SCALE ECONOMIES OF THE FRANCHISED BUSES AND FERRIES OF HONG KONG, 1948–1998

The privatization of state transport operators has been driven by empirical discoveries in transport economic research of the constant or even diseconomies of scale of these operators. With reference to public records and official statistics, this paper is an initial attempt to examine the scale economies of and output relationship between major bus and ferry operators in Hong Kong during the period 1948–1998. The two franchised bus and two franchised ferry companies each experienced unique scale effects during different periods and correlated with each other in terms of production. The paper will also discuss the possible reasons for this phenomenon and policy concerns related to this finding.     

车轮上的香港与香港的车轮

《汽车消费报告》选在2010年圣诞节前,对这座被称为购物天堂的物质之城进行探访,只是这次的视角与购物无关。当偌大的北京把限牌令当作刺向马路拥堵的尖刀时,弹丸之地香港密集的车流却在路的五线谱上有秩序地顺畅跳跃。我们钻进了一个多棱镜,在这个成熟社会的秩序里,除了找寻和感受到车轮上的港城在公共交通中的样本意义,还与这座城的勤劳、现实、冷静乃至冷漠以及文化缺失不期而遇,它是这片商业丛林整体的气质,充盈在香港前行的车轮里,而这样的气质,被香港人过成了习惯,过成了生活,却在外来人眼里总觉得缺些什么……     

HOUSING CONDITIONS AND AFFORDABILITY IN HONG KONG

Housing in Hong Kong is of interest as an example of how improvements in living conditions have not kept pace with the territory's economic growth. This paper describes basic housing conditions in Hong Kong, and assesses them against the background of progress over time and within the context of housing conditions in other countries. Housing affordability is a growing problem, particularly for population groups that are marginal to the housing market. We discuss the emerging affordability crisis, especially for homeowners in the private sector, analyze the reasons behind it and review government policies to overcome the housing problems.     

内地企业高度关注香港证券市场

发挥渠道优势,协助成长型企业海外上市在近日召开的中国国际中小企业经济论坛上,国家发改委中小企业司领导在讲话中强调,鼓励中小企业直接融资,并创造条件帮助中小企业海外上市。近年来,我国资本市场发育逐渐成熟,海外融资渠道逐渐增多。针对不断增长的企业上市需求,以及企业选择上市渠道的犹豫与困惑,国家发改委中小企业对外合作协调中心专门建立了帮助中小企业海外上市的专家团队,提供咨询、推荐和上市程序运作等一条龙服务。开展工作一年来,受到广大中小企业的欢迎与重视,被认为是一条可靠、高效、服务周到的渠道。这条渠道的优势是,正确把握国家经济综合管理部门的政策导向,联合国内最大的证券公司和相关财务、法律、资产评估、保荐人、财经传媒等机构,由资深专家操作,确保上市操作的规范性和合理的上市成本,力争较高的上市成功率。《中国中小企业》将发挥国家中小企业权威专业媒体的作用,宣传普及上市知识,积极推荐有条件的企业上市。自本期起,本刊将连续刊登这方面的文章,敬请广大读者关注。     

财务顾问在香港创业板上市融资中的作用

1999年11月15日香港联合交易所宣布香港创业板证券市场成立.到目前为止已有浩伦农业、同仁堂、北大青岛、天时软件、上实药业、大诚电信、亚洲讯息、乾隆科技、裕兴电脑、凤凰卫视等180多家公司在香港创业板陆续上市.     

内地企业在香港上市十年回顾和展望

自1993年首家国企以H股形式在香港上市,揭开了香港证券市场大规模为内地企业筹集资金的序幕.十年来,内地企业与香港的证券市场已建立非常紧密的关系,下列的数据可以充分反映两者关系的情况.     

THE INTERNALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTERNALITIES AFFECTING DWELLINGS: A REVIEW OF COURT CASES IN HONG KONG

In 1960, Ronald Coase suggested that there are many methods to solve the problem of externalities apart from imposing Pigovian taxes. Internalisation is one of those noted in his classic paper, ‘The Problem of Social Cost’. This paper studies the possibility of residents receiving compensation from pollutant generators. Data collected from Hong Kong law reports over the past 20 years show that there is forty‐fold increase in number of water seepage court cases since the first case in 1994. The total amount of compensation has also increased greatly. There are, however, far fewer court cases where residents seek compensation from generators of noise and air pollution. This may reflect a combination of high transaction costs and low expected benefits from such cases.     

