Ambiguity and Accident Law

Environmental accidents often involve ambiguous risks, i.e., the relevant probabilities are unknown. This paper studies how liability rules are affected by ambiguity. The injurer and the victim choose a level of care, which is observable, and an unobservable action. Both actions may affect the size and/or likelihood of loss. We analyze the welfare implications of tort rules. First, we show that with ambiguity, negligence is likely to perform better than strict liability. Second, we propose a tort rule of negligence and punitive damages, which gives the efficient levels of both care and unobserved actions.     

我国环境法的一个重要而现实的问题——我国地表水质量标准的现状分析与改进建议

从一定意义上来说,环境质量标准是根据一个国家的经济、科技发展水平和社会进步程度而制定的,具有突出的民族性、地域性和时间性。因此,随着一个国家或地区经济发展水平和社会进步程度的提高,环境质量标准也应及时地进行修订和补充。文章具体分析我国当前地表水质量标准存在的问题及其原因与危害,并进而提出改进建议与实施对策就具有重要的理论意义和实际价值。     

论格式合同之于法律的相悖性及其法律规制

格式合同产生于19世纪后半叶,而在当代社会经济生活中扮演的角色越来越重要,并被广泛地应用.虽然格式合同具有传统合同不可比拟的优势,但在其实际使用中也存在一系列问题.要有效控制格式合同,应从格式合同的法律特点出发,结合我国与外国关于格式合同的立法实践,就如何完善格式合同制度进行探索和研究.     

关于ISO14000标准体系的法学考察

文章分析了ISO14000标准体系的"软法"属性,讨论了ISO14000标准体系与环境法律的关系,最后阐释了Iso1400标准体系对环境法的促进作用.     

基于效率视角的企业社会责任业绩评价研究

企业社会责任业绩评价是当前会计领域研究的一个焦点问题。很多学者纷纷涉入这个领域进行研究,并提出了许多有代表性的方法。通过分析这些方法的优缺点,并结合我国的实际,指出这些方法在我国应用存在诸多的问题,同时从效率视角提出了评价企业社会责任业绩的新框架。     

效率是评判企业行为的首要道德标准

在实际生活中，普遍存在这样的问题：企业领导奉公守法，廉洁自律，但由于领导无方。经营不善，导致企业破产倒闭，致使众多工人下岗，他(们)的行为究竟是否道德?本通过对企业行为本身的经济伦理分析，指出在我国市场经济发展过程中，评价企业行为是否道德的首要标准是效率。企业经济行为遵守道德规范存在道德成本约束。     

Optimal Pollution Standard in an Open Economy: Characterizing Environmental Diversity

The paper examines the optimal pollution standard for a large open economy. Using a two-country partial-equilibrium framework, the optimal standards are charaterized for autarky, free trade, and free trade together with cooperation among countries in setting standards. If pollution is local, at the free-trade equilibrium, the exporting country imposes a stricter standard than does the importing country. The ranking may be reversed if pollution is transnational. A surpriising implication is that if pollution is local, cooperation may imply a less stringent standard for both the exporting country and the importing country.     

Inefficient Education Spending in Public School Districts: A Case for Consolidation?

This article estimates scale economies for Arkansas school districts. Large economies of scale exist in teacher salary and supply costs, as well as total costs. The results suggest that districts, especially rural districts, would experience measurable cost savings from consolidation. The authors simulate a hypothetical rural school district consolidation to obtain cost-saving estimates from consolidation. Simulations indicate that districts could save an average of 34% in average variable costs. At the state level, consolidation of rural districts in Arkansas could annually save $40 million. However, consolidation of school districts may increase various implicit costs to students and local communities. (JEL I22 , I28 )     

Buyer-Option Contracts Restored: Renegotiation, Inefficient Threats, and the Hold-Up Problem

"Buyer-option" contracts, in which the buyer selects the productvariant to be traded and chooses whether to accept delivery,are often used to solve holdup problems. We present a simplegame that focuses sharply on subgames in which the buyer proposesinefficient actions in order to improve his bargaining position.We argue for one of several alternative ways to model this situation.We then apply that modeling choice to recent models of the foundationsof incomplete contracts and show that a buyer-option contractis sufficient to induce first-best outcomes.     

财政经济理论需要创新——以科学发展观为视角

通过对主流财政经济理论的理性、价值、国家、发展观等重大基础理论问题进行重新审视,发现主流理论存在许多非科学的成分。要建立符合科学发展观的税收制度,其首要任务是进行理论创新。具体来说,从宏观上看,GDP的增长并不能真正反映一个国家的发展水平,因为它不能反映社会秩序和自然秩序的变化状态。从价值理性准则的角度看,如何处理好理性工具与理性准则的关系,这是税制改革的前提。从理性的性质来看,GDP的增长和税收的增长之间应该有相应的协调关系。     

财政透明度的限度与效率:对一个分析框架的诠释

推进财政透明度是一个循序渐进的过程,需要关注披露信息的限度与效率。当前我国社会正处于转型期,财政透明度要避免陷入"过犹不及"的误区。因此,要以改革政府预算制度为契机,通过建立与完善规范的预算报告制度,搭建公民参与的平台,构建高效率的公共财政治理机制。     

