青岛企业闯非洲

青岛的名牌产品拥有量多,有“品牌之都”之称,青岛品牌的影响在国际市场中也在逐渐上升。青岛市企业在“走出去”政策的引导下,勇闯非洲市场。截止到2010年11月,青岛市已有2188家企业开展对非贸易,其中多数是中小企业。不仅是海尔、海信与澳柯马等大企业在非洲大陆享有盛名,越来越多的中小仓业和他们的品牌也开始为非洲人所熟知。     

重新想象本土价值

在山东蓬莱这个有着“八仙过海”、“海市蜃楼”等美好传说的地方，中国商界领袖与企业家们正构筑着对本土价值的重新想象。     

天津：重新想象

天津，这是一座正在时空节点上急速膨胀的城市，对历史的敬畏和对未来的欲望构成了它的生长逻辑。我们—直试着去发现一个另类的天津，以便于去描述它，但我们失败了，不是因为没有发现“那个另类的天津”，而是因为发现了太多。 当GDP、CBD等软硬标准担当起城市发展的硬通货时，最大的“与众不同”可能就是更快、更高，这种竞争上的“永叵轮回”不可避免地催生一个个“盗版城市”。天津也没有丝毫理由感到轻松：它一再被称为中国经济增长的“第三双’，前两个坐标是深圳和上海；与此同时，它与北京的关系被好事者津津乐道地比拟为横滨与东京。 在一个需要偶像的时代，却成为了一个隐形冠军，这正是天津的魅惑之处。它跟低调无关，而是它本身就是一个庞杂的概念集合体，尽管其中的某个因子总是模仿别人或者被别人模仿，但这并不妨碍它作为一个整体所具有的另类与独特。     

“小人物”非洲创业记——开罗有个“豆腐王”

我国鼓励和支持中小企业“走出去”的一系列政策,引领越来越多的企业和有志创业者,不断“出门上路”,到陌生的异国他乡寻找属于自己的一片空间,演绎一个个奋斗创业的感人故事。     

中国公司在非洲建筑市场的发展:赤道几内亚案例

在中国的走出去战略要求下,中国公司大量进入非洲建筑市场。以赤道几内亚为例,本文描述了中国公司在赤道几内亚承接的项目情况、经营情况、成功原因以及存在的问题。     

重新想象“新兴市场”

在中国很多优秀的企业家心中都有一个梦，利用中国不断崛起这个百年一遇的机会，将自己的企业打造成世界级的玩家，并让全世界的用户，尤其是欧美市场的用户，认识和接受来自东方的品牌，让中国人的企业在欧美地区扬眉吐气。     

Second Life——创造想象

数字一代的欲望还不仅是创造媒体．他们正在创造这一代专属的“第二种人生”——这就是Second Life所承载的使命。正因这些将娱乐、工作和生活寓于一体的数字新移民们的进驻,这个数字大陆才充满了创造、体验和商业机会．才使众多公司看到了在这个“大陆”开疆辟土的必要与可能。     

不要重建，要重新想象

不可否认,汤姆·彼得斯是位观念及语言皆具极具煽动性的人物。在他看来,20年前倡导的“追求卓越”已然不能代表这个时代,只有靠“重新想象”才能拯救美国经济、企业、个人,乃至政府。2003年7月下旬,《快公司》杂志的前主编迈克尔·斯林德就汤姆的新书《重新想象》与他进行了一番谈话。本文为     

四达时代的非洲冒险

国际巨头迈不过去的坎,中国公司为什么能跨越?不过,尽管十年磨剑,但还远未到庆功时刻美英联军空袭喀布尔,能够播报独家新闻和画面的,不是CNN,是半岛电视台;搅得美国军方寝食难安的本·拉登,选择播放讲话录像的平台,不是CNN,还是半岛电视台创建于1996年的半岛电视台,已经迅速成为和老牌传媒巨头BBC、CNN并驾齐驱的权威媒体。     

去非洲寻找新商机

环·球非洲是一个资源丰富、充满希望的大陆。然而在世界银行的一项研究中,非洲再次被列为世界上从事商业活动最困难的地方。那为什么许多企业家仍然对这里感兴趣呢?是因为他们看到了非洲的发展潜力。投资非洲不容易有报道说,撒哈拉以南的非洲的投资前景可能使一些实业家发出一身冷汗,这个地区被看做是企业的“墓地”。在这里,战争、饥荒、艾滋病和天灾总是如影随行。最近,世界银行的一个年度研究报告再次确认,非洲是从事商业活动最困难的地区。在有关机构认定的35个最不利于商业活动的国家中,有27在撒哈拉以南的非洲地区。世界银行的研究报…     

Re-thinking employment quotas in the UAE

Emiratization is a government policy aimed at increasing the share of native workers in the UAE private sector. A distinguishing feature of Emiratization is the use of employment quotas for native workers so that the policy objective is met. We study the impact of the labor quota and find that its effect on native employment is ambiguous. While an increase in the employment quota for native workers increases the share of native workers, it also reduces the industry's production and employment of labor. The policy implications of the employment quota are significant, and ways to mitigate its negative impact include calibrating an optimal quota to maximize native employment, implementing the quota in industries facing less elastic demand for outputs and in industries where native and expatriate labor are closer substitutes.     

