ICT and resilience in times of crisis: evidence from cross-country micro moments data

ABSTRACT

ICT-intensive firms are often found to have a better performance than their non-ICT-intensive counterparts. Along with investing in ICT capital they have to adapt their production and business processes in order to reap the potentials implied by the use of ICT. Are these firms also more resilient in times of crisis? We study this question by exploiting a novel and unique data set from the Micro Moments Database. Covering 12 countries, 7 industries and the period from 2001 to 2010, the data allow us to distinguish between ICT-intensive and non-ICT-intensive firms within industries. We find evidence that indeed during the crisis in 2008 and 2009, ICT-intensive firms were hit less hard with respect to their productivity. This holds in particular for firms from service industries. Moreover, ICT-intensive firms were also more successful in introducing process innovations during that period which could explain their better productivity performance compared to non-ICT intensive firms.     

我国竞争行业生产效率的实证分析

本文对2000-2007年家具行业技术效率、全要素生产率以及生产率的变化进行了实证研究.研究表明:国有、联营、其它企业的市场竞争能力不强,港澳台、集体企业的竞争能力一般,私人、股份、外商企业的市场竞争能力比较强,生产率变化和企业数量具有正向关系,市场具有演化作用,它会淘汰不适应市场发展的企业类型,培养适应市场发展的企业类型.在此基础上,提出健全公平、自由、开放的市场体系,促进经济发展的建议.     

环境规制竞争对经济增长效率的影响:基于省级面板数据分析

利用1992-2008年中国31个省级面板数据,检验了环境规制竞争对生产率增长及其构成的影响。结果发现,SO2减排对生产率增长及其构成有正向影响,说明SO2的减排竞争将会促进经济增长效率的提高。相反,工业COD减排对生产率增长及其构成存在不利的作用。这种不利影响不是由省际间环境规制竞争引起,而是由废水治理策略不当造成的。这些研究结果似乎表明,环境规制竞争并非是发展地方经济的"良策"。     

辽宁省城市人居环境与植被净初级生产力耦合协调关系研究

植被净初级生产力(NPP)是衡量城市生态系统健康状态的重要标准,探究城市人居环境与NPP耦合协调的同步发展状态,对生态文明建设背景下人居环境高质量发展具有重要意义。通过对城市人居环境评价指标体系的改进,综合运用熵值法、耦合协调模型以及地理探测器,研究辽宁省2000—2015年城市人居环境与NPP之间耦合协调度的时空格局及影响因素。结果表明:(1)2000—2015年,人居环境与NPP之间的耦合度、耦合协调度均有所提升,耦合度均值在0.857~0.953之间,处于高水平耦合阶段;耦合协调度在0.466~0.601之间,整体上处于濒临失调、勉强耦合协调以及初级耦合协调状态。(2)耦合协调度在空间分布上呈现出自东南向西北递减的“阶梯”式格局,呈现中耦合轻度协调、高耦合轻度协调以及高耦合中度协调三种组合类型区。(3)经济发展水平、科学技术投入、政府管理能力、城镇化水平以及工业化水平等对不同耦合协调类型区具有不同程度的影响,需要采用差别化管理方式推动人居系统与生态系统的协调发展。     

Sustainable Development and Resilience in Ecosystems

Two new important developments in environmental and resource economics is presented—non convex dynamics of ecosystems and wealth as an indicator of sustainable development. Non convex dynamics imply existence of resilience, that is the robustness of systems to withstand exogenous perturbations. Resilience can be regarded as an insurance against flips of the system into different basins of stability. Sustainable development, according to the Bruntland report, is the provision of productive resources to future generations to make it possible for them to live as well as the present generation. Thus, the value of changes in productive assets is therefore an index of whether an economy is on a sustainable path or not. Resilience can be regarded as one such productive asset and the paper discusses how one can define the value of this asset.     

The global loss of net primary production resulting from human-induced soil degradation in drylands

Land degradation, the temporary or permanent reduction of land's productive capacity resulting from poor land management, has gained considerable attention as an environmental and development issue of global importance, in particular in the Earth's drylands. This study presents a global estimate of net primary production (NPP) losses caused by human-induced dryland degradation. Due to the large uncertainties related to international databases on dryland degradation, we compiled a world map of the extent and degree of desertification based on existing regional and global maps. Two distinct approaches were followed in order to estimate NPP losses due to degradation on drylands: in the first approach, we combined these maps with model results on global potential NPP, determined with the LPJ-DGVM, with a set of factors on NPP losses per degradation degree, derived from the literature. In a second approach, we made use of spatially explicit information on potential and current NPP of agricultural areas obtained from a global HANPP assessment [Haberl, H., Erb, K.-H., Krausmann, F., Gaube, V., Bondeau, A., Plutzar, C., Gingrich, S., Lucht, W. and Fischer-Kowalski, M., 2007. Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104: 12942-12947.]. We used the difference between potential and current NPP on croplands situated in drylands in order to quantify the effect of dryland degradation on NPP. NPP losses were found to range between 799 and 1936 Tg C/yr in the first approach, and to amount to 965 Tg C/yr in the second approach. Overall, approximately 2% of the global terrestrial NPP are lost each year due to dryland degradation, or between 4% and 10% of the potential NPP in drylands. NPP losses amount to 20-40% of the potential NPP on degraded agricultural areas in the global average and above 55% in some world regions. The results reveal that the contributions of dryland degradation to the total HANPP in drylands is of similar dimension than the overall annual socioeconomic biomass harvest. Accordingly, strategies aimed at reducing dryland degradation could present promising options to sustain future population numbers without putting further pressures on dryland ecosystems.     

