An institutional perspective of public policy and network effects in the renewable energy industry: enablers or disablers of entrepreneurial behaviour and innovation?

This study extends theory on the effects of public policies stimulating technology demand and of industry network ties on firm-level entrepreneurial behaviour. We take an institutional perspective to develop a theoretical model examining the mechanisms through which public policies, regulatory uncertainty, and industry network ties affect firm-level entrepreneurial decision-making processes and the ability to introduce highly innovative products and to sustain superior performance. We focus on firm-level effects, which enables the study of the tension between institutional pressures of homogeneity and competitive pressures of heterogeneity for entrepreneurial decision-making processes in environments characterized by policy-induced market demands. To test our hypotheses, we draw on data from a large-scale survey among German renewable energy firms. Our results show that public policies can constrain firm innovativeness and risk-taking behaviour because they steer firms towards a more conservative attitude and discourage the pursuit of high-risk innovation projects. However, firms can counteract these influences and enhance their innovativeness by maintaining close network ties with research associations as we find that innovativeness and a highly innovative product portfolio are key success factors. In summary, these findings provide important implications for the study of public policy effects, industry network ties and entrepreneurial behaviour.     

对我国上市公司关联交易及盈余管理的探讨

上市公司关联交易及盈余管理是上市公司控股大股东、管理当局追求其自身利益的一种行为过程。由于我国上市公司通过关联交易及盈余管理的现象越来越严重,须从关联交易及盈余管理的涵义与特征入手,对其惯用的手法和防治的对策进行阐述与分析,提出规范上市公司关联交易及盈余管理完善法人治理结构,进一步完善关联方关系及其交易准则。     

The CIR report on disclosure of information: a critique

The publication of the CIR's long-awaited report on disclosure of information seems to have been greeted with an embarrassing silence. Little comment has been heard from the news media, Parliament, trade unions or employers' associations. This may reflect concern with more pressing issues in industrial relations, such as, for example, the search for a prices and incomes policy, but the nature of the report itself may also explain why it created scarcely a ripple in public consciousness. Far from being a clear guide to decision and action, it is merely a collection of very general recommendations which will create little controversy because they are so unexceptional.     

The evolving role of trade associations in negotiated environmental agreements: the case of United Kingdom Climate Change Agreements

Voluntary and negotiated agreements are becoming increasingly popular instruments for regulating industry's environmental performance. Although their main purpose is to modify the behaviour of individual firms, the coordinating role of trade (or industry) associations is often critical to their environmental effectiveness. Thus, a clear and mutually agreed understanding of associations' role in the agreement process is essential. This paper examines the nature of trade associations' input into the negotiation and implementation of environmental agreements, using the case study of United Kingdom Climate Change Agreements. Results show associations serving a range of coordinating roles, including the aggregation of members' viewpoints, negotiation of agreements, provision of regulatory and technical knowledge and collation of performance data. We conclude that further involvement of trade associations in negotiated and voluntary agreements can bring appreciable, though not uncontested, benefits in terms of environmental effectiveness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

技术性贸易壁垒发展研究

伴随着国际贸易竞争的激烈程度加深，传统的以关税为代表贸易保护方式逐渐被具有更强的隐蔽性的技术性贸易壁垒所取代。技术性贸易壁垒由于自身的灵活性和隐蔽性，成为继关税保护和配额制以及许可证保护后最难应付的贸易保护主义手法，也成为近年来发达国家限制进口的最常使用的手段。面对发达国家各种复杂的技术性贸易壁垒手段，我国如何能够冲破这种壁垒保护己经成为今后国际贸易发展必须面临的问题。本文从技术性贸易壁垒的发展趋以及我国今后应该采取的应对措施方面对技术性贸易壁垒加以阐述。     

基于品牌概念地图的品牌联想研究——一种提高品牌价值的新方法

品牌形象通过各种联想与记忆中的品牌相联系。只有通过有效的营销,将顾客脑中丰富的联想形成良好且牢固的联想,企业才能提高顾客对品牌忠诚度。国外对品牌联想的研究早、成果多;但国内对于品牌联想的研究才刚刚起步,关于如何测量和描绘的研究更是几乎为零。结合国外最新的品牌联想测量工具——品牌概念地图,对新光饰品的品牌联想进行实证研究。通过描绘新光品牌的品牌联想结构,指出该品牌现有不足之处,并给出了相应的对策。     

