ENVIRONMENT-ECONOMIC ACCOUNTING AND INDICATORS OF THE ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACTIVITIES

In this paper, we define environmental protection (EP) activities in the context of an input-output (I-O) framework. The U.S. I-O table is adjusted to separate inputs purchased by various economic sectors to abate pollution. We use I-O concepts and the I-O matrix adjusted for EP activities to derive a matrix of inputs to EP activities, which is independent of the matrix of inputs to traditional economic activities. This matrix is the basis for deriving measures of the economic importance of EP activities, including the size of EP activities relative to GNP and direct employment and indirect employment attributable to EP activities.     

创新、企业家活动配置与长期经济增长

本文继承并扩展了熊彼特关于企业家精神的思想,把企业家活动的配置引入内生技术创新模式。在本文中,企业家活动的配置决定了一个经济的R&D投入水平,技术水平和经济增长率。不同经济活动的报酬结构决定了企业家活动的配置,而且报酬结构是内生的,并且存在历史依赖性。本文的突破包括两个方面:一是把企业家活动的配置引入宏观的分析中,考察了企业家活动的配置对宏观总量的影响;二是把企业家活动的配置对经济活动影响的一般性分析引入创新活动分析中,考察了企业家活动的配置、相对报酬结构与技术创新水平之间的动态关系。本文的政策含义是,要提高经济中R&D投入水平,进而提高技术创新水平以及经济增长率,就必须通过政治、经济、法律和文化制度创新,营造激励创新的报酬结构,促使企业家更多地从事生产性的创新活动,经济才能打破低水平均衡陷阱,趋向较发达的均衡。本文对我国实施自主创新的国家战略具有重要的政策含义。     

Complementarity and substitutability between farm and nonfarm activities: Evidence from agricultural households in Tanzania

Increasing evidence shows that farm households in developing countries maintain a portfolio of income-generating activities. Concerns have been raised that household income diversification to include nonfarm activities will stifle farm works, and thus reduce agricultural productivity. On the contrary, some evidence of complementarity between the farm and nonfarm activities in rural areas has been found. This paper uses data from the fourth and the fifth waves of Tanzania's National Panel Surveys to examine whether there exists complementarity or substitutability between farm and nonfarm activities in rural Tanzania. The findings show that participation in off-farm work and nonfarm business activities has no clear relationship to the adoption and use of improved agricultural practices, namely, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Participation in off-farm work and nonfarm business activities does not also seem to directly influence agricultural investments, production, and productivity nor overall household income. These results suggest that the complementary and substitution effects of nonfarm activities offset each other in Tanzania, implying that proper policies are required to unleash the potential impact of nonfarm activities on agriculture.     

Linking organisational critical activities with business typology

This research aims to discover the connection between strategic typologies and organisational critical activities, and focuses on the organisational critical activities in three functional areas in high-tech organisations: ‘research and development’, ‘marketing’ and ‘manufacturing’. Research methods used include semi-structured interviews with 11 firms and 15 interviewees. And 34 participants were surveyed with analytic hierarchy process (AHP) questionnaires in Taiwan. The results show that organisations adopt different typologies tend to perform organisational critical activities differently to achieve success. Prospectors place more emphasis on ‘research and development’ related activities, Defenders focus on activities of ‘manufacturing and production related fields’, and Analysers care more about activities in ‘marketing related fields’. Defenders tend to pay more attention to activities relating to the manufacturing domain than Prospectors and Analysers. This research establishes a linkage between organisational critical activities and corporate strategy, and it could be useful for high-tech organisations to better manage their strategies.     

INCOME‐GENERATING ACTIVITY: AN AVENUE TO IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF SHGs

Self‐help groups (SHGs) are formed to work for increased income through collective effort and use of banking facilities by initiating some income‐generating activities taking advantage of the financial strength of a group. Taking into consideration the significance of SHGs to economic growth, the present study analyzes and compares the management of the income‐generating activities of SHGs in rural and urban areas. It also explores the extent of resource mobilization through various income‐generating activities, and the constraints faced by the SHGs while undertaking these activities. It is an exploratory research in which a multi‐stage stratified cluster random sampling technique was used for the selection of SHGs. Data were collected at group level and member level through purposely developed interview schedules and focused group discussions. The study revealed that, because of various financial and marketing‐related problems occurring while initiating and conducting the activities, very few SHG members actually started new income‐generating activities. Testing of hypotheses indicated that SHGs do not fulfil all the requirements of income‐generating activities carried out by its members. An overall low to medium level of resource mobilization by a majority of the SHGs presented a poor picture of SHGs in generating resources for undertaking entrepreneurial activities.     

