Information resources and economic productivity

This paper analyzes the role of information resources in the development of the United States economy and especially in the determination of productivity levels. The analysis is based on a formal economic model of the interrelationship between two sectors: an information sector, comprising all labor and capital used to process and handle information, and a production sector, which processes and handles material goods. The purposes of the model are to explain the past growth of the information sector workforce, to identify productivity trends in the sector, and to determine the implications of those trends for future economic performance. The analysis shows that, historically, the rate of efficiency improvement in information handling (essentially white-collar) work has been much slower than in production work. However this pattern is changing rapidly, chiefly as a result of the introduction of new data processing, communication and storage technologies. Our model shows that the expected future level of investment in these information technologies will be sufficient to reverse, by the mid 1980s, the slowdown of economic growth which is currently afflicting industrialized countries.     

会计信息可比性与上市公司业绩预告外溢效应

现有信息披露对资本市场影响的实证研究主要集中研究公司信息披露与自身股价之间的关系。本文对我国上市公司2007—2017年发布的业绩预告的信息外溢效应进行了检验,发现上市公司业绩预告对行业内其他公司的市场反应具有显著解释力,表明我国资本市场业绩预告存在信息外溢现象。并且,公司间会计信息可比性越高,外溢效应越显著,表明会计信息可比性促进了公司间的信息传递,对投资者股票交易具有决策参考意义。进一步检验发现,可比性对信息外溢效应的促进作用在市场竞争更激烈的公司中更为显著。此外,预告公司和非预告公司的信息环境对信息传递的影响有所差异。本文研究结论为我国资本市场外部性现象提供经验证据,对于信息披露质量要求以及披露监管政策研究具有启示意义。     

工业经济效益评价研究——基于主成分分析和聚类分析

应用主成分分析法和聚类分析法对我国工业各行业的经济效益进行了评价,并将各行业企业单位数量作为对比变量,探讨其对各行业经济效益综合排名的影响。分析得出,行业企业单位数对行业经济效益排名有很大影响,但对行业聚类的影响不大。建议如下:应提高纺织业等工业行业的利润创造能力;对于企业单位数多而经济效益差的行业,要提高其行业准入门槛或加速兼并重组步伐。     

Imperfect Information and Opportunism

Information is a scarce resource. It is inherently available only in a limited form to decision-makers. Limited or imperfect information is caused by uncertainty — both ontologic and epistemic, limitations in cognitive capabilities or bounded rationality, hidden information, and information asymmetries. This has fundamental implications for the manner in which the self-interested behavior of agents will manifest itself. The article argues that in the context of imperfect information, self-interest can function in a manner quite different from what standard approaches assume. This has been demonstrated by the recent financial crisis. However, there has been limited consideration in mainstream models, both of the neoclassical and institutional type, as to what the exact nature of self-interestedness is, and how this affects the market behavior of agents. The nature of self-interest, therefore, needs to be modeled explicitly to improve the explanatory power of economic theories.     

Evolutionary Theory and Economic Policy with Reference to Sustainability

Synopsis The policy recommendations of most economists are driven by a view of economic reality embodied in Walrasian general equilibrium theory. Ironically, the Walrasian system has been all but abandoned by leading economic theorists. It has been demonstrated to be theoretically untenable, its basic assumptions about human decision making have been empirically falsified, and it consistently makes poor predictions of economic behavior. The current revolution in welfare economics offers opportunities on two related fronts for an evolutionary perspective on human behavior to reshape economic theory and policy. The first opportunity is to incorporate empirically-based information about human behavior to the study of human wants and their formation. This includes information about the evolution of the genetic component of decision making as well as the cultural dimensions of behavior. Expanding the role of economic analysis beyond stylized market behavior to focus on well-being (real utility) has far-reaching consequences for microeconomic policy. Secondly, abandoning the Walrasian model also means rethinking the microfoundations approach to the economic analysis of sustainability. This opens the door for economists to engage with the growing body of research on the evolution of whole societies. One link between the evolution of human behavior and the evolution of human societies is the psychological phenomenon of considering sunk costs. Understanding and overcoming the sunk cost fallacy may be the key to creating a sustainable society.     

Is the value added tax a useful macroeconomic stabilization instrument?

The value added tax (VAT) has been proposed as a macroeconomic stabilization instrument. This paper considers some practical implications of a variable VAT. It then develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to assess its usefulness as a stabilization instrument. A variable rate VAT would no longer be less distortionary than other taxes. It would distort between current and future consumption, i.e. savings and investment decisions, and hence raise the economic costs of taxation. Moreover, a variable VAT would be less effective in dampening business cycles than the conventional stabilization tool, an interest rate. This is because of the additional adverse supply effects. A change in the interest rate affects this period's savings and investment decisions, whereas a variable VAT rate would influence savings and investment decisions over time. A variable VAT rate is therefore unlikely to be a useful stabilization instrument.     