Efficiency in an Economy with Fixed Costs

It is by now well known that in an economy with increasing returns, first-best efficiency may be impossible to attain through an equilibrium concept based on market prices, even if firms are regulated to follow marginal cost pricing. We examine the efficiency issue in a special but important class of economies in which the only source of nonconvexities is the presence of fixed costs. Even in this context, it is possible that none of the equilibria based on marginal cost pricing are efficient (unless additional, strong assumptions are made). We argue that available results on the existence of an efficient two-part tariff equilibrium rely on very strong assumptions, and we provide a positive result using a weak surplus condition. Our approach can also be used to establish the existence of an efficient marginal cost pricing equilibrium with endogenously chosen lump-sum taxes if the initial endowment is efficient in the economy without the production technology.     

Standard and seasonal long memory in volatility: an application to Spanish inflation

The historical series of many economic variables, such as inflation, are characterized by a strong persistent behaviour in the form of long memory, not only in the long run or at zero frequency but often also at seasonal frequencies. In financial series, long memory is not apparent in levels but strong persistence in higher order moments such as volatility has been proven to be a stylized fact in stock returns. Interest in economic time series has, however, focused on the persistence of levels and little attention has been paid to higher order dependence, which can be important for assessing the stability of the series. We propose a semiparametric analysis of the standard and seasonal persistence of the volatility of a monthly Spanish inflation series. The conclusions can be summarized in three main results. First volatility shows strong persistence implying an unstable trend in prices, but its structure depends on the proxy used, the absolute values, the squares or the logarithms of squares. Second, the structure of the persistence of volatility changed with the first oil crisis in 1973, with a persistent trend in both periods, in contrast with levels. Third, the Taylor effect, which is well documented in financial series, does not apply in this series.     

对专利制度效率的法律经济学分析及启示

专利制度的产生及设计有着深刻的经济学背景，然而长期以来对于专利制度的研究却大多局限于法学领域，经济学视角的分析讨论很薄弱，这样很难基于促进社会进步的目的来改进专利制度。本文将对专利制度的效率进行法律经济学分析，探讨专利制度对社会效率及个人效率的影响，以求对中国的专利制度立法提供一个更完善的制度背景及理论依据，并对专利制度创新提出一些可行建议。     

基于委托代理理论的非效率投资行为述评——以融资方式为主线

在现代财务理论体系下,由于委托代理冲突和信息不对称的存在,融资方式的选择将会影响到公司的投资效率。本文分别对新权益融资、内源融资和负债融资下,就委托代理冲突而导致的非效率投资问题进行了较系统的梳理和评论。在此基础上指出我国此类研究的不足主要在于忽视了我国资本市场特有的制度背景,对"完美资本市场"限制条件的不断放松为进一步的研究提供了思路。     

略论经济效益审计标准的改进及其作用

现行经济效益审计标准存在很多问题。经济效益审计标准应为：在一定的经济环境下，考虑被审单位的特点及资源情况，被审计单位能达到的最高经济效益水平。这样制定审计标准，能够促进企业提高经济效益，更好地发挥经济效益审计的作用。     

基于技术标准的高技术企业国际化效率测度研究

发展PCT专利、参与乃至主导重要的国际技术标准是当今高技术企业核心能力构建和国际化效率提升的集中体现。借鉴DEA方法构建高技术企业国际化发展投入产出模型,揭示高技术企业基于技术标准的国际化效率内涵与水平;针对华为科技和中兴通讯两家企业的应用测算与分析表明,两家公司在技术标准和国际化发展上进程较快、效率总体良好,华为科技的发展效率相对更高一些。同时,也反映出企业在国际化过程中的一些共同问题,对于我国高技术企业推进技术标准化战略、加快国际化发展具有重要启示。     

Rewards Available to Currency Futures Speculators: Compensation for Risk or Evidence of Inefficient Pricing?

Filter, channel and moving-average trading rules are compared with rules which use ARIMA price forecasts, by evaluating their ex ante performance for currency futures transactions from December 1981 to November 1987. All of the trading rules are profitable. Market efficiency is discussed Monte Carlo results strongly suggest that the trading profits are too large to be explained by the elusive, time-varying risk premium sought in forward market literature     

Fitting Standard Software Packages to Non-standard Organizations: The " Biography' of an Enterprise-wide System

This paper investigates the development and implementation of a generic off- the-shelf computer package and the competing pressures for standardization and differentiation as this package is made to fit new organizational settings. The particular focus is on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and its application within universities. In order for the ERP system to fit this setting a new module called "Campus' is being developed. We followed the module as the current "generic user' embodied in the software was translated to a more "specific user' (a number of universities piloting the module) and back once again to a generic form of university user (the potential "global university marketplace'). We develop the notion that these systems have a "biography', which helps us to analyse the evolution of software along its life cycle and provides insights into the different dynamics at play as Campus is translated for use in a number of institutions and countries. The study draws on over three years of ethnographic research conducted in a British University and a major ERP Supplier.