在构建“和谐企业”中提升工会履行基本职责能力的思考

工会组织要在构建"和谐企业"中进一步提升并履行好"维护"的基本职责,就必须下工夫、花力气、提高能力、创新维权机制以及实施和谐维权,这样才能在"和谐企业"的构建中全面提高工会工作的整体水平,为企业做强做大作出更大贡献。     

在构建“和谐企业”中提升工会履行基本职责能力的思考

工会组织要在构建“和谐企业”中进一步提升并履行好“维护”的基本职责,就必须下工夫、花力气、提高能力、创新维权机制以及实施和谐维权,这样才能在“和谐企业”的构建中全面提高工会工作的整体水平,为企业做强做大作出更大贡献。     

关于经济全球化背景下我国加工贸易发展的思考

围绕加工贸易是否适舍在我国继续发展的问题,本文分析了加工贸易对于我国经济发展的历史作用,指出我国加工贸易目前存在的主要问题,并且从外部条件和内部发展需要两个方面阐述我国较长时期内发展加工贸易的必然性,最后提出我国的加工贸易在经济全球化进程中应具有的发展趋势。     

从WTO规则角度探讨我国环境标志制度的完善

环境标志制度已经成为国际贸易中越来越重要的一项制度,环境标志通过利用公众对环保产品的选择,逆向引导企业参与环保,具有良好的环保效果。我国已建立了环境标志制度,但有待完善。我国应结合WTO规则,提高国民的环保意识;建立环境标志体系,完善环境标志制度;积极参加CTE关于环境标志问题的讨论,维护发展中国家和我国的贸易利益,才能使我国的环境标志制度与国际市场全面接轨。     

Briefing Paper: The Interdependence of Fiscal and Monetary Policy under Economic and Monetary Union

This article explores the implications of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) for the conduct of fiscal policy. Under EMU, where the European Central Bank is successful in controlling inflation, the loss of seigniorage revenues causes a potential problem for public sector deficits. To prevent the debt-income ratio from spiralling upwards, a primary budget surplus is ultimately required. EMU has usually been considered as a strong central monetary authority which forces fiscal discipline on lax national governments. But this is not the only possibility. Because the debt ratio can be reduced by surprise inflation, the price expectations of the private sector are important. Once these are taken into account, EMU can be examined in a 'game' framework in which the reputation of the authorities and the existence or otherwise of cooperation between the fiscal and monetary authorities becomes a critical factor.
The paper finds that where the authorities enjoy reputation and cooperate, a one-off reduction in public spending will lead to a permanent decline in the real interest rate and crowd in extra private spending (consumption and investment). Without reputation the cut in government spending has to be sustained. Where there is neither reputation nor cooperation, the outcome depends on the structure of the European economy and whether fiscal policy can effect the terms of trade between countries. If the terms of trade remain unchanged, the outturn is similar to the case of cooperation without reputation, but where the terms of trade can be improved in one country, there is no incentive to cut public spending. In this case the outturn is higher inflation with private spending crowded out.     

MEASURING PROTECTION: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

Abstract.  There seems to be some confusion between 'openness' and 'protection' measures in the international trade literature. The aim of this paper is to bring together the state of the art in quantifying trade policy measures and, for this reason, we focus on the extent of the protection granted by policies rather than on the degree of openness of the economy. Given the considerable amount of literature that deals with these issues, we will limit our review as follows. On the one hand, we focus on trade policies implemented at the border and therefore do not consider all the other possible public interventions influencing trade flows. On the other hand, we only take into account indexes that explicitly adopt a metric expressed in a 'scalar aggregate' (tariff- and quota-equivalent measures, or an index in a closed interval). We distinguish between indexes that aggregate across products (same barrier for more products) and indexes that aggregate across instruments (more barriers for the same product). Finally, in order to classify the large number of indexes covered in our review, we propose a typology based on three categories: incidence, outcome and equivalence.     

