Canadian contributions to family economics

Canadian scholars have made substantial contributions to the relatively new field of family economics. These include new models of how men and women match in marriage markets, and of how decisions are made in multi‐person households. Several were early contributors to the literature on married women's labour supply and labour supply in a family context, and helped to develop empirical methods in this area. A particular focus has been on the impacts of policy‐relevant parameters, such childcare costs, on family labour supply and child well‐being. New work on child development, the impact of early life conditions, and the processes of intergenerational transmission also highlight the importance of family context in determining economic well‐being.     

A COMPARISON OF CONDITIONAL AND UNCONDITIONAL APPROACHES IN VALUE‐AT‐RISK ESTIMATION*

In this paper, we attempt to find the most important factor causing the differences in the performance of Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) estimation by comparing the performances of conditional and unconditional approaches. For each approach, we use various methods and models with different degrees of flexibility in their distributions including S_U‐normal distribution, which is one of the most flexible distribution functions. Our empirical results underscore the importance of the flexibility‐of‐distribution function in VaR estimation models. Even though it seems to be unclear which approach is better between conditional and unconditional approaches, it seems to be clear that the more flexible distribution we use, the better the performance, regardless of which approach we use.     

Environmental Kuznets Curve: Conclusive Econometric Evidence for CO2

This paper begins with a statistical formulation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and discusses the major econometric problems raised in the literature in testing this hypothesis using panel data. A simple t‐test is then presented that avoids these econometric problems. The result from applying the t‐test confirms conclusively the EKC for CO₂ as formulated.     

岳阳市君山区乡村旅游发展探析

从乡村旅游的概念及主要模式出发,以岳阳君山区为例,分析其在乡村旅游发展中面临的问题,主要体现在：缺乏合理的规划和正确的引导、基础设施较差、旅游产品单一并具有季节性、专业人才缺乏,从业人员素质不高。并提出了一系列的相应发展对策。     

Likelihood Inference on Semiparametric Models: Average Derivative and Treatment Effect

Over the past few decades, much progress has been made in semiparametric modelling and estimation methods for econometric analysis. This paper is concerned with inference (i.e. confidence intervals and hypothesis testing) in semiparametric models. In contrast to the conventional approach based on t‐ratios, we advocate likelihood‐based inference. In particular, we study two widely applied semiparametric problems, weighted average derivatives and treatment effects, and propose semiparametric empirical likelihood and jackknife empirical likelihood methods. We derive the limiting behaviour of these empirical likelihood statistics and investigate their finite sample performance through Monte Carlo simulation. Furthermore, we extend the (delete‐1) jackknife empirical likelihood toward the delete‐d version with growing d and establish general asymptotic theory. This extension is crucial to deal with non‐smooth objects, such as quantiles and quantile average derivatives or treatment effects, due to the well‐known inconsistency phenomena of the jackknife under non‐smoothness.     

“多团队成员身份”对创新型团队凝聚力的影响

团队认同和团队凝聚力是驱动创新型团队高绩效产出的重要因素,现实中经常存成员同时参加多个团队的情况。因此,“多团队成员身份”作为一种兼具普遍性与复杂性的工作状态,成为团队管理研究的新视角。通过对402名具有“多团队成员身份”的科研人员的调查及访谈,使用AMOS路径分析法和Bootstrap法对4个研究假设予以验证,得出以下结论：同时参加多个团队带来的信息共享优势和经验交流优势是被调查对象的共同感知;对团队氛围和负责人的认同在团队认同中具有重要影响;任务凝聚力是影响团队凝聚力的重要因素;“多团队成员身份”对团队认同及团队凝聚力具有较强的正向影响;团队认同在“多团队成员身份”和“团队凝聚力”之间具有显著的中介作用。最后从团队创新氛围和共享氛围营造、增强对负责人的认同感、提升任务凝聚力、加强沟通合作与经验交流等4个方面,提出了“多团队成员身份”背景下提升团队凝聚力的对策。     

Friedman's Money Supply Rule vs. Optimal Interest Rate Policy

Using New Keynesian models, we compare Friedman's k‐percent money supply rule to optimal interest rate setting, with respect to determinacy, stability under learning and optimality. First we review the recent literature: open‐loop interest rate rules are subject to indeterminacy and instability problems, but a properly chosen expectations‐based rule yields determinacy and stability under learning, and implements optimal policy. We show that Friedman's rule also can generate equilibria that are determinate and stable under learning. However, computing the mean quadratic welfare loss, we find for calibrated models that Friedman's rule performs poorly when compared to the optimal interest rate rule.     