THE BISHOP OF BRENTWOOD,MIGRANTS, THE MARKET AND THE PURSUIT OF GAIN

Employers who attempt to pay what others describe as a living wage may well undermine the opportunities available for migrants to experience economic flourishing. A market economy where profit is the prime motivation is an important contributor to the common good: this is clear in Catholic social teaching.     

GREEN BELT, COUNTRYSIDE CONSERVATION AND LOCAL POLITICS: A HONG KONG CASE STUDY

International land-use concepts are transformed to suit local circumstances. What is truly common after local adaptation becomes arguable. This paper examines application of a British land-use planning concept, green belt, in the ex-colonial city of Hong Kong. Through examining its local history and planning decisions for village housing development within such zones, this study reveals the ambiguity and flexibility of this land-use concept in conserving the natural landscape and open countryside. It highlights the conflicts and compromises of green belt planning policy in connection with countryside protection, local politics and development pressures. The conclusion is that the green belt zone coincides with its overseas counterpart in name only; its substance and implementation are drastically diverse across cities.     

A PANEL DATA APPROACH FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION: MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF HONG KONG WITH MAINLAND CHINA

We propose a simple‐to‐implement panel data method to evaluate the impacts of social policy. The basic idea is to exploit the dependence among cross‐sectional units to construct the counterfactuals. The cross‐sectional correlations are attributed to the presence of some (unobserved) common factors. However, instead of trying to estimate the unobserved factors, we propose to use observed data. We use a panel of 24 countries to evaluate the impact of political and economic integration of Hong Kong with mainland China. We find that the political integration hardly had any impact on the growth of the Hong Kong economy. However, the economic integration has raised Hong Kong's annual real GDP by about 4%. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

寻找市场需求的“处女地”——民营企业的多元化战略浅析

民营企业初创时规模都不大,在经营上既无经验,又无优势,一切从零开始,即使在特定产品线或市场上深入开拓和经营也不可能.所以它们在经营上普遍侧重于"短、平、快"项目.     

MORALITY, ECONOMICS AND THE MARKET IN THE THOUGHT OF BENEDICT XVI

While not uncritical of aspects of modern capitalism, John Paul II's 1991 social encyclical, Centesimus Annus , directed official Catholic teaching towards more explicit affirmation of the moral potential of free markets, exchange and enterprise. Analysis of the pre-pontifical writings of Pope John Paul's successor, Benedict XVI, suggests that an equally nuanced approach to economics and the market from the most authoritative Catholic teaching authority is likely to continue.     

THE MARKET ECONOMY AND THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL

The reality of the market economy is not an economy in which Christian values are generally evident. Although there are many prominent Christian capitalist writers, the real world is a world of rather more materialistic values. It does not have to be like that. It is possible for people to take Christian values out into the world of business and prosper.     

THE ECONOMICS OF COMMUTING AND THE URBAN LABOUR MARKET

ABSTRACT. The spatial distribution of households and firms, or urban spatial structure, is a core element of the study of urban economics and the crucial determinant of commuting patterns. This paper examines developments in the analysis of urban spatial structure and commuting are related to the urban labour market—that is the analysis of labour supply and labour demand in a spatial context. These developments have been overlooked in the traditional approach to urban structure and commuting where most attention has been devoted to the markets for land and housing rather than the market for labour. Yet a little reflection suggests that the labour market might have a great deal to do with the location decisions of households and firms, and hence with commuting patterns. We argue that much criticism of the economic analysis of urban structure and commuting can be addressed by explicit incorporation of the labour market into the conventional model of urban location. This criticism includes findings that the theory cannot explain the tendency for richer households to live farther from the central business district and commute farther to work (Wheaton, 1977) and findings of substantial unexplained or 'wasteful' commuting according to conventional theory (Hamilton, 1982). The paper begins by outlining the basic model of residential location and commuting (Section 2). We then consider extensions that involve the introduction of labour supply decisions and which determine the value of commuting time (Section 3). More recent extensions involve the introduction of decentralized workplaces (Section 4) and, logically, the issues of job search and migration (Section 5). We conclude with a summary of the progress in incorporating labour market behaviour into the analysis of urban structure and commuting and our suggestions for further research in this area.     

RISK‐COPING,LAND TENURE AND LAND MARKETS: AN OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Over the last decades, a significant amount of literature has been published on informal risk‐coping in developing countries. In this paper, we review how informal risk‐coping has been addressed in the land tenure literature from two main perspectives: a first stream of research looks at how customary tenure and communal property perform key informal risk‐coping functions. A second subset of this literature analyses how informal risk‐coping creates land market imperfections through sharecropping or distress sales. The segmentation of the literature results from the Demsetzian property rights framework. Further research on risk‐coping and land tenure would benefit from examining recent work on property regimes.