ENERGY SECURITY IN THE ASIA‐PACIFIC REGION

The nations of the Asia‐Pacific Region, including its three sub‐regions of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, face major potential dangers in securing the energy needed for their economies. This paper focuses on these dangers and discusses the future prospects for these vulnerable nations, including their need for closer cooperation. (JEL Q32, Q34, Q40)     

DEVELOPMENT OF AIR TRANSPORT INDUSTRY IN THE ASIA‐PACIFIC REGION

The volume of air passengers and cargo in the Asia‐Pacific region has grown significantly over the past decade due to the strong impetus of economic growth as well as trade and economic integration at both the regional and global levels. Although public funds have been the main source of financing for airports in most parts of the region, governments have increasingly resorted to privatization or are seriously considering it as a form of private sector participation enabling new airports to be built or existing airports to be upgraded. The present paper provides a brief survey of airport privatization in the Asia‐Pacific region, discusses the relevant issues, and introduces the following five papers published in this special section on the air transport industry in the Asia‐Pacific region.     

NOTE ON THE PRODUCTIVITY CONVERGENCE OF AIRPORTS IN CHINA

The present paper uses a Malmquist index measure of productivity growth to study the productivity convergence of 25 airports in China during the period 1995–2004. By decomposing the Malmquist index, we find evidence for the convergence of the efficiency level of airports, but not the productivity and technology levels. These results imply that the more productive airports are pushing the frontiers of technology faster by adopting new technology, and that the relative efficiency level of the laggards increases quickly and catches up with the efficiency level of the leaders over time.     

ON THE GAME‐THEORETIC FOUNDATIONS OF COMPETITIVE SEARCH EQUILIBRIUM*

We provide a unified directed search framework with general production and matching specifications that encompass most of the existing literature. We prove the existence of subgame perfect Nash equilibria in pure firm strategies in a finite version of the model. We use this result to derive a more complete characterization of the equilibrium set for the finite economy and to extend convergence results as the economy becomes large to general production and matching specifications. The latter extends the microfoundations for the standard market utility assumption used in competitive search models with a continuum of agents to new environments.     

环渤海地区农村居民纯收入空间分异研究

文章应用统计分析法和空间分析法,探析环渤海地区农村居民纯收入的地域差异及其变化趋势。结果表明:2007年环渤海地区各县农村居民纯收入水平差距悬殊,欠发达区是其主要地域类型;欠发达区和贫困区在京津周边地区呈集聚分布,核心—边缘效应明显;1980—2007年环渤海地区各县农村居民纯收入分布格局变化不大,但绝对差异增大,相对差异波动性缩小;农村居民纯收入整体结构由金字塔型转为中间集中型,人均纯收入空间自相关显著,其趋同性增强;基于各县1996年农村居民收入水平和1996—2007年农村居民纯收入增长差异,将环渤海地区划分为6种增长类型,并提出缩小城乡差距、促进农民增收的相应策略。     

上海市农业产业化发展初步研究

本文在分析上海市农业产业化发展条件和现状特征基础上,深入分析和评价了上海市农业产业化发展模式和生产基地布局现状,并对上海市农业产业化的进一步发展进行了初步探讨。     

产业结构调整中金融发展的作用与定位

产业结构的调整和优化是区域经济发展的重要内容,金融的发展能促进结构优化。同样地,金融抑制会阻碍结构的变迁和变化,两者具有显著的相关关系。本文通过投入产出表,生产函数和比较分析说明金融抑制是产业结构调整的重要障碍,因而在政策选择上,区域经济的发展应结合金融发展动态地促进结构的优化,实现两者的良性循环。     

ON THE ROLE OF THE PRIMARY SYSTEM IN CANDIDATE SELECTION

How does the type of the primary system affect political outcomes? We address this issue by constructing a simple model that accounts for intra‐party as well as inter‐party political competition. Our model suggests that allowing non‐partisan voters to participate in the primaries (i.e. a semi‐open primary system) indeed improves the chances of a moderate candidate getting elected. However, this need not necessarily happen in the case of a completely open primary system. Under such a system there arise multiple equilibria, some of which may lead to a greater degree of extremism than the closed primary system. Thus, our model contributes to the current debate on the choice of primary systems from an analytical perspective and helps explain some of the empirical findings.     

