Parametric Approaches to Productivity Measurement: A Comparison among Alternative Models

This paper deals with modeling total factor productivity (TFP) growth in a flexible manner using panel data. Several competing parametric models are used to explore whether there are any similarities in the estimates of TFP growth and technical change among these models. Using a primal approach, we decompose TFP growth into different components. The models are then used to measure productivity and technical change in the Swedish cement industry. In general, the results are found to be model dependent and often conflicting, although much less so for returns to scale and overall productivity growth.
JEL classification: O 30; C 33     

Alternative Approaches to Cost Containment in a Cap-and-Trade System

We compare several emissions reduction instruments, including quantity policies with banking and borrowing, price policies, and hybrid policies (safety valve and price collar), using a dynamic model with stochastic baseline emissions. The instruments are compared under the design goal of obtaining the same expected cumulative emissions across all options. Based on simulation analysis with the model parameterized to values relevant to proposed US climate mitigation policies, we find that restrictions on banking and borrowing, including the provision of interest rates on the borrowings, can severely limit the value of the policy, depending on the regulator-chosen allowance issuance path. Although emissions taxes generally provide the lowest expected abatement costs, a cap-and-trade system combined with either a safety valve or a price collar can be designed to provide expected abatement costs near those of a tax, but with lower emissions variance than a tax. Consistently, a price collar is more cost-effective than a safety valve for a given expected cumulative emissions outcome because it encourages inexpensive abatement when abatement costs decline.     

Alternative Approaches to Commercial Property Price Indexes for Tokyo

The paper studies the problems associated with the construction of price indexes for commercial properties that could be used in the System of National Accounts. Property price indexes are required for the stocks of commercial properties in the balance sheets and related price indexes for the land and structure components of a commercial property are required in the balance sheet accounts for the calculation of the Multifactor Productivity of the Commercial Property Industry. The paper uses a variant of the builder's model that has been used to construct Residential Property Price Indexes. Geometric depreciation rates are estimated for commercial offices in Tokyo using assessment data for REIT. The problems associated with the decomposition of property value into land and structure components are addressed. The problems associated with depreciating capital expenditures on buildings and with measuring the loss of asset value due to early retirement of the structure are also addressed.     

The Investment Multiplier: A Comparison of Three Alternative Approaches

International Advances in Economic Research -     

Measuring Women's Quality of Life: A Discussion of Alternative Approaches

This paper reports our experiences with the application of a number of alternative approaches to a study of women's economic circumstances and quality of life in a typical western city. The important work of, especially, Martha Nussbaum on the capabilities approach to evaluations of “quality of life” has highlighted pitfalls associated with the use of a narrow informational base in studies of women's lives and has emphasized the value of qualitative methods in these evaluations. However, to date, most discussions of the relevance of plural approaches to studies of women's lives have been conducted in the context of developing countries. This paper contributes a practical, current example of the relevance of such approaches to assessments of the lives of women in western countries as well. The research findings reported in the paper also cast further light on the importance of several, related themes in the literature on the capabilities approach, namely the importance of understanding how women's aspirations and expectations change with their economic and social experiences; and the importance of appreciating the social uses of language and how this affects the way in which women describe their lives.     

毛泽东、邓小平对发展社会主义生产力的比较研究

本文对毛泽东、邓小平发展社会主义生产力的思想进行了对比研究 ,阐明了毛泽东、邓小平在这一问题上的共同认识和存在的差异 ,并就产生差异的原因进行了分析。     

Democracy and Growth: Alternative Approaches

This article focuses on two previously unexamined aspects of the relationship between economic growth and democracy. First, the growth experiences of countries that experience significant changes in democracy are examined directly. Countries that democratize are found to grow faster than a priori similar countries, while countries that become less democratic grow more slowly than comparable countries. These differences do not seem to be due to differences in education or investment levels. Second, regression tree analysis suggests that democracy, along with initial income and literacy, contributes to the identification of regimes of countries facing similar aggregate production functions.     