Towards an information economy : The case of Singapore

Recent empirical studies have documented the emergence of information-based economies in developed countries within Europe, the U.S.A., Japan, and Australia. Casual observations suggest that the newly industrializing country of Singapore is proceeding towards a similar trend. The primary purpose of this paper is to account for the share of Singapore's national product which originates from informational activities. In particular, we define and estimate the size of Singapore's information sector within an input-output framework. Our results indicated that a sizable portion of Singapore's economy is information-based. In view of the significant penetration of informational activities in economic production, advances in communication technology and concomitant improvements in information-handling capabilities are bound to affect factor productivities and incomes with consequences for a country's pattern of employment and production structure. It is anticipated that an economics of communication becomes necessary for an awareness of communication technology as a choice variable in economic planning. We conclude our discussion with an assessment of the admissability of an information sector concept in economic analysis and the usefulness of empirical studies based on such a concept.     

Structural financial instability and cyclical fluctuations

This paper introduces and discusses an heuristic model meant to clarify why and how economic instability may play a crucial role in a modern sophisticated monetary economy. In this model economic instability is specified in terms of structural instability rather than in the usual terms of dynamic instability. This different view of instability implies a different approach to the analysis of the dynamic behaviour of the economic system and of its structural changes. In particular, the qualitative changes in the economic behaviour of the economic system are seen not as purely exogenous as in the received view but as essentially endogenous. This approach is applied to the analysis of financial crises and of their impact on the fluctuations of a sophisticated monetary economy. The crucial variable, the degree of financial fragility of the economic units, is specified in terms of structural instability, and this implies that, beyond certain thresholds of its value, the qualitative characteristics of their dynamic behaviour change radically in such a way to produce cyclical, though fairly irregular, fluctuations. The interplay between these microeconomic fluctuations is sufficient to produce cyclical macroeconomic fluctuations whose characteristics and implications for policy are briefly examined.     

我国区域信息产业发展与经济增长质量关系研究

在综述相关理论和研究方法的基础上,建立我国区域信息产业和经济增长质量的评价指标体系,并利用我国30个省级相关数据,对各区域的信息产业发展水平和经济增长质量水平进行了测度。根据测算所得到的面板数据实证考察我国区域信息产业与经济增长质量之间的关系及其演化规律,揭示了我国区域信息产业的发展对经济增长质量提升的影响作用。     

会计信息失真问题再探讨——基于经济学理论

会计信息失真的危害非常严重,它会影响国家宏观调控,扰乱社会经济秩序,削弱会计的经济管理作用,甚至阻碍经济的发展。多年来,会计信息失真问题一直倍受社会各界的关注。因此,找出会计信息失真的原因,研究行之有效的治理措施,是值得我们不断探索和研究的课题之一。在回顾相关经济学理论的基础上,从这一角度分析了会计信息失真的理论根源,并进一步提出了治理会计信息失真的一些建议和对策。     

Analysis of information flow in Japan

This paper analyzes the volume of information flow in Japan which is carried by the various media. New statistics were compiled in order to understand the volume of information flow. A new integrated indicator which enables us to compare each of the media with other is composed. This is represented by the unit of ‘word’. The volume of supply of information and the volume of consumption were distinguished. The change of relationship between the supply and the consumption of information was examined by means of time series analysis of the volume of information flow in correlation to the economic and societal indicators. The costs of information flow were estimated. By estimating the distribution cost of the information, it was possible not only to understand the total cost to society for the circulation of information, but also to compare the efficiency of the media by comparing the unit cost of each medium, that is to say, the total cost divided by the total volume of information flow. Analysis of the actual state of information flow and positioning of the media were made in relation to the supply and consumption volume as well as cost of information flow.     

Delegation and Information Sharing in Cournot Duopoly

Information sharing in oligopoly has been analyzed by assuming that firms behave as a sole economic agent. In this paper it is assumed that ownership and management are separated. Contrary to the classical result of information sharing in a Cournot duopoly with private cost information, the paper shows that information sharing is no longer always a dominant strategy and expected consumer surplus is no longer always decreased. The paper determines the circumstances under which information is exchanged and analyzes its welfare consequences.      

The evolution of morality and the end of economic man

1871 saw the publication of two major treatises in economics, with self-seeking economic man at their center. In the same year Darwin published The Descent of Man, which emphasized sympathy and cooperation as well as self-interest, and contained a powerful argument that morality has evolved in humans by natural selection. Essentially this stance is supported by modern research. This paper considers the nature of morality and how it has evolved. It reconciles Darwin’s notion that a developed morality requires language and deliberation (and is thus unique to humans), with his other view that moral feelings have a long-evolved and biologically-inherited basis. The social role of morality and its difference with altruism is illustrated by an agent-based simulation. The fact that humans combine both moral and selfish dispositions has major implications for the social sciences and obliges us to abandon the pre-eminent notion of selfish economic man. Economic policy must take account of our moral nature.     

