The policy delphi method: contribution to policy and strategy within energy organisations: a 2013 Malaysian case study with global implications

The policy delphi method is a process that seeks to generate the strongest possible opposing views on the potential resolutions of a major policy issue, such as strategy and policy for infrastructure and engineering asset management within asset-intensive organisations. The objectives of the policy delphi method are to: ensure that all possible options have been tabled for consideration, estimate the impact and consequences of any particular option, and to examine and estimate the acceptability of all the individual options. The committee process is commonly used to address a wide range of issues and decisions within organisations at management and operational levels. Committees dominate governance and management within nearly all types of organisations, however, it has been argued that the committee approach no longer functions as effectively in the realm of policy formulation as it once may have due to a lack of adequate structure for discussion. Due to the disadvantages of the Committee process, this research investigated the relevance and effectiveness of the policy delphi method in 2013 within the leading Malaysian energy organisation, with the provision of this practical case study of a policy delphi to elaborate the efficacy of this method for asset intensive organisations to develop strategy and policy.     

Client–consultant interaction: Capturing social practices of professional service production

Based on the investigation of seven consultancy projects within an international technical consulting firm, we identify three major practices that characterize client–consultant interaction – shaping impressions, problem-solving, and negotiating expectations – and discuss their respective characteristics, activities, and contingencies. Our discussion of these practices provides not only a more differentiated picture of client–consultant interaction but also uncovers the critical role that clients play in these practices.     

Estimating production technology for policy analysis: trading off precision and heterogeneity

This paper develops an approach to select models that can make the best use of limited micro-level data sets to estimate production function parameters. Since production is often the core of the agricultural and environment policy analyses, we evaluate the models using criteria that reflect the objectives of policy analysis. We argue that policy production models should optimize the precision of policy response predictions, but also incorporate sufficient heterogeneity to allow policy makers to consider the distributional consequences of policies. Hence we develop a series of quantitative metrics of both precision and heterogeneity to compare model performance. Our approach consists of two steps. We first combine the method of generalized maximum entropy and data envelopment analysis and simultaneously estimate the production frontier and technical inefficiency parameters. With a set of household level data, we estimate production models at three different levels. The province-level model restricts the production technology parameters to be the same for all households. The county-level models allow production technology parameters to vary by county but restrict them to be equal across communities within the same county. The community-level models allow production technology parameters to vary by community. In the second step, we use the disaggregated information gain, percentage absolute prediction error and the Theil??s U statistic to evaluate these models.     

论制造企业生产物流的改进策略

生产物流是制造企业物流的关键环节,然而我国制造企业的生产物流却存在很多严重的问题,其中最为突出的是:落后的生产物流的计划控制方式使得提前期长,库存量和在制品储备量高,造成了企业库存积压严重、生产效率低下等问题。这就迫切需要一种有效的生产物流计划与控制方法,来合理调配生产物资,优化制造过程,以改善制造企业生产物流的现状,提高企业的经营绩效。     

Tax policy and returns to education

This paper considers how asymmetric tax treatment, where labour market earnings are taxed but household production is untaxed, affects educational choice and labour supply. We show that taxes on labour market earnings can generate a large (non-marginal) switch to home production and the ensuing deadweight losses are large. Using a cross-country panel, we find that gender differences in labour supply responses to tax policy can explain differences in aggregate labour supply and years of education across countries.     

企业战略对城市战略制定的启示

本文通过对现代化城市战略缺陷的分析 ,指明在经济全球化以及市场改革的背景下 ,城市战略应积极吸收借鉴企业战略中的竞争、效益和特色的理念 ,通过重塑观念 ,改进方式和完善制度为城市战略的制定探索新的模式。     

Barriers to innovation and public policy in Catalonia

The present paper analyses the link between firms’ decisions to innovate and the barriers that prevent them from being innovative. The aim is twofold. First, it analyses three groups of barriers to innovation: the cost of innovation projects, lack of knowledge and market conditions. Second, it presents the main steps taken by Catalan Government to promote the creation of new firms and to reduce barriers to innovation. The data set used is based on the 2004 official innovation survey of Catalonia which was taken from the Spanish CIS4 sample. This sample includes individual information on 2,954 Catalan firms in manufacturing industries and knowledge-intensive services (KIS). The empirical analysis reveals pronounced differences regarding a firm’s propensity to innovate and its perception of barriers. Moreover, the results show that cost and knowledge barriers seem to be the most important and that there are substantial sectoral differences in the way that firms react to barriers. The results of this paper have important implications for the design of future public policy to promote entrepreneurship and innovation together.

A return to incomes policy?*

The Government's continuing difficulties in controlling the money supply and determination to use cash limits to control the level of public sector pay settlements have renewed cause for a return to a form of incomes policy covering both the public and private sectors. In this article Brian Towers examines the nature of incomes policy and the importance of comparability and collective bargaining structure in its implementation and discusses the form which a viable future policy should take.     

Yield curve responses to market sentiments and monetary policy

Central banks recently started to target longer term interest rates. The empirical failure of the rational expectations theory of the yield curve, however, limits its applicability to monetary policy analysis. The success of agent-based behavioral asset pricing models and behavioral macroeconomic models in replicating statistical regularities of empirical data series motivates to apply them to yield curve modeling. This paper analyses how the interaction of monetary policy and market sentiments shape the yield curve in a behavioral model with heterogeneous and bounded-rational agents. One result is that the behavioral model replicates empirical facts of term structure data. Moreover, it overcomes one major deficiency of rational expectations models of the yield curve in explaining the empirically observed uncertain responses of longer term yields to changes in the central bank rate. These are explained by the behavioral model’s ability to generate different responses of market sentiments to shocks at different times which lead to a variety of interest rate responses. Further results of this paper can be used as policy advice on how central banks can target the level, slope and curvature of the yield curve by targeting market sentiments about inflation and the business cycle.     

就业增长与空间政策

从空间的角度,解释高增长低就业、内需不足等宏观经济问题的深层原因.认为目前就业和内需不足,不仅仅是产业政策的问题,在很大程度上也是由于不正确的空间政策造成的.提出要解决这些问题需要同时从空间政策入手.     

加入WTO后中国利用外资战略的转变及政策的调整(上)

改革开放以来,我国利用外国直接投资工作取得了很大的成绩,对国民经济的发展起了重要的作用.随着国际经济环境的变化和中国的入世,外国对中国的投资在许多方面发生了变化,如何根据这种变化及入世后的要求对我国利用外资的战略及政策做出相应的调整,是摆在我们面前的新课题.