融危机的成因分析

金融危机已经进入尾声,这次金融危机的成因表面来看是美国的次级贷危机引起的,但是本次金融危机根本原因是一次金融投机家的投机行为,其目的是为了打压美国证券期货市场赚取高额的利润差价。本次金融危机发生前后,没有世界范围的经济衰退、大规模的战争、大规模的自然灾害,由此证明此次金融危机主要原因不是市场自身造成的,反推证明本次金融危机是一次人为投机因素产生的。另外,通过大量分析推论世界范围内本年度第二季度的各项经济指标将好于第一季度。     

金融危机背景下的金融稳定：挑战与对策

国际金融危机的不断发展,使国际金融和经济环境不断恶化,给我国的金融稳定带来了严峻挑战。我们必须充分认识我国金融稳定所面临的种种挑战,积极采取相关措施,有效维持金融稳定,保证金融功能的良好运转,尽快消除金融危机的不利影响,推动我国经济增长的快速恢复。     

全球金融危机下我国金融脆弱性问题的研究

在以房地产泡沫破灭为导火索的美国次贷危机引发的全球金融危机的背景下,吸收国内外对金融危机的最新研究成果并结合我国的实际情况,考虑房价上涨可能是我国金融脆弱性的潜在因素,并选取13个核心指标运用多变量因子分析法对我国近11年来金融脆弱性问题进行定量分析,研究认为宏观经济运行环境和金融监控是影响我国金融脆弱性的主要方面,其中房价上涨、货币增长率是影响的重要因素;我国金融脆弱性整体情况有明显的上升趋势,2007年脆弱程度最高。     

金融危机动荡下的甘肃经济稳定与发展

2008年由美国次贷危机引发的金融危机已全面蔓延,渗透到各个经济领域和经济区域,甘肃经济也同样受到金融危机的;中击。面对金融危机,首先要保持经济稳定、社会稳定,与此同时应充分利用国家政策,发挥政府在金融危机中的主导作用,甘肃经济发展的也应遵循这一原则和路径。甘肃经济在此次金融危机中挑战与机遇并存,甘肃省要充分利用金融危机中国家的相关政策,加快甘肃基础设施建设,调整产业结构,实现甘肃经济的稳定与发展。     

The professors and the banks: US views on the subprime crisis

This review article surveys accounts of the recent global financial crisis by ten leading economists – nine in the US and one, Martin Wolf, in the UK – all of whom are critical of mainstream economic thinking. Since their explanations of the crisis are very similar, the review concentrates on their differing views on three questions: the reform of the financial sector; the state of academic macroeconomics; and the global economic imbalances. Some of the writers have also considered recent austerity policies and their opinions on this topic are also discussed. The article closes by referring to some of the gaps in these accounts.     

金融危机背景下北京农产品加工业的发展与预测

本文对北京市农产品加工业的发展现状进行了统计分析,在此基础上,采用C-D生产函数的双对数模型,运用最小二乘法,分别利用季度和年度截面数据对北京市农产品加工业的产出进行了回归分析和预测。得出如下结论:金融危机对北京农产品加工业有一定影响,但总体影响不大。最后,模拟了不同程度的金融危机冲击对产出水平的影响,并讨论了影响北京农产品加工业发展的因素。     

Applying the Lessons of Asia: The IMF's Crisis Management Strategy following the Global Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT

The paper reviews the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) non-concessional lending programs following the global financial crisis, with a view to understanding how the IMF applied the lessons of the Asian crisis in designing its approach to crisis management. For this purpose, the paper focuses on the 2008 programs in Hungary, Iceland, Latvia and Ukraine – the first of its kind since the early 2000s – and compares them with the 1997 programs in Indonesia, Korea and Thailand. Our analysis finds the European programs better funded and their structural conditionality more focused. Other than these, the overall thrust of the programs was similar: fiscal and monetary tightening, coupled with banking reforms. The real difference was not so much about content but about philosophy. Relative to the Asian programs, the European programs were characterized by more emphasis on ownership, greater collaboration among stakeholders, more realistic assumptions and greater transparency about the risks and the logic of policy actions, and more built-in flexibility of targets and policy options. This approach to crisis management incorporated the changes that had been made since the Asian crisis in the IMF's policies and procedures to manage capital account crises more effectively.     

