Inequality and Crisis: Conspicuous Consumption as the Missing Link in the Portuguese Case

Portuguese household debt increased above GDP between 2000 and 2007. This article uses conspicuous consumption to explain credit demand dynamics. The author develops an institutionalist framework and consider how rapid high inequalities and increasing top income share favored conspicuous consumption and climbing household debt.     

普通工科院校的重大项目组织问题

结合普通工科院校的科研工作实际,就重大项目组织的必要性和重要性作了详细的阐述,并对如何争取该类项目提出了合理化建议。     

China's Outward Direct Investment in Africa

The empirical determinants of China's outward direct investment (ODI) in Africa are examined using an officially approved ODI dataset and a relatively new OECD–IMF format ODI dataset. China's ODI is found responding to the canonical economic determinants that include the market seeking motive, the risk factor, and the resources seeking motive. It is also affected by the intensity of trade ties and the presence of China's contracted projects. A host country's natural resources have an impact on China's decision on how much to invest in the country rather than on whether to invest in the country or not. China's drive for Africa's natural resources is mainly a recent phenomenon and, probably, became prominent after the “Going Global” policy adopted in 2002.     

Input Intensity: A Missing Link between Production,Trade Patterns,and Environmental Standards

Trade and production implications of a change in environmental policy using the 2 × 2 Heckscher–Ohlin framework are identified. For otherwise identical economies a difference of environmental policy standards generates two effects: the “effective‐endowment effect” where the abatement activity uses up some resources of the economy leaving less for the production of the final goods and the “factor‐price effect” where changes in the abatement requirement affects factor prices that in turn affect production. The direction and relative strengths of these two effects determine whether production and trade patterns are consistent with or opposite to the pollution haven expectation.     

我国基础研究管理及科研合作模式的多层次对比研究

根据我国现行旨在发展基础研究的科技计划,提出自由探索型和需求攻关型两种基础研究管理模式。基于CNKI数据库中国家自然科学基金与国家重点基础研究发展计划（“973计划”）发文数据构建科研合作网络,从宏观网络整体、中观网络成分和微观基元模体3个尺度,总结我国基础研究的4种科研合作模式,并对比分析两种管理模式的优缺点。结果表明,需求攻关型管理模式具有更多平衡型和流线型科研合作模式,自由探索型具有更多单点型、流线型和核心型科研合作模式,两种管理模式均需要大幅提升科研合作广度与深度;需求攻关型可以补短板但应对未来不确定性的能力不足,自由探索型可以应对不确定性但无法快速修补短板,两者分别作为长短期方案结合使用才能解决我国基础研究的“卡脖子”问题。     

跨区域公共工程项目组织运行机制

跨区域公共工程项目是一项复杂的系统工程,其管理协调难度较大。跨区域公共工程项目的顺利完成与项目组织息息相关。分析了跨区域公共工程项目组织的特征和内外部环境,结合项目管理理论与实践,从业务流程、组织模式、组织架构、沟通渠道、组织氛围与组织制度6个方面,对跨区域公共工程项目组织的运行机制进行了初步探讨,以期为我国跨区域公共工程项目管理提供理论参考。     

制度缺失、行为“扭曲”与我国自主创新动力不足

全球价值链(GVC)条件下的俘获型网络治理关系成为我国在现有制造业国际分工格局下不得不接受代工式的既成事实;加之制度缺失,造成我国本土企业自主创新的困境以及创新动力严重不足。创新动力来源于技术势力和市场势力控制下的对价值链的高效整合。我国自主创新动力获得的出路在于基于国内市场空间的国家价值链(NVC)的培育以及在此基础上的价值链整合。     

对工程项目内部会计控制实施流程的几点建议

基于时中铁建几个工程项目基层财务部的调查研究,总结其在会计业务流程控制中存在的问题,针对性地提出解决问题的建议措施.旨在解决目前中国工程项目由于会计业务工作不规范、流程控制不到位,导致难以实现内部会计控制目标、难以提高经济效益等问题.     

