Forecasting and Futurology

The Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has published forecasts of the Australian economy since the late 1960s. These forecasts (usually 12 to 18 months ahead) have been dominated by short-term macroeconomic factors. Compared with when the IAESR commenced its forecasting, there are now many forecasters who concentrate on the performance of the Australian economy over the short term. There is, however, a dearth of regular commentary which focuses on policy options for the medium to long term. This article is the first of many which will aim to fill this perceived gap. In so doing we shall adopt a wider concept of forecasting called futurology. In this approach, many constraints of traditional forecasting are relaxed. In particular, we allow responses by economic agents to policy changes. This will suggest plausible situations in which different outcomes are possible. Our purpose is not to suggest what the future will be, but what it might be under different scenarios. Here, we put together some necessary ingredients to facilitate futurology. We review recent Australian economic performance, consider the implications of meeting a goal of five per cent unemployment by the year 2000 and outline some important influences on likely future growth. We suggest that new growth theory may provide a policy framework to achieve both high growth and low unemployment, noting the constraints imposed by increasing globalisation. In subsequent articles, we shall employ these ingredients to write out plausible timepaths setting out how desirable end-points (including the reduction of unemployment) may be achieved.     

Incremental Cost in the Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity stipulates the principle of incremental cost for the international financing of biodiversity conservation. The international debate about the exact meaning of the concept and about its practical application focuses on the issues of baseline determination and treatment of incremental domestic benefits. This paper uses some standard tools of partial equilibrium demand analysis to illustrate theoretical solutions to the indeterminacy of the Convention. The allocation of resources resulting from an incremental cost scheme is compared with a 'domestic optimum', and with a hypothetical 'global optimum'. Regarding the behaviour of the country hosting biodiversity, a distinction is proposed between 'quantity-' and 'transfer-' taking behaviour. The issue of price distortions in the baseline is also addressed. It is shown that both the host country (H) and the Rest of the World (ROW) will have incentives for agreeing on a transfer of resources that entails only partial deduction of domestic incremental benefits. This transfer, despite failing to reach the utilitarian global optimum, still represents a Pareto improvement over the pre-convention status quo. By imposing a particular multiplicative functional form on the utility of both host and ROW, additional results can be obtained. In particular, the optimal transfer implies a clawback factor decreasing with relative income differentials, and incremental cost financing dominates the domestic optimum even when price distortions are present in the host country. If removal of price distortions is a precondition for incremental cost funding, the analysis illustrates the magnitude of incentives necessary for the host to give up the distorted baseline.     

加快产业集群发展打造全国电动车第一板块

近年来,电动车产业迅速崛起,短短几年间,在人们不经意中,电动车事实上取代大部分摩托车及相当数量的人力自行车成为人们的代步工具,这在大中城市尤为突出。其来势之迅猛,用席卷之势喻之,实不为过,超出了包括业内人士在内的人们的预期。无锡在电动车行业发展这一潮流中,目前处于生产制造的制高点。那么,人们在惊呼电动车发展这一超常规现象的同时。都不禁要问其成因是什么,未来发展如何等。况且,对于历经电扇、电视机、摩托车等行业“其兴也勃,其衰亦忽”的我们而言,如何吸取以往的经验教训。进一步持续健康快速发展这一极具发展潜力的产业。把电动车行业打造成一个具有持久生命力的行业,是一个值得深入探讨的问题。     

北京市会议产业空间格局及其影响因素研究

在对北京市192家四星级(含)以上的酒店会议设施进行数据收集的基础上,借助ArcGIS工具,采用最邻近距离法和核密度估计法进行分析,发现北京市会议设施的空间布局模式属于结合城市中心发展的凝聚分布模式,集聚区主要集中于四环以内的市区,并呈现三级集聚态势.空间分布格局形成的主要影响因素影响包括市场驱动、商贸设施、旅游资源和交通枢纽等.     