基于规模报酬可变的要素集聚与区域生产率增长比较研究

笔者研究了我国地区要素集聚以及由此导致的地区间全要素生产率的差异.通过计算各省就业密度和就业集中度指数发现,在我国的确存在地区劳动力集聚的情况.通过计算各地区的劳均资本存量的绝对差距指数和相对差距指数以及运用马尔可夫转换矩阵的分析,发现我国资本存量在省际间具有明显的两极化趋势.根据面板数据模型估算的结果发现不同地区要素集聚的规模弹性效应差异很大,并且中、西部地区的规模弹性效应对全要素生产率增长的贡献高于东部地区,表明东部地区已经出现要素集聚过度的特征.     

Reconstructing the Balkans: Alternative Policy Approaches

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

中国基础设施与非基础设施资本存量及其产出弹性估算

本文将全社会总固定资本划分为经济基础设施资本、社会基础设施资本和非基础设施资本,进而分别从全国层面和分地区层面对经济、社会基础设施资本与非基础设施资本存量(年初值)的全国时间序列数据(1981—2012年)和31个省级行政区面板数据(1997—2012年)进行了完整细致的估算。在此基础上,本文估计了不同类型资本的产出弹性,并对中国生产函数是否具有规模报酬不变性质进行了检验。     

制造业部门劳动生产率比较研究——基于浙江地区与国内外制造业的实证分析

劳动生产率提高是经济增长的主要源泉,是内生型增长的决定性因素,也是实现收入翻番的基本支撑。处于沿海发达地区的浙江制造业劳动生产率,不及全国平均水平,也仅为美日韩等先进国家的1/4或1/5左右,劳动生产率提升较为滞后。在当前制度红利和"人口红利"逐渐消失的背景下,抓住城镇化、信息化和全球生产制造方式变革机遇,注重发挥"三个效应",即追赶效应、丹尼森效应和鲍默效应,着力创造"劳动生产率红利",继续形成对发达经济体的较快追赶步伐和推动增长模式升级。     

生产力概念新探

生产力概念是政治经济学的基本概念。长期以来 ,人们对生产力概念的内涵 ,生产力构成要素 ,生产力的发展的实质及其与生产关系的关系的认识并不科学。本文以温总理提出的“以人为本”科学发展观为指导 ,指出生产力即人类的生产能力 ,是人类在精神支配下利用自然资源与社会资源获取利益的劳动能力 ;生产力要素即劳动力 ;生产力的发展即人的素质、技能的发展 ,它从根本上决定了生产关系的发展变化。     

Comparative Research Productivity Measures for Economics Departments

The typical profit-maximization solution for the joint-production problem found in intermediate texts, managerial texts, and other texts concerned with optimal pricing is oversimplified and inconsistent with profit maximization, unless there is either no excess of any of the joint products or no costs associated with dumping. However, it is an inappropriate method of solution where excess does exist and the costs of dumping are explicitly recognized and, with respect to such cases, is at least nongeneral. The authors present a more realistic alternative method of solution, although more complex, as a substitute for the textbook method of solution typically offered.     

Genetic Information: Comparing Alternative Regulatory Approaches When Prevention Matters

We compare the alternative approaches used for regulating genetic information in the health insurance market when prevention measures are available. In the model, firms offer insurance contracts to consumers who are initially uninformed of their risk type but can obtain such information by performing a costless genetic test. A crucial ingredient of our analysis is that information has decision‐making value since it allows for the optimal choice of a self‐insurance action (secondary prevention). We focus on the welfare properties of market equilibria obtained under the different regulatory schemes and, by using an intuitive graphical analysis, we rank them unambiguously. Our results show that Disclosure Duty weakly dominates the other regulatory schemes and that Strict Prohibition represents the worst regulatory approach.     

论生产力促进中心的生产力促进功能

在分析生产力促进中心的功能定位、生产力系统的基本构成以及科学技术的第一生产力属性的基础上,结合大量实例,探讨了生产力促进中心的生产力促进功能。