Economic crisis and benefits of the Internet: differentiated Internet usage by employment status

Using data from the Spanish Survey on Equipment and Use of ICTs in Households for 2007–2011, this paper evaluates the effect of employment status on the diffusion of the Internet among the labor force. We use a bivariate probit with sample selection model to account for a potential selection bias that arises because online usage is only observed for Internet users. Our results show that, controlling for income, employment influences online adoption and usage, and we find evidence of a digital divide in adoption and usage by education and age among the labor force. Employed individuals are more likely to have accessed the Internet and used it more frequently than the unemployed and for different activities. However, conditional on adoption, they do not use the Internet for more personal activities. These findings suggest that firms promote and subsidize Internet access, but this sponsored access does not translate into more personal use.     

Lessons for Development from the Japanese Experience

Economic class, defined in relation to its actual control over the economy’s productive assets, is the most useful lens for examining power distribution in the post-Soviet transition and clarifying the neoliberal nature of its social provisioning processes. Using Ukraine as an illustration, I argue that only ownership empowerment of economically powerless classes can democratize the oligarchic transition economies. As an exit strategy from oligarchic capitalism, I recommend that state capitalism be implemented, as a transitory condition only, to divest oligarchs of unlawfully acquired economic power. Then, progressive restructuring of oligarchic companies must be conducted through broadening property ownership to include shared ownership and worker participation in economic decisions. I conclude that only by nurturing the democratic fundamentals of the economy and promoting a social democratic welfare state could a government in post-Euromaidan Ukraine initiate its own social control and create a genuine political and economic democracy.     

A South African Variety of Capitalism?

This paper explores the South African political economy through the lens of a variety of capitalism (VoC) approach. It argues that attempts were made in the early post-apartheid period to forge a more social-democratic and co-ordinated variety of capitalism, but that this floundered as the government adopted neoliberal macroeconomic policies against the wishes of organised labour, and as black economic empowerment policies further undermined an already racially-fraught business sector. Organised labour was able to push for, and maintain, protective labour market policies – but this came at the cost of growing policy inconsistency notably with regard to trade liberalisation which, in the presence of growing labour-market protection, has exacerbated South Africa's unemployment crisis. Unemployment remains intractable (and with it inequality) and corruption/patrimonialism appears to be a growing problem.     

ICT效应下外商直接投资、经济增长与能源消耗 ---基于半参数空间向量自回归模型的研究

基于中国30个省份面板数据,通过构建半参数空间向量自回归模型（SSPVAR）,利用时空脉冲响应函数、偏导图探讨了经济增长、能源消耗及外商直接投资的时空传导效应与信息与通讯技术（ICT）非线性的影响作用。研究结果显示：外商直接投资、经济增长及能耗强度受到彼此冲击后的响应较为明显;能耗强度具有自强化效应,空间溢出作用促进了周边省份经济发展,短期内不利于其外资引入,但长期却能提高外资利用。经济发展产生不可持续的自身累积效应,与单位产值能耗走在了“U”的上行区,但却对邻近区域产生了积极的正向溢出。外资长期利好效应凸显,发挥经济发展和能源节约的促进作用;短期内却抑制经济发展,强化能耗度,更无法发挥“示范”效应吸引更大规模的外资流入。ICT具有正向的节能、增产和引流效应,分别以倒V和V型形态推进,但是发展的初级阶段却没有任何影响作用。加速ICT应用,智能化和信息化商业、生产模式转型将有助于更少能耗的经济高质量发展。     

ICT and resilience in times of crisis: evidence from cross-country micro moments data

ABSTRACT

ICT-intensive firms are often found to have a better performance than their non-ICT-intensive counterparts. Along with investing in ICT capital they have to adapt their production and business processes in order to reap the potentials implied by the use of ICT. Are these firms also more resilient in times of crisis? We study this question by exploiting a novel and unique data set from the Micro Moments Database. Covering 12 countries, 7 industries and the period from 2001 to 2010, the data allow us to distinguish between ICT-intensive and non-ICT-intensive firms within industries. We find evidence that indeed during the crisis in 2008 and 2009, ICT-intensive firms were hit less hard with respect to their productivity. This holds in particular for firms from service industries. Moreover, ICT-intensive firms were also more successful in introducing process innovations during that period which could explain their better productivity performance compared to non-ICT intensive firms.     

