对压缩货车周转时间提高运输效率的探讨

由货车周转时间的定义即可得知,如果能够成功压缩货车周转时间,加快车辆周转,尤其在全路空车严重不足时,则可以有效控制货车周转时间、提高货车车辆运用效率,这具有十分重要的现实意义。更何况在当前新形势下,加速货车周转,对于国铁即意味着能以同样数量的货车完成更多的运输任务,进而增加运输收入;对于地方铁路或专用铁路则意味着将大大减少对国铁货车占用费的支出从而降低成本、提高效率。     

A political economy model of road pricing

In this paper, we use a simple majority voting model to study the introduction of urban congestion tolls. The model allows for different types of uncertainty and considers different uses of the toll revenues. The following results are obtained. First, we show that individual uncertainty with respect to modal substitution costs may imply that a majority votes against road pricing ex ante, although a majority would have been in favor after its introduction ex post. Moreover, if a majority is against road pricing ex ante, there will also be no majority for organizing an experiment that would take away the individual uncertainty. Second, political uncertainty with respect to the use of the revenues corroborates the finding that ex ante more voters will be against the introduction of tolls. Third, both types of uncertainty suggest that fewer voters are against road pricing when toll revenues are used to subsidize public transport than when they are redistributed to all voters. Importantly, the results of this paper are consistent with a number of recent empirical observations on efforts to introduce road pricing, including the systematic rejection of road pricing in referenda, the more favorable attitudes towards road pricing after than before its introduction, and tying the toll revenues to support public transport.     

Long-run growth and welfare effects of public policies with distortionary taxation

In a one-sector growth model with infrastructure investment, we study the impact of fiscal policies on growth. The government collects taxes on labor income and profits. The government uses these revenues to purchase infrastructure investment, provide utility enhancing government services, and to provide transfer payments to the households. We show that the balanced growth rate is an increasing function of the percent of government revenues that goes to infrastructure. We find that the growth maximizing mix of taxes depends on the elasticity of substitution between inputs. In particular, with distortionary taxes, the growth maximizing tax rate on capital is higher the lower the elasticity of substitution between private physical capital and public capital. In addition, the growth maximizing size of the government is higher when the elasticity of substitution between public and private inputs is low. We also investigate welfare effects of other public expenditures as well. Depending on the elasticity of substitution in production, the welfare implications of different public policies can be substantial.     

State Dependence at Internet Portals

This study offers evidence of the existence of switching costs on the Internet. It uses more flexible methods than previously possible to separate switching costs from serially correlated unobservables at Internet portals. The data contain nearly 1,000 observations per household, allowing for household-specific regressions that control for all household-specific heterogeneity. The results show that households exhibit switching costs. The loyalty generated by these costs drives a large fraction of portal visits and generates considerable revenues; however, these revenues are not large enough to justify the losses incurred by Internet portals in the 1990s while building market share. The results also suggest that random coefficients models overestimate true state dependence.     

Road investments and inventory reduction: Firm level evidence from China

This study presents new evidence on the causal impact of transport infrastructure on the economy. In China, inventory has declined over recent decades, while the country’s road infrastructure has expanded rapidly. Building on the existing literature, we introduce new approaches, including a quasi-experiment based on differential demand for distant suppliers, to identify the causal relationship between road investments and inventory decline. Examining a large panel data set of Chinese manufacturers from 1998 to 2007, we find one dollar of road spending saves around two cents of inventory costs. This effect is non-trivial but less than that in the United States in the 1970s. Moreover, our estimates also suggest spillover effect from road investments to firms in neighboring provinces.     

The productivity of transport infrastructure investment: A meta-analysis of empirical evidence

Investments in transport infrastructure have been widely used by decision makers to encourage economic growth, particularly during periods of economic downturn. There has been extensive research on the linkage between transport infrastructure and economic performance since the late 1980s, characterised by widely varying evidence. We conduct a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence on the output elasticity of transport infrastructure, based on a sample of 563 estimates obtained from 33 studies. Previous meta-analyses have focused on total public capital and hence cannot appropriately explain the wide variation in the productivity effect of transport infrastructure nor provide guidance to policymakers on the returns to investment in different types of transport infrastructure. Our results indicate that the existing estimates of the productivity effect of transport infrastructure can vary across main industry groups, tend to be higher for the US economy than for European countries, and are higher for roads compared to other modes of transport. The variation in the estimates of the output elasticity of transport is also explained by differences in the methods and data used in previous studies. Failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity and spurious associations tends to result in higher values, while failing to control for urbanisation and congestion levels leads to omitted variable bias. These findings can be used to inform future research on the choice of model specification and estimation and transport-related policy making.     

Infrastructure-production system dynamics in national and regional systems: An econometric study of the Indian economy

Treating infrastructure inputs as quasi-fixed in the short run, a multi-equation econometric model of production-infrastructure (social overhead capital) interlinkages and adjustments is developed based on a flexible functional form. Adjustment dynamics are endogenized and costs of adjustments are explicitly incorporated. The model is estimated with regional and national data from India; results include optimal paths and speeds of adjustments for infrastructure inputs market inputs' own and cross-price elasticities and demand elasticities with respect to the level of output, infrastructure stocks and associated user costs; and production cost elasticities with respect to output and infrastructure stocks.     