新疆出版产业发展浅析

全球经济危机袭卷下,涉及面之大,从金融产业到汽车产业、从房地产行业到物流配送行业,出版产业也同样未能幸免。面对国内外出版产业遭遇的寒流,新疆出版产业也面临着严峻的挑战,本文从2009年新疆出版产业的宏观规划出发,分析新疆出版产业发展存在问题,并找寻危机下存在的机遇,提出进一步加强新疆出版产业抗击风险的策略。     

金融危机下煤炭产业转型发展思考

煤炭工业是我国重要的能源产业,煤炭工业的健康发展事关国民经济发展和能源安全大局,在长期发展过程中,我国煤炭工业对国民经济和社会发展发挥了重要作用。2008年受金融危机影响,煤炭行业出现产量下滑、价格震荡、企业效益下滑等问题,对煤炭产业的健康发展造成极大影响。对金融危机影响下煤炭产业发展现状及面临问题进行了分析研究,并提出了应对金融危机实现煤炭产业转型发展的对策措施。     

后危机阶段中国经济发展的途径和模式

从对本次金融危机认识与传导路径研究总结归纳入手,着重分析了美国金融危机对中国国民经济增长带来的影响。以金融、贸易及利率等宏观经济变化为背景,以2006～2009年的月度数据为研究样本,实证检验了中国在这次金融危机中受到的冲击。结果表明,中美股票市场之间相互影响相互引致的关系,且以美国股市影响为主;美国进口需求对中国出口具有显著的影响;人民币汇率变化与美元估值变化关系不明显,并就实证结果提供了相关政策建议。     

中国工业企业在应对国际金融危机中的表现

在国家一系列经济刺激政策作用下,中国企业采取了积极推进战略转型、加快兼并收购步伐、提升自主创新能力、优化企业管理等多项应对策略,抗击国际金融危机取得了阶段性胜利,并呈现一些新的发展特点,具体包括:企业景气状况稳步回升,经济主体信心日益增强;企业产销形势持续好转,库存再次出现攀升;企业出口扭转下滑势头,出口的根本性好转尚待时日;产品价格企稳回升,企业盈利水平逐步改观。尽管如此,当前中国企业自主创新能力不足问题依旧突出、招工难和用工紧张问题再次出现,新一轮的成本上升压力日益显著,中小企业融资难问题仍待破解,部分行业企业产能过剩问题严重。要破解这些问题,中国企业在后金融危机时代应进行主动转型升级和加强自主创新,而政府则应引导企业创新转型发展、帮助企业解决外部困难和监管企业的非理性行为。     

金融危机视角下中国金融企业跨国并购研究

受金融危机影响,美国甚至全球的金融业都进入了一个低谷.欧美许多大型金融机构资产贬值,价值被低估,股价也出现大幅下挫.可以说,流动性充沛的中国金融企业迎来了并购的良机.但受国内金融市场发展程度和金融企业自身能力限制,跨国并购之路并非一帆风顺.本文对比分析了国内金融企业在跨国并购中的机遇与挑战,并进一步通过案例分析,总结了并购中的经验教训,得出中国金融企业在金融危机背景下的海外并购应持谨慎态度,不可盲目抄底.目前,中国金融企业最重要的是把国内的业务做好,等待时机.确保金融业稳定比什么都重要.     

美国金融危机下金融监管模式的缺陷及对我国的启示

随着经济全球化的发展,国际金融的运行格局发生了巨大的变化,国际金融监管也出现了新的发展趋势。特别是2007年3月以来,美国的次贷危机引起了国际金融市场的大动荡,诱发了百年不遇的全球性金融危机。国际金融环境趋于恶劣,我国不可避免地受到了来自国际金融危机的影响,我国银行业能否抵抗这次金融危机的冲击,需要更深层次的慎思和积极应对。因此,我国需要从中吸取教训,防范金融风险,加强金融监管,弥补监管"缝隙",维护金融稳定。