Panel Asymptotics and Statistical Decision Theory

This paper develops some applications of asymptotic statistical decision theory in econometrics, focusing on settings where the data are organized into groups or cells with heterogeneous parameters. Even if the groups are of different sizes, local asymptotic normality holds under suitable regularity conditions, and this can greatly simplify analysis of different types of econometric problems. We apply these results to the analysis of treatment assignment rules, and to estimators of cell‐specific parameters that employ shrinkage towards parametric models.     

基于选择实验法的环境资源属性价值评价及实证研究

建立条件Logit模型和随机参数Logit模型,利用效用理论、福利经济学理论研究了滨海资源环境属性的重要性、边际价值以及环境资源状态改变对社会福利的影响。以大连市付家庄滨海公园为例,利用问卷调查数据进行实证研究。结果表明:随机参数Logit模型的拟合度比条件Logit模型要高、其回归效果更好;受访者对改善环境资源属性均持较为积极的态度,游客对环境资源属性的偏好程度由高到低为海水能见度、沙滩舒适度、沙滩清洁度和海洋生物种群数量;在付家庄滨海公园的当前环境下,游客的社会福利价值为64.82元/人,环境资源属性组合的最佳(最差)状态下游客的社会福利价值为127.12元/人(-18.18元/人),当前环境资源状态并非理想状态,还可以进一步改善。     

The cost of diabetes and obesity in Australia

Aims: To assess and compare the direct healthcare and non-healthcare costs and government subsidies by body weight and diabetes status.

Methods: The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle study collected health service utilization and health-related expenditure data at the 2011–2012 follow-up surveys. Costing data were available for 4,409 participants. Unit costs for 2016–2017 were used where available or were otherwise inflated to 2016–2017 dollars. Age- and sex-adjusted costs per person were estimated using generalized linear models.

Results: The annual total direct cost ranged from $1,998 per person with normal weight to $2,501 per person with obesity in participants without diabetes. For those with diabetes, total direct costs were $2,353 per person with normal weight, $3,263 per person with overweight, and $3,131 per person with obesity. Additional expenditure as government subsidies ranged from $5,649 per person with normal weight and no diabetes to $8,085 per person with overweight and diabetes. In general, direct costs and government subsidies were higher for overweight and obesity compared to normal weight, regardless of diabetes status, but were more noticeable in the diabetes sub-group. The annual total excess cost compared with normal weight people without diabetes was 26% for obesity alone and 46% for those with obesity and diabetes.

Limitations: Participants included in this study represented a healthier cohort than the Australian population. The relatively small sample of people with both obesity and diabetes prevented a more detailed analysis by obesity class.

Conclusion: Overweight and obesity are associated with increased costs, which are further increased in individuals who also have diabetes. Interventions to prevent overweight and obesity or reduce weight in people who are overweight or obese, and prevent diabetes, should reduce the financial burden.     

Does Living Alone Confer a Higher Risk of Hospitalisation?

The rise in one‐person households is a worldwide trend. This means that informal care is less available, particularly for elderly people, with important implications for health‐care utilisation and health expenditure. This paper uses a two‐part model to examine the relationship between living alone and hospitalisations in Australia in terms of both the likelihood and the length of hospitalisation. The results show living alone increases the probability of hospitalisation by 2.9 percentage points and length of stay by 3.8 days for people aged 45 and above. Further analysis indicates that these impacts depend on the length of living alone. Additionally, the probability and the length of hospitalisation vary depending on whether the cause of living alone is separation/divorce, widowhood or never having married.     

Second‐Generation Immigrants in the Swedish Labour Market

This study focuses on the labour market performance among second‐generation immigrants in Sweden. One motivation behind the analysis is that it gives insight into the long‐term consequences of immigration. Labour market performance relates the probability of having a job, referred to here as a threshold effect and to the differences in income from work, given that a person is in the market and is referred to as an income from work effect. We have shown that a clear threshold effect of being a second‐generation immigrant exists and that different groups of second‐generation immigrants perform differently in the Swedish labour market.     

A Game‐Theoretic Foundation for Competitive Equilibria in the Stiglitz–Weiss Model

Financial intermediaries are, by definition, engaged in two‐sided competition. Despite the well‐known problems of achieving competitive solutions under two‐sided price competition, models of financial intermediation are commonly solved for competitive equilibria. This article provides a game‐theoretic foundation for competitive equilibria in one of the most important models of financial intermediation, the seminal Stiglitz–Weiss (1981) adverse selection model of the credit market with a continuum of borrower types.     

