乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率与城乡收入差距——基于空间杜宾模型的实证分析

本文在两部门一般均衡模型中引入乡村公路建设,从理论上说明了乡村公路建设、农业劳动生产率及城乡收入差距之间的关系。本文利用我国2002—2018年省际面板数据,构建空间计量模型和中介效应模型,实证检验了乡村公路建设对城乡收入差距的影响及内部机制。研究发现,乡村三级、四级公路建设显著缩小了区域城乡收入差距,同时乡村二级公路建设对附近地区产生了空间溢出效应,即促进了周边区域城乡收入差距缩小。机制分析发现,乡村公路建设通过提高技术效率来提升农业劳动生产率,以实现城乡收入差距缩小。此外,乡村公路建设对不同地区影响具有异质性,其显著降低了东部地区城乡收入差距,但在西部地区却产生了虹吸效应,从而扩大了当地城乡收入差距。     

Paving the Road to Export: Assessing the Trade Impact of Road Quality

Assessing the trade impacts of domestic transport costs is data demanding and analyses that examine the effects of road quality, a critical aspect in regional and public policy, practically do not exist in the international trade literature. The few studies available rely mostly on distance-based measures as proxies of transport costs which impede analyzing the trade effects of transport-infrastructure improvements. In this paper, we combine highly disaggregated records of export flows with detailed geo-referenced information of the Colombian transport network, including its road quality, as well as real measures of transport costs of shipping goods within the country to measure the trade impacts of improving road quality. We find that the trade effects of improvements in road quality are relatively small on average; however, there is considerable heterogeneity in the magnitude of the effects. We show that longer routes have larger shares of their roads in poor conditions; accordingly, the trade impacts of shipments originated in remote regions are found to be quite substantial.     

Product quality and firm heterogeneity in international trade

This paper quantifies the separate contributions of product quality and technical efficiency in explaining variation in export outcomes across US manufacturing plants. Unlike previous studies that rely on unit values, I estimate idiosyncratic demand from price and quantity information. I find substantial across‐plant heterogeneity in demand, and consistent with the quality interpretation, demand is positively correlated with advertising expenditures, wage rates and material costs. I use this variation to explain across‐plant heterogeneity in export outcomes. The results show that, in addition to productivity, idiosyncratic demand is an important determinant of selection into exporting and the levels of foreign sales.     

Economics of upgrading gravel roads to Otta seal surface

Maintenance of low volume roads especially gravel roads is costly, and millions of funding annually are spent for aggregate replacement alone. Otta seal, compared to other bituminous surface treatments (BSTs) for low volume roads that require high-quality materials and specialized expertise, can be constructed using cheaper local aggregates and accessible equipment. However, only three states have reported Otta seal constructions and performance in the US. In this study, an economic analysis was conducted to compare the cost of maintaining a gravel road to the cost of upgrading an existing gravel road to a double Otta seal surface. This analysis was conducted at three levels: deterministic life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), a stochastic Monte Carlo simulation-based LCCA, and a traffic based economic analysis. A generic one-mile rural road in Midwest was considered as a case study location. Although, according to the analysis conducted in this paper, an upgrade to Otta seal investment might be justified by maintenance savings, resorting to only such justification cannot warrant investment in most cases. The upgrade from gravel road to Otta seal, or any other BSTs, might be justified in terms of enhancing safety for road users and also encouraging economic development beneficial to local areas.     

The automobile road to technological change : Diffusion of the automobile as a process of technological substitution

Advancement of the motor vehicle and its production methods is analyzed as a process of technological change. In a broader context, motor vehicles evolved as an integral component of road transportation through a series of interlaced substitutions of old by new technologies. Building on a large number of studies that described technological substitution processes, first it is shown how new energy forms replaced their predecessors and how the old marine-transport technologies were substituted by new ones. These examples constitute some of the oldest, empirically documented technological changes and show that many events in the dynamics of energy substitution and marine transport are related to technological changes in road transportation. It is shown that these substitution processes can be described by simple rules and that the replacement of old by new technologies in the energy and transport systems lasted about 80 years. The technological changes within road transportation, however, were more rapid. Replacement of horses by automobiles and older by newer generations of motor vehicles and production methods lasted only a few decades in the United States. Thus, technological substitutions within the road-transportation system were considerably shorter than the expansion of railroads, surfaced roads, all road vehicles together, and the more recent expansion of air transportation.     