集群企业竞争优势的共享性资源观

首先通过构建资源观(RBV)对影响企业竞争优势的资源划分矩阵,提出针对集群企业的RBV资源三分法之外的第四类资源———共享性资源;而后在综合借鉴相关理论研究的基础上,基于RBV的理论分析框架,阐明了共享性资源的特质及其核心要义;接着通过分析共享性资源异质性的构成,阐明了基于共享性资源的集群企业竞争优势理论观点;最后做出简要总结,并指出研究的不足及今后相关领域进一步研究的方向。     

UNBALANCED SCHEDULES AND THE ESTIMATION OF COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN THE SCOTTISH PREMIER LEAGUE

Since the season ending in 2001, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) has, unlike other European football leagues, utilised an unbalanced schedule, by which the strongest teams in a given season play each other an extra time, mutatis mutandis for the weakest teams. While this approach may make sense for several reasons, it also has implications for within-season measures of competitive balance, because it creates biases in the set of win ratios from the end-of-season league table. This paper applies a simple log-probability rule to calculate a set of adjusted win ratios correcting for this inherent bias. Such an adjustment is necessary if one wishes to compare within-season competitive balance of the SPL with other European leagues. It is shown that by correcting for the unbalanced schedule, the SPL is consistently less competitive over the sample period. The implications of this finding are discussed at length.     

我国航空货运网络结构研究

选取国内空港130个、航线317条,国际空港72个、航线237条,从空港和航线两个角度探讨我国航空货运机场分布格局和网络结构,结果发现:华东区、华北区、中南区是航空货物的主来源地、目的地和中转地,上海、广州和深圳、北京构成我国航空货运的"三极",形成货运三角;航空货运主要分布在少数枢纽空港间的航线上,呈现集中状态,前五位航线的货运量之和为43.83万t,占27.33%;航空货运高度集中在人口100万以上的城市间,人口100万以下的城市间航空货运联系很弱,所占市场份额之和不足1%,中等城市之间、大城市与中等城市、小城市之间无直航航线联系;我国对外航空货运联系主要集中在北美、日韩、西欧和港澳地区,与东欧、中东和南亚地区的航空货运联系较弱,与非洲和拉美地区目前还没有直通航班。     

论西部旅游业的优势产业地位及发展对策

西部旅游资源富集度高,旅游产品市场需求旺盛,旅游业发展潜力巨大。西部旅游业是有利于合理配置资源的优势产业,是发展外向型经济、通过服务出口能进入国际产业水平分工体系参与国际竞争的优势产业。发挥西部旅游业的产业优势,需要采取政策引导、科学规划、市场拓展、加快人才培养等一系列措施。     

A SMOOTH AMBIGUITY MODEL OF THE COMPETITIVE FIRM

This paper examines the optimal production decision of the competitive firm under price uncertainty when the firm's preferences exhibit smooth ambiguity aversion. Ambiguity is modeled by a second‐order probability distribution that captures the firm's uncertainty about which of the subjective beliefs govern the price risk. Ambiguity preferences are modeled by the (second‐order) expectation of a concave transformation of the (first‐order) expected utility of profit conditional on each plausible subjective distribution of the price risk. Within this framework, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which the ambiguity‐averse firm optimally produces less in response either to the introduction of ambiguity or to greater ambiguity aversion when ambiguity prevails. In the case that the price risk is binary, we show that ambiguity and greater ambiguity aversion always adversely affect the firm's production decision.     

中国地区国民素质竞争力评价

地区国民素质竞争力是由人力特征、劳动力特征、就业状况、国民教育和生活质量5个分类体系有机构成的综合体。根据测度地区国民素质竞争力的综合评价指标体系,对当前我国各地区国民素质竞争力状况作出的评价结果显示,中国地区国民素质竞争力的发展存在两个明显特征:一是地区间发展的非均衡性;二是地区内发展的非协调性。