Substitution between leisure activities: a quasi-natural experiment using sports viewing and cinema attendance

The allocation of time between leisure activities and work has been extensively analysed in academic literature. However, leisure time is limited and there may not be sufficient time to enjoy all the leisure activities desired. Hence, this article considers the allocation of time between substitute leisure activities. International football tournaments provide an opportunity to consider consumers’ preferences for watching football and films in a quasi-natural experimental setting. A trade-off between these leisure activities is identified using a difference-in-difference methodology. Using an original, four-country data set, a large and robust negative effect of mega sports events on cinema admissions is identified.     

对金融活动公平性的伦理关注

在世界金融发展中,金融活动的公平性已经成为金融发展的重要标志之一。中国金融活动的公平问题亦是一个难以回避的问题,对中国金融公平性的关注,不只是对金融活动的伦理关注,也是对金融活动自身完善性的表现。在中国现代金融建设中,如何体现金融活动的公平性是一项长期而艰难的任务,是金融业健康发展的内在动力。     

THE SUBSTITUTION OF SELF-SERVICE ACTIVITIES FOR MARKETED SERVICES

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part the consequences of permanent differences in the rates of productivity growth between economic activities are dealt with. Special attention is given to the substitution of self-service activities for marketed services. The former are tentatively defined as activities carried out outside the market having the following principal inputs: consumer's time, industrial products (mainly durables), and energy. The emergence of self-service activities challenges the conventional division of man's time into work for market and leisure, which should be replaced by a more detailed breakdown. Consumers’preference for self-service results mainly from high taxation, high real wages and equality in the distribution of personal income. Because of the growth of self-service activities in industrialized countries a non-negligible part of the population's productive effort will be difficult to record, since it will neither appear on the market nor have market value. The need to record self-service activities would be most strongly felt in statistics on private consumption, but would also have consequences in the measurement of the nation's welfare. One should make a distinction between consumption of marketed services and their self-service substitutes in order to provide information on the complementarity of the energy, time and material inputs into various self-service activities and on the substitutability between them and marketed services. This could perhaps be done with the help of extended commodity-private expenditure matrices. The recording as well as the valuation of non-market working time would probably cause great difficulties. Self-service activities are also becoming sufficiently important to warrant their inclusion in the debate on the measurement of the nation's productive effort and of the nation's welfare. But any recording of self-service activities would be a controversial measure since it would require recourse to imputations on a large scale.     

Transmission of CSR requirements in supply chains: investigating the multiple mediating effects of CSR activities in SMEs

In recent years, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the separate areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and supply chain management (SCM). However, little scholarly attention has been paid to the transmission of CSR requirements from a small to medium-sized enterprises (SME) perspective. Drawing on institutional and innovation diffusion theories, this paper investigates to what extent the CSR requirements of customers influence the CSR activities of SMEs and their CSR requirements toward their own suppliers. Multiple mediation analysis was performed on data from a sample of 146,060 French SMEs. The findings indicate that the CSR requirements of customers have a direct negative effect on SMEs’ CSR requirements toward suppliers. However, the relationship becomes positive when we take into account the mediating role of the SMEs’ own CSR activities (i.e. economic, social and environmental activities). Furthermore, the study reveals that the indirect effect through economic CSR activities is the greatest, followed by social and then environmental CSR activities. Our main contribution is that implementing CSR activities within SMEs is a necessary step so that SMEs can be brokers in the transmission of CSR requirements in the supply chain.     

“Ending Welfare as We Know It”: The Symbolic Importance of Welfare Policy in America

In this paper, I offer a framework for analyzing non-market oriented household activities in a way that overcomes some issues about defining the boundaries among household activities. I utilize the concept of a social process and discuss how unpaid household activities are part of labor, care, recreation, and consumption processes. Next, I explain the importance of introducing economic class and social class processes into the framework, as well as the importance of making a distinction between the two. Economic class accounts for the basics of the capitalist economy, and social class opens contexts of variation. The framework allows for a multidimensionality of individuals and opens the question of unpaid activities varying in categorization based on economic class. Also, it helps the economic analysis of capitalism consider that maintaining a household lifestyle directly involves and pertains to unpaid household activities that are part of each of the delineated labor, care, recreation, and consumption processes.     

