An assessment of telecommunications reform in developing countries

This paper analyzes the impact of policy reform in basic telecommunications on sectoral performance using a new panel data set for 86 developing countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean over the period 1985 to 1999. We address three questions. First, what impact do specific policy changes—relating to ownership and competition—have on sectoral performance? Second, how is the impact of change in any one policy affected by the implementation of the other, and by the overall regulatory framework? Third, does the sequence in which reforms are implemented affect performance? We find that both privatization and competition lead to significant improvements in performance. But a comprehensive reform program, involving both policies and the support of an independent regulator, produced the largest gains: an 8 percent higher level of mainlines and a 21 percent higher level of labor productivity compared to years of partial and no reform. Interestingly, the sequence of reform matters: mainline penetration is lower if competition is introduced after privatization, rather than at the same time.     

基于层次分析的灰色模糊综合评价法在节能住宅技术经济评价中的应用

随着建筑节能的推广,迫切需要适合各地区的节能住宅技术评价方法。文章根据寒冷地区节能住宅特点,设计相应的技术经济评价指标体系,引入层次分析法、灰色关联度和模糊综合评价法对节能住宅设计方案进行评价,最后通过实例说明如何运用基于层次分析法的灰色模糊综合评价法进行节能设计方案的优选。分析模型可供节能住宅设计方案优选时参考。     

浅议发展社会工作对社会管理创新的意义

在欧美国家社会工作在社会管理方面担任着重要的角色。当前中国社会转型时期是把社会工作引入到社会管理创新的极好契机。应当通过传播社会工作理念、建设社会工作人才队伍、培育民间社工组织机构、推行政府购买服务等途径推动社会工作发展,充分发挥社会工作具有亲和力和实效性、整合社会资源、调整社会心理和社会关系、推动党的群众工作变革等方面的优势和作用,为社会群体与居民提供专业化、个体化的优质社会服务,从而有力地推动了社会管理创新。     

Poverty, political freedom, and the roots of terrorism in developing countries: An empirical assessment

We find that political freedom has a significant and non-linear effect on domestic terrorism, but has no statistically significant effect on transnational terrorism. Geography and fractionalization limit a country’s ability to curb terrorism, while strong legal institutions deter terrorism.     

Foresight tools for participative policy-making in inter-governmental processes in developing countries: Lessons learned from the eLAC Policy Priorities Delphi

The paper shows how international foresight exercises, through online and offline tools, can make policy-making in developing countries more participatory, fostering transparency and accountability of public decision-making. A five-round Delphi exercise (with 1454 contributions), based on the priorities of the 2005-2007 Latin American and Caribbean Action Plan for the Information Society (eLAC2007), was implemented. This exercise aimed at identifying future priorities that offered input into the inter-governmental negotiation of a 2008-2010 Action Plan (eLAC2010). It is believed to be the most extensive online participatory policy-making foresight exercise in the history of intergovernmental processes in the developing world to date. In addition to the specific policy guidance provided, the major lessons learned include (1) the potential of Policy Delphi methods to introduce transparency and accountability into public decision-making, especially in developing countries; (2) the utility of foresight exercises to foster multi-agency networking in the development community; (3) the usefulness of embedding foresight exercises into established mechanisms of representative democracy and international multilateralism, such as the United Nations; (4) the potential of online tools to facilitate participation in resource-scarce developing countries; and (5) the resource-efficiency stemming from the scale of international foresight exercises, and therefore its adequacy for resource-scarce regions. Two different types of practical implications have been observed. One is the governments' acknowledgement of the value of collective intelligence from civil society, academic and private sector participants of the Delphi and the ensuing appreciation of participative policy-making. The other is the demonstration of the role that can be played by the United Nations (and potentially by other inter-governmental agencies) in international participatory policy-making in the digital age, especially if they modernize the way they assist member countries in developing public policy agendas.     

浅谈如何做好国有企业综合治理工作

稳定是从事一切工作的基础和前提条件,是加快企业改革发展的重要保障。综合治理工作是维护企业稳定最有效的措施,是企业发展的基础保证。因此,必须不断加强企业综合治理工作力度,确保企业快速健康和谐发展。     

商业银行开展行业分析工作探讨

行业分析是金融从业人员、大众投资者为获取行业本质规律、信贷承载能力和价值回报水平等而进行的分析工作。商业银行开展行业分析工作具有重要意义。行业分析的内容不但要包括行业发展趋势,还要深入分析行业的物流、资金流和信息流等运营特征;不但要把握行业的信贷风险,还要组合设计合适的产品,同时对银行所维护的行业客户质量有清晰的认识。对于商业银行来说,开展行业分析是以常态化、组织化和实用化为基础的。     

Global patterns of socioeconomic biomass flows in the year 2000: A comprehensive assessment of supply, consumption and constraints

