车轮上的香港与香港的车轮

《汽车消费报告》选在2010年圣诞节前,对这座被称为购物天堂的物质之城进行探访,只是这次的视角与购物无关。当偌大的北京把限牌令当作刺向马路拥堵的尖刀时,弹丸之地香港密集的车流却在路的五线谱上有秩序地顺畅跳跃。我们钻进了一个多棱镜,在这个成熟社会的秩序里,除了找寻和感受到车轮上的港城在公共交通中的样本意义,还与这座城的勤劳、现实、冷静乃至冷漠以及文化缺失不期而遇,它是这片商业丛林整体的气质,充盈在香港前行的车轮里,而这样的气质,被香港人过成了习惯,过成了生活,却在外来人眼里总觉得缺些什么……     

内地企业高度关注香港证券市场

发挥渠道优势,协助成长型企业海外上市在近日召开的中国国际中小企业经济论坛上,国家发改委中小企业司领导在讲话中强调,鼓励中小企业直接融资,并创造条件帮助中小企业海外上市。近年来,我国资本市场发育逐渐成熟,海外融资渠道逐渐增多。针对不断增长的企业上市需求,以及企业选择上市渠道的犹豫与困惑,国家发改委中小企业对外合作协调中心专门建立了帮助中小企业海外上市的专家团队,提供咨询、推荐和上市程序运作等一条龙服务。开展工作一年来,受到广大中小企业的欢迎与重视,被认为是一条可靠、高效、服务周到的渠道。这条渠道的优势是,正确把握国家经济综合管理部门的政策导向,联合国内最大的证券公司和相关财务、法律、资产评估、保荐人、财经传媒等机构,由资深专家操作,确保上市操作的规范性和合理的上市成本,力争较高的上市成功率。《中国中小企业》将发挥国家中小企业权威专业媒体的作用,宣传普及上市知识,积极推荐有条件的企业上市。自本期起,本刊将连续刊登这方面的文章,敬请广大读者关注。     

内地企业在香港上市十年回顾和展望

自1993年首家国企以H股形式在香港上市,揭开了香港证券市场大规模为内地企业筹集资金的序幕.十年来,内地企业与香港的证券市场已建立非常紧密的关系,下列的数据可以充分反映两者关系的情况.     

财务顾问在香港创业板上市融资中的作用

1999年11月15日香港联合交易所宣布香港创业板证券市场成立.到目前为止已有浩伦农业、同仁堂、北大青岛、天时软件、上实药业、大诚电信、亚洲讯息、乾隆科技、裕兴电脑、凤凰卫视等180多家公司在香港创业板陆续上市.     

COMPETITION AND SOCIAL HOUSING IN EUROPE

This article discusses the application of the concept of competition to social housing in Europe. A distinction is made between competition amongst social housing suppliers and between social housing organisations and commercial suppliers of housing. The competitiveness of social housing is examined using evidence mainly from England and the Netherlands.     

GREEN BELT, COUNTRYSIDE CONSERVATION AND LOCAL POLITICS: A HONG KONG CASE STUDY

International land-use concepts are transformed to suit local circumstances. What is truly common after local adaptation becomes arguable. This paper examines application of a British land-use planning concept, green belt, in the ex-colonial city of Hong Kong. Through examining its local history and planning decisions for village housing development within such zones, this study reveals the ambiguity and flexibility of this land-use concept in conserving the natural landscape and open countryside. It highlights the conflicts and compromises of green belt planning policy in connection with countryside protection, local politics and development pressures. The conclusion is that the green belt zone coincides with its overseas counterpart in name only; its substance and implementation are drastically diverse across cities.     

THE SINO-BRITISH JOINT DECLARATION, 1997, AND THE LAND MARKET OF HONG KONG*

In September, 1984, Britain and China concluded the Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong. The Joint Declaration guarantees the continual practice of capitalism and a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong for a period of 50 years after 1997. It helped to rebuild confidence and caused property prices to rise. However, Annex HI of the Joint Declaration places severe restraints on the present government, limiting its ability to respond to market trends and generate funds from land sales. This paper seeks to look at some of these effects. It is argued that there is very little room for the present government to maneouvre and that even now the constraints imposed by the Joint Declaration are affecting the land market in Hong Kong. Higher land prices, a slower rate of horizontal expansion of the city and a greater intensity of land use are likely consequences of the newly imposed contraints. The recent emphasis on inner city development and redevelopment vis-a-vis a new town development strategy is in part attributable to the Joint Declaration.     

URBANISATION AND INFORMALITY IN AFRICA'S HOUSING MARKETS

Urbanisation is a growing phenomenon in Africa. Across the continent cities are drawing more and more people in search of economic opportunity. The majority of these people end up living in informal settlements: slums. As Africa's slums expand, international organisations, NGOs, and governments themselves call for strong public-sector action to deal with the problems in these settlements and to limit their expansion. However, government intervention in African housing markets may have contributed significantly to the growth of informal settlements. A maze of regulations and administrative barriers has imposed high transaction costs on formal-sector housing entrepreneurs. By raising the costs of providing low-income housing, African governments bear much responsibility for driving formal-sector entrepreneurs out of the housing market and for driving their citizens into slums.     