Airport infrastructure spillovers in a network system

Airports in the US air transport network have become increasingly congested, leading to delays for business travelers and freight shipments. Since disruptions in one part of the network exacerbate problems throughout the system, airport infrastructure expansions to enhance air traffic flows confer travel-time savings and reliability benefits, and thus increased worker productivity and shipping efficiency for manufacturing firms. We evaluate such spillovers, and find that higher own-state airport infrastructure implies lower manufacturing costs from both labor- and materials-savings. Airport expansion in connected states has a comparable effect for states with hub airports, and an even greater impact for other states.     

AN ANALYSIS OF PROJECTED URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT COSTS IN INDIA*

There is considerable apprehension concerning the cost of rapid urbanization in developing countries. However, actual costs of urbanization have seldom been computed. This paper provides a relatively simple procedure for making such cost estimates from information which is readily available from executing agencies involved in urban infrastructure projects in India. It is found that infrastructure costs are not systematically different for large and small cities. Differences in costs are more related to differences in physical factors such as geography, terrain, and climate, and especially to the different levels of service standards used. It is also found that the costs of replacement investment assume increasing significance with growing urbanization. Planning activities must therefore give greater emphasis to replacement investments than is generally the case. The main conclusion is that the cost of providing basic urban infrastructure in India can be kept within manageable limits in the foreseeable future provided that modest standards are maintained. The appropriate level of urban infrastructure investment should be roughly double the current level in India.     

“丝绸之路”经济带交通基础设施建设对区域贸易的影响

在建设"丝绸之路"经济带的宏观背景下,本文根据动态计量经济学的协整理论,通过构建VAR模型,对1992年到2012年"丝绸之路"经济带的交通基础设施建设和中国与中亚国家贸易增长之间的关系进行了平稳性检验、方差分解分析及协整检验。研究结果表明,"丝绸之路"经济带的交通基础设施建设与中国同中亚国家贸易增长存在长期的均衡关系,交通基础设施建设不仅能够对经济带的贸易繁荣起到促进作用,而且作用时间持久且贡献度逐年增加,因此有必要加大对"丝绸之路"经济带的交通基础设施投资。     

浅谈加强交通基础设施建设促进现代物流发展

从当前交通基本建设与物流发展的相互关系影响角度出发,在经济发展过程中交通基本建设的必要性,交通基础设施先行是发展现代物流的基本策略,是发达国家发展现代交通物流的成功经验,也是当前我国发展现代物流的先决必要条件。     

Carbon taxes and the double dividend hypothesis in a recursive-dynamic CGE model for Spain

A carbon tax is potentially a policy that can reduce CO₂ emissions and mitigate climate risks, at lowest economy-wide costs. We develop a dynamic CGE model for Spain to assess the economic and environmental effects of a carbon tax, and test the double dividend (DD) hypothesis. We simulate the impact of three carbon taxes: €10, €20 and €30 per ton of CO₂. For each tax, four ‘revenue recycling’ scenarios are examined: a reduction of taxes on capital, on labor, on value-added tax, and a scenario in which revenues are not recycled. We find a DD for taxes of €10/ton and lower, within five to seven years of implementation. We estimate an annual CO₂ emissions reduction of around 10% with this tax. Under some circumstances, the DD can be achieved for a tax of €20/ton. In any case, recycling revenues to cut pre-existing taxes reduces costs of imposing carbon taxes.     

Efficiency of Regional Public Investment: An NPV-Based Spatial Econometric Approach

This paper develops a new methodology of spatial econometric modelling for regional public investment in local economies. The approach, based on the financial concept of net present value of cash flows, can be applied in the analysis of regional public investment with long-term financial inputs and outputs. With local public revenues related to spending in the model, one can observe economies of scale of investment with possible saturation effects and a marginal investment multiplier, explaining the extent to which public investment costs translate into public revenues. The main advantage of the proposed model is to behave counter-cyclically due to accumulation over the periods and to cover multi-period investments as well as postponed effects. This paper gives an example of public investment efficiency in Polish NUTS-5 municipalities regions.     

Cost-based decision rules for output,quality, and price

The present paper develops a theoretical model to address the relationship between a firm's pricing policy and its cost of increasing product quality. The model expresses both firm costs and firm revenues as functions of the quantity of a firm's output and overall product quality, where quality is expressed as quantity times quality per unit. The model starts with a generic good that measures output, and models quality as priced quality enhancement for each unit of the generic good. The model leads to decision rules by which the price of quality is a mark-up over the marginal cost of increasing product quality. The relationship between the price of quality and revenues from increasing output is also determined, and is conditioned by the sign and magnitude of the elasticity of demand for quality.     

