Incentive regulation,service quality,and standards in U.S. electricity distribution

The widespread use of incentive regulation in telecom, electricity, and other industries in the U.S. and elsewhere has raised questions about its possible adverse effect on the quality of service. This paper examines U.S. electricity distribution utilities in the years 1993–1999, several of which were subject to incentive regulation. Controlling for other possible influences, including possible endogeneity of the regulatory regime, the data and model indicate that incentive regulation is indeed associated with significantly longer duration of service outages, although not necessarily more frequent outages. Importantly, this quality reduction is offset in cases where regulation incorporates service quality standards. We also examine the causal chain connecting incentive regulation, cost expenditures, and service quality. We conclude that careful design of quality standards can allow incentive regulation to achieve cost savings without quality degradation.     

美元本位制、美元霸权与美国金融危机

美元本位制下,美元霸权表现为中心一外围框架体系.在该体系下,中心国美国与外围国家的权益和义务不对称,地位不对等,而且框架体系本身具有内在的不相容性,这些特征决定了美元本位制的内在脆弱性,由此也使美国落入美元本位制的陷阱,造成美国国内利率下降、消费信用过度扩张、制造业陷入衰退等经济失衡,最后当信用泡沫破灭时,金融危机爆发.     

Public funding for ocean energy: A comparison of the UK and U.S.

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the activities in which ocean energy public funding in the UK and the U.S. has been spent. It conducts a direct comparison of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) with that from the UK and Scottish Governments. UK investment in the sector has been relatively sustained and has increased since 2002. Almost $295 million has been spent in total, across multiple funding bodies. U.S. spending began with the establishment of the Marine Hydrokinetic division of the DoE Water Power Programme in 2008, which has administered all non-defence federal public funding for the sector. U.S. funding has steadily increased since 2008, with the total funding approaching $92 million.Approximately 40% of total U.S. spending has been on underpinning R&D activities, compared to 20% in the UK which has had a larger focus on funding full scale test infrastructure and related deployment activities. Whilst the U.S. has seen steadily increasing funding for all activities to support the sector, UK funding for deployment activities, especially test centre infrastructure and demonstration activities, has not been sustained and has had significant peaks and troughs in recent years as funding programmes and initiatives have started and finished.     

美,日两国技术创新战略的比较与启示

本文对美、日两国的技术创新战略进行了比较，对两国技术创新战略的最新发展作了分析，在此基础上提出，根据我国国情和世界各国技术创新的发展趋势，我国的技术创新战略应确立为：自主创新为主．模仿创新为辅，自主创新与模仿创新相结合。     

美日两国知识产权战略：比较与启示

美日两国均是成功实施知识产权战略的典范。美国是知识产权战略的创造国。日本依靠知识产权战略，成为能与美国抗衡的经济、科技强国。本文对两国政府知识产权战略的特点进行了比较分析，并针对中国国情提出一些具体建议。     

房地产市场的过度繁荣:日本与美国的比较

从上世纪80年代末日本和美国的次贷危机比较来看,至少可以得出两个结论:一是房地产市场的过度繁荣,往往是一国经济增长动力减弱之际,而又过度利用金融资源之故;二是次贷市场的发展和扭曲不是次贷危机爆发的根本原因。金融体系有内在的扩张和不稳定性,在现代金融体系下,房地产市场放任自由的发展,其后果往往是投机盛行和被过度金融化,从而导致经济主体过度负债和实质意义上的"次贷",并危及实体经济的平稳运行。     

U.S. farm dynamics and the distribution of U.S. agricultural subsidies

The persistent instability of the agricultural sector is the fundamental premise of most agricultural policy. Yet no research has ever quantified the aggregate dynamics of individual farms in the US. This article is the first to combine the US Census of Agriculture with the Agricultural Resource Management Survey to observe the dynamics of nearly 1.5 million farms. The data reveal substantial variation in farm size expansion and contraction. Most of this variation is unobservable in the sector totals reported by the US Department of Agriculture each year. The distribution of agricultural subsidies suggests that subsidies become more important as farms get smaller and may play a role in slowing farm size contraction.     

Labour Market Structure and Inequality: A Comparison of Italy and the U.S.

Markets with rigid labour regulations and centralized wage setting are often thought to be inefficient but egalitarian. Using a model of off-and on-the-job search and event-history, individual-level data for Italy and the U.S., we show that while the cross-sectional wage distributions of young Italian males are much more compressed than are the comparable distributions for young white U.S. males, the estimated search model implies that the distribution of lifetime welfare is no more disperse in the U.S. than it is in Italy. Our model implies that the high frequency of movements between labour market states leads to both a relatively equitable distribution of "long run" welfare in the U.S. and a high level of cross-sectional inequality.     

美国政府对外国参与美国研发活动的管理概况

本文主要探讨美国对外国参与美国研发活动的基本态度以及政府管理的基本情况。     

Misreporting trade: Tariff evasion,corruption, and auditing standards

Official international trade statistics report commerce between every pair of countries twice: once for the importing country and once for the exporter. In principle, the two values differ only by transport costs, but as has long been recognized, they also differ systematically with product‐level tariffs. We aggregate across products to construct a dataset of annual aggregate bilateral trade, separately for the importer and exporter reports. With these data, we show that the reporting differences also vary systematically with country characteristics aside from tariffs: incomes, auditing standards, corruption, and trade agreements.     