环境技术创新对企业环境效益和经济效益的作用机制

从环境技术创新的角度,将企业的环境效益与经济效益有机联系,重点研究环境技术创新对环境效益和经济效益的作用机制。首先对环境技术创新的相关研究进行综述,鉴别出环境技术创新的选择,即环境要素改变、环境子系统改变和环境系统创新。然后通过案例研究,提出环境驱动的企业技术创新与技术创新驱动的企业环境效益提高之间存在链式互动关系的理论观点,建立了环境技术创新对环境效益和经济效益的作用机制的概念模型。依据该模型,提出要实现环境效益与经济效益的"互利双赢",必须超越现有的生产技术系统,而不仅仅是对现有技术系统进行局部改善。     

我国上市公司经济效益展望

本文从上市公司的净利润总额、盈利水平和资产质量状况三个方面,分析了2000年以来我国上市公司的经济效益情况,分行业考察了上市公司经济效益的差异。本文认为,宏观经济的稳定增长和消费升级将为上市公司未来的经济效益提升提供稳固的保障,同时,制度创新因素对上市公司未来经济效益还将产生积极的影响。     

工业互联网平台赋能研究：前沿探析、内在机理与未来展望

作为一种赋能型数字技术平台,工业互联网平台能够赋能中小企业数智化转型,成为培育新质生产力的重要引擎.本文基于理论分析和案例阐释,明晰了工业互联网平台赋能的内涵、特征、要素和类型,揭示了其内在机理.研究发现:①工业互联网平台赋能是对多元主体利用数智技术基于机会和资源互动生成价值的阐释,具有数智技术集成性、生成性和多主体性,包含数智化工业技术、数智化工业机会、数智化工业资源和多元主体等要素;②工业互联网平台赋能包含结构、场域、心理和资源赋能,遵循\"价值主张、价值创造和传递、价值捕获\"的价值逻辑;③构建工业互联网平台赋能内在机理的IPO框架,技术、组织和环境层面因素能够影响平台赋能过程进而产生积极和消极作用.本文从新的主题、新的视角、新的机制丰富和细化工业互联网平台赋能研究,为激活工业互联网平台赋能效应提供决策依据,为基于工业互联网平台培育新质生产力助推平台高质量发展提供实践指导.     

浅论教育的经济效益

宏观教育学形成于20世纪60年代,宏观教育学对各国教育决策和教育实践产生了重大影响.宏观教育学直接研究教育的基础性、全面性、前瞻性、知识产生与社会经济的相互作用及其规律.集中论述教育的经济效益是宏观教育经济学的核心概念,从这一理论的兴起、发展和成熟三个阶段论述宏观教育经济学的研究发展过程,并就宏观教育经济学的研究对象进行全面阐述.而对教育经济效益的定义、内容及特性,以及教育投资对经济增长的计算方法做了剖析和比较.     

The Minimum Wage and the Cause of Democracy

Too often the minimum wage is conceived of as a small policy measure that will be of benefit to only a small segment of the labor market while imposing costs on another segment of the labor market. Unexplored, however, are the larger philosophic questions that such a small measure may actually raise. One such issue is the relationship between the minimum wage and democratic principles. In this paper I argue that the minimum wage furthers the ends of democratic society in that low-wage workers may achieve greater equality of standing with their piers to the extent that income inequality is at all lessened; their autonomy as individuals is enhanced through higher wages, which in turn enables them to claim the benefits of citizenship and participate more effectively in the democratic process; and it fosters greater economic development in that it raises the overall structure of a region and perhaps the productivity of that region.     

国有企业公司制度改革绩效探析

公司制度是企业制度变迁中的一次革命,它的独特个性所引发的整合多样产品、加速资本扩张、优化资源配置和约束企业行为等绩效,在给社会创造巨额财富的同时也改变着人类的经营理念和经济活动方式。由此可以推论,社会主义市场经济条件下国有企业实行公司制改革是一种必然选择。     

加强财务内部管理提高企业经济效益

随着现代企业制度的建立,企业管理以财务管理为中心,加强内部管理,堵塞漏洞,挖掘内部潜力,强化约束机制,采取措施提高企业的经济效益已越来越被人们所重视.企业要发展,必须从管理人手,财务管理尤为重要.加强财务管理对提高企业经济效益有着至关重要的作用.     

Measuring ‘indirect’ investments in ICT in OECD countries

ABSTRACT

ICT components, such as microprocessors, may be embodied in other capital goods not recorded as ICT in National Accounts. We name ‘indirect ICT investment’ the value of embodied ICT components in non-ICT investment. The paper provides estimates of ‘indirect ICT investment’ based on detailed and unpublished Supply-Use tables (SUT) in 12 OECD countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Our main finding is that ICT investment appears significantly higher when considering its indirect component, the average increase being about 35%. The inclusion of indirect ICT investment, excluding software (for which firms’ expenditures are difficult to measure), changes significantly the relative position of countries with respect to the ICT intensity of their investments. The inclusion of software further increases indirect ICT investment but the increase is smaller (in percentage) than without this inclusion. A final result, but concerning only three countries, it that the diagnosis of a stabilisation, or even a decrease, of ICT investment in percentage of GDP or of total investment, observed from the beginning of the century, is not modified if we take into account the indirect ICT investment.     

E-Government as an anti-corruption strategy

This paper estimates the impact of e-government on the “control of corruption” indicator using a panel of 149 countries with two time observations (). The first differenced estimator yields a positive and economically interesting effect. By the most conservative estimate, moving from the 10th percentile to the 90th percentile in the e-government distribution implies a reduction in corruption equivalent to moving from the 10th percentile to the 23rd percentile in the control of corruption distribution. Invoking external instruments, IV results are (statistically) similar.