四川若尔盖草原沙化问题的研究

若尔盖高原位于青藏高原东部边缘地带,地处阿坝藏族羌族自治州北部,黄河与长江分水岭将其划为东西两部,区内物种丰富,是青藏高原上当之无愧的"绿色明珠"。而近几十年来,由于自然因素的作用和人类活动的干扰,昔日红军经过的若尔盖草原,正沿着"湿地→草甸→退化草甸→沙化草地→沙地"模式逐渐恶化,湿地面积逐年萎缩,沙化面积增大,生物多样性受到破坏。本文主要阐述了沙化的现状、原因以及对沙化引起的生态环境问题提出了一些防治沙化和治理措施建议。     

UK Forecast in Detail

The middle part of the fiscal year saw the earlier improvement in the public sector finances stall. As a result, the first nine months of 2015–16 saw borrowing come in at £74.2bn, above the OBR's forecast of £68.9bn for the year as a whole.     

向德国进发

一个被视为最有竞争力的发达国家,一个被称为最不能忽视的发展中国家,正以一种谨慎而又互相吸引、好奇而又夹杂不满的姿态越走越近。追求成长的中国企业充当了这一趋势的急先锋黄怒波似乎永远是笑嘻嘻的表情。在4月底德国汉诺威工业博览会一个关于中国文化的活动上,他朗诵了自己的一首诗—《黑狗》,讲的是他在登山时与一只黑狗邂逅的奇妙经历。台下的德国人能听懂中文的估计不多,于是他忘情朗诵的同时,身后的投影仪放了这首诗的德语翻译。     

我国星级饭店企业安全科技水平经济贡献率研究

饭店安全科技投入是饭店企业投入的重要组成部分,了解其经济贡献对饭店管理者的科学决策具有重要意义。2000年至2007年期间我国星级饭店安全科技水平平均经济贡献率为1.79%,且各年的贡献率呈现一种不平稳的状态,目前由资金投入和劳动力投入产生的经济效益占主导地位。     

The Dortmund Case — On the Enactment of an Urban Economic Imaginary

Launched in the year 2000, the so‐called Dortmund Project was a 10‐year local development initiative aimed at creating 70,000 new jobs and redeveloping the old industrial sites in Dortmund, a city in the Ruhr area of Germany. The project's proclaimed vision of a ‘new Dortmund’ is seen as a part of a new imaginary. This article uses a praxeological perspective to work out the enactment practices in this imaginary, viewing them as various nexuses of doings and sayings. In doing so, it stresses the relevance of the production and influence of different reports in this process and seeks to offer an insight into the complexity of the setting in which this imaginary was enacted.     

Trade and the Balance of Payments

After more promising signs in H1 2013, the official data for the latter part of the year was very disappointing given the improved economic performance of many of the UK's trading partners. The latest monthly data – for the three months to November – showed the volume of non‐oil goods exports up less than 1% compared with a year earlier, with exports to the European Union up just 0.6%. This runs contrary to the much more upbeat surveys, which have all reported greater momentum in recent months…     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing

A reasoned assessment of the impact of the Budget leads to the following implications:
Interest rates over the course of the year will be higher than they are today.
The possibility of an upturn in the inflation rate before the end of 1978 is more likely than before the Budget.
The combination of this higher inflation rate and the weaker currency is likely to keep the growth of consumer spending significantly below the official (and most other) forecasts, although the 1978 growth will still be substantial.
In February we argued that on the assumption of £l½b net tax reduction in the Budget 'a responsible financial policy would require that part at least should be reversed in 1979'. The scale of the Budget tax reductions and suggestions of further net reliefs in July increase the likelihood that we will be seeing forces at work to slacken demand later this year, or in the first part of 1979.     

浅谈英语分层教学的理论依据

在全国掀起英语教育改革之际,作者在自己的教学实践中进行了英语分层教学的实验研究,取得了较为理想的效果,得到了师生的普遍好评。本文就作者所进行的分层教学实验研究的理论基础作以简单的介绍。     

UK Forecast in detail

On the face of it, recent public sector net borrowing numbers suggest that the Government's deficit reduction ambitions are stalling, with borrowing higher than last year despite a more favourable economic backdrop. But the underlying picture is less gloomy, with the recent disappointing numbers largely due to the comparison with the early part of fiscal year 2013–14, when revenues had been temporarily boosted by receipts from the Swiss Capital Tax and by high earners deferring income from the previous tax year to take advantage of the reduction in the top rate of income tax…     

