四川:宏观调控对电力销售市场的影响

国家今年对全国电力价格水平作适当调整,这是当前为缓解电力供应紧张而采取的一项重大调控措施。本文结合四川电力市场的特点,探讨其对售电市场的影响及对策。一、四川电力市场的基本情况1、发电侧市场截止2003年底,四川电网统调统分电厂装机容量1285万千瓦,其中火电装机容量468万千瓦,占总装机容量的36.4%;水电装机容量817万千瓦,占总装机容量的63.6%,并且水电装机中的绝大部分属径流式电厂。四川电网水电装机容量在发电侧所占比重的增加,决定了丰水期发电出力充足,电网能满足用电客户最大的用电负荷需求;而在枯水期,即使全部火电满开满发…     

Immigration, Race, and Labor: Unionization and Wages in the Canadian Labor Market

In Canada, most racial minorities have lower rates of unionization than do members of the majority workforce. Data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics ( N = 32,634) show that racial minority immigrants assimilate into unionization over time. However, unionization reduces net minority wage disadvantages only slightly. Union race relations policies should place more emphasis on collective bargaining as well as on unionization.     

Macroeconomic characteristics and inventory investment: a multi-country study

The paper is a new element in a series of studies analyzing macroeconomic inventory behavior by use of multi-country data. In this paper, seven hypotheses are tested with positive result. These hypotheses include subjects like relations of inventories with growth and with some other macroeconomic indicators of the use of GDP and the long-term tendencies of global inventory formations. Multivariate statistical analysis is used for evaluation.     

Immigration and the Property Market: Evidence from England and Wales

This article investigates the link between immigration and property markets in England and Wales. Evidence from fixed effects and shift‐share–based instrumental variable regressions suggests that an increase in regional immigration, depending on the specification, either decreases prices at the lower end of the distribution up to the median or leaves them unchanged and has (almost) no effect on mean property prices or prices above the median. The evidence suggests that these findings can be explained through an interaction between the markets for rented and owned properties as well as through changes in the usage of housing space.     

Health information and diet choices: Results from a cheese experiment

This study reports results from a choice experiment on semi-hard cheese from Norway. About half of the 408 participants were exposed to diet-related health information before performing either a choice or a ranking task, while a control group did not receive such information. The effects of health information on marginal willingness to pay for low-saturated-fat, low-fat and organic cheese are analyzed using rank-ordered mixed logit models. Cheese preferences are clearly affected by exposure to health information. On average, the health information group is willing to pay a price premium of 27.2% (NOK 24.5 per kg) for low-saturated-fat cheese and 14.4% (NOK 13.0 per kg) for low-fat cheese. This is respectively 1.73 and 2.89 times more than corresponding price premiums in the control group. Non-college, medium–high income, age 50–70 and female participants are more clearly affected by health information than college, low income, age 30–49 and male participants. Subjective statements on diet-health knowledge and awareness are used to discuss these findings. Our results suggest that provision of health information is likely to reduce educational differences in diet-health knowledge and thus dietary behavior. Low income participants seem to be constrained by high food prices, but not by lack of knowledge or awareness. Finally, due to lack of diet-health awareness, reaching out to young people and particularly males through health information policies seems difficult.     

电力视窗：宏观调控政策实施效果动态跟踪

由于电力生产、消费与国民经济发展情况具有同步性,所以电力经济数据对国民经济的宏观参数具有极高的参考作用。通过研究2003年以来第二产业与第三产业、重工业与轻工业以及黑色、有色和建材等行业的电力需求强度的变化,探讨宏观调控政策的实施效果。比较研究发现,2006年10月以前宏观调控政策实施效果较好,此后,由于国际市场价格的影响,黑色冶金、有色冶金等行业发展较快。     

Immigration and Access to Fringe Benefits: Evidence from the Tobacco Use Supplements

We examine the extent to which assimilation and residential ethnic enclaves are associated with immigrant access to smoking‐related fringe benefits. In particular, we consider access to office smoking bans and employer‐sponsored smoking cessation programs. We first document differences in access to these benefits between immigrant and native workers. Second, we show that assimilation is positively associated with smoking‐related fringe benefit access while enclave residence does not predict access. These findings broaden our understanding of immigrant employment.     

Minimum Wage Impacts from a Prespecified Research Design: Canada 1981–1997

Neumark (2001 ) used the novel methodology of a prespecified research design to estimate the employment effect of minimum wage changes. We conducted our analysis in the “spirit” of this methodology based on Canadian data from 1981 to 1997. Our minimum wage elasticities are substantial, typically in the range of ?0.14 to ?0.44, with ?0.30 being a reasonable point estimate, and with the effects being larger after lagged adjustments.     

The Microeconomic Impacts of Employee Representatives: Evidence from Membership Thresholds

Employee representatives in firms are a potentially key but not yet studied source of the impact of unions and works councils. Their actions can shape multiple drivers of firm performance, including collective bargaining, strikes, and training. This article examines the impact of union representative mandates by exploiting legal membership thresholds present in many countries. In the case of Portugal, which we examine here, while firms employing up to forty‐nine union members are required to have one union representative; this increases to two (three) union reps for firms with fifty to ninety‐nine (100–199) union members. Drawing on matched employer–employee data on the unionized sector and regression discontinuity methods, we find that a one percentage point increase in the legal union representative/members ratio leads to an increase in firm performance of at least 7 percent. This result generally holds across multiple dimensions of firm performance and appears to be driven by increased training. However, we find no effects of union representatives on firm‐level wages, given the predominance of sectoral collective bargaining.     