西北半干旱地区既有城市道路海绵化 改造模式探索——以西宁为例

西宁属于西北高海拔半干旱地区,具有年均降雨量 少、蒸发量高的气候特征。城市道路是城市径流雨水产流的主 要组成部分。西宁现状城市道路均采用传统快排方式,存在雨 水利用不佳、污染城市末端水系生态环境等问题。根据城市道 路等级、下垫面及现状植被生长情况,分析西宁海绵城市建设 试点区道路改造项目的特点,定制城市道路海绵化改造的技术 路线,分类探讨解决西北半干旱地区城市道路初期雨水的径流 污染控制及雨水利用问题。根据已完成海绵化改造的8条道路 的经验,提炼西宁城市道路海绵化改造模式,以期为西北半干 旱地区城市道路海绵化改造提供解决思路。     

Targeting Urban Congestion: Equity and Second-Best Issues

Distributional and second‐best problems of implementing efficiency based demand management of road use in Australian cities are addressed. Both road use pricing and parking policies are considered. Failure to price roads and parking spots efficiently contributes to excessive travel and to excessive urban expansion. A key policy concern is to promote demand management acceptability by offering transportation alternatives and by making explicit the sources of efficiency gain from revenue neutral road charging policies with double‐dividend advantages. Second‐best policies of restricting land releases on city boundaries to encourage more compact city development may be inferior to policies of pricing major roads, cordon pricing and demand based parking policies.     

The effect of distance and road quality on food collection, marketing margins, and traders' wages: evidence from the former Zaire

Food price variation is typical of the food economies of many low income countries. The presence or absence of road infrastructure is perceived to be one of the main determinants of this variation. This analysis shows that in the case of the former Zaire, food price dispersion is significant both across products and across regions. It is demonstrated that transportation costs explain most of the differences in food prices between producer regions and that road quality is an important factor in the transportation costs. However, food prices decrease relatively faster than transportation costs increase and traders' wages are higher on bad roads.     

Inter-Regional Migration in Transition Economies: The Case of Poland

In this paper, we modify the Harris–Todaro model of migration to incorporate the impact of human capital, housing stock, and the availability of publicly provided goods such as healthcare and road provision in order to analyze the determinants of migration in different regions of Poland. We apply the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equation (SURE) model to investigate the data. Our results show that GDP per capita, unemployment, and distance have a strong effect on regional migration in Poland. Human capital is also an important explanatory factor as is the provision of key publicly provided facilities such as roads. The lack of housing in Poland is important in explaining the low levels of internal migration.     

Reputation from nested activities

Principals usually try to elicit the quality and behavior of agents from their performance. While sometimes success or failure in production does not provide accurate information about the agents, there may be activities not directly related to production that constitute a more precise signal. I show that, when agents face reputation concerns, introducing these activities after a success improves efficiency, while introducing them after a failure reduces efficiency. Hence, nesting activities in the right way may offer a cheap toolbox to provide incentives. As an illustration, I consider a model where reputation concerns drive the hiring decisions of managers in a firm and I show how scapegoating, an activity “nested” after failures in production, generates inefficiencies. While hiring efficient workers increases the probability of success, hiring less efficient workers provides a buffer against reputation loses from failures, since managers can blame them more easily.     

ZigBee技术在智能交通信号灯控制中的应用研究

针对传统的定时切换交通信号控制模型已无法满足日益增长的交通需求,采用ZigBee无线传感器网络技术。设计一种智能控制信号灯系统,根据当前道路的实时情况,将采集的实时信息,通过ZigBee网络,发送到子控制模块。由子控制模块传输到主控制模块,主控制模块对数据进行处理,产生合理的交通信号灯动态配时方案,进行较为合理的道路管理,提高交通效率。实验结果证明该系统利用巨磁阻传感器和加速度传感器,结合对道路情况实时采集,通过ZigBee无线网络传送信息;设备之间通过无线网络连接,无需挖路布线,在智能交通领域具有一定的应用价值。     

A RE-EXAMINATION OF PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS AND EFFICIENCY ESTIMATES FOR THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

This paper seeks to re‐examine the issue of estimating team efficiency for sports teams via an application of data from the National Basketball Association. This paper argues that the inputs the coaches allocate are the players the team employs. Therefore, this paper employs a measure of playing talent in modeling team production. Unlike previous studies, which only employed one measure of playing talent, we employ measures of guards, small forwards and big men in a study of basketball. This paper also argues that the time‐varying stochastic frontier models with the identical temporal pattern assumption such as Lee and Schmidt and Battese and Coelli cannot be used in the analysis of team efficiency in sports. The evidence we present shows by hypothesis test that this argument holds.     

我国丝绸之路经济带沿线省（市、区）高技术产业创新效率研究

高技术产业是推动区域创新的重要增长极，其创新效率直接影响区域创新发展。基于价值链视角，以2009—2017年丝绸之路经济带沿线省（市、区）高技术产业为研究对象，利用DEA-Malmquist指数模型分析各地区高技术产业技术研发效率、技术转化效率，并采用Tobit模型验证不同因素对不同创新效率的影响。结果发现：丝绸之路经济带沿线省（市、区）高技术产业创新发展态势良好，区域创新效率差异正逐步缩小，技术研发效率明显高于技术转化效率。在创新过程中，劳动者素质、技术积累是提高技术研发效率的关键因素，企业自主创新、政府支持、企业规模扩张能够显著提高技术转化效率。     

