The Role of ICT in Modulating the Effect of Education and Lifelong Learning on Income Inequality and Economic Growth in Africa

This study assesses the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in modulating the impact of education and lifelong learning on income inequality and economic growth. It focuses on a sample of 48 African countries from 2004 to 2014. The empirical evidence is based on the generalized method of moments. The following findings are established. First, mobile phone and internet each interact with primary school education to decrease income inequality. Second, all ICT indicators interact with secondary school education to exert a negative impact on the Gini index. Third, fixed broadband distinctly interacts with primary school education and lifelong learning to have a positive effect on economic growth. Fourth, ICT indicators do not significantly influence inequality and economic growth through tertiary school education and lifelong learning. These main findings are further substantiated. Policy implications are discussed.     

The Effect of Inflation Targeting on Foreign Direct Investment Flows to Developing Countries

Due to the many benefits that come with foreign direct investment (FDI), such as greater economic growth and technology spillovers, developing countries strive to attract this type of investment. Although the amount of FDI in developing countries has increased greatly over the past several years, not all developing countries have been successful at attracting it. A credible monetary policy, such as inflation targeting (IT), might make countries that implement it more attractive destinations for FDI flows due to the reliable macroeconomic environment created. This paper estimates the effect of IT on FDI flows to developing countries using a difference-in-differences approach and panel data for 71 countries for the period 1985 to 2013. This paper also looks at the difference between targeting and non-targeting countries in terms of FDI inflows during times of high instability. The results indicate that the adoption of IT leads to increased FDI flows to developing countries overall and, most importantly, during times of distress.

     

车联网产业及商业容量分析

为使我国车联网产业及商业有序稳步发展,研究分析其相关产业以及市场规模,有利于宏观理解车联网的市场构成及其产业链特点并发现市场中潜在的问题。通过对国内外车联网的发展现状进行对比分析,总结发达国家和地区的车联网产业发展模式以及商业结构,得出了国际上车联网发展过程中可以借鉴的经验;然后分析中国目前车联网市场的发展情况,明确车联网系统发展中面临的安全与隐私性需求、产业标准和协作整合等关键性问题,探索车联网产业和市场构成的持续性发展规划,从而使车联网产业和商业发挥网络聚集效应,扩大车联网的行业应用范围,为推动相关企业和管理部门的信息化和工业化融合发挥巨大作用。     

Digital product imports and export product quality: Firm-level evidence from China

Based on the Statistical Classification of the Digital Economy and Its Core Industries (2021) released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the information and communications technology products released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to construct a digital product catalog manually, this paper analyzes the impact of digital product imports on Chinese firms' export product quality using a combined data set of the Annual Survey of Industrial Production and China Custom Records from 2000 to 2013. The results show that digital product imports have a significant positive effect on a firm's export product quality. To address potential endogeneity, this paper uses a series of instrumental variables (IVs) and constructs a multi-timing difference-in-differences model using the firm's first digital product import as exogenous shock, and finds strong supporting evidence. Digital product imports improve the quality of export products through three mechanisms: technology spillovers, productivity, and information-searching capabilities. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that digital product imports have greater impacts on foreign-owned and capital-intensive firms, and digital intermediate imports play a bigger role than do digital non-intermediate imports. The results of this paper have important implications for developing countries that wish to improve the quality of exports through digital trade.     

法定数字货币运行的国际实践及启示

以比特币为代表的私人数字货币虽本质上不具备货币职能,但已对现行的货币与金融体系构成了巨大挑战。为应对这一挑战,各国央行正在积极研发或推行法定数字货币。对相关国家法定数字货币运行实践比较的结果表明:现有的法定数字货币大多以区块链技术为基础并由本国央行集中发行,主要采用双层运营体系;批发型设计有利于提高运行效率和金融安全,零售型设计则更有利于应用场景推广以满足不同需求;能否稳定币值事关法定数字货币试点成败。我国在研发法定数字货币的过程中应遵循稳步、安全、可控原则,尽快制定法定数字货币的相关法律法规,加大数字货币技术创新的研究力度,丰富应用场景,深化法定数字货币研发的国际合作。     

关税冲击下的贸易与环境效应分析

目前,我国应当结合自身的基本国情,认真研究和制定关税冲击下的贸易与环境效应机制,既要加强关税背景下的贸易与环境有关立法工作,更要积极参与研究制定有关贸易与环境的国际通用规则,着力加强与发展中国家的合作与交流。     

