THE MEASUREMENT OF CONSTANT PRICE AGGREGATES IN CANADA*

This paper is in part directed towards a partial examination of Canadian concepts and methods used in the deflation of constant price estimates of gross domestic product from both an expenditure and industry-of-origin point of view, and in part toward certain problems arising in the development of a conceptually balancing set of accounts in real terms. It also provides reference material to allow the reader to pursue the detailed methodology and data underlying the Canadian constant price accounts.     

南方经济植物土地适宜性及其评价

中国南方农业自然条件十分优越,经济植物品种繁多,是我国发展多种经营和建设特色经济植物产业的重要基地。湖南省经济地理研究所自1980年代以来,与南方一些有关单位合作,陆续对橡胶、荔枝、龙眼、柑橘、茶叶、油茶、杉木、毛竹、龙须草、香水稻、黄花菜、烤烟、双低油菜、木薯和牧草、药材等近100种南方经济植物的土地适宜性进行了系统研究,对推动南方特色农业的发展有重要意义。文章以这一研究为基础,论述了南方经济植物土地适宜性研究的主要内容,阐明了“三等九级”评价系统及其基本原理,构建了评价指标体系基本框架,指明了限制因素改造的方向。可为我国开展农作物、林木、牧草、药材的土地适宜性评价提供参考。     

上海都市圈城市间经济流测度

都市圈经济流就是发生在都市圈内各城市之间由经济内在联系驱动的各种要素和产品的流动。在对上海都市圈各级城市间经济联系量分析的基础上分别测度了人流、物流和信息流的强度,并以这三种流为自变量,建立了它们与城市经济总量GDP之间的多元回归方程,追踪揭示了都市圈中心城市与周围各城市之间的联系线索及其经济意义。     

银行业服务外包风险重要性度量的指标体系研究

我国银行业服务外包风险的定量分析指标体系尚未建立。本文根据巴塞尔委员会主导的联合论坛出台的《金融服务外包文件》列举的风险类型进行深入系统研究,将11大类风险细化归类为30项风险事件,构建了银行业服务外包风险的评价指标体系。进一步,本文综合考虑风险的影响程度和发生概率,运用风险矩阵法和模糊综合评价法对各种风险进行定量分析和精确排序,为识别银行业服务外包的关键性风险提供了定量的科学计算方法,为银行业服务外包风险的内部控制和外部监管提供了科学依据。     

MEASURING EARNINGS INEQUALITY: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE BONFERRONI INDEX

This paper studies the economic content of the Bonferroni index. The most remarkable property of the Bonferroni index is that it overweights income transfers among the poor, and the weights are higher the lower the transfers occur on the income distribution. Hence, it is a good measure of inequality when changes in the living standards of the poor are concerned. There are many problems—especially in labor economics—that fall into this category. Using a version of the assignment model, we show that the Bonferroni index can be formulated endogenously within a mechanism featuring efficient assignment of workers to firms. This formulation is useful in evaluating the interactions between the distribution of skills and earnings inequality with a special emphasis on the lower tail of the earnings distribution. Moreover, it allows us to think about earnings inequality by separately analyzing the contribution of each economic parameter.     

OMITTED VARIABLES IN THE MEASUREMENT OF A LABOR QUALITY INDEX: THE CASE OF SPAIN

Traditional measures of labor quality might have the shortcoming of missing some features of the very important increase in labor utilization within European countries. In particular, we explore the case of Spain. Despite showing one of the most important increases in labor quality in the EU according to standard methods, it also presents a negative TFP growth. The paper shows the importance of considering—on top of observed changes in the composition of the labor force by gender, age, education, tenure, and nationality—changes in both average and relative productivities of those abovementioned socio‐demographic groups over time. We first use a time varying weight index in order to capture the decrease in relative productivities across characteristics. Once this issue is considered the estimated growth of labor quality decreases notably and the index becomes flat between 2002 and 2006. We relate this slowdown to the increasing over‐education of the Spanish workforce in the recent past. We then incorporate a selection model into the labor force. We argue that in the recent past there has been a massive entry of workers with below average unobserved abilities, generating a decrease in quality of labor. Indeed labor quality slightly decreased from 1995 onwards (always increasing without the selection model).     

THE CASE AGAINST DIVISIA INDEX NUMBERS AS A BASIS IN A SOCIAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM*

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of at what stage should Divisia index numbers be introduced–within the social accounting schema proper or in the explanatory stage following? Three major reasons are given to support the case that Divisia index numbers have no role to play in measurement, but should and do provide a powerful tool in the explanation of productivity change.     