Time use, work and overlapping activities: evidence from Australia

The overlapping of activities is an important dimension of timeuse that has previously received little attention in economicanalysis. Most time-use studies have looked only at primaryactivities, ignoring the fact that individuals often performtwo or more activities simultaneously. This seriously underestimatesthe time spent on several economic activities such as childcareand housework which are also performed as secondary activities.Using a two-adult household sub-sample from the 1992 NationalAustralian Time Use Survey, this paper examines the incidenceand determinants of overlapping activities among 3,966 adultmale and female household members. It first shows that inclusionof overlapping activities in time-use measurements providesa better estimation of the economic contribution of individuals,especially in non-market production. Tobit models are then estimatedto examine the effects of economic, social and demographic factorson the incidence of overlapped work activity. The findings,which are found to be robust, showed that gender, householdlife cycle and composition, education, cultural norms, employmentstatus and level of income earnings influence the extent towhich individuals, particularly women, perform secondary workactivities. Conclusions are drawn in the final section of thepaper.     

Cooperation and competition standards-setting activities in the digitization era: The case of wireless information devices

Standards-setting activities were traditionally characterized by either pure competition or cooperation activities. Recent studies, however, have proposed that a shift in standards-setting activities is taking place in which a hybrid mode is observed, and that digital convergence is one driving force behind this shift. Little is known about the nature of this hybrid mode and the empirical evidence that has supported such propositions is still weak. To address this gap, this paper develops a framework in which five attributes are examined to determine the level of cooperative and competitive standards-setting activities, during the development and the sponsoring stages, in the Wireless Information Devices Operating System (WID-OS) battle. The empirical evidence drawn from this standardization battle suggests that digital convergence drives firms to pursue cooperative and competitive standards-setting activities throughout the battle. We conclude by exploring future research and practical implications.     

Synergizing independent and cooperative R&D activities: the effects of organisational slack and absorptive capacity

Firms undertaking independent and cooperative research and development (R&D) activities simultaneously often have difficulties to realise their synergistic effects. This study contends that such difficulties are caused by tensions between two types of R&D activities in terms of resource competition and knowledge leakage. Moreover, organisational slack and absorptive capacity may affect these tensions and thereby play important role in synergizing independent and cooperative R&D activities. Based on a survey data of 286 firms, this study finds that such two types of R&D activities jointly have a negative impact on firm performance. Furthermore, organisational slack aids in synergizing them, while absorptive capacity has an adverse impact. These findings enrich our knowledge on the interrelation of independent and cooperative R&D activities and shed light on how firms can synergize them.     

中国企业对外直接投资与企业生产能力

随着中国企业对外直接投资(OFDI)规模的日益扩大,企业OFDI对企业生产能力的影响问题成为学者们研究的重点议题.本文基于2013—2018年的企业OFDI数据,使用倾向得分匹配法系统研究对OFDI活动对中国企业生产能力的作用结果.研究发现:OFDI活动与企业生产能力之间存在着显著的因果关系.不论是从短期还是长期来看,OFDI活动都会对企业的生产能力产生正向推动作用,同时这种推动作用还会随着时间的推移而不断提高.另外,本文还将OFDI活动划分为三大类,不同类型的OFDI活动对企业生产能力的影响中存在着较为显著的差异性.本文的研究结论为推动中国企业开展OFDI活动及相关政府管理部门制定管理政策,提供了重要的参考和借鉴.     

Sports and cultural habits by gender: An application using count data models

This article analyses individual decisions regarding participation in two leisure activities: sports and culture. Using data from the 2002–2003 Spanish Time Use Survey (TUS), information was collected on the number of times an individual participated in sports and attended cultural events in the four weeks immediately preceding the survey. In our empirical analysis, we apply count data models to estimate the frequency of sports practice and cultural attendance, both defined in the aggregate, and we also apply those models to estimate specific activities. Moreover, we run separate estimates by gender. Our results reveal that both activities are seasonal and are more common in urban areas. In addition, family responsibilities and family size are a disincentive to engage in such activities, while non-labour income and wages exert a positive effect. In analysing the demand for specific activities, we find that participation elasticity with respect to non-labour income is usually less than one for the cultural and sports activities considered, whereas wage elasticity is generally greater than one. We also find differences by activity and gender.     

