Ecological Benchmarking to Explore Alternative Fishing Schemes to Protect Endangered Species by Substitution: The Danish Demersal Fishery in the North Sea

The cod stock in the North Sea is threatened by overexploitation. To recover this fishing stock, pressure needs to be reduced. This implies that catch compositions with small amounts of cod are preferred by public policy makers. The present analysis assesses the technological efficiency of fishing trips in terms of the substitution possibilities away from cod by considering landings of cod as an undesirable output. A conservative non-parametric frontier technology approach imposing minimal assumptions and based on directional distance functions is applied to explore alternative fishing activities for Danish gill netters operating in the North Sea with the goal of reducing cod catches. Since performance on different fishing trips may be influenced by the operating environment, a four-stage approach is applied to correct for exogenous factors (Fried et al., J Product Anal 12(3):249–267, 1999). The corrected directional distance function efficiency scores reveal the behavioural inefficiencies, i.e., prospects for decreasing the catch of cod while catch of other species are increased.      

常德市农业投入产出模型分析

利用柯布一道格拉斯生产函数,以1999年和2005年数据为基础,对常德市农业生产的实际情况进行量化分析,以农业产值为产出因子,选择劳动力、化肥投入、机械总动力、耕地面积和有效灌溉面积为投入因子,利用EVIEW计量经济软件建立投入产出模型。通过计量经济模型对比分析发现,从1999年到2005年常德市农业产值大幅增加的主导影响因素依然是耕地面积,相对1999年劳动力和农业机械总动力的影响而言,2005年化肥投入量和农业机械总动力的影响增强,而劳动力则表现出剩余现象。说明今后常德市农业生产应做好耕地资源的开源与节流工作,重视农业科技和农业机械化发展,调整农业产业结构促进劳动力资源合理利用及优化农业产业类型的布局。     

The structure of production of the Spanish telecommunications sector

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical measures of the returns to scale coefficients, substitution elasticities between capital and labor, their marginal productivities, and the profitability of inputs in the Spanish telecommunications industry. The results of this study indicate that constant returns to scale can strongly be rejected and that the profitability indices of both factors have risen consistently since 1974. Furthermore, it concludes that the company is relatively overcapitalized, a result generally consistent with the Averch-Johnson effect for rate of return regulated monopolies.The author wishes to thank Dr. Boris Bravo-Ureta and Dr. Emilio Pagoulatos for thoughtful comments on an earlier draft. She is also indebted to an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions and to Telefónica de España for providing the data necessary for this study.     

Policies for the development of knowledge-intensive local production systems

Starting from the empirical literature concerning the analysisof industrial districts, this paper focuses on the importanceof industrial policies in supporting the development and consolidationof local production systems. Here, institutions and marketsare envisaged as equally important for long-term performance.The objective is to propose a conceptual framework for the formulationof public policies that places organisational learning at thecentre of interest.     

On the existence of a regulated production function

This paper examines the generalization of the regulated production function. It characterizes the set of admissible regulatory constraints that are compatible with the existence of a regulated production function in a sufficiently weak framework to encompass the usual rate-of-return constraints à la Averch and Johnson and value constraints.     

基于生产函数的黑龙江垦区农业资源配置实证研究

利用黑龙江垦区农业近十几年的统计数据,构建黑龙江垦区农业柯布一道格拉斯生产函数和索洛方程,核算农业技术进步水平,考察资本、劳动、土地、技术对于黑龙江垦区农业总产值贡献的大小,结合黑龙江垦区农业发展的实际,分析黑龙江垦区农业资源配置现状和存在问题,对黑龙江垦区农业资源的合理配置及农业发展提出政策建议。     

Correcting for biases when estimating production functions: an illusion of the laws of algebra?

This paper shows that the endogeneity bias that allegedly appearswhen estimating production functions using value data, and whichthe literature has tried to deal with since the 1940s, is simplythe result of omitted-variable bias due to a poor approximationto an accounting identity. This problem has no econometric solution.As a result, recent attempts to solve the problem by developingnew estimators are questioned. The only possible way to estimatethe technological parameters of the production function is touse physical quantities.     

