Coal price fluctuations and the impact on financial risk Evidence from China＇s coal listed companies

With the rise of coal price, the proportion of loss-making enterprises shows an upward trend in China＇s coal industry. This paper uses Altman Z-Score model to measure financial risk of 19 listed companies in the coal industry in A-share market from 1995 to 2007. Empirical results show that Year-Based price index of coal price has a negative correlation with the financial risk but has no significance, and coal chain price has a significant negative correlation with the financial risk. Further research indicates that enterprises increase bad investment, and a lot of debts caused by short-term rise in coal prices. The results also show that the financial risk in the coal industry declines with the rise of GDP growth rate and increases with the rise of inflation rate.     

The Transition of Thoughts on Grain Control in the Qing Dynasty:A Survey of the Great Debate on the Ever-Normal Granary and Grain Prices in 1748

The ever-normal granary system was an official granary management system in ancient China.Throughout its existence,the system functioned as a major means of adjusting the price of grain and provided disaster relief.Few studies on the system touches upon the relationship between grain price fluctuation and the development of the grain market,or the ever-normal granary system and its related economic school of thoughts.Starting with the development of the grain market and the relationship between the price of grain and grain reserves,and through a systematic review of the debate on the ever-normal granary system and grain prices among high-level officials of the Qing government in the 13th year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign(1748),this paper analyzes the historical process and reasons for the change in thoughts on the ever-normal granary system and discusses the historical path of how economic phenomenon gave rise to the clash of economic thoughts that influenced the evolution of this economic institution.     

Comment on Price Regulation of Railway

Basing on the economic analysis of railway＇s natural monopoly, we begin from the foreign models to analyze the experiences of America and England. We give some advice on price regulation of China railway industry from fixing price method, supervised objects, patterns and institution.     

Analysis on Demand Price of Housing Industry and its Bubble Test

WANG Shi-fei, FAN Wang-bang In recent years China＇s housing price keeps going up and Chinese government has adopted some measures to control it, but the result is not satisfying. The current situation is that the housing price goes up among goverment＇s effort to control it. Based on view of demand and housing price, the paper has a deep analysis on relation between demand and housing price. The analysis shows that overdemand and low financial threshold lead to high price of housing. After having a test on bubble in housing market, the paper puts forward some measures to promote sound development of housing industry in China.     

Analysis on inbound tourists＇ satisfaction in China： an empirical study based on the investigation of 5 cities

In China, the tourism industry is regarded as one means of fostering local economic development. This paper tries to examine inbound tourism development in China in the last decade and analyze inbound tourism＇s satisfaction of their travel experience with tourist attractions, facilities, services and price by an empirical study based on the investigation of Lanzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. This paper discusses the demographic characteristics of visitors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, US. Korea and Japan by surveying a .sample of 528 visitors in five different cities. The survey showed that four provinces/autonomous region in western China ranked the top 10 popular destinations. Chinese natural landscape, culture and food were highly regarded by the tourists. At the same time, tourists expressed less satisfaction with tourist language convenience, tourist facility and nightlife in China. It was also found that only 7.4% of the tourists thought travel in China was far more than what they had paid, that 6.5% regarded they got what they paid for, and that 34.9% thought the travel cost was reasonable. Most tourists were satisfied with their travel experience in China： many of them would like to return to China and would like to recommend China. For the sustainable development of tourism, Chinese tourism authorities should strengthen the construction, propaganda and management of scenic spots, improve tourist facility and tourist education. especially language convenience, and strengthen the supervision of tickets, souvenir and hotel price.     

Economical Analysis on the Causes and Effects of the ＂Shell＂ Resource of the Professional Football Clubs in China

An essential issue in professionalizing Chinese football industry is how to properly apply and optimize the resources of professional football clubs. The present paper analyzes the operation and resource application in the professional football clubs in China from two perspectives： the causes and effects of the shell resources. The paper attempts to provide a thorough understanding of the professional football clubs in China and thus to make full play of the resource value.     