我国《湿地公约》履约对策研究

文章介绍了美国、日本、澳大利亚《湿地公约》履约的信息、对策,我国履约的状况,分析了我国《湿地公约》履约存在的问题,提出了我国《湿地公约》履约的对策。     

我国会展双边条约之实证分析

随着会展业的兴起,对会展的法律研究也开始受到关注。会展法是新兴的法学部门。我国对会展法的研究也刚刚起步,会展法的法学体系还在构建之中。其中,会展法的法律渊源,无论是国内层面还是国际层面,普遍的看法是比较缺乏。然而,通过分析我国建国以来缔结的大量双边国际条约,发现以上观点有失偏颇,有关会展的双边条约竟然数量众多。通过对这些条约进行形式和内容解读,从国际法视角进一步总结出我国会展双边条约的特点,得出的结论是我国虽无专门的会展条约,但是含有会展条款的会展双边条约不仅数量多,内容丰富,时间跨度大,而且领域宽泛。这也有力驳斥了中国会展国际立法缺失的观点。     

Convention, Social Order, and the Two Coordinations

The word coordination has two meanings, and thesemeanings are often conflated. One meaning, associated with ThomasSchelling, is seen in situations like choosing whether to driveon the left or the right; the drivers must coordinate to eachother's behavior. The other meaning, associated with FriedrichHayek, means that a concatenation of activities is arranged soas to produce good results. Along with the Schelling sense ofcoordination comes the notion of convention, such as drivingon the right. Some conventions are consciously designed; othersemerge without design (or are emergent). Along with the Hayeksense of coordination comes the notion of social order. Somesocial orders, such as the skeleton of activities within thefirm or within the hypothetical socialist economy, are consciouslyplanned. Other social orders, such as the catallaxy of the freesociety, function without central planning (or are spontaneous).Distinguishing between the two coordinations (and, in parallelfashion, between convention and social order) clarifies thinkingand resolves some confusions that have arisen in discussionsof coordination and spontaneous order. The key distinctionsare discussed in the context of the thought of, on the one hand,Menger, Schelling, David Lewis, and the recent path-dependencetheorists, and, on the other hand, Smith, Hayek, Polanyi, Coase,and the modern Austrian economists. The paper concludes witha typology that encompasses the several distinctions.     

从国家科技进步一等奖获奖情况看我国科技创新之路

概述了近5年国家科技奖励总体情况,着重分析了国家科技进步一等奖的获奖情况,阐述了国家科技奖励对我国科技创新的指引作用,并对其作用路径进行了深入分析。     

效率工资、租金分享与企业工资收入差距——基于第一次全国经济普查工业企业数据的实证研究

企业利润对工资差距的影响究竟来自效率工资还是来自租金分享,这是理论界和政策制定者共同关心的问题。文章利用2004年第一次全国经济普查数据实证分析发现:(1)企业利润是解释我国企业工资差距的重要因素,这主要由效率工资导致。(2)国有企业存在租金共享,但它不是通过企业利润实现的,而是利用行业垄断地位直接将职工高工资转化为企业成本实现的。(3)集体企业存在着租金共享。(4)外资企业也存在租金共享,但存在租金共享的外资企业同时具有更高的效率。(5)私营企业存在效率工资。与其他所有制企业不同的是,对私营企业而言,行业垄断不但不能提高反而会降低职工工资水平,或反过来说,产品市场竞争有利于提高职工工资水平。最后,文章针对性地给出了一些缩小企业工资差距的政策建议。     

会展参加者购买决策过程研究

如今,会展产业在旅游产业中所占的比重已经越来越大.但是,总的来说,有关会展产业方面的研究还比较少, 现有的研究也是仅从会展策划的角度进行的研究.所以,本文着眼于这些问题, 考察不断变化的会展参加者们的购买决策过程, 通过对影响会展参加者决策因素的理论考察和主办地因素的分析, 掌握两者之间的关系, 从而给出主办地的会展管理方案.     

坚持“保护第一”的科学指导方针——关于旅游开发与自然文化遗产保护的关系

中国的自然文化遗产无论在数量上还是在价值上，在全世界都占有十分重要的位置。因此，处于转型期的中国要选择一条旅游开发与保护自然文化遗产的成功之路，处理好人与环境的关系，首先应当从思想理论上澄靖认识，明确“保护第一”的科学指导方针。 一、面对的矛盾 应当看到，几十年来我国各级政府在保护和开发利用自然文化遗产方面做出了巨大的努力，也取得了令人瞩目的成就，热爱和保护环境已经越来越成为广大人民群众的自觉性，旅游业功不可没。但我们面临的一些问题和矛盾也是不容忽视的，自然文化资源保护的总体状况仍处于恶化趋势，有的已被列入“世界遗产名录”的自然文化景区也面临被“摘牌”的危险。……     

How Much Common Belief Is Necessary for a Convention?