Return to Dollar, Generalized Distance Function and the Fisher Productivity Index

Exploring the duality between a return to dollar definition of profit and the generalized distance function we establish the relationship between the Laspeyres, Paasche and Fisher productivity indexes and their alternative Malmquist indexes counterparts. By proceeding this way, we propose a consistent decomposition of these productivity indexes into two mutually exclusive components. A technical component represented by the Malmquist index and an economical component which can be identified with the contribution that allocative criteria make to productivity change. With regard to the Fisher index, we indicate how researchers can further decompose the Malmquist technical component rendering explicit the sources of productivity change. We also show how the proposed model can be implemented by means of Data Envelopment Analysis techniques, and illustrate the empirical process with an example data set.     

Phase I Completed: An Empirical Assessment of the 1990 CAAA

With the conclusion of Phase I trading of SO₂ allowances, the EPA declared the allowance trading policy to be a success. The time had come to include cap-and-trade programs in the arsenal of effective policy tools. In terms of reducing atmospheric emissions of sulfur dioxide, the program appears to be successful. It is not clear, however, whether or not the program has minimized the cost of achieving the emission reductions. The measure of the true success of a market-based incentive program, however, has yetto be quantified: Has the program resulted in converging marginalabatement costs across participant plants? In this study I report theshadow prices of Phase I power plants from 1994 to 1998 anddetermine that there are more costs to be saved within theambitious public policy experiment.     

Evolving techniques in production function identification illustrated in the case of the US dairy

We estimate production technologies of major dairy producing regions in the U.S. The simultaneity and sample selection biases are carefully corrected following the recent development in the literature. The commonly applied control function approaches are found to be misleading in correcting for biases of coefficient estimates on flexible and quasi-fixed input variables. We show that the emerging dairy regions have relatively higher aggregate productivity than traditional regions. Dynamic decomposition results indicate that surviving farms play a more important role in regional productivity growth than entering and exiting farms. Farm- and regional-level driving forces of farm productivity are also examined.     

Embodied HANPP: Mapping the spatial disconnect between global biomass production and consumption

Biomass trade results in a growing spatial disconnect between environmental impacts due to biomass production and the places where biomass is being consumed. The pressure on ecosystems resulting from the production of traded biomass, however, is highly variable between regions and products. We use the concept of embodied human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) to map the spatial disconnect between net-producing and net-consuming regions. Embodied HANPP comprises total biomass withdrawals and land use induced changes in productivity resulting from the provision of biomass products. International net transfers of embodied HANPP are of global significance, amounting to 1.7 PgC/year. Sparsely populated regions are mainly net producers, densely populated regions net consumers, independent of development status. Biomass consumption and trade are expected to surge over the next decades, suggesting a need to sustainably manage supply and demand of products of ecosystems on a global level.     

Productivity and environmental regulation: the effect of the nitrates directive in the French pig sector

This paper measures the ensuing changes in productivity in the French pig sector following the introduction of the European regulation addressing water pollution by nitrates from agriculture. Productivity is measured using the Malmquist–Luenberger index. The sources of changes in productivity observed are examined by breaking down this index into its technical progress and efficiency components. The results show that in the early stages, increases in productivity were stimulated by increased efficiency, before being driven by technical progress. The estimations regarding the sources of efficiency gains for the farms in the sample (technical efficiency, efficiency of scale and environmental efficiency) are then used to estimate the indirect costs and benefits (or negative costs) linked to the introduction of the environmental regulation controlling the disposal of organic manure and the management of nitrogen surplus from pig farms. The existence of a “win-win” effect as regards the Porter hypothesis relation between efficiency and environmental regulation is highlighted for the French pig sector.      

Pseudolikelihood estimation of the stochastic frontier model

Stochastic frontier analysis is a popular tool to assess firm performance. Almost universally it has been applied using maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. An alternative approach, pseudolikelihood (PL) estimation, which decouples estimation of the error component structure and the production frontier, has been adopted in both the non-parametric and panel data settings. To date, no formal comparison has yet to be conducted comparing these methods in a standard, parametric cross-sectional framework. We produce a comparison of these two competing methods using Monte Carlo simulations. Our results indicate that PL estimation enjoys almost identical performance to ML estimation across a range of scenarios and performance metrics, and for certain metrics, outperforms ML estimation when the distribution of inefficiency is incorrectly specified.     

