外商直接投资对我国制造业自主创新投入的影响

本文利用2003—2007年我国28个制造行业的面板数据,检验了外商直接投资（FDI）参与度、FDI研发强度以及科技人员比重等因素对内资制造业自主创新投入的影响。结果表明上述三个因素对全部内资制造业的自主创新投入的影响并不显著。将制造业划分为高技术行业和一般行业,外资参与度对内资高技术行业研发强度的抑制程度要小于一般行业。外资研发强度对内资高技术行业研发强度的影响显著为负,对一般行业亦产生消极影响,但不显著。外资科技人员比重明显促进了高技术行业的自主创新投入,对低技术行业的研发支出强度产生负面影响,但统计上也不显著。上述结论意味着外资参与对内资自主创新投入的影响较为间接,需要关注直接影响内资自主创新投入的外资研发强度和外资科技人员比重等因素。内资企业要主动提高自主创新投入,形成自主创新能力,缩小和外资的技术差距。     

The Evolution of Technical Efficiency in the Northern Ireland Manufacturing Sector, 1973–1985

This paper uses a stochastic frontier production function approach to measure technical efficiency in firms in Northern Ireland. Firm level census of production panel data were used to examine how efficiency in firms changed over the period 1973–1985. Once estimates of efficiency were made, the causes of inefficiency based on characteristics of firms were examined. The results indicate that efficiency in Northern Ireland has improved significantly over-time. The largest increases in efficiency were in indigenously owned firms. The results suggest that many Northern Ireland owned firms were 'catching-up' in terms of efficiency with foreign owned firms over the period.     

On Inflation Targeting in the United Kingdom

This paper discusses some of the operational issues relevant to inflation-targeting in the United Kingdom, in particular: whether inflation targeting is 'new'; whether it is potentially destabilising; and whether it requires too much knowledge on the part of the authorities. It goes on to discuss the role of inflation forecasts in general, and inflation probability distributions in particular, in the context of inflation-targeting in the UK. It also discusses the role of transparency in such a regime, and provides some evidence on its effect.     

Nominal Wage Rigidity in the United Kingdom

This paper studies the degree of downward rigidity in nominal wages in the United Kingdom using micro-data. Around 9 % of employees who remain in the same job from one year to the next have zero pay growth. But on investigating the causes of rigidity we find that up to nine-tenths can be attributed to 'symmetric' causes (such as contracts and menu costs) or to error. Thus only 1 % of workers have pay that may be downwardly rigid. This suggests asymmetric, downward rigidity is not large enough to have serious macroeconomic consequences. The labour market provides almost no evidence to support a positive inflation target.     

ICT-specific technological progress in the United Kingdom

This paper analyses the impact of rapid technological change in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector on economic growth in the United Kingdom. We find that technological progress specific to the ICT sector accounts for around 20–30% of long-run labor productivity growth. We demonstrate that a permanent increase in the growth rate of ICT-specific technological progress will increase the investment expenditure share of GDP but lower the aggregate depreciation rate, while an increase in the return to investment in ICT will increase both the expenditure share and the depreciation rate.     

Incentive regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States: Some lessons

Summary and Conclusions This paper has reviewed the approach to incentive regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States. The United Kingdom approach has typically relied on pure PCR, incorporating much sharper incentives for efficiency and lower transactions costs, but it makes the company more of a hostage to the regulator. The United States approach, which is grounded or even mired in the legal system, gives up efficiency incentives in an attempt to avoid making the companies the hostages of regulatory reneging.²⁷ The papers in this Issue illustrate the broad scope of incentive regulation, from the purer forms of PCR to a number of variations and mixtures of PCR with other forms of regulation. The interesting theoretic results and the importance of achieving practical solutions in incentive regulation underscore the importance of the problems and approaches raised in this Issue.     

Pension reforms and saving gains in the United Kingdom

The empirical validity of the effect of pension reforms on domestic savings in the UK has been investigated using an Auto‐regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model capable of testing for the existence of a long‐run relationship regardless of whether the underlying time series are individually I(1) or I(0). The total savings response to change in pension savings is positive and significant, but an increase in occupational pension saving appears offset by a decrease in other forms of saving. This paper concludes that there is no firm evidence that aggregate savings increase considerably because of privately funded pension schemes.     

Socio-ecological regime transitions in Austria and the United Kingdom

We employ the concepts of socio-ecological regime and regime transition to better understand the biophysical causes and consequences of industrialization. For two case studies, the United Kingdom and Austria we describe two steps in a major transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio-ecological regime and the resulting consequences for energy use, land use and labour organization. In a first step, the coal based industrial regime co-existed with an agricultural sector remaining within the bounds of the old regime. In a second step, the oil/electricity based industrial regime, agriculture was integrated into the new pattern and the socio-ecological transition had been completed. Industrialization offers an answer to the input and growth related sustainability problems of the agrarian regime but creates new sustainability problems of a larger scale. While today's industrial societies are stabilizing their resource use albeit at an unsustainable level large parts of the global society are in midst of the old industrial transition. This poses severe problems for global sustainability.     

钢铁行业投资研究

本文分为两部分 ,第一部分对钢铁行业的产业结构进行了简要分析 ,阐述了均衡状态下的厂商盈利水平。第二部分讨论了我国钢铁行业的近期总体发展趋势 ,并根据消费行业的需求特征对主要钢材品种的发展趋势和投资价值进行了分析 ,并简要阐述了近期资源供应和国际钢材市场对钢铁行业的影响。     

Consumer confidence and rational expectations in the United States compared with the United Kingdom

This paper examines the relationship between consumer confidence and the Rational Expectations Permanent Income Hypothesis in the USA and compares the results with those obtained for the UK. The study expands previous analysis by defining consumption as motor vehicles, goods excluding motor vehicles, and services. The results suggest that predictive ability of the USA's consumer confidence is less than that of the UK, but that contrary to the UK study, confidence does not predict future consumption growth of services and is therefore consistent with Rational Expectations Permanent Income Hypothesis.     