我国科技项目中机会主义行为治理研究

科技项目是科技资源配置的最小单位,决定了科技资源的整体配置效率。由于科技项目中可能存在机会主义行为,致使我国科技资源配置效率较低。学术自尊、信息披露、制度执行、内部监督、科技评价和结题验收在理论上对科技项目机会主义行为治理存在促进效应,但这些要素的促进功能还存在一定不足。基于我国科研人员样本数据,借助结构方程模型,分析科技项目机会主义行为治理的微观机理,指出科技项目资源配置的优化方向,从科技管理微观层面提出机会主义行为治理策略,以提升我国科技项目研发效率,优化我国科技资源整体配置。     

Planning in the Dark: Why Major Engineering Projects Fail to Achieve Key Goals

The arguments, analysis and observations in this paper are based on 10 years of research with partners in the European and US aerospace and defence industries. During this period, the authors were part of a team of researchers who were seeking to develop a new methodology and tool set for project management, particularly aimed at large aerospace projects. The research was motivated by the seemingly ubiquitous reality of project failure, with large engineering projects apparently always late and over budget. Here the authors focus on aerospace and defence, but the problems are generic across all branches of engineering. In their view, aerospace and defence have more excuses than most, because not only are the projects huge, but also they are globally distributed and highly complex. As work progressed, a fundamental conundrum emerged. Through discussions with project managers and assessment of the teams that were undertaking the projects, it became obvious that they were well educated, intelligent, highly motivated and very capable people. So why were so many projects going wrong? And it was not just aerospace and defence, as projects were failing in many different sectors and in numerous geographic locations. Obviously the problems were not to do with incompetence, as they were clearly so generic. As a result, the authors focused their analysis on factors inherent in the way all major projects are undertaken. The ultimate finding has been that the very technology available for managing projects today is inadequate. As argued within the paper, modern, complex projects cannot be planned and executed using 50-year-old project management tools. The paper tells the story of what is wrong with the current technology and how and why it needs to change. The authors are well aware that there are also cultural problems in project management, but many of these are exacerbated by the use of inadequate tools.     

Broadening the Right to Acquire Capital with the Earnings of Capital: the Missing Link to Sustainable Economic Recovery and Growth

This article presents a proposal to broaden the right to acquire capital with the earnings of capital as a means of promoting sustainable economic recovery and growth. It would open the markets for real and financial capital acquisition more fully and competitively to poor and working people (1) to distribute more broadly the earnings of capital and (2) to profitably employ more capital and labor. Both the recession and the strategies advanced to promote economic recovery may be viewed as responses to the prospect of inadequate present and future earning capacity of both consumers and producers (1) to purchase what can physically be produced and (2) to repay existent and anticipated debt obligations. To increase the prospects of sufficient, sustainable earning capacity, the proposal advanced in this article would extend to all people the same protections and benefits presently provided by government that facilitate market transactions whereby capital is acquired with the earnings of capital primarily for well-capitalized people. Although in theory, all people in a market economy are able to acquire capital with the earnings of capital, reliable empirical data reveal that as a practical matter, the major determinant of the ability of individuals to acquire capital with the earnings of capital is the existing distribution of capital ownership. The theory of “binary” economic growth underlying this proposal holds that the market return on capital is positively related to the distribution of capital acquisition with the earnings of capital. The prospect of a broader distribution of capital acquisition with the earnings of capital carries with it the prospect of more broadly distributed earning capacity in future years, which in turn will provide the market incentives to profitably employ more capital and labor in earlier years. The idea that the broader distribution of capital acquisition with the earnings of capital will promote growth is not found in any of the widely accepted theories and models of economic growth such as those proposed by Schumpeter, Solow, Roemer, and Lucas. By opening to all people the institutions of corporate finance, banking, insurance, government loans and guaranties, and monetary policy (the very institutions presently relied upon by the Federal Government to stimulate the economy) the practical ability to acquire capital with the earnings of capital can be more broadly extended to all people with the result that greatly enhanced prospects for greater and more broadly distributed earning capacity and growth can be reasonably expected and realized by all.     

中国经验能否助力非洲经济腾飞——基于与世界银行援助项目的比较研究

基于地理影响评估方法,采用2000-2015年39个非洲国家的511个地区的地理编码数据,对中国与世界银行对非经济型基础设施援助进行了整体性比较回归分析,并对中国经济型基础设施有效性的可持续性进行了检验。研究结果表明,中国与世界银行对非经济型基础设施援助使受援国地区的经济水平均显著提高,世界银行援助会提高受援国政府效率,在一定程度上提升了中国援助的有效性;中国经济型基础设施援助项目在开展后可持续稳定地提升当地经济水平,在没有后续资金跟进的条件下,这种效果将维持3-4年。     

The Case of the Missing Organizations: Co-operatives and the Textbooks

The author discusses the following seven issues affecting assessment of undergraduates in universities: decisionmaking and the selection of tests, the use of written and oral assignments to measure learning, the characteristics of grades and portfolios for evaluating students, opportunities for self-assessment and feedback to instructors, retention of learning and the testing for higher-ordered thinking, the psychology of students in the economics classroom, and the development of new tests as public goods. The author suggests ways that economics faculty can add new dimensions to their assessment practices, improve their understanding of assessment choices, use assessment to enhance the quality of student thinking, and conduct research studies on assessment questions.     