Analysis of the implications of collaborative work in terms of performance and satisfaction among students registered in the Data Analysis in Psychology course

Currently the introduction of the European Higher Education Area suggests modifications in teaching and learning strategies adopted by the universities. To achieve this aim, the collaborative work among students has been encouraged. During the past years various studies have demonstrated that the incorporation of collaborative work renders high levels of satisfaction among students, though the results obtained in relation to performance are more modest. The objective of the present research is to determine whether the incorporation of collaborative work, in an intensive way, in the Data Analysis in Psychology course for the academic year 2006–2007 produces an increment in the performance of the students, as well as keeps the high levels of student satisfaction with this course. A sample of 350 registered students in this 2006–2007 academic course was used. The outcome of our study shows a significant increase of students presenting the evaluations and passing the course when compared to those of the previous academic year, as well as the high levels of satisfaction, on the part of the students, with the organization of this course.     

Dynamic models of the labor force behavior of married women which can be estimated using limited amounts of past information

This paper examines the extent of the inadequacy of standard cross-sectional models of US labor force behavior and considers the abilities of alternative models to capture the observed continuity in the hours of work and earnings of individuals as well as in their employment histories. Both of the alternatives to the standard cross-sectional model considered in this study incorporate limited amounts of information about past work behavior that could easily be collected as part of a national population census. Using a population of 21 to 64 year old married working women taken from a 1969 through 1978 Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the variables included in the Z vector age: 1) age of the wife; 2) education of the wife; 3) state average hourly wage in manufacturing measured in 1967 dollars; and 4) unemployment rate for the state in which the wife lives. Results show that by using information about a women's hours of work and wage rate in the previous year, it may be feasible to improve on forecasts of a woman's employment and earnings behavior. For each model a separate estimate is made for wives aged 21 through 46, and for those aged 47 through 64. The dummy and difference models perform much better than the standard model, with the dummy model having the higher pseudo-chi-square statistic. These models show that systematic errors made in determining which individuals work, what they earn per hour, or how many hours they work, should result in prediction errors of the same sort year after year in the computation of annual earnings. These findings with respect to years of work and nonwork, years of part time versus full time work, and cumulative earnings over a 10 year period, confirm and extend Heckman's findings; thus, forecasting models of the work behavior of individuals should not be estimated using pure cross-sectional data. It would be important if researchers could identify what observable factors, if any, increase the likelihood that wives will alter their work behavior from what it has been in the immediate past, even if they are not able to fully understand or explain this previous work behavior.     

Contrasting Developments in UK Energy Regulation: Retail Policy and Consumer Engagement

This article explores the role of regulation as a supporting institution for an energy market. Two aspects are examined: first, the role of regulation in promoting a competitive market for the retail supply of energy, and second, the role of regulation in providing access to the transmission and distribution networks, assumed to be monopolies, that provide services for the retail suppliers. UK regulation promoted retail energy competition until 2008, but in that year changed direction, and since then has been restricting retail competition. In contrast, UK regulation since 2008 has encouraged more customer engagement in the network part of the energy sector. This offers the prospect, at least, of the emergence of a form of competition and choice in the process of setting price controls.     

Updating and Estimating a Social Accounting Matrix Using Cross Entropy Methods

The problem in estimating a social accounting matrix (SAM) for a recent year is to find an efficient and cost-effective way to incorporate and reconcile information from a variety of sources, including data from prior years. Based on information theory, the paper presents a flexible 'cross entropy' (CE) approach to estimating a consistent SAM starting from inconsistent data estimated with error, a common experience in many countries. The method represents an efficient information processing rule-using only and all information available. It allows incorporating errors in variables, inequality constraints, and prior knowledge about any part of the SAM. An example is presented, applying the CE approach to data from Mozambique, using a Monte Carlo approach to compare the CE approach to the standard RAS method and to evaluate the gains in precision from utilizing additional information.     