SOCIAL MATRICES AND INDICATORS IN THE TRADITIONAL AFRICAN ECONOMY

This paper discusses the relevance of the conventional national accounts systems to the traditional African economy and concludes that they contribute little because they omit certain economic activities and fail to recognise the reciprocity between social and economic activities. Social accounting is thus more relevant. Lack of statistical data may make it necessary to conduct special surveys and in some cases a tribe or village or economic region may be a more useful accounting unit than a nation. A modified system of accounts is suggested, based on the frame work of the four consolidated accounts of the SNA. It provides linkages to many more nonmonetised activities. Other linkages would be provided through supporting tables emphasising social activities and transfers. A system of transactor accounts in matrix form is also suggested. In the case of communities smaller than the nation several external transactor sectors could be included. It is recognised that the problem of evaluation of social activities and a number of economic activities remains to be solved and it is concluded that "time spent" may be the only common unit or value to equate such activities.
The final section deals with investment in human resources and proposes a balance sheet approach to indicative planning. This exercise would be related to demographic projections in several variants. Other factors to be analysed dynamically would be education and health status, public finance and, ultimately, distribution of income and wealth since it is noted that the process of monetisation is having an impact which may have important welfare implications.     

Assessing economic activities – an example from central business districts

The Central Business District (CBD) is a dynamic part of the city that changes drastically over time, and responds to forces and demands for activities from within and from other countries. However, it is extremely difficult to quantify the various propositions put forward for measuring economic activities in the CBD due to the paucity of statistical data. Planning intervention thus becomes extremely difficult as other forces beyond the control or knowledge of the planner play crucial roles in determining what activities will locate in the CBD and where they will locate. This study, attempts to explore a view of how to measure and assess central business district economic activities for planning purposes. It follows a critical discussion of the nature of the CBD by pointing to empirical studies, including examples from the New York metropolitan region and the city of London. Moreover, it discusses indicators could be used to measure and assess economic activities in the CBD by highlighting planning purposes covering the entire issue.     

Can M&A activities act as a predictor of the performance of economic growth or stock prices?

One of the important issues with regard to the relationship between M&As (mergers and acquisitions) and economic growth or stock prices is whether such activities can act as a predictor of these two variables' performance, or whether these variables have resulted in significant impacts on M&A activities. The aim of this paper is to use the method proposed in Kónya (2006) to carry out a causality test among M&A activities, economic growth and stock prices, because the causal relationships that may be uncovered by this would be meaningful for both policymakers and stockholders. This paper uses quarterly data from six OECD countries for the period from April 1980 to March 2010. The bootstrap panel Granger causality test that this work applies also considers cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity simultaneously. The findings of the paper are as follows. There is significant, one-way causality from stock prices to M&A activities, and thus changes in stock prices lead M&A activities. With real GDP as the control variable, for all the countries surveyed, except Australia, stock prices lead M&A activities. As for the impact that economic growth has on M&A activities, we conclude that, when using stock prices as the control variable, there is almost no lead-lag relationship between economic growth and M&A activities, except for in Japan.     

国家科技创新活动时序性及其测度研究

目前大多数学者关于科技创新活动的测度指标都是基于能力和绩效，忽视了创新活动的时序性特征，未将时间因素引入测度体系中。从科技创新基础能力、科技创新活动投入、科技创新活动产出3个维度，基于熊彼特创新周期理论，对中日美法德五国科技创新活动进行了实证研究，采用时差分析法将科技创新活动的测度指标分为先行指标、一致指标和滞后指标，构建了具有时差关系的科技创新活动指标体系，揭示了科技创新活动的时序性规律。     

盐城自然保护区的经济开发与保护

由于缺乏自然保护意识,人们在盐城自然保护区经济开发活动中,对滩涂自然资源造成了极大的浪费,对生态环境造成了严重的破坏。因此,本文在分析当地经济活动现状的基础上,提出如何引导人们的开发活动实现经济发展和自然资源持续利用的协调统一的具体措施。