厦—泉—漳城市群重大工程建设对区域地质环境影响评估的对策研究

以海峡西岸经济区城市群协调发展为背景,以厦—泉—漳城市群建设为例,介绍了城市群建设发展、正在施工项目和规划建设的重大工程等整体概况;从福建东南沿海区域地质环境、评估指标体系与评估模型、影响评估方法及计算机评估软件、地质环境修复等四个不同方面,系统提出重大工程建设对地质环境影响研究对策、研究方法和技术手段。研究对厦—泉—漳城市群和其他沿海城市群的规划发展和建设具有参考价值,对维护区域地质环境系统平衡、实现海峡西岸经济区城市群可持续发展、协调重大工程建设与地质环境保护关系等具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

浅谈工程项目经理部的管理艺术

工程项目经理部现已成为建设最具活力的基层组织，也是我国工程项目管理改革创新的落脚点，本将这一组织机构的运行周期划分为四个阶段，并对各个阶段的管理工作艺术做了一些粗浅的探讨。     

The Economic Cost of Gender Gaps in Effective Labor: Africa's Missing Growth Reserve

This study analyzes the impact of the gender gap in effective labor – defined as the combined effect of the gender gaps in labor force participation and education – on economic output per worker. The results indicate that the gender gap in effective labor has a negative effect on the economic output per worker in African countries. A 1 percent increase in the gender gap in effective labor leads to a reduction in output per worker by 0.43–0.49 percent in Africa overall, 0.29–0.50 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 0.26–0.32 percent in a wider group of countries from Africa and Asia. The total annual economic losses due to gender gaps in effective labor could be as high as US$255 billion for the African region. Results confirm that Africa is missing its full growth potential because a sizeable portion of its growth reserve – women – is not fully utilized.     

Finance and growth in Africa: The broken link

While bank liabilities in Sub-Saharan Africa are found to follow (but not lead) economic growth, the link between bank credit and growth is altogether absent.     

Missing women in Indian districts: a quantitative analysis

The ratio of women to men in India reveals socially determined excess female mortality. The cultural and economic variables used to explain variations in the juvenile sex ratio are interrelated with each other and with other demographic and economic variables, and show large regional differences within India. Our empirical study is built on an extension to Sen's entitlements framework and spatial lag and spatial error econometric procedures. We find that low female labour participation (FLP) is an important determinant of anti-female child bias in regions characterised by both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian kinship systems, but where Indo-Aryan kinship predominates, mainly in Northern India, the effect of FLP is much more significant.     

工程项目虚拟建设参与方选择的灰熵关联分析

虚拟建设是将虚拟组织理论应用于工程建设项目各参与方的集成研究,为工程建设项目的集成管理提供实施的组织平台。虚拟建设建立的是一种暂时的联盟,是项目参与各方为了加强项目建设过程中的沟通与合作而结成的项目伙伴关系。虚拟建设的组织环境能否成功促进参与方的集成,伙伴的选择是重要的决定因素之一,参与方的有效选择必然成为虚拟建设实现过程中首要考虑的问题之一。首先,构建参与方选择影响因素指标集。虚拟建设各参与方的选择是在竞争机制的基础上,更多的考虑信任的建立和“共赢”的可能性,从竞争能力和协作能力两个维度评价候选参与方的综合能力。在建立参与方选择影响因素指标集的基础上,利用灰熵关联度分析法对工程项目虚拟建设参与方的选择进行了研究,利用熵和灰色关联度的综合而得的均衡接近度来衡量候选参与方与理想对象的接近程度,从而确定各候选参与方的等级。其次通过算例验证该方法的可行性、有效性和实用性。     

Is There a Link Between Exchange Rate Pass-Through and the Monetary Regime: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

This paper investigates the relationship between the monetary regime: pegged, currency board, dollarization, and the exchange rate pass-through for a sample consisting of 15 Sub-Saharan Africa countries and 12 Latin American countries. The research findings about pass-through rates will shed light on the feasibility of a monetary union for Sub-Saharan Africa. The inclusion of the latter country group was deemed desirable to explore pass-through behavior in several monetary regime options not often used in Sub-Saharan Africa.