Creativity-enhancing technological change in the production of scientific knowledge

ABSTRACT

We view scientific publications as a measure of technical knowledge. Using the Solow method of functional decomposition and scientific publication data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, we find that 79% of the increase in scientific publications per unit of scientific personnel is explained by an increase in federal R&D capital per unit of scientific personnel. We describe the unexplained or residual 21% as a measure of creativity-enhancing technological change, a phenomenon that offers a way to reverse the perceived slowing of the productivity of science. The explained 79% offers a possible metric for federal laboratories’ mandated reporting of a ROI to federal R&D. Understanding the drivers of the residual 21% could enable public policy to mitigate the resource constraints caused by the breakdown of exponential growth of the resources devoted to science.     

Investment rates and the aggregate production function

In this paper we consider a simple version of the neoclassical growth model, and carry out an empirical analysis of the main determinants of aggregate investment across countries. The neoclassical growth model predicts that aggregate investment may be influenced by income growth, the capital income share, the relative price of capital, taxes, and other market distortions. We check these investment patterns for both OECD and non-OECD countries. We also decompose investment data into equipment and structures, and explore major factors affecting their relative prices. These empirical exercises shed light into the shape of the neoclassical production function.     

The knowledge production of ‘R’ and ‘D’

Many studies investigate the relationship between R&D and patents applying knowledge production functions. Using aggregated R&D may underestimate the productivity of ‘R’, as mainly ‘R’ but not ‘D’ leads to patents. Disaggregating ‘R’ and ‘D’ shows a significant premium of ‘R’ towards patenting.     

Economies of scale and mechanization in Chinese corn and wheat production

ABSTRACT

As the growth in Chinese farm productivity slowed down between 2000 and 2010, modernizing agriculture has become a priority of the Chinese government. Given the important role of mechanization and land reform policies in that context, this study investigates farm production in China with a specific emphasis on the potential role of mechanization as well as land and farm consolidation. A production function is estimated using farm household data on corn and wheat production in the Shandong and Hebei provinces. The results allowed us to explore the potential economies of scale across a range of farm size, the impact of land fragmentation, and assess the impact of machinery usage. Our findings suggest that, taken in isolation, the prospect for efficiency gains from mechanization and land reforms appears limited.     

基于KMV模型的我国中小上市公司信用风险研究

经过提高股权价值波动率精确度的KMV模型对我国中小上市公司有很强的识别信用风险状况的能力,我们可以通过设定两条信用预警线,来监控中小上市公司的信用危机.文章研究发现,资产规模对信用风险有显著影响,2004年之后资产规模与违约风险显著负相关,总资产小于3亿元的小公司抗风险能力最差.股权分置改革引起了中小上市公司信用风险短时间的波动,是2006年中小上市公司违约风险变大的重要原因.     

Productivity growth and environmental regulations - accounting for undesirable outputs: Analysis of China's thirty provincial regions using the Malmquist-Luenberger index

This paper employs the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) productivity index to evaluate China's growth in total factor productivity (TFP), incorporating undesirable outputs, during the period from 1989 to 2008. The ML productivity index and its components (technical and efficiency changes) are derived from the directional distance function which gives credit for an increase in good outputs and for reductions in undesirable outputs. The average annual ML productivity growth, accounting for undesirable outputs, is 2.46%, whereas the value of the traditional Malmquist productivity index is 4.84%, showing that the true TFP growth in China is overestimated if undesirable outputs are ignored. We explore the strictness in enforcing environmental regulations and its impact on improvements in ML productivity. The results show that, the enforcement of environmental regulations in China is, in general, far below the levels achieved in the best performing regions, and that the more stringent enforcement of environmental regulations would help to improve ML productivity growth in China.     

循环经济条件下企业行为最优化的经济学分析

循环经济模式下企业的生产函数和成本函数都增加了新的内容,资源环境变量不再是外生的,而是被内生化到生产函数中。运用定性和定量分析方法,对企业生产函数进行改进研究的结果表明,当企业行为最优化条件中增加了资源环境的约束时,生产者均衡将受单位产品的资源消耗量、污染物排放量、废弃物资源化等条件的影响。