双重网络嵌入、价值模块整合与物联网商业模式关系研究

旨在探讨双重网络嵌入（技术子网络嵌入、业务子网络嵌入）、价值模块整合对物联网商业模式的影响,从而揭示物联网商业模式构建路径。提出了双重网络嵌入、价值模块整合与物联网商业模式三者之间关系的研究假设,应用层次回归分析方法对142份问卷调查数据进行了实证检验。结果表明,技术子网络嵌入、业务子网络嵌入对物联网商业模式具有显著正向影响;价值模块整合对物联网商业模式具有显著正向影响;技术子网络嵌入、业务子网络嵌入对价值模块整合具有显著正向影响;价值模块整合分别在技术子网络嵌入、业务子网络嵌入对物联网商业模式的影响中起完全中介作用。     

Cost Benefit Analysis of European Air Quality Targets for Sulphur Dioxide, Nitrogen Dioxide and Fine and Suspended Particulate Matter in Cities

The European Commission has proposed air quality standards for NO₂, SO₂ and PM₁₀ to be in force by 2010. The present paper presents a study that gauged their costs and benefits. An analysis of the expected emissions for 2010 (reference emission scenario), using simplified air quality models, showed that non-compliance with these standards will occur in cities only, not in rural areas. Most compliance problems are expected for PM₁₀, least for SO₂. Central estimates of the costs to meet standards range from 21 MECU (SO₂), to 79 MECU (NO₂) to 87--225 MECU (PM₁₀). The estimated benefits are 83--3783 MECU (SO₂), 408--5900 MECU (NO₂), and 5007--51247 MECU (PM₁₀). Uncertainties are high, due to errors and incertitude in various steps of the methodology, mainly the estimation of the human health effects, in particular effects on mortality, and in the valuation of a statistical life. In the case of PM₁₀, additional uncertainty results from the small size of the air quality database. Notwithstanding the uncertainties, the indications are that the benefits exceed the costs.     

INTERTEMPORAL COMPLEMENTARITY AND OPTIMALITY: A STUDY OF A TWO‐DIMENSIONAL DYNAMICAL SYSTEM*

We study the underlying structure of the two‐dimensional dynamical system generated by a class of dynamic optimization models that allow for intertemporal complementarity between adjacent periods, but preserve the time‐additively separable framework of Ramsey models. Specifically, we identify conditions under which the results of the traditional Ramsey‐type theory are preserved even when the intertemporal independence assumption is relaxed. Local analysis of this theme has been presented by Samuelson (Western Economic Journal 9 (1971), 21–26). We establish global convergence results and relate them to the local analysis, by using the mathematical theory of two‐dimensional dynamical systems. We also relate the local stability property of the stationary optimal stock to the differentiability of the optimal policy function near the stationary optimal stock, by using the Stable Manifold Theorem.     

Reciprocity and Giving in a Consecutive Three‐Person Dictator Game with Social Interaction

We study pure indirect reciprocity by setting up a modified dictator game with three players A, B, and C acting sequentially. Subject A takes a share of a pie and passes the rest to subject B, while B divides the rest between herself and C. We find that this consecutive three‐person dictator game increases generosity compared with the traditional two‐person dictator game. We analyze the influence of social interaction and uncertainty. In treatments with certainty we observe pure indirect reciprocity: B indirectly reciprocates for A's behavior in the decision on how generous to be to C.     

和谐社会的构建与产权制度建设

社会和谐是指人与自然、人与人、人与社会之间的和谐,构建社会主义市场经济条件下的和谐社会,可以通过建立与完善现代市场经济体制来实现。由于市场经济条件下产权具有激励、约束和配置三大功能,因此有效的产权制度是构建和谐社会的基础,有效的产权制度在协调人与人、人与社会以及人与自然的和谐关系方面具有重要作用。构建产权制度的重点是要解决国有企业产权、农村土地产权和知识产权中存在的问题。     

中国工业发展的区域差异分析

本文采用主成分及聚类分析方法,通过对中国的２９个地域单元１９９６年人均工业产值和所有制结构状况进行分析,把中国工业发展划分为５个类型区,在此基础上,进上步分析了所有制结构对区域工业发展水平的影响。     

HOW IMPORTANT ARE TERMS‐OF‐TRADE SHOCKS?

According to conventional wisdom, terms‐of‐trade shocks represent a major source of business cycles in emerging and poor countries. This view is largely based on the analysis of calibrated business‐cycle models. We argue that the view that emerges from empirical structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models is strikingly different. We estimate country‐specific SVARs using data from 38 countries and find that terms‐of‐trade shocks explain less than 10% of movements in aggregate activity. We then estimate key structural parameters of a three‐sector business‐cycle model country by country and find a disconnect between the importance assigned to terms‐of‐trade shocks by theoretical and SVAR models.