Corporate ownership and managerial short-termism: Results from a Finnish study of management perceptions

Increased media exposure to layoffs and corporate quarterly financial reporting have created arguable a common perception—especially favored by the media itself—that the companies have been forced to improve their financial performance from quarter to quarter. Academically, the relevant question is whether companies themselves feel that they are exposed to short-term pressure to perform even if it means that they have to compromise company's long-term future. This paper studies this issue using results from a survey conducted among the 500 largest companies in Finland. The results indicate that companies in general feel moderate short-term pressure, with reasonable dispersion across firms. There seems to be a link between the degree of pressure felt, and the firm's ownership structure, i.e. we find some support for the existence of potentially short-term versus long-term owners. We also find significant ownership related differences, in line with expectations, in how such short-term pressure is reflected in actual decision variables such as the investment criteria used.     

Macroeconomic Determinants of Multifamily Housing Starts: A Descriptive Analysis

The multifamily component of residential construction has received relatively little attention in the existing literature on macro-economic housing markets. In those studies where single and multifamily starts have been treated separately [ Kawaller (1976) , Arcelus and Meltzer (1973) , Brady (1973) , Kalchbrenner (1972) Smith (1969) , the greater share of attention and background discussion has been directed toward the singlefamily sector. Such treatment probably is due to the fact that multifamily starts have traditionally accounted for the smaller fraction of total private starts. Since the Census Bureau began recording the starts breakdown in 1959, however, this fraction has not fallen much below a fifth in any quarter, and it has been as high as 48 percent. Moreover, with a growing acceptance of the condominium and cooperative housing concepts, expanding Federal rental assistance initiatives, and changing life style preferences, it would appear that increased attention given to the multifamily sector, may significantly enhance our understanding of housing markets in general.     

Minimum Wage Impacts on Older Workers: Longitudinal Estimates from Canada

We use the longitudinal nature of the master file of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics in Canada for the period 1993–99 to estimate the employment impacts for older workers of the large number (24) of minimum wage increases that have occurred across the different provincial jurisdictions over that period. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the minimum wage increases have positive impacts on the employment of older workers compared with the negative impacts that are commonly estimated for youths in Canada. The results are robust across various comparison groups and measures of the minimum wage increases. Reasons for this unusual finding are discussed.     

How Capitalism Endogenously Creates Rising Income Inequality and Economic Crisis: The Macro Political Economy Model of Early Industrial Relations

A major economic issue today is the causes and consequences of wage stagnation and rising income inequality. This paper uncovers, describes, and formalizes the macro political economy model developed by pre–New Deal institutional/industrial relations economists to explain these issues. The model is formalized in a three‐part diagram and used to explain the role of inequality and wage stagnation in causing the Great Depression and World Financial Crisis and the appropriate policy responses.     

The front end of new product development: a Canadian survey

Despite the importance of the early stages of a product's life, very little attention has been paid to empirically testing the activities performed in the front end of new product development. This article presents the results of a survey of 53 individuals from fifteen high technology firms in the integrated circuit board industry. Our study adopts Cooper's (1988) 'predevelopment' model consisting of idea generation, product definition and project evaluation stages, and probes the activities undertaken in each stage. Particular activities were found to play pivotal roles in achieving the objectives of each stage. The results present a clarified view of front end activities that can be used as a starting point for adequately preparing products for development and market success.     

山东独立炼厂原料供应变化带来的影响

进口原油使用权放开后,山东独立炼厂的原料供应充足而且来源多样,装置产能利用率由之前的40％提升至60％左右,综合炼油利润显著增加,独立炼厂在中国成品油供应环节的影响力不断增强,三大国家石油公司的传统市场地位受到挑战.未来山东独立炼厂将加快管道物流设施建设,发展趋势为炼化一体化,同时横向拓展终端零售业务.     

Functional ingredients and food choice: Results from a dual-mode study employing means-end-chain analysis and a choice experiment

In this paper we present the results of a choice experiment (CE) conducted to examine how the inclusion of a functional ingredient (to increase the quantity and effectiveness of fibre) affects consumer attitudes towards bread. An novel feature of the design of our CE was that it was informed by a means-end-chain (MEC) to reveal key attributes to be included in the CE. In addition, we included the Dutch eating behaviour questionnaire (DEBQ) to collect information on all participants underlying eating behaviours. We find that bread type is a major factor in determining choice, and that the inclusion of a functional ingredient yielded relatively small measures of value. We also find that there are differences in willingness-to-pay (WTP) between respondent segments and that segment membership is explained by the DEBQ information. Finally, we find that respondents have a stronger preference for a simple health statement compared to, or in addition to, the implied benefits that result from consuming a functional food product. These findings are important in informing both pricing and promotional messages for a functional bread product.     

Case Study: Energy Industry Economic Impacts from Ohio River Transportation Disruption

Recent history is full of water transport disruption events that have had significant economic effects on the waterside industries. Such disruptions may be either natural or man-made disasters or planned outages on the river's lock and dam structures. To assess coal-based economic impacts for the Ohio River Basin, we developed a network flow model to represent waterside coal-fired power plants situated along the Ohio River, their respective coal supplying mines, and the various transportation modes that connect them. We show that significant transportation-centric insights can be derived by using only commonly available spreadsheet-based analysis tools, open-source information systems, and web-based geographic tools.     

Demand for farm animal welfare and producer implications: Results from a field experiment in Michigan

This study utilizes a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to assess Michigan consumer demand for animal welfare practices. Results are examined in the context of changing farm production costs and producer marketing margins. We find that while consumers are willing to pay significant premiums for animal welfare standards, failing to account for the costs associated with producing the entire animal under the new system could lead to suboptimal policy that negatively affects producer welfare. Our results suggest that consumer premiums for animal welfare are product specific and that WTP estimates should not be generalized to the entire animal. We discuss policy implications of our findings and highlight the importance of considering producer costs when evaluating consumer demand for farm animal welfare practices.