We study Bayesian coordination games in which players choose actions conditional on the realization of their respective signals. Due to differential information, the players do not have common knowledge that a particular game is being played. However, they do have common beliefs with specified probabilities concerning their environment. In our framework, any equilibrium set of rules must be simple enough so that the actions of all players are common belief with probability 1 at every state. Common belief with probability close to 1 will not do.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, D82.     

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention: Changing the currents of trade

This paper examines how criminalizing the act of bribing a foreign public official affects international trade flows using a watershed global anti-corruption initiative — the 1997 OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. I exploit variation in the timing of implementation by exporting countries and in the level of corruption of importing countries to quantify the Convention's effects on bilateral exports. I use a large panel of country pairs to control for confounding global and national trends and shocks. I find that, on average, the Convention caused a reduction in exports from signatory countries to high corruption importers relative to low corruption importers. In particular, we observe a 5.7% relative decline in bilateral exports to importers that lie one standard deviation lower on the Worldwide Governance Indicators corruption index. This suggests that by creating large penalties for foreign bribery, the Convention indirectly increased transaction costs between signatory countries and high corruption importers. The Convention may have induced OECD firms to divert their exports to less corrupt countries; while non-OECD firms not bound by the Convention may have increased their exports to corrupt countries. I also find evidence that the Convention's effects differed across product categories.     

Property rights on First Nations reserve land

This paper examines the economic effects of existing private property rights on First Nations reserves. We focus on three regimes of land tenure: lawful possession, designated land and permits. These land regimes have been used to create individual landholdings and grant secure and transferable rights of use of reserve land. Using confidential census microdata and rich administrative data, we find evidence of a positive relationship between the use of these tenure regimes and homeownership rates, housing conditions and band's public spending. We also observe a positive relationship with average income. However, this last result is driven by the inflow of a non-Indigenous population not by improvements in Indigenous households’ income or on-reserve employment. Our findings thus suggest that while reforms to individual property rights on reserve have some positive effects, their scope remains limited and they are unlikely to constitute a transformative tool to alleviate poverty on reserve.     

杭州市会展专业毕业生就业问题研究

本文从在杭高校会展专业毕业生的视角,重点关注他们的就业现状以及对职业素养的认识,以有效掌握会展专业毕业生的就业发展、会展储备人才的培育现状.调查发现,科班出身的会展从业人员对自身的能力水平比较自信,认为会展工作条件、工作环境、劳动报酬均处于中上水平,对工作挑战适度性的满意度最高,同时看好其社保待遇、职业生涯的继续社会化以及职业发展前景.会展就业虽然竞争激励,但却形势看好;会展储备人才丰厚,流失率大,回转率却可有所期待.     

国家重点实验室创新的五条对策

分析了国家重点实验室的创新特征和表现形式,指出创新是其生存的基础,是继续发展的动力和源泉。     

国家开放创新体系构成要素与国家绩效间关系的实证研究

总结了国家开放创新体系3个方面主要构成要素(知识、资源和市场)的开放性,比较了不同构成要素的开放性对国家创新绩效和经济绩效的影响及其异同,验证了国家开放创新体系的重要性。研究表明:知识开放性对国家开放创新体系的影响最为明显;专利作为知识要素的核心指标,能从侧面反映国家开放创新体系的状况。     

国家科技重大专项对我国国家科技创新竞争力的提升作用研究

探究国家科技重大专项如何发挥其对我国国家科技创新竞争力的提升作用,是保障重大专项有效实施的根本问题,具有重要的理论与现实意义。在区分国家创新能力和国家创新竞争力不同的基础上,界定了国家科技创新竞争力的内涵,并根据已有研究文献构建了分析国家科技创新竞争力的概念框架。应用这一框架探析了我国国家科技重大专项的组织实施对于国家科技创新竞争力的提升作用,进而得出未来实施重大专项的一些结论和启示。