Human use of biomass has become a major component of the global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen. The use of land for biomass production (e.g. cropland) is among the most important pressures on biodiversity. At the same time, biomass is indispensable for humans as food, animal feed, raw material and energy source. In order to support research into these complex issues, we here present a comprehensive assessment of global socioeconomic biomass harvest, use and trade for the year 2000. We developed country-level livestock balances and a consistent set of factors to estimate flows of used biomass not covered by international statistics (e.g. grazed biomass, crop residues) and indirect flows (i.e. biomass destroyed during harvest but not used). We found that current global terrestrial biomass appropriation amounted to 18.7 billion tonnes dry matter per year (Pg/yr) or 16% of global terrestrial NPP of which 6.6 Pg/yr were indirect flows. Only 12% of the economically used plant biomass (12.1 Pg/yr) directly served as human food, while 58% were used as feed for livestock, 20% as raw material and 10% as fuelwood. There are considerable regional variations in biomass supply and use. Distinguishing 11 world regions, we found that extraction of used biomass ranged from 0.3 to 2.8 t/ha/yr, per-capita values varied between 1.2 and 11.7 t/cap/yr (dry matter). Aggregate global biomass trade amounted to 7.5% of all extracted biomass. An analysis of these regional patterns revealed that the level of biomass use per capita is determined by historically evolved patterns of land use and population density rather than by affluence or economic development status. Regions with low population density have the highest level of per-capita biomass use, high-density regions the lowest. Livestock, consuming 30-75% of all harvested biomass, is another important factor explaining regional variations in biomass use. Global biomass demand is expected to grow during the next decades; the article discusses some options and possible limitations related to such a scenario.     

Electricity sector reform in developing countries: an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization,competition and regulation

Electricity sectors in both developed and developing countries have been subject to restructuring to introduce private capital and increase competition. Although the effects of such reforms in a number of the developed economies are now well documented, the experience of developing countries is much less well researched. This paper provides an econometric assessment of the effects of privatization, competition and regulation on the performance of the electricity generation industry using panel data for 36 developing and transitional countries, over the period 1985–2003. The study identifies the impact of these reforms on generating capacity, electricity generated, labor productivity in the generating sector and capacity utilization. The main conclusions are that on their own privatization and regulation (PR) do not lead to obvious gains in economic performance, though there are some positive interaction effects. By contrast, introducing competition does seem to be effective in stimulating performance improvements.      

The semiconductor silicon industry roadmap: Epochs driven by the dynamics between disruptive technologies and core competencies

The resource-based perspective has done much to identify idiosyncratic firm attributes that may be a principal source of competitive advantages. Unfortunately, there has been little systematic industry evidence to support the strategic importance of core competence, nor has there been much work on the temporal or cumulative nature of core capabilities within an industrial setting. Further, little or no research has been performed demonstrating how the advent of technological discontinuities or disruptive technologies plays a part in creating epochs in technology competency development and the roadmap of an industry. In this study, we analyze the evolutionary and cumulative nature of core capabilities and their interactions with technological discontinuities from a market-driven perspective. We have studied the evolution of 167 firms through the 50-year history of the semiconductor silicon industry. Over time, there were several structural shifts in the necessary competencies through the advent of disruptive technologies. In the last 30 years, however, the change in the required competencies has been more cumulative in nature. We summarize this in a roadmap detailing the epochs in the semiconductor silicon industry.     

贸易便利化:发展中国家的机遇与挑战

近几十年来,随着国际贸易在全球范围内的不断扩展,人们逐步意识到复杂的海关及贸易相关程序将对经济发展带来不利影响。贸易便利化逐渐成为发达国家和发展中国家共同关注的问题。贸易便利化旨在为国际贸易活动创造一种协调、透明和可预见的环境。它以国际公认的标准和惯例为基础,涉及各种手续和程序的简化,基础设施和设备的标准化,以及改进对各种适用法律和规定的协调。贸易便利化的主要目标在于减少国际商贸活动中的交易成本,降低交易的复杂性,改善一国的贸易环境,同时使政府的管制措施更为有效。贸易便利化可为发展中国家带来各种好处。从…     

Commentary: Nash's work in economics

This paper is a brief tribute to John Nash's work in economic theory on the occasion of his eightieth birthday.     

Farm work, home work and international productivity differences

Agriculture's share of economic activity is known to vary inversely with a country's level of development. This paper examines whether extensions of the neoclassical growth model can account for some important sectoral patterns observed in a current cross section of countries and in the time series data for currently rich countries. We find that a straightforward agricultural extension of the neoclassical growth model fails to account for important aspects of the cross-country data. We then introduce a version of the growth model with home production, and we show that this model performs much better.     

Persistence of economic uncertainty: a comprehensive analysis

One of the most heavily researched and cited issue in applied economics is the relationship of uncertainty indices with the financial and macroeconomic variables. While the statistical features of financial and macroeconomic variables have been thoroughly examined, virtually nothing has been done to examine uncertainty indices under the statistical perspective. In this paper, we focus on two primary characteristics of uncertainty indices: persistence and chaotic behaviour. In order to evaluate the persistence and the chaotic behaviour we analyse 72 popular uncertainty indices constructed by forecasting models, text mining from news articles and data mining from monetary variables to measure the Hurst and Lyapunov exponents in rolling windows. The examination in rolling windows provides a dynamic evaluation of the specific characteristics revealing significant variations of persistence and chaotic dynamics with time. More specifically, we find that almost all uncertainty indices are persistent, while the chaotic dynamics are detected only sporadically and for certain indices during recessions of economic turbulence. Thus, we suggest that the examination of persistence and chaos should be a prerequisite step before using uncertainty indices in economic policy models.     

Intelligent tools and techniques for modern management

In order to make decisions all companies need information. As a rule, all the informatics systems of a company contain a multitude of data and turn these data into information that has to be analyzed in order to make decisions. It is a slow process. The solution of this drawback is given by Business Intelligence （BI） applications that can help companies increase income or diminish costs by offering the executive management appropriate information on the basis of which quick and efficient decisions can be taken.
The main purpose of the paper is to prove the necessity that BI tools should be used by the modem manager. Managers are aware of that by putting into practice the BI solutions, opportunities of getting control over the business process and methods are improved and better, timely analysis functions of the performance parameters can be obtained.