对城市规划价值观的再思考

在国内相关研究的基础上,基于转型期我国社会的某些特征及其主要矛盾,从"改革-发展-稳定"、"市场-政府"、"政治国家-市民社会"和"地方政府-私有资本-市民"的角度来解析我国城市规划价值观的变迁及其取向问题.转型期我国城市规划价值观存在多元性,由追求经济发展、经济增长向追求社会公平、社会公正转变是城市规划发展的必然趋势,但城市规划的这种转型必须渐进式地推进,不宜过于激进.     

Economic integration in Africa

There is a renewed interest in the debate on integration in Africa since the creation of the African Union in 2002. This study investigates the feasibility of a full-fledged economic union in Africa. Towards this goal, we examine the short- and long-term relationships among key macro-variables in eight largest African economies during the period from 1976 to 2005. We observe the existence of common long-term trends in real output, price level, private consumption, government consumption, investment and trade flows among these eight countries. In addition, we observe that there exists common cycles (short-term relationships) in real output, investment and trade flows for these countries. These two critical findings indicate the presence of macroeconomic interdependence among these countries which is a crucial factor for the success of integration in Africa led by these eight countries.     

China Africa Industrial Forum

Held under the banner of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation,the China-Africa Industrial Forum(CAIF)is committed to promoting development and cooperation between China and African countries.It aims to encourage rapid and sound economic development in China as well as African countries and boost exchanges and cooperation in politics,the economy,culture,science and technology,and tourism.     

Multilateral trade agreements in Africa

This paper explores the motives behind the formation of intra-African regional integration agreements (RIAs). We focus specifically on rents because they can explain the drive for integration even in the absence of a positive effect on welfare. Whether they are meant to foster rent-seeking or to suppress it, the level of corruption is posited to have a positive effect on the willingness to enter into RIAs. However, empirical studies into this effect have come to contradictory conclusions. We find that corruption has a positive effect on the willingness of African countries to join trade agreements. This result remains significant when controlling for endogeneity and heteroskedasticity, as well as the indicator of corruption used. While small, the effect of corruption outperforms most economic variables. Nevertheless, distance and other geographical factors remain the strongest explanatory forces of African integration.     

Multilateral development aid for Africa

Inequities and inefficiencies in development aid arise from donor–recipient motivational conflicts, agency problems, and institutional deficiencies. Recent thinking on reforming official aid recommends technocratic solutions including recipient ownership, selectivity, budgetary grants, and multilateralization of aid management. Locating persistent policy failure in Africa primarily in its political institutions, this paper explores three alternative models of multilateral aid for reconciling need and effectiveness. They are the European Union's (EU's) model of regional aid, the International Development Association's (IDA's) model of concessional loans, and a synthesis model (S-model). Implications are drawn for redesigning aid to Africa that would adequately account for the peculiarities of the world's most prominent development challenge.     

Sub-Saharan Africa thirty years hence

By the year 2015, Sub-Saharan Africa's population will probably rise from a 1985 level of about 460 million to about 1.1 billion. Today Africa's population is growing at a rate of roughly 3% a year, with exceptionally high growth rates in some countries. The leaders of Africa, and those who wish to help Africa, confront difficult and urgent problems of drought, political and military conflict, accumulated debt, lower commodity prices, and other factors of immediate and important concern. Africa has given education a high priority and should be as well known for its success in increasing school enrollment as it is for its relative failures in other areas. A projected population of 1.1 billion people and a fertility rate down to 30/1000 by the year 2015 suggests that the number of children old enough to enter primary school will be of the order of 30 million a year at this time. The working-age population will grow from 235 million now to perhaps 600 million in 30 years. The urban population has been growing at about 6% a year--twice the pace of population increase. All of these situations will have an effect on environment, water, and health. Coping with Africa's burgeoning population in terms of children in school, the demand on health systems, the need for jobs, achieving an adequate diet, the provision of basic urban services, and all the rest, is an extraordinary challenge. While the government's role is critical, success at the sectoral level almost always means cost recovery, administration decentralized to the community or to the private sector, and program implementation that does not burden the budget.