Atoms,Bits, and Wits: A New Economics for the Twenty-First Century—Part I

Part I: Three elementary components of economics are atoms, bits, and wits. The economics of atoms is familiar to economists, in the production of physical outputs treated as substitutes in consumption. The relation of value to scarcity with atoms is that abundance reduces the worth of material goods. The realm of bits is less understood; the issues appear in network effects, where abundance augments the worth of intangibles. The economics of networks is social: conflicts of interest (substitution) are balanced with concerts of value (complementarity) in combination. But in information networks—the realm of bits—substitution cedes to complementarity and competition defers to cooperation as efficient.     

Atoms,Bits, and Wits: A New Economics for the Twenty-First Century—Part II

Learning also affects the organization of economic activity as a “force locomotif” of growth. Bounded rationality opens a theory of planning horizons as an ordinal measure of wits. The realm of wits shines a novel light on the nature of interdependence, since the balance of substitution and complementarity is horizonal: longer and broader horizons shift this balance away from substitution in favor of complementarity, augmenting concerts of interest over conflicts in social relations. Atoms, bits, and wits are modeled to show why substitution only applies to short-run atoms; a case for complementarity rises from both increasing returns and bits, where wits strengthen the case for cooperation as efficient. With complementarity, competition—not collusion—stifles output. The social and institutional implications of this are addressed theoretically in this paper.     

What explains trade costs? Institutional quality and other determinants

This paper investigates the impact of institutional quality on trade costs across 133 countries during 1995–2014. The results show that good institutional quality significantly reduces the three types of trade costs, that is, total trade costs, trade costs of agricultural goods, and trade costs of manufactured goods. Furthermore, the effect of institutional quality is significant in reducing trade costs with regard to the different trading country pairs, the different subperiods, the components of institutional quality, and the endogeneity issue. This paper contributes to the literature by confirming a significant and negative relationship between institutional quality and trade costs from a global perspective.     

经济全球化、国际贸易与中国政策选择——基于战略性贸易政策理论的分析

经济全球化成为国际经济发展的趋势,世界市场基本形成,市场结构逐渐演变为跨国公司的垄断竞争或寡头竞争,成为一种典型的不完全竞争格局.中国在全球化进程中面临着良好的机遇和巨大的挑战.布拉德和斯宾塞等人以规模经济和不完全竞争为前提提出的战略性贸易政策理论可以给中国国际贸易政策的选择和制定提供方向性的指导.中国应该综合考虑自己的国情及国际市场经济法律环境,恰当应用战略性贸易政策提升本国企业的国际竞争力,实现由贸易大国向贸易强国的转变.     

新国际贸易与经济地理理论及其发展——2008年诺贝尔经济学奖得主的理论贡献

2008年诺贝尔经济学奖得主克鲁格曼将规模经济、产品差异与运输成本引入一般均衡分析模型,其开创性的研究使贸易理论和经济地理这两个曾经是相互独立的经济学分支融合到一起,成为新贸易理论发展的先导;作为创始人,他还将新经济地理学融入了主流经济学。此外,克鲁格曼还与几位合作者打通了新经济地理学与城市地区经济学传统研究之间的通道,并对国际货币经济学做出了重要贡献。     

我国对外贸易的现状、问题与对策

改革开放以来,我国对外贸易获得巨大发展。现阶段继续发展对外贸易面临贸易条件恶化、反倾销诉讼和技术壁垒等障碍,因此我国要不断改善我国对外贸易的产品结构和地区结构,提高外贸产品质量,以进一步扩大对外贸易。     

Freight transportation costs and the thickening of the US–Mexico border

Border regulatory requirements and administrative practices changed subsequent to the September 11, 2001 (9/11), terrorist attacks in the United States. Research in this study examines the manners in which transportation cost data for merchandise imports from Mexico behaved before and after 2001. Evidence is obtained that confirms results earlier tabulated for imports from Canada. Empirical results further indicate that, beyond freight cost changes, growth in the value of imports from Mexico was disrupted by events associated with the aftermath of 9/11.     

发展中国国际文化贸易的思考——以动漫产业为例

动漫产业正在迅速成为世界范围内迅猛发展的新兴支柱产业之一,在经济全球化的背景下,动漫国际贸易成为动漫产业经营模式的重要组成部分。日本和韩国近年来在发展动漫产品的文化贸易方面让世界刮目相看,究其原因是由于日、韩两国政府制定和颁布了一系列促进动漫产品贸易的政策法规,两国的动漫产品才得以进入国际市场。旨在通过研究动漫产品贸易政策,以取日韩所长发展中国的动漫产业。     

策略性采购联盟、集体谈判与最优贸易政策选择——基于广义Cournot-Nash谈判函数的分析

文章发展了一个关于由本国企业组成的中间品策略性采购联盟与外国垄断性供给者进行集体谈判的模型一—该模型以中国的制造业外包服务,即出口加工贸易实践为基础,其中,中间品的采购价格与数量通过有效的Nash谈判过程同时决定。当采购联盟的效用函数的数量弹性高于（低于）价格弹性,则该联盟的偏好为数量（价格）导向的。文章证明：（1）当本国与外国的中间品与最终产品贸易具有互补性时,政府贸易政策调整的价格、数量以及福利效应是不确定的,它们依存于本国采购联盟的偏好、最终产品需求曲线的弹性与曲率、外国企业的技术以及生产专业化程度;（2）政府贸易政策的干预功能与企业策略性联盟的自主调整功能存在重叠与冲突。     

Average-cost Pricing, Increasing Returns, and Optimal Output: Comparing Home and Market Production

We employ a model with both market production and home production to show that, ignoring administrative costs and indirect effects (such as rent-seeking), even if both the home and the market sectors have the condition of increasing returns and there are no pre-existing taxes, it is still efficient to tax the home sector to finance a subsidy on the market sector to offset the under-production of the latter due to the failure of price-taking consumers to take account of the effects of higher consumption in reducing the average costs and hence prices, through increasing returns or the publicness nature of fixed costs. Within market production, it is efficient to subsidise more the sector with a higher fixed cost, a lower elasticity of substitution between goods (higher value of diversity), and a lower degree of importance in preference, which all increase the degree of increasing returns.     

Poland's Accession to the European Union: Demand for Protection of Selected Sensitive Products

This paper analyses the expected changes in external tariffs and imports in Poland after accession to the European Union. We find that around 14% of all manufacturing commodity groups in the Harmonised System will experience tariff reductions of over 10 percentage points, while for agricultural goods tariff comparisons are complicated by very different tariff systems and may be overrated, since applied tariffs are often lower than those legislated. Based on gravity estimates we also find onlly few relatively narrowly defined commodities will experience import growth rates of above 20%. More widely defined sensitive commodities are subject to much smaller but still important import growth     

矿产资源海外投资的国际经验借鉴及我国的战略选择

矿产资源是国民经济社会发展的基础和国家安全的保障。在分析了世界矿产资源形势及以美国、日本、英国、韩国等为代表的主要国家的矿产资源海外战略的基础上,指出在全球化日益深入和国内矿产资源日益匮乏的双重背景下,要突破当前矿产资源海外投资的困境,我国应该学习和借鉴国际经验,从政府和企业的层面制定海外矿产资源获取的战略规划,有计划、分步骤地加以实施,为我国社会经济的可持续发展提供稳定、可靠的资源保障。