关于发展短信广告的思考

短信潜在的巨大的广告价值越来越引人注目。随着手机从普通移动电话向广义无线通讯的转变,短信广告作为一种新兴广告媒体必将大有作为。本文首先从短信广告的发展现状入手分析,接着分析了短信广告的独特优势,再进一步分析了短信广告现阶段的发展阻力,最后提出了其解决途径——     

我国应对气候变化国际合作实践

我国以负责任的态度积极投身应对气候变化国际合作。借助国际组织平台,引进了国际资金和先进技术、开展多边合作。与发达国家建立政策对话和交流机制,引进先进气候友好技术和成功经验,并一起推动面向其他发展中国家的气候变化国际合作。建立了南南合作机制和中国气候变化南南合作基金,为广大发展中国家应对气候变化提供资金、技术、产品等支持。在应对气候变化问题上,我国正逐步成为全球公共物品的提供者。     

新一轮信息技术革命浪潮对我国的影响

以云计算、物联网、下一代互联网、下一代移动通信技术为代表的新一轮信息技术革命,正在成为全球后金融时代社会和经济发展共同关注的重点。信息技术创新不断催生出新技术、新产品和新应用。信息产业的新兴产业形态群体正逐渐形成并壮大,成为引领世界各国摆脱危机困扰、抢占后危机时代经济发展制高点的关键。     

Mobile payment and Chinese rural household consumption

The problem of high savings and low consumption of Chinese rural households has long been a source of concern. The popularity of mobile payments may help alleviate this problem. This paper examines the impact of mobile payments on household consumption in rural China by using data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). To overcome the potential endogeneity, we use the instrumental variable (IV) and difference-in-differences (DID) methods and find a significant positive effect of mobile payments on rural household consumption. Mechanism analysis indicates that the positive impact of mobile payments is partially explained by the reduction in transaction costs, the easing of liquidity constraints, and the decrease in mental accounting loss. Furthermore, we verify the inclusive function of mobile payments through heterogeneity analysis and find that they play a greater role in promoting rural household consumption, especially for socially vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, people on low incomes, and low education. Our findings contribute to the literature on consumer finance and inclusive finance and have important implications for other countries.     

Urban water security in Africa: The face of climate and development challenges

ABSTRACT

Resilience has been promoted as an important objective for the global development community, in part, as a response to concern about the potential impacts of climate change and related risks. A review of the challenges of achieving water security in urban areas of developing countries suggests that a specific focus on resilience may distract communities from more effective interventions. It would be more useful to support relevant institutions to address current service delivery priorities. This will better enable them to manage future climate change and the challenges that this may bring.     

Economic Growth and Income Inequality: Evidence from Dynamic Panel Investigation

This paper empirically investigates the effect of income inequality on economic growth using extended panel data covering a broad range of developing and developed countries. We use system generalized method of moments (GMM) techniques in a dynamic panel analysis, which alleviates the possible positive bias in difference GMM due to the persistence of lagged dependent variables as instruments. We find strong evidence of a negative effect on growth from income inequality, which contradicts the findings of Forbes [2000, September. A reassessment of the relationship between inequality and growth, American Economic Review, 90(4), pp. 869–887] and Li and Zou [1998, October. Income inequality is not harmful for growth: Theory and evidence, Review of Development Economics, 2(3), pp. 318–34]. Further analyses using combined Gini coefficients show that the difference can be overall attributed to the problem of omitted control variables and the differences in how the variations in inequality across countries are reflected. We also find that the negative effects of inequality on economic growth can be of great significance when using a sample of less developed countries or more recent inequality data set.     

经济增长的环境成本及国民健康:一个国际比较的视角

文章构建了经济增长的环境和社会健康成本测度模型,分析发达国家和发展中国家的经济增长环境成本差异,以及经济增长对国民健康的影响。研究发现,2003年-2011年,从平均值来看,发达国家经济增长的环境成本占实际GDP的3.99%～4.22%,发展中国家经济增长的环境成本占实际GDP的20.79%～23.02%,远高于发达国家。发达国家经济增长对健康支出的收入效应和替代效应相当,维持了现有的健康水平,而发展中国家经济增长对居民健康的替代效应大于收入效应,总体上反而降低了国民健康水平。     

新兴大国与国际数字鸿沟的消弭——以中非信息技术合作为例

国际数字鸿沟已成为21世纪的新型贫困。尽管全球技术扩散使得数字鸿沟在数量方面有所消弭,但在质量方面鸿沟则进一步扩大,同时发展中国家内部的技术差距也日益拉大。数字鸿沟问题期待更广泛的援助和更全面的解决方案,新兴大国的群体性崛起及其在技术链中的特殊地位和发展经验可为消除国际数字鸿沟作出重大贡献,中非信息技术合作已经成为这一方面的典范。中非信息技术合作成功的经验值得总结,中国外交应当思考联手其他新兴国家与非洲开展信息技术合作以推动整个南南合作的发展,推动新型全球发展伙伴关系的建立。     