Reconstructing british rail: In search of a profitable railway

The objective of a profitable British Rail might be achieved by a segregation of its operating services and its permanent way (infrastructure). In the absence of a system of road pricing, only the operating services have the potential to be profitable. A segregation of railway operating services and infrastructure is also supported by an examination of fundamental characteristics of all modes of transport. While operating services exhibit the characteristics of competitive markets, infrastructure tends to monopoly. The reconstruction of British Rail in this way would improve the provision of transport services, by allowing competitive market pressures to be exerted more fully.     

Do investments in intangible customer assets affect firm value?

This paper develops a simple model of investment by service firms in intangible customer assets, and tests whether the model identifies some critical drivers of firms’ stock returns. Similar to firms with significant research and development (R&D) expenditures, we argue that firms in fast-growing service industries with few tangible assets can increase firm value by investing in customer acquisition and service (A&S) expenditure. Using a unique hand-collected data set, we show that per-customer changes in firms’ revenues, customer acquisition costs, and customer service costs help to explain their abnormal stock returns.     

Measuring strategic environmental performance

It is now widely acknowledged that environmental issues will increasingly affect the performance of firms in western countries, both in the short and in the long run. Environmental issues can act on revenues and on costs. They can influence revenues when a firm follows a ‘green strategy’, i.e. it enhances the characteristics of environmental compatibility of its products or it promotes a credible image of a ‘green company’, that employs only clean technologies. They can influence costs as, on the one hand, more limiting environmental standards can result in higher manufacturing and non manufacturing costs and, on the other hand, programmes focused on improving environmental performances can result in less spoils and wastes, hence in lower costs. Hence, environmental performance should be a structured part of the management control system of an industrial firm. Unfortunately, it is not completely clear how accounting information can be structured in order to obtain this result. This paper is aimed at developing a set of information that can be used for a managerial control focused on the environmental performance of an industrial firm. This paper is organized in three main sections. Section I describes the conceptual requirements of a management control system based on accounting information for monitoring the environmental performance of an industrial firm (completeness, long term orientation, external orientation, measurability and cost). Section II analyses different classes of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPI) used in practice. Both accounting measures (prevention costs and investments; operating environmental costs; contingent environmental liabilities) and non financial measures (physical indicators; compliance) are considered. Section III suggests an integrated approach to the design of a management control system focused on environmental issues, where different classes of indicators are used jointly. More specifically, two integrated systems, one mostly based on physical measures and aimed at external communication, the other focused on accounting measures and supporting managerial decision making, are suggested.     

THE LIMITS OF INFRASTRUCTURE: Public Transport in a Post-colonial City

Since the 1940s, the people of the neighbourhoods (kampungs) around Surabaya's derelict Ngagel industrial estate have made a living by repurposing the remains of what was once one of Asia's most modern road, rail and industry networks. The remains—in the form of leftover fuel, labour and factory parts—are used to rebuild and repair improvised transport vehicles like bicycle-taxis (becak), minibuses (bemo) and motorbike-taxis (ojek). The repurposing happens at the limits of a capital-intensive heavy infrastructure of factories, trams and buses. The limits are those points where such infrastructure fails and a household-funded mosquito-fleet of light vehicles succeeds. Repurposing gives those who do it a right to infrastructure by providing the city with much-needed public transport. In Surabaya, public transport begins at its limits through the improvisations of people who live in the productive remains of capital-intensive heavy infrastructure. These people live in Surabaya's deindustrialized urban core, where life is made in the ruins of infrastructure through the breaking-down of it, the reworking of it, the right to it, and the leakage of it—the means through which rank-and-file people rather than states and corporations forge infrastructure.     

Labor's liquidity service and firing costs

This paper studies the specific effect that firing costs can have on firms facing liquidity constraints. When firing costs are zero and a time gap exists between production and its associated revenues, firing allows firms to hold on to their liquid assets by saving on wages, and thus, allows firms to cope better with liquidity shocks when external financing is too costly or unavailable. I refer to this feature as labor's liquidity service. Higher firing costs reduces the value of labor's liquidity service, and thus, increases firms' incentive for hoarding liquidity and reduces firms' demand for production inputs. In addition to this negative effect at the creation margin of production, firing costs have a relatively higher positive effect on the destruction margin of production of financially restricted firms. This paper presents a model that develops these ideas and shows that the presence of firing costs has a stronger negative effect on the output of firms facing liquidity constraints. Regression analysis, based on country-industry panel data sets, provides empirical evidence consistent with the liquidity service effect of firing costs. I find a relatively stronger negative effect of firing costs on the output of industries with higher liquidity requirements and a relatively stronger negative effect of firing costs on the output of small, and more likely financially constrained, firms.     

Optimal disinflationary paths

This paper characterizes optimal monetary policy in the context of a general equilibrium model with optimizing agents and staggered price setting. Starting from a steady state with positive inflation, a rapid disinflation is desirable when announcements of future monetary policy are fully credible. Disinflationary policy yields substantial losses in output and employment when the monetary authority lacks credibility; nevertheless, the benefits of disinflation still exceed the costs. Disinflation often fails to be welfare-improving, however, when lost seignorage revenues must be replaced using other distortionary taxes.