出口导向贸易政策与发展中国家间FDI竞争——基于寡占竞争模型的理论分析

文章建立了一个两国竞争模型,重点分析了进口关税与出口补贴等战略贸易政策对发展中国家吸引FDI竞争的影响。研究发现:(1)当两国都采取出口补贴的外资激励政策时,工资水平和进口关税对发展中国家间FDI竞争并没有直接影响;(2)对全要素生产率较高的国家来说,当两国的关税水平都较高时,出口补贴政策增加流向本国的FDI,而当两国关税水平大幅下降后,出口补贴政策反而不利于本国FDI竞争。文章的结论对当前我国战略引资和出口退税等政策的调整具有重大的指导意义。     

城市中心区绿地系统生态承载力空间格局研究

基于植被净初级生产力的生态承载力评估方法,采用MOD17A3数据并结合分区统计、空间自相关和锡尔指数等方法,研究大连市中心区绿地系统生态承载力的空间特征、格局和机制。结果显示:大连市中心区整体NPP平均值为197.68 gC/m2,Moran’s I指数为0.73,空间差异指数为0.13;生态承载力具有"极低"和"极高"级分化的特征,聚类特征和空间分异主要表现在甘井子区;生态承载力呈现出"西高东低"的网格格局、"乡村型高城市型低"的社区格局和"内低外高"的圈层格局。文章首次分析了自然因素和人类活动共同作用下,生态承载力空间格局的作用机制,研究结论对城市绿色空间可持续发展和绿地系统建设具有重要意义。     

技术创新生态系统的要素模型与演化

实施和影响技术创新活动的机构、制度及周边环境要素的总和构成技术创新系统,技术创新系统与自然生态系统具有的相似性。技术创新系统是一种耗散结构系统,具有开放性和目的性。企业的技术创新系统可分为三个亚系统,即输入亚系统、生产亚系统和输出亚系统,系统要素之间存在着有序的流动,顺畅的物质流、能量（价值）流、信息流是技术创新系统稳定的基础,创新系统具有稳定性和平衡性的特征。技术创新系统也将遵循产生、成长、成熟、衰退四个阶段,系统演化的结果一是系统衰亡或被新的系统所代替;二是在旧有的生态系统中孕育新的生命使原有的生态系统升级。以生态学的观点探寻技术创新系统及其演化规律,将能为研究技术创新问题提供一种新的视角。     

'Industrial demonopolization and competition policy in Poland and Hungary': a comment'

Protestations that ‘neither neoclassical economics nor Western experience offers clear guidelines concerning optimal competition policies towards state-owned firms in a transition economy’ are overly pessimistic. Both sources suggest the importance of attacking barriers to entry into markets, especially when those barriers are associated with vertical integration or exclusive vertical contracts by already dominant enterprises. Beyond this, they demonstrate that different priorities of enforcement are appropriate in transition economies and that competition advocacy is especially important in this context.     

Modelling Loss of Resilience in Agroecosystems: Rangelands in Botswana

Economists have recently begun to consider the questions raised by the ecological concept of resilience – a measure of the degree to which a system can be perturbed before it switches from one stability domain to another. At a theoretical level, it has been argued that the loss of resilience in an ecological-economic system involves a change in its long-run productive potential, but no consideration has yet been given to the empirical investigation of this. This paper discusses an econometric approach to the problem, using the example of semi-arid rangelands. The long-run productive potential of the system is regarded as an unobserved state variable, change in which is irreversible or at least only slowly reversible. It is estimated by applying the extended (nonlinear) Kalman filter. The paper illustrates the approach using data from Botswana for the period 1965–1993. The maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters associated with the loss of resilience mechanism are non-zero. They indicate a small loss of resilience event at the end of the long drought in the 1980s. However, these parameters are very imprecisely estimated and are therefore statistically insignificant. We find that the sensitivity of the system to exogenous shocks varies with fluctuations in both economic and non-economic parameters. Contrary to what is usually thought to be the case, the sensitivity of the system to exogenous shocks is only weakly affected by variations in offtake prices, but is very strongly affected by variations in the cost of herd maintenance. This suggests that offtake prices may be a weak tool for controlling the size of cattle stocks and preventing a loss of resilience. On the other hand, taxes on cattle stocks or grazing fees may be very effective.     