The Cost of Obesity in the United Kingdom

Summary

This study provides economic information on the costs of obesity in the UK using a modified method of attributable risk to establish the full resource implications of treating obesity and associated diseases. Prevalence estimates of obesity, defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30 kg/m², together with estimates of the risk of obesity-related diseases relative to a BMI range close to ideal, are used as the basis of the costing. The total costs of treating obesity and its related diseases are estimated at £355 million (in 1995 prices). The total costs of treating obesity directly, estimated at £3.8 million, are dominated by the costs arising from the treatment of attributable diseases, estimated at £351 million.     

Size and Determinants of Capital Structure in the Greek Manufacturing Sector

Increasing competition in the European Union (EU) and world markets affects the Greek manufacturing sector. Capital structure is essential for the survival, growth and performance of a firm. There has been a growing interest worldwide in identifying the factors associated with debt leverage. However, nothing has been done so far in contrasting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large sized enterprises (LSEs) on these aspects. SMEs are very important in the Greek manufacturing sector for employment and growth. Empirical studies show that capital structure and the factors affecting it vary with firm size. In this paper we investigate the determinants of capital structure of Greek manufacturing firms and formulate some policy implications that may improve the financial performance of the sector. Our study utilizes panel data of two random samples, one for SMEs and another for LSEs. The findings show that profitability is a major determinant of capital structure for both size groups. However, efficient assets management and assets growth are found essential for the debt structure of LSEs as opposed to efficiency of current assets, size, sales growth and high fixed assets, which were found to affect substantially the credibility of SMEs. In an era of increasing globalization, the findings imply that Greek SMEs should focus their efforts on (a) increasing their cash flow capacity through better assets management and achievement of higher exports and (b) ensuring good bank relations, but at the same time, turn to alternative forms of financing. Greek LSEs should adopt strategies that will lead to the improvement of their competitiveness and securing new forms of financing. Government policy measures aiming at structural changes and economic efficiency should be designed clearly depending upon its targets: SMEs need policies that will encourage information exchange and co‐operation in local and foreign markets and use of e‐business, as well as, financial assistance. On the other hand, LSEs should be supported by policies aimed at new high‐technology investments, entrance of new firms and foreign investments in the country, tax alleviation and increase of R&D and training expenditures. The upgrading and transparency of the capital market in Greece is expected to improve the capital structure of Greek manufacturing firms.     

英美注册会计师管理体制的变迁及其启示

"安然-安达信"事件后,单一的CPA行业自律模式受到批评,美国政府通过立法和新设独立的机构加强了对CPA行业的行政监管,会计师职业界和各国政府会计市场监管当局也开始对现有的模式进行反思.中国财政部终止了CICPA对全国CPA行业的委托行政管理职能,直接由财政部会计司、条法司和监督局行使.CPA管理体制广受关注.本文对英美CPA行业及其管理体制的演进进行了全面考察,以期为中国CPA管理当局提供可资借鉴的建议.     

The demand for alcohol in the United Kingdom

Using the AIDS model, we show that there exists for the UK a stable long-run relationship between expenditure shares on beer, cider, spirits and wine, alcohol prices, total alcohol expenditure and a range of non-economic variables relating to advertising, licensing, the employment, social class and demographic characteristics of consumers, and climate. Our estimates of key price and income elasticities generally lie between those found from other time-series studies (which exclude most of these non-economic variables) and those found from cross-section studies (which generally include them). However, the restrictions required for separability, homegeneity and symmetry (although not those for perfect price aggregation) are decisively rejected.     

发展新兴战略性产业:制造业与服务业并重

我国发展新兴战略性产业,首先要发展先进制造业,其次要发展现代服务业。我国仍然处在工业化发展过程中,还未完成工业化,特别是还未完成工业现代化;在国际分工中,我国制造业基本上仍然处在中低端;此外,制造业的发展有利于推动中国城市化的进程,这三方面决定了我国仍然必须坚持继续发展制造业。就制造业和服务业二者关系看,一方面,发展制造业,尤其是发展先进制造业,可以促进制造业企业功能服务化,促进制造业服务外包,催速供应链管理的发展,因而能促进现代服务业的发展;另一方面,制造业产品和制造业企业的竞争优势都需要服务业的支撑和增强。     

Velocity and the variability of monetary growth in the United Kingdom

This paper uses the Granger-causality method to test on United Kingdom data Friedman's hypothesis (for the United States) that the volatility of monetary growth has caused the decline in income velocity. The paper concludes that for the United Kingdom the volatility of monetary growth does not cause velocity in the Granger sense.     

Population and house prices in the United Kingdom

Real house prices rise in the United Kingdom amid growing concern of an impending correction. The rate of household formation has increased with strong population growth, due to elevated rates of natural increase and net migration, and lack of growth in average household size, due to a rise in single‐person households with population ageing. This paper presents an overlapping generations model of housing, endogenous labour, savings and growth to analyse the effect of an increase in the household formation rate and speculative demand under rational expectations on house prices in a general equilibrium. We find that real house prices rise over time if the rate of household formation outstrips the rate of housing supply, but do not follow a speculative bubble path in the long run. The results explain why the upward trend in real house prices reflects market fundamentals and has continued despite population ageing as the number of working and retired households grows relative to the number of older people seeking to sell.