长春市城市建设用地适宜性评价

本文通过对城市建设用地的评价因素分析,确定了建设用地适宜性评价体系,在地理信息系统的支持下,建立了人与自然相协调的长春市建设用地评价系统。     

THE IMPORTANCE OF SKILL MEASUREMENT FOR GROWTH ACCOUNTING

In a growth accounting context one usually constructs a quality adjusted index of labor services by aggregating over predefined groups of workers, using the groups' relative wage bills as weights. In this article we suggest a method based on decomposing individual predicted wages into a skill‐related part and a part unrelated to skill, where the former consists of both observed and unobserved components. The predicted wages, associated with individual skill attributes, are sorted and classified into deciles. The median predicted skill‐related wage in each decile is used to construct an alternative skill‐adjusted index of labor services. We find that total factor productivity (TFP) growth decreases significantly when using the latter method. This means that when using the alternative method one explains more of the growth in labor productivity than what a more traditional labor quality adjustment procedure does.     

A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF WELL-BEING

The conceptual framework of the system specifies that societal resources are limited by two basic factors: the amount of available human time, and the stock of wealth inherited from the past. Wealth is defined very broadly to cover not only the conventional tangible capital assets familiar to economists, but also intangible human and other capital assets, stocks of organizational capital reflected by networks of social support systems (the family, the neighbourhood), stocks of environmental assets (the sun and air), and stocks of socio-political assets (security, freedom of choice). Human time covers market work, household production, leisure, and biological maintenance. Human time and capital stocks are used within households to produce a variety of tangible and intangible outputs, and these outputs in turn are used to produce a variety of satisfactions (utilities) or to augment stocks of capital, or both. The basic sources of well-being in the system are ultimately of two types: well-being is produced as a consequence of the intrinsic benefits from all activities engaged in by individuals, which is to say that people have preferences over the way they spend their time; secondly, people derive utilities from the existence of various stocks or states of society, and these satisfactions are independent of the way in which time is used. The satisfactions associated with flows of goods are subsumed by satisfactions derived from activities associated with those goods. The system contains a set of linkages among the various parts: inputs of goods and time are used to produce tangible household output, using the familiar notions of household production functions and constrained optimization; tangible household products, which are intermediate in the system, are used in conjunction with human time to produce direct satisfactions or to augment household capital stocks; both household (micro) and societal (macro) capital stocks are linked directly to psychological well-being; household activities are linked directly to flows of satisfactions, termed process benefits in the system; household preferences and values relating to policy variables are linked to public policies of various sorts, and policies modify the constraints and opportunities relevant for household decisions. The system also has dynamic linkages. Modifications of household or public stocks produce impacts on future flows of well-being; satisfactions from activities may adapt to the existence of constraints, hence changes in constraints can modify preferences and subsequently modify activities; and household behavior has a life-cycle dimension which is inherently dynamic.     

UPPER BOUNDEDNESS FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF RELATIVE DEPRIVATION

A new index of relative deprivation is derived axiomatically. Thanks to an asymptotically concave individual contribution function, the new measure provides a sounder quantification to the concept of relative deprivation as conceptualized in the seminal work of Runciman (1966 ) and better reflects the sociological connotations of the phenomenon.     

NONCASH INCOME, EQUIVALENCE SCALES, AND THE MEASUREMENT OF ECONOMIC WELL-BEING

Little attention has been paid to the importance of consistency between the specifications of the income and the equivalence scales used in measuring economic well-being when noncash income is included in the definition of income. This article finds that inconsistency between the income and needs sides of a comparison can be important when some types of noncash income are included. An upward bias in the measured economic status of the aged when Medicare is included in income and an ordinary equivalence scale is used is presented as an example of the important effects of this consistency problem.     

深圳与珠江三角洲区域经济联系的测度及分析

深圳发展过程是同全国，珠江三角洲和香港等区域经济联系不断加强的过程，深圳发展的历史，现在与将来都同珠江三角洲区域整体发展密切相关，深圳已经逐步建立起了同珠江三角液区域极为密切的资金，技术，人才（包括劳动力）以及市场方面的广泛联系，这种联系不仅是过去深圳经济发展的关键，更是深圳持续发展，实现第二次创业成功的重要保证，深圳的发展离不开它所紧密依托的区域即珠江三角洲区域的发展，本文从深圳同珠江三角洲及香港两个层面，通过区域经济联系强度量化指标以及投资及旅游联系等实际测度了深圳对外区域经济联系状况，进而提出深圳加强同珠江三角洲区域经济联系的若干政策建议。