中国城市数字经济发展对环境污染的影响及机理研究

数字经济为政府治理、企业生产和居民生活等领域带来了深刻变革，数字经济发展是否抑制了环境污染是亟需解答的问题。文章基于中国285个城市2011-2018年的面板数据，运用固定效应模型、空间杜宾模型、中介效应模型等方法，多维度实证检验了数字经济发展对城市环境污染的影响及其中介机制。研究发现，数字经济发展显著降低了城市各类环境污染物的排放，运用工具变量估计、引入外生政策冲击、替换解释变量等方法进行稳健性检验后，该结论仍然成立。数字经济发展对不同污染物的降低作用有所差异，对工业二氧化硫排放量的降低效应最明显，工业废水和工业烟尘排放量次之，对PM_2.5浓度的降低效应最小。中介效应分析表明，绿色创新和产业结构优化是数字经济降低城市环境污染物排放的重要机制。空间溢出效应分析表明，数字经济发展对周边城市各类环境污染物存在负向空间溢出效应。空间异质性分析表明，东部地区数字经济发展的污染减排效应相比中、西部地区更大，且数字经济发展仅在东、中部地区具有显著的空间溢出效应。文章的内容丰富了有关环境污染影响因素的研究，也是对有关数字经济研究的有效补充，研究结论为数字经济助力环境污染治理提供了可靠的实证依据，同时为发展数字经济、充分发挥数字经济的污染减排提供了政策参考。     

The Digital Divide in East Asia

The concept of a 'digital divide'—inequality in access to modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) between industrialised and developing countries, and between urban and rural populations—has attracted much attention from policymakers, aid organisations, media and the general public. This paper places discussion of the digital divide in a broader economic context, linking it with the theory of economic growth and technological change. The network effects of diffusion of the Internet are related to the possibility of leap-frogging by latecomers. This is seen as a 'digital opportunity' presented to developing countries by the 'new economy'. This paper discusses the appropriate policy environment for bridging the digital divide, and concludes that the East Asian region has much to gain from the complementarities of its economies, their openness to trade in ICT products, and policy cooperation.     

Differences in digitalization levels: a multivariate analysis studying the global digital divide

This papers aims to identify and explain the differences in information and communications technologies (ICT) adoption for a sample of 142 developed and developing countries. In addition, we examine the relationships between specific combinations of technologies and the factors explaining them. Although income is a key factor for all country groups, its role is more significant for middle-digitalization countries. Using several multivariate techniques, we detect different patterns of digitalization. The patterns are explained to differing degrees by the type of country, by differences in economic development, and by socio-demographic and institutional variables. Factors such as quality of regulation and infrastructure explain ICT adoption in high-income countries. The ICT combination associated with specific income groups as well as the explanatory variables detected for each of them might be useful to implement the most appropriate policy actions to reduce the digital divide.     

The Determinants and Motivations of China's Outward Foreign Direct Investment: A Spatial Gravity Model Approach

Abstract

The study attempts to investigate the features and determinants of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) into 138 countries and Chinese firms' investment strategies over the 2003–2009 period using an augmented gravity model with spatial linkages. The respective evaluations of China's OFDI are indicative of the important role played by non-financial OFDI. At the same time, Chinese firms prefer to invest in high-tech industries in developed countries while also focusing on the extraction of natural resources around the world. The empirical findings show that the host country's economic size has a significantly positive effect in terms of promoting Chinese OFDI. Chinese firms favour a complex-vertical platform in the developed countries while they prefer a market potential foreign direct investment (FDI) surrounding the host developing countries and an export-platform FDI in the petroleum exporting countries based on the surrounding market potential effect and spatial effect. The fuel extraction motive plays a key role in China's OFDI in line with the realities of Chinese FDI strategies in recent years.     

跨文化交际与外语教学

近年来,随着改革开放步伐的加快,对外交往日益频繁,国与国之间的交流也越来越广泛,特别是社会信息化提高,国际互联网的开通使更多的人足不出户便可涉及到跨文化交际.作为语言教师要认识到跨文化交际教学是英语教学的一个重要环节,全面提高英语教学的效率和质量,大幅度地提高学生的英语应用能力.