从“高薪招贤”看高等教育师资队伍建设——中美两国的比较研究

在我国改革开放的过程中,高薪引进国外人才已经成为推动高等教育发展的一种重要手段,并有强化之势,出现了以百万高薪聘请海外学者的事例.作者认为这种"高薪招贤"的做法并不可取.本文介绍了中国与美国高等院校的一般师资状况,对我国的高等教育师资建设改革进行了分析,认为提高我国高校水平应从多种层面入手,诸如提高本国教师的学历水平,加强与国外高校的实质性交流与合作,建立高水平的学术研究文化等等;并认为实行这些措施的主要障碍是观念陈旧,而不是缺乏资金.     

美国经济失衡对美元汇率的影响

经济内部失衡或者外部失衡对汇率的影响都是不确定的,但是,当经济内外部同时失衡时,汇率贬值或政府干预外汇市场的可能性最大。实证结果支持了上述结论。当美国经济内外部同时失衡时,美元贬值或美国政府干预外汇市场的概率就会提高27个百分点。这意味着,通过汇率变动,美国将内部问题外部化了。理解了美元汇率变动的原因实际上也就理解了21世纪初期以来人民币面临升值压力的原因。     

Multiple-objective methods in regulatory decision making: A conceptual framework applied to U.S. automobile safety standards

Public policy making is a complex matter. Policy makers are charged with balancing a broad spectrum of competing objectives, reflecting in varying degrees the interests and aspirations of a diverse range of constituencies and stakeholders. Policy decisions have differential impacts on differing constituencies and the contributions of these impacts to objectives are frequently uncertain, difficult to quantify, and hotly disputed. Formal methods of decision analysis have been advanced as aids for coping with complexity and have been applied to some public policy issues, most notably the management of water resources. While formal methods have the apparent benefit of rationalizing the policy process and improving the efficacy and equity of policy decisions, serious questions remain concerning the acceptability and ultimate usefulness of formal analyses in the public arena. In this article we examine these questions in the context of policy making relating to government regulation of automobile designs for safety. We consider what would be involved in attempting to use a relatively modern, multiple-objective approach in this context. The key questions are how and, more importantly, why multiple-objective methods might be used. The article begins with an illustrative case study, describes the current policymaking process, identifies the parties involved in and affected by this process, elicits key objectives, looks briefly at some scalar-objective approaches, and then outlines a multiple-objective approach. The framework developed arguably is useful in assisting policy making, at least at a qualitative level. Issues which impede a more quantitative resolution of this framework are discussed. This article is intended as a pilot study which may promote research toward the achievement of a useable multiple-objective procedure applicable in the public domain.     

U.S. insurance trade

The U.S. has had significant trade deficits in insurance for several years. This paper examines the reasons for such big annual deficits. A large home market, a low reinsurance capacity, and the conservative attitude of U.S. insurers toward foreign markets are identified as the primary contributors to such deficits. The paper also addresses the issue of how U.S. insurers can improve their international competitive position. By expanding their operations abroad, particularly in Mexico and Latin America, and by actively participating in the fast-growing Asian markets, American insurers have their greatest chance to accomplish that objective.     

"非货币性交易"准则的中美比较研究

比较我国修订的非货币性交易准则与美国的非货币性交易准则在涵盖范围、分类标准、会计处理等方面的差异，分析准则差异产生的理论基础、经济背景以及由此带来的对会计实务的影响。文章认为，我国的会计准则和会计制度的建设应该有一个首尾一致的理论基础。公允价值是一个值得推广的计量属性。     

Innovation and the Business Cycle: A Comparison of the U.S. Semiconductor and Automobile Industries

This paper examines data for U.S. automotive and semiconductor firms from 1976 to 2000 to analyze the cyclical nature of innovation, and to find if it is the same across the two industries. Although previous studies have used aggregate data, it does not follow that distinct industries respond to economic fluctuations in the same way. Using patenting as a proxy for innovation, this study finds that there is evidence that innovation is procyclical in the semiconductor industry, but there does not appear to be a similar cyclical pattern in the automobile industry. This has implications for government policy aimed at increasing private sector innovation, particularly at the regional level.     

美、日、韩三国跨国公司培育的比较与借鉴

本文通过对美、日、韩三国不同跨国公司成长模式的分析,探讨世界各国跨国公司成长的共同规律与路径差异,并从转换FDI观念、提供金融财政支持、完善法律制度、统一政府管理体制、提高政府服务水平等角度探讨我国跨国公司的培育。     

美国居民低储蓄率之谜和美元的信用危机

理解近20年来全球经济失衡现象和此次全球金融危机之所以爆发的最佳切入点是美国居民储蓄率的系统性下降。本文利用美国的资金流量表,分析了财富效应和信贷便利性对美国居民储蓄行为的影响,同时,还研究了由此导致的美元信用基础的变化,以及复杂金融体系下包括中央银行和各类银行、非银行金融机构在美元信用创造过程中的作用。由此可以发现,此次危机不仅是美国居民过度负债的危机,而且也是美元信用基础坍塌、信用创造机制瓦解的危机——这意味着此次危机的持续时间或许会非常长。无论如何,全球经济失衡和当前的危机都反映了信用本位制下国际货币体系面临的另一种形式的“特里芬两难”：世界货币需求的增长和单个储备货币国维持货币信用之间的矛盾。因此,需要推动储备货币的多元化,以改革国际货币体系。