交通发展、要素流动与企业创新——基于高铁开通准自然实验的经验证据

交通发展对于区域经济增长的作用至关重要,创新则是经济增长最为持久的动力。本文利用高铁开通的外生冲击检验交通条件变化对企业创新的影响。研究发现,高铁开通能够显著促进当地企业的创新投资。进一步地,这种促进作用主要体现在高融资约束、高科技行业及民营企业当中。同时,主要的影响渠道包括技术人才的流动、信息环境的改善和融资约束的缓解等。这表明,交通改善有助于加快区域创新要素流动,促进企业创新的投入产出活动。     

采用RFID技术的供应链分析——从技术和商业角度

本文较深入地分析了在供应链上采用射频识别（RFID）技术以及其应用所面临的挑战和产生的商业意义。预计未来数年RFID技术的应用会迅速增加,而目前在使用的RFID面临的主要障碍包括标准化、互操作性、成本和人们对其了解不足等。本文采用一种基于RFID技术的主要用途的分类框架模型描述了一套RFID系统的基本组成部分,主要包括电子标签、阅读器和天线,并列举实例说明了它们如何在供应链系统中协同工作。我们的分析表明,RFID的广泛采用需要克服相关技术人员不足、资源稀缺性、标准化、立法和财务等方面的挑战,以便在供应链管理中各参与企业能共享相关信息,导入数据仓库,实现业务整合,从而更高效地获得更多经济利益,提高市场竞争力。     

Good in a crisis: the ontological institutionalism of social constructivism

This paper seeks to recover and establish the distinct (and distinctly) institutionalist social ontology that underpins social constructivism as an approach to political economic analysis. It views social constructivism as a profoundly normative mode of political inquiry which seeks to discern, interrogate and elucidate the contingency of social, political and economic change – restoring politics (broadly understood) to processes and practices typically seen to be inevitable, necessary and non-negotiable. More controversially, perhaps, it also sees social constructivism, after both Berger and Luckmann and Searle, as ontologically institutionalist. Social constructivism, it is argued, has its origins in the attempt to establish the ontological distinctiveness of institutions as ‘social’ (as distinct from natural or ‘brute’) facts. This leads it to a distinct understanding of the relationship between actors and the environment (both natural and social) in which they find themselves and to its characteristic emphasis on the ideational mediation of that relationship. That in turn leads it to a particular type of analytic purchase on political economic realities, reflected in its distinctive emphasis on interpretive ambiguity, the social construction of political and economic imperatives and on disequilibrium. The argument is illustrated and developed further through an elucidation of the implications of such a social constructivism for the analysis of the period of crisis through which we now acknowledge ourselves to be living.     

The derived demand for knowledge*

ABSTRACT

This paper calls attention on the effects of the economic properties of knowledge on its derived demand, an issue that has not received enough attention in the literature. The results of the analysis suggests that, because of the idiosyncratic – Arrovian – properties of knowledge, a chain of effects takes place: (i) in downstream markets the price of goods that have been produced using knowledge as an intermediate good, falls, (ii) consequently the derived demand in upstream knowledge markets – both within corporations and by them to knowledge-intensive business services – has a lower position, and (iii) the price of knowledge is lower than it should be were knowledge a standard good traded in competitive markets, (iv) with negative consequences in terms of adverse selection of large scale high quality research projects, but (v) possible compensating effects stemming from the use of knowledge spillovers to generate cheaper knowledge. Such results have important implications for economic policy discussions and decisions.     

企业盈亏、流通股规模与股票定价--来自中国证券市场的经验证据

我国亏损企业利润和净资产与股价的相关性不显著,模型的回归功效不到1％,远低于美国市场的45％,说明我国亏损 企业的股价吸收了较多的非会计信息。企业利润和净资产对股价的解释效力由高到低的顺序是:盈利的大企业>盈利的小企 业>亏损的大企业>亏损的小企业。     

浅议高校图书馆的信息服务

自从20世纪80年代人类进入信息社会以来,信息在人们经济生活和社会活动中扮演着愈来愈重要的角色。履行信息情报职能,为信息用户提供信息服务是高校图书馆的一个重要职能。加强文献信息资源建设,拓展服务内容和形式,提高信息服务工作者自身素质。是高校图书馆做好信息服务工作所应采取的重要措施。     

Canadian economic growth: random walk or just a walk?

This paper analyses the role of shocks in Canadian economic growth since 1870. It uses a nonparametric technique to evaluate the degree of presistence of an innnovation in long-run GNP. It is found that a one percent shock to Canadian GNP changes the long-run forecast of this variable by appproximately the same amount, which is characteristic of a random walk process. It is also shown that in important periods of Canadian economic growth its GNP evolved as a random walk with constant drift. With the exception of the period 1929–42, no evidence of business cycles is found. These results lead to the conclusion that movements and oscillations in the GNP of Canada since 1870 have been primarily driven by the accumulation of shocks rather than by cyclical movements.