Tighter labour markets to finally lift global wages

• Wage growth has been relatively slow since 2007 in advanced economies, but an upturn may be in sight. Slow productivity growth remains an issue but tighter labour markets make a positive response by wages to rising inflation more likely and there are signs that compositional and crisis‐related effects that dragged wage growth down are fading – though Japan may be an exception.
• Overall, our forecasts are for a moderate improvement in wage growth in the major economies in 2017–18, with the pace of growth rising by 0.5–1% per year relative to its 2016 level by 2018 – enough to keep consumer spending reasonably solid.
• Few countries have maintained their pre‐crisis pace of wage growth since 2007. In part this reflects a mixture of low inflation and weak productivity growth, but other factors have also been in play: in the US and Japan wage growth has run as much as 0.5–1% per year lower than conventional models would suggest.
• The link with productivity seems to have weakened since 2007 and Phillips curves – which relate wages to unemployment – have become flatter. A notable exception is Germany, where the labour market has behaved in a much more ‘normal’ fashion over recent years with wage growth responding to diminishing slack.
• ‘Compositional’ factors related to shifts in the structure of the workforce may have had an important influence in holding down wage growth, cutting it by as much as 2% per year in the US and 1% per year in the UK. There are some signs that the impact of these effects in the UK and US are fading, but not in Japan.
• The forecast rise in inflation over the next year as energy price base effects turn positive is a potential risk to real wages. But the decline in measures of labour market slack in the US, UK and Germany suggests wages are more likely to move up with inflation than was the case in 2010–11 when oil prices spiked and real wages fell.

     

Forecast Overview

Though the economy continued to enjoy reasonable momentum in the latter part of 2016, it was heavily reliant on the strength of the consumer and, with higher inflation set to squeeze household spending power, we expect activity to slow through this year and into 2018. We forecast GDP growth will slow from 2.0% in 2016 to 1.5% this year and 1.3% in 2018. We do not anticipate any major changes to monetary or fiscal policy in the near future.     

Access to training and its impact on temporary workers

Does temporary work provide a way for individuals to improve their skill levels? Using a sample of more than 4,000 employees of US temporary staffing agencies, we analyse whether blue, white and pink‐collar temps get access to company training, and the impact of skill development on wages and employee retention. We find that less than 25 per cent of temps take part in training. Educated and experienced individuals are more likely to be offered training, but lower‐skilled individuals are more likely to take training when it is offered and spend more hours on it. Office workers who took part in training were more likely still to be with the agency a year later and experienced significant wage growth, while training had no effect on wage growth for blue‐collar workers. Skill development that took place on the job was associated with greater wage growth for all types of temps.     

The Economic Outlook for London

The strength of London's economy has been very apparent over the past year, after a period when the potential for recovery was clear but there was less hard evidence. Financial services have clearly played a large part in driving the acceleration in London's growth, with stock markets, M&A activity and profitability all strong over the last 18 months. London's growth has also been bolstered by strong international immigration. Our latest forecasts show a modest slowdown in London's economy next year from a robust 3.9% in 2006, in response to higher UK interest rates and weaker growth in both the US and the Eurozone. But employment in London is still forecast to rise by 1.2% in 2007, with GDP expected to grow by 2.9% in London compared with 2.3% in the UK as whole.     

A SYMMETRIC INPUT–OUTPUT TABLE FOR EU27: LATEST PROGRESS

The European Commission is currently establishing an Environmentally Extended Input–Output (EE-IO) Database for the EU27 developed by the Joint Research Centre at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). This project attempts to generate an analytical dataset comprising all EU countries and yearly time series for the period 1995–2005. Since, for the time being, IO and environmental accounts data are only available with significant gaps part of the dataset will require estimates based on best available proxy data and reasonable assumptions. This paper is focused on the IO database shaped around Eurostat supply and use tables and symmetric IO tables consistent with the NACE classification. The paper describes the procedure by which the latest preliminary results have been obtained for an aggregate EU27 symmetric input–output table for the year 2000.     

Activity

As we begin 2014 the growth outlook is much improved compared with a year ago. In part this reflects some sizeable upward revisions to previously released data, but it is also a function of the stronger than expected pickup in activity through 2013. The economy grew by 0.8% in both Q2 and Q3 and business survey data point to a similar rate of growth in Q4. This would take GDP growth for 2013 as a whole to 1.9%, which would be the strongest since 2007…     

Forecasting Tour de France TV audiences: A multi-country analysis

The Tour de France is the world’s biggest cycling event. The race attracts up to 25 million TV viewers per stage worldwide. In this article, we forecast TV audiences for individual stages of the Tour de France for five European countries where cycling is popular: Belgium, Denmark, France, The Netherlands and Spain. The predictions follow from on a multivariate ordinary least squares regression model that explains historical viewing habits for the Tour de France as a function of attributes of the individual stages, and contextual information such as TV channel and day. Although the accuracy of the forecasts changes from year to year and can be very different between TV markets, in most cases our predictions clearly outperform forecasts based on naive models. Our findings illustrate that a large part of the variation in TV viewership is determined by how the race route is designed by the race organizer, independent of actual race developments.