Fungibility and the flypaper effect of project aid: Micro-evidence for Vietnam

While most economists assume that aid is fungible, most aid donors behave as if it is not. Recipient government responses to development project aid are studied in the context of a specific World Bank-financed project. We estimate the impact of a rural road rehabilitation project in Vietnam on the kilometers of roads actually rehabilitated and built. Using local-level survey data collected for this purpose, we test whether the evidence supports the standard economic argument that there will be little or no impact on rural roads rehabilitated, given fungibility. Instead of full fungibility, we find evidence for a “flypaper effect”. Although impacts on rehabilitated road kilometers were less than intended, more roads were built in project areas. Our results suggest that there was fungibility within the sector, but that aid largely stuck to that sector.     

Road tax interactions among local governments: a spatial panel data analysis of the French case over the period 1984–2000

This article contributes to the literature on local tax interactions. Its novelty lies in its focus on the interactions of local governments via an indirect local tax on vehicles such as the road tax sticker and its analysis of interactions between direct and indirect local taxation. The main purpose of this article is to provide an empirical analysis of the reaction of road tax policy in a given French ‘department’ to changes in road tax policy in other ‘departments’. The analysis uses a novel panel data set covering the 96 French metropolitan ‘departments’ for the period from 1984 to 2000. First, the results confirm the presence of significant spatial interactions between French ‘departments’ due to the road tax sticker. Second, the estimation results also show that the business tax rate and/or the property tax rate on developed land are complements to the road tax sticker, whereas the residence tax rate and/or the property tax rate on undeveloped land are substitutes to the road tax instrument. Finally, I find that ‘departments’ with a larger, younger and older population set higher rates for the road tax sticker. The results are robust regarding alternative weight matrices.     

The benefits of in-kind government programs

In this paper I present a methodology to calculate the benefits of in-kind programs such as public housing which restrict consumption of some goods to the levels offered by the government. Most previous studies begin with an a priori specification of the direct utility function. I begin with the ordinary demand function and then integrate demand to recover the indirect utility function and the expenditure function. I argue that this approach gives additional flexibility in choosing a functional form which best describes the data. I then use this methodology to estimate the benefits of the U.S. government's Section 8 housing program.     

INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY: AN ANALYSIS ON THE KOREAN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

This study estimates an aggregate production function of manufacturing industry using panel data of 11 Korean regions covering 1977–1992. While the previous studies regard infrastructure as a direct input for production, the present study proposes that infrastructure has an effect on actual output by enhancing technical efficiency thereby, reducing the gap between maximum potential output and actual output. To investigate the relationship between infrastructure and technical efficiency, a stochastic frontier approach is applied to Korean manufacturing industry. Confirming the presence of substantial technical inefficiency in production, this study shows that an increase in infrastructure reduces the technical inefficiency level. The study also finds that, contrary to expectation, the industrialized regions are less efficient than the less industrialized ones. (JEL O20, H54, C23)     

Road to productivity: Effects of roads on total factor productivity in Indian manufacturing

A denser road network lowers transport costs and stimulates manufacturing total factor productivity (TFP). The placement of roads, however, is likely to be non-random. For identification, we exploit cross-state variation in the strength of centre-state partisan alignment that asymmetrically affects road building in aligned states. Using panel data on manufacturing establishments in India from 1998 to 2012, we find that, a 1% increase in road density raises value-added TFP by about 0.25%, on average. A closer examination reveals that the effect varies by plant characteristics and road type. Younger establishments are more likely to gain from a denser road network with highways playing a prominent role. The results are robust to imperfections in the instrument and to other sensitivity checks.     

Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence from Changes in Municipal Income Tax Rates in Finland

The elasticity of taxable income (ETI) is a key parameter in income tax analysis, in terms of both efficiency and tax revenue. In this paper, I use Finnish data to analyze the ETI. I use changes in flat municipal income tax rates as an instrument for overall changes in marginal tax rates. This instrument is not a function of individual income, and thus the ETI estimates are less susceptible to bias caused by differential trends across the income distribution. In general, instruments used in previous studies do not have this feature. My preferred estimate for the average ETI is 0.21.     

Managed Futures for Long‐Term Investors: A DEA Ranking Analysis

This study proposes an alternative Data Envelopment Analysis ranking model to evaluate the relative performance efficiency of commodity‐trading advisors. I measure the performance efficiency using the decision‐making process quality/trading skills framework and depart from the traditional risk–return framework. The Data Envelopment Analysis rankings produced some interesting results. First, similarly to the previous studies, I successfully isolated two ‘superstar’ commodity‐trading advisors with the highest Sharpe ratios as the Grade A commodity‐trading advisors. However, as an improvement over the similar studies that used the traditional risk–return framework, I also isolated two commodity‐trading advisors with average and below‐average Sharpe ratios as Grade A commodity‐trading advisors.