Investment risk analysis of China＇s wind power industry based on pre-assessment matrix

Wind energy is a clean and sustainable energy, and wind power does not rely on fossil fuels. So there is no fuel price risk, and it, of course, does not include the environmental costs, such as carbon emissions. Because of these unique advantages, wind power has gradually become an important part of the strategy of sustainable development in China. Now with the growing voices on global greenhouse gas emission reduction, and as a clean and efficient energy, wind power has huge potential in combating climate change, energy security pressures and the needs for energy. Wind power in China began to develop from the 1980s. In the first 20 years, the speed of development was slow; but since 2004, it has had an extremely rapid growth.This paper, in order to study the development mechanism of China＆amp;amp;amp;#39;s wind power industry, investigated and analyzed the status quo of wind power industry in China, and then found that （1） the development trend of wind power industry in China appears exponential growth; （2） China＆amp;amp;amp;#39;s installed capacity of wind power is still smaller than that os some other countries; （3） new subsidy policies bring developing opportunities to wind power industry in China; （4） the sectors of wind power industry are in unbalanced growing; （5） the owners of proposed wind farms are too optimistic though the built wind farm had many problems. In addition, by using the methodology of Game Theory, this paper has also constructed the matrix of pre-assessing risks of China＆amp;amp;amp;#39;s wind power industry to further discuss the potential risk factors within China＆amp;amp;amp;#39;s wind power industry as risk factors of wind farm construction, risk factors of production of wind turbines, risk factors of parts and components manufacturing industry under risk indicators like R＆amp;amp;amp;amp;D, patents, the domestic policy, the international policy, the quality of products and the market regulation, in order to provide a scientific assessment and self-assessment tool for investors or implementers, and also to promote the further development of the wind power industry.     

Present situation and countermeasure research of economic structure of Shaanxi Province

Economic structure is a significant factor impacting economic growth and economic growth quality. In this paper, the present status of economic structure of Shaanxi Province is analyzed, and available primal problem is indicated. There have been a lot of problems in economic structure of Shaanxi Province, mainly including slow tertiary industry development, comparatively grave unbalance of light and heavy industries proportion, lagged development in high and new technology industries, high industry convergence degree, low scale effect, slow agriculture expanding and so on. Meanwhile, homologous countermeasure is given in this text： we should develop tertiary industry with tourism as the leading role energetically to promote industrial hierarchy, impulse structural rationalization of foreign trade through international cooperation and competition, accelerate the industrialization, promote industrial structure upgrade, develop the high and new technology industries quickly, accelerate the promotion of industry scale effect and expedite expansion of industry colony. We should also develop superior industry, reduce industry convergence degree, and develop the agriculture energetically to promote the industrialization and modernization of agriculture. These points are given in the interest of supplying gist and reference to government in industrial structure adjusting and policy making.     

Tourism spatial reconstruction of Chengde City under the influence of Holiday Tourism Circle of Beijing

Holiday Tourism Circle of Beijing （HTCB） is one of the nine key regions of Chinese tourism industry in the period of the 11^th Five-Year Project. According to Tourist Marginal Utility Theory, Time-Distance Method is used to define HTCB in this paper. Chengde City, famous for its cultural tourism, is regard as one of the regions in Holiday Tourism Circle of Beijing. And this geographical advantage, in the context of the boom of tourism in China, is featured by the changes of tourist product structure and development model. In this paper, the influence upon Chengde tourism spatial structure has been discussed from tourist market, location and transportation. Chengde tourism spatial structure has been rebuilt with particular references to the factors of tourism destination district, tourist area, nodes, routes, and origin markets. In this paper, Chengde will develop tourism industry with the central heritage area as the center and northern forest and pasture area and southern mountain and lake area as the two wings.     

New Thinking of Traditional Industry Development under the New Economic Condition——Classification of the Industry by the Management Mode of Nike

This paper has announced the arrival of new economic era through an analysis of Nike＇s management mode. The traditional industry classification can＇t meet demands of industry development. We should inherit and improve traditional economy in order to adapt to the development demand of new economy.     

Optimal cartel trigger price strategies

A dynamical model of industry equilibrium is described in which a cartel deters deviations from collusive output levels by threatening to produce at Cournot quantities for a period of fixed duration whenever the market price falls below some trigger price. In this model firms can observe only their own production level and a common market price. The market demand curve is assumed to have a stochastic component, so that an unexpectedly low price may signal either deviations from collusive output levels or a “downward” demand shock.     

Product differentiation,price discrimination and collusion

The existing literature which analyses the relationship between the product differentiation degree and the sustainability of a collusive agreement on price assumes that firms cannot price discriminate, and concludes that there is a negative relationship between the product differentiation degree and the critical discount factor. This paper, in contrast, assumes that firms are able to price discriminate. Within the Hotelling framework, three different collusive schemes are studied: perfect collusion on discriminatory prices; perfect collusion on a uniform price; collusion not to discriminate. We obtain that the critical discount factor of the first and the third collusive scheme does not depend on the product differentiation degree, while the critical discount factor of the second collusive scheme depends positively on the product differentiation degree. Moreover, we show that imperfect collusion is more difficult to sustain than perfect collusion.     