THE INTERNALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL EXTERNALITIES AFFECTING DWELLINGS: A REVIEW OF COURT CASES IN HONG KONG

In 1960, Ronald Coase suggested that there are many methods to solve the problem of externalities apart from imposing Pigovian taxes. Internalisation is one of those noted in his classic paper, ‘The Problem of Social Cost’. This paper studies the possibility of residents receiving compensation from pollutant generators. Data collected from Hong Kong law reports over the past 20 years show that there is forty‐fold increase in number of water seepage court cases since the first case in 1994. The total amount of compensation has also increased greatly. There are, however, far fewer court cases where residents seek compensation from generators of noise and air pollution. This may reflect a combination of high transaction costs and low expected benefits from such cases.     

SCALE ECONOMIES OF THE FRANCHISED BUSES AND FERRIES OF HONG KONG, 1948–1998

The privatization of state transport operators has been driven by empirical discoveries in transport economic research of the constant or even diseconomies of scale of these operators. With reference to public records and official statistics, this paper is an initial attempt to examine the scale economies of and output relationship between major bus and ferry operators in Hong Kong during the period 1948–1998. The two franchised bus and two franchised ferry companies each experienced unique scale effects during different periods and correlated with each other in terms of production. The paper will also discuss the possible reasons for this phenomenon and policy concerns related to this finding.     

INCIDENCE AND DETERMINANTS OF HOUSING UPGRADING IN CAIRO

Cairo is a very high density metropolis, where informal multi-unit housing accounts for a large share of the housing stock. Combined with a low residential mobility rate, this argues for dwelling improvements as a key element by which lower income homeowners can improve their housing circumstances. The article reports the extent of dwelling upgrading for this group and analyzes the determinants separately of both maintenance and major improvements. The analytic model is based on prior work, adjusted to the Egyptian context and available data. The incidence of improvements appears to be lower in Cairo than in more tropical megacities. However, the findings broadly confirm a general similarity in the determinants of housing investments by lower-income Cairene owners with those of lower income owners in more tropical locations. Three factors stand out: tenure security, household income, and the stimulation effects on investment of better infrastructure and poor dwelling conditions.     

THE USE AND ABUSE OF MARKETS IN HOUSING POLICY

This paper argues that, despite its rhetoric in support of markets, government does not understand how markets work, but is rather trying to use certain aspects of markets to control social housing. The paper looks at three areas: first, the idea of private finance and how this is used by government as a form of public policy; second, the notion of risk and whether it actually occurs in social housing; and third, the contention that government is incapable of appreciating the manner in which markets operate because it only wishes to provide safe options and so cannot countenance real choice and competition.     

THE HOUSING MARKET IN 1993

What hope is there of a recovery in the housing market in the rest of 1993? Jonathan Morris, of economic consultant Lombard Street Research, analyses the influences that will affect the housing market.     

A PANEL DATA APPROACH FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION: MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF HONG KONG WITH MAINLAND CHINA

We propose a simple‐to‐implement panel data method to evaluate the impacts of social policy. The basic idea is to exploit the dependence among cross‐sectional units to construct the counterfactuals. The cross‐sectional correlations are attributed to the presence of some (unobserved) common factors. However, instead of trying to estimate the unobserved factors, we propose to use observed data. We use a panel of 24 countries to evaluate the impact of political and economic integration of Hong Kong with mainland China. We find that the political integration hardly had any impact on the growth of the Hong Kong economy. However, the economic integration has raised Hong Kong's annual real GDP by about 4%. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

新城市地产参展广州房博会

9月18—20日,2009年广州房地产交易博览会暨城市规划建设及住房安居展在琶洲会展中心举行。广州新城市地产、保利、富力、雅居乐等数十家有实力的本地开发商参展,成为最多房地产企业参展的房博会。     

THE HOUSING MARKET AND THE RECOVERY

In the run up to the key Christmas period the talk is again of renewed weakness in consumer spending. Last month saw the volume of retail sales rise by only 0.1 per cent, and the annual rate of growth has now slowed to a shade over 3 per cent, down from its peak of 4.4 per cent back in July this summer. This weakness in consumer demand is also clearly being reflected in retail prices; with retailers discounting their prices to boost sales, headline inflation fell to 1.4per cent in October, while the underlying rate dropped to its lowest level for 25 years. This forecast release looks at the wider determinants of consumer spending, especially developments in the housing market. We argue that the slowdown in high street sales is a forbear of sluggish growth to come and that lower interest rates, if they materialise, are unlikely to have much of an impact. While consumer spending has been the driving force out of recession, for the recovery to be sustained, requires that exports and investment spending now take up the running.