建设现代商务和港口物流实验教学中心的实践与探索

连云港市不仅外经贸发达,发展迅速,而且作为新亚欧大陆桥的东桥头堡,以海铁联运为主的陆桥运输占我国新亚欧大陆桥总运量的90%以上。我校如何充分利用这一独特的优势,建设一个集市场营销、国际贸易、金融学、财务管理和港口物流等学科于一体,展示大陆桥过境贸易和运输的实验教学中心,不仅对我校师生的现代商务和港口物流实验实训具有重要意义,并将会对我国的同类实验教学起到示范作用。     

PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY, PROTECTIONISM AND THE CASE OF NAFTA

Public choice theory suggests that the political process has an in-built tendency to promote protectionist measures favoured by organised interest groups rather than trade liberalisation that would benefit society as a whole. But the example of the North American Free Trade Agreement shows that political campaigns in support of free trade can successfully mobilise public opinion to neutralise the power of special-interest groups. Therefore, it is imperative that politicians and others who believe in free trade remind the public of its benefits.     

Reaching out for strength within? ‘Social movement unionism’ in a small country setting

Trade unions around the developed world face common challenges in terms of declining membership and influence, and ‘conventional’ union revival strategies have yielded limited success. A relatively recent innovation has been the embrace of ‘social movement unionism’ (SMU), which challenges traditional workplace conceptions of trade union roles via alliances with campaigning civil society organisations. This empirical study examines how SMU is conceived and applied in a small country context, focusing on the role of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. The findings suggest that SMU can appeal to trade union associations in smaller national (or regional) settings owing to a combination of institutional and size effects which concentrate networks. This has implications for unions and union federations interested in advancing both workplace and wider social justice concerns.     

欧盟标准化外部性条件下的企业应对模式研究——以中欧打火机贸易摩擦为例

欧盟标准化的负外部性已经严重影响到我国产品对欧的出口,作为中欧贸易摩擦的主体,我国相关企业必须积极主动应对。本文首先分析了欧盟标准化的外部性,然后以浙江打火机企业应对欧盟CR标准／法规为例,研究了企业应对贸易摩擦的一般策略模式。     

The end of the Ghent system as trade union recruitment machinery?

During the past 15 years, membership rates in many unions have been declining in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Reasons for this decline may be similar to what has happened in other countries—occupational change and neoliberal ideology and policies—but in the three Ghent countries, changes in the unemployment insurance system may also have affected trade union membership losses. The major part of the decline has taken place in a period of low unemployment, which may have reduced the employee incentive to take unemployment insurance, but will increasing unemployment rates mean more trade union members? At least for the LO‐ and SAK‐affiliated trade unions, it seems that trade union independent unemployment funds may be alternatives for workers who take unemployment insurance.     

Employee voice: does union membership matter?

Industrial relations research has traditionally viewed trade unions as the primary mechanism for employee voice. With the decline in unionism in many advanced industrial economies over the past two decades, new direct non-union voice mechanisms have been introduced by employers. This focus on the mechanisms for employee voice, however, fails to take account of employees' perceptions of voice. We suggested that employee perceptions of voice vary between the different levels of an organisation and proposed that trade union membership will be more likely to enhance individual employee perceptions of voice at the wider organisational level. Contrary to our expectations, our analysis of 2,949 employees of a public sector scientific research organisation found that union membership had a significant negative impact on employee voice at the organisational level. The article concluded by offering possible explanations for this unexpected finding and the implications for theory, management and future research.     

Public input competition and agglomeration

This paper analyzes the impact of public input competition in a New Economic Geography framework. It is shown that regional competition yields an overprovision of public inputs if trade costs are sizable while it leads to underprovision if regions are highly integrated. Moreover, public input competition assures a dispersion of industry as long as trade costs are high but induces agglomeration even for ex ante identical regions if trade costs have fallen below a certain value. Finally, a trade-off between regional convergence and efficiency arises since the efficient distribution of regional infrastructure requires full agglomeration for sufficiently low trade costs.     

促进我国区域贸易的探讨

区域贸易是指不同区域之间进行商品交换的活动。历史证明:存在区域贸易的区域比那些自给自足的封闭型地区更能够促进国民经济的发展。目前,我国各省区之间的区域贸易仍然比较弱,地方保护主义仍旧盛行。各地区没有充分利用各自的比较优势、以专业化生产来提高各自的贸易利益。本文通过对我国地区贸易冲突及生成机制的研究,找出出现这种现象的根本原因。同时,借鉴美国促进国内区域贸易的措施,给我国合理的区域贸易建言献策。