Tacit collusion with imperfect monitoring in the Canadian manufacturing industry: an empirical study

This article undertakes a cross-sectoral analysis of a salient empirical implication of the model of tacit collusion advanced by Abreu, Pearce, and Stachetti (1986). Specifically, we assess the prevalence of a first-order Markovian process for alternating between price wars and collusive periods through nonparametric tests. The analysis focuses on 30 different industries in Canada. The evidence provides weak support for optimal collusion in one industry, which is consistent with the idea that such kind of collusive arrangements is unusual, or, if collusion is all too common, that price wars as deviations from collusion are rare.     

COMPETITION FOR MARKET SHARE OR FOR MARKET SIZE: OLIGOPOLISTIC EQUILIBRIA WITH VARYING COMPETITIVE TOUGHNESS*

For an industry producing a composite commodity, we propose a comprehensive concept of oligopolistic equilibrium, allowing for a parameterized continuum of regimes varying in competitive toughness. Each firm sets simultaneously its price and its quantity under two constraints, relative to its market share and to market size. The price and the quantity equilibrium outcomes always belong to the set of oligopolistic equilibria. When firms are identical and we let their number increase, any sequence of symmetric oligopolistic equilibria converges to the monopolistic competition outcome. Further results are derived in the symmetric CES case, concerning in particular the collusive solution enforceability.     

Collusion and Price Rigidity

We consider an infinitely repeated Bertrand game, in which prices are publicly observed and each firm receives a privately observed, i.i.d. cost shock in each period. We focus on symmetric perfect public equilibria, wherein any "punishments" are borne equally by all firms. We identify a tradeoff that is associated with collusive pricing schemes in which the price to be charged by each firm is strictly increasing in its cost level: such "fully sorting" schemes offer efficiency benefits, as they ensure that the lowest-cost firm makes the current sale, but they also imply an informational cost (distorted pricing and/or equilibrium-path price wars), since a higher-cost firm must be deterred from mimicking a lower-cost firm by charging a lower price. A rigid-pricing scheme, where a firm's collusive price is independent of its current cost position, sacrifices efficiency benefits but also diminishes the informational cost. For a wide range of settings, the optimal symmetric collusive scheme requires (i) the absence of equilibrium-path price wars and (ii) a rigid price. If firms are sufficiently impatient, however, the rigid-pricing scheme cannot be enforced, and the collusive price of lower-cost firms may be distorted downward in order to diminish the incentive to cheat. When the model is modified to include i.i.d. public demand shocks, the downward pricing distortion that accompanies a firm's lower-cost realization may occur only when current demand is high.     

Are low-price promises collusion guarantees? An experimental test of price matching policies

In a symmetric differentiated experimental duopoly we test the ability of Price Matching Guarantees (PMG) to raise prices above the competitive levels. PMG are introduced both as a market rule (the selling price is always the lowest posted price) and as a business strategy (subjects decide whether or not to offer them). Our results show that PMG lead to a clear collusive outcome as markets quickly and fully converge to the collusive prediction if PMG are imposed as a market rule. Whenever subjects are allowed to decide whether to adopt PMG or not we observe that almost all subjects decide to adopt them and prices get very close to the collusive ones.      

Forward trading and collusion in oligopoly

We consider an infinitely repeated oligopoly in which at each period firms not only serve the spot market by either competing in prices or quantities but also have the opportunity to trade forward contracts. Contrary to the pro-competitive results of finite-horizon models, we find that the possibility of forward trading allows firms to sustain collusive profits that otherwise would not be possible to achieve. The result holds both for price and quantity competition and follows because (collusive) contracting of future sales is more effective in deterring deviations from the collusive plan than inducing the previously identified pro-competitive effects.     

Revocable pricing can yield collusive outcomes

Traditional models of Bertrand price competition assume irrevocable price announcements. In contrast, when price changes have zero direct costs but sales are thereby delayed, the collusive monopoly outcome is a subgame perfect outcome and is, moreover, the natural focal equilibrium.     

Sustaining Collusion under Economic Integration*

In this paper, we aim at investigating from a game‐theory perspective whether trade liberalization can promote a collusive two‐way trade. We show that, under Cournot competition, economic integration is anti‐competitive if collusive trade is a possible outcome of the repeated game; under price competition, the likelihood of collusive trade is a necessary but not sufficient condition for trade liberalization to be pro‐competitive. Furthermore, we show that economic integration may increase the scope for collusion irrespective of the firms’ strategic variable.