Competition schemes and investment in network infrastructure under uncertainty

This paper compares two specific types of competition schemes—service-based and facility-based competition—by focusing on a firm’s incentive to invest in network infrastructure. We show that when monopoly rent is large, facility-based competition means that the initial introduction of infrastructure is made earlier than under service-based competition. However, when monopoly rent and the degree of uncertainty are both small, service-based competition brings about the earlier initial introduction of infrastructure than facility-based competition. The paper includes discussion of the policy implications of these findings.      

外包与生产率:基于中国工业行业物品外包与服务外包的比较分析

本文运用我国1997年与2002年的投入产出表分别计算了以我国为本位的工业行业物品外包、服务外包比率,并对两种外包的行业生产率效应进行实证检验和比较分析。结果显示:物品外包、服务外包的发展均有效的提升了我国工业行业生产率水平,但服务外包对工业行业生产率的促进效应要远远大于物品外包;当考虑行业要素密集度差异时,研究发现无论是物品外包还是服务外包在资本相对密集的行业要比劳动密集型行业的生产率效应更强,同时这种行业差异在服务外包中更为显著。最后,在本文研究的基础上指出了相关研究进一步深入的方向。     

工程造价中如何使用EXCEL进行工程量计算

工程量计算是从事造价工作中工作量最大的部分,使用EXCEL进行工程量计算与汇总可以大大提高工作效率与计算质量。文中从如何设置表格到自动计算带有文字标注的工程量计算式,进而自动进行工程量汇总,全面说明整个工程量计算与汇总过程。     

Resilience in the Dynamics of Economy-Environment Systems

The ecological concept of resilience has begun to inform analysis of change in economy-environment systems. The linkages between resilience and the stability of dynamical systems are discussed, along with its role in understanding of the evolution of such systems. Particular linkages discussed include those between resilience, biodiversity and the sustainability of alternative states. Recent developments in modelling the resilience of joint economy-environment systems suggest the advantages of analysing change in the system as a Markov process, the transition probabilities between states offering a natural measure of the resilience of the system in such states. It is argued that this ‘emergent property’ of the collaboration between ecology and economics has far-reaching implications for the way we think about, model and manage the environmental sustainability of economic development.     

城市生态系统代谢分析方法与评价指标研究进展

我国正处于快速城市化进程中,资源的生产与消费支撑着城市经济增长,同时也关系到生态胁迫、环境影响及公众健康等方面的可持续发展,城市代谢系统与此密不可分.本文系统讨论了本研究领域内的最新进展,阐明了物质性代谢与非物质性代谢的内涵与联系,对相关概念、新的研究方法及评价指标进行了总结、比较与探索,以期促进城市生态系统代谢分析的进一步发展和应用.     

农牧交错区生态建设与草业开发研究

根据农牧交错区面临的主要生态问题,选择退耕还草,发展苜蓿草业,对该区生态建设和农业可持续发展具有重要作用。考虑到该区贫困人口占大多数,粮食尚不能完全自给,退耕还草和草业发展面临诸多困难的实际情况,本文提出了以旱作农田增产技术、农田保水保土耕作技术、农牧结构优化调整及苜蓿生产技术为主要内容的技术措施,并提出了该区草业发展的基本对策。     

Commercial policy and international factor mobility in the presence of monopolistic competition

This paper utilizes a well-known specification of returns to specialization (a variation of the Spence-Dixit-Stiglitz model) to explore the implications of local agglomeration effects for commercial policy and restricted factor mobility. The paper initially considers a small open economy where it is shown that a tariff reduces the degree of specialization and hence the size of the external economies to the producers. An inflow of labor increases the degree of specialization while a capital inflow decreases it. The paper then considers a two-country world where both countries are large and deals with the pattern of trade and factor mobility.     

产业竞争力的相关理论及其模型分析

产业竞争力已经成为一个特定区域经济发展的重要因素。从产业竞争力的概念界定及其国内外理论模型分析两个方面对学术界有关产业竞争力的现有研究成果进行分析评价,以期为相关研究的深入开展提供建议。     

Basel III and perceived resilience of banks in the BRICS economies

This study investigates how the additional capital and liquidity requirements of Basel III would increase the resilience of banks. In particular, using panel data from 2007 to 2014, we examine the resilience of banks in the BRICS economies. Our results suggest that a 10% increase in capital adequacy ratio (CAR), Tier 1 capital ratio (TRA), and leverage ratio (LEV), the resilience (as measured by Z-Score of banks) increases by about 2.18, 0.89 and 1.31%, respectively. Similarly, for a 100% increase in liquidity coverage ratio (LCR), the resilience of banks increases by 0.51%, 1.10% and 1.19%, respectively, in the models associated with CAR, TRA, and LEV. Hence, our findings suggest that the CAR is robust to increase the resilience of banks. Our study also reveals that the LCR and LEV are the most effective to increase the resilience of banks if implemented simultaneously. We also find that the stage of economic development does not matter in formulating policies for the BRICS economies, and finally, we provide empirical evidence that economy-wide risk, such as a financial crisis, does not affect the resilience of banks and it influences the resilience of banks in the BRICS economies in the same way before and after the crisis.