Per un pugno di dollari: a first look at the price elasticity of patents

This paper analyses the role of patent-filing fees requestedby the member states of the European Patent Convention (EPC).We provide first empirical evidence showing that the fee elasticityof the demand for priority applications is negative and significant.Given the strong variation in absolute fees and in fees percapita across countries, this result indicates a suboptimaltreatment of inventors across European countries and suggeststhat fees should be considered as an integral part of an intellectualproperty policy, especially in the current context of worryingbacklogs. In addition, we show that the transfer rate of domesticpriority filings to the European Patent Office (EPO) increaseswith the duration of membership to the EPO and the GDP per capitaof a country, suggesting that member states experience a learningcurve within the EPC. The high heterogeneity in the transferrates casts some doubts on the practice that consists in relyingon filings at the EPO or at the United States Patent and TrademarkOffice to assess the innovative performance of countries.     

请到塘河来看边城

6月初，记者来到渝、川、黔交界处——江津塘河镇采访，镇党委书记邹锦辉告诉记者，说塘河就是重庆的“边城”有三个缘由，一是地处三省市交界处，是重庆辖区的边界．二是离重庆主城区最近，就在主城边缘，只需小时车程，三是小镇风景如画．     

关于全面小康社会指标体系的探讨

党的十六大报告中提出了全面建设小康社会的新目标。本文针对全面小康社会的内涵和指标体系进行了探讨。     

The gap at the top: Relative occupational earnings disadvantages of the black middle class

Data are presented in this article indicating that the disparity in the earnings of blacks and whites in upper level white-collar occupations is greater than that between their counterparts in blue-collar occupations. Moreover it appears that very little of the racial earnings differences in either occupational category can be explained by so-called human capital differences.     

世纪之交 另眼看股市

东南亚金融危机阴影下股市的持续低迷,5·19“井喷”行情的兴奋与欣喜,下半年大盘疲弱走软带来的苦涩和无奈,中国股民(暂时还称不上是投资者)以复杂的心情走进了20世纪最后的一年。……     

The recent deflationary gap in Japan: a quantitative measurement

Undoubtedly, the deflationary gap in the economy of recent Japan is very great. However, the White Paper series of EPAJ (Economic Planning Agency of Japanese Government) in recent years depends on a questionable interpretation of the concept of the gap, so that its analyses have been very misleading. In this paper, the author made up his mind to try to contrive an alternative way for measurement of the deflationary gap. The estimating procedure in the present study is as follows: 1. Computation of aggregate full employment and full utilization indexes of labor force and enterprises’ real fixed capital stock, by the use of original weights and adjusted weights, 2. Experimental-exogenous setting of the δ ratio, i.e., the ratio of the yearly rate of technological progress(%) to the yearly growth rate of real GNP(%) 3. Computation of the indexes of full-capacity GNP corresponding to each δ ratio, 4. Measurement of the deflationary gap. In the light of the computed results, we conclude that the deflationary gap in the recent (1997) Japan would amount to around 30–40% of the potential full-capacity GNP. The excessive breeding of deflationary gap in the Japanese economy was not a cyclical phenomenon but a long-term cumulative trend.     

Elasticities and factor weights for agricultural growth accounting: A look at the data for China

We review factor weight assumptions used in four studies of trends in total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese agriculture, and factor elasticities estimated in 12 Chinese agricultural production function studies. We find that econometric estimates of the output elasticity of land typically exceed the upper bound weight for that factor used in the TFP studies. We illustrate the sensitivity of TFP trends to factor assumptions by showing that adopting average elasticities as factor weights leads to a less negative assessment of TFP performance in the collective period. We suggest directions for further progress in these studies.     

Strong insiders,weak outsiders: A critical look at the Korean system of corporate governance

This study examines the approach of five Caspian coastal states ‐ Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan‐toward the legal regime regarding the Caspian Sea in the 1990s. In particular, it tests the neorealist hypothesis regarding relative gains in explaining the approach of those five Caspian coastal states. This study demonstrates that concerns about relative gains matter, but not universally. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan consistently pursued relative gains strategy. Yet, in the cases of three other Caspian states, Russia, Iran, and Turkmenistan, concerns about relative gains were not critical in determining the policy direction of these states.     

A closer look at Chinese housing market: Measuring intra-city submarket connectedness in Shanghai and Guangzhou

In this paper, we study intra-city connections of housing submarkets, using data from two systemically important cities in China, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Chinese cities that underwent significant spatial and population growth in recent years provide an ideal testing ground for theories of urban spatial growth and the filtering models of housing market. By employing variance decompositions from vector autoregression models, we characterize three types of market connectedness. We find that price shocks mostly originate from the central areas and transmit to the suburban areas in both cities. Additionally, shocks usually run from new sale to resale markets, supporting the basic premise of filtering models. In both cities, trading volume shocks generally lead price shocks both within and across areas.     

The boom and the bust of the Japanese economy: A quantitative look at the period 1980–2000

In this paper we quantitatively investigate the boom and the bust of the Japanese economy during 1980–2000 using the business cycle accounting technique. This method helps us identify the distortion margins called “wedges” that played a significant role in accounting for the output fluctuations. Applying our model to Japan, we find that efficiency and investment wedges can almost wholly account for output increases of the 1980s. Labor wedges by themselves would have caused a recession beginning in late 1980s but was overwhelmed by the positive impact of efficiency and investment wedges. In the 1990s, efficiency, labor and investment wedges all contributed to the recession. We next extend the literature by conducting robustness tests to investigate the sensitivity of BCA results to small modifications in methodology.     

厦门港全方位打造东南沿海航运中心

2006年以来,厦门港投入巨资建设深水泊位、国际旅游客运码头、五通海空联运码头和深水航道等,全方位打造港口城市品牌.厦门港口管理局规划建设处资料显示:2006年厦门港全年计划投资25.24亿元,建设项目27个,其中码头建设项目17个,航道建设项目3个,其他配套项目7个;2006年,厦门港累计完成投资26.51亿元,用于港口基础设施建设.目前,海沧、嵩屿、招银港区部分深水码头相继完工投产,"海上高速公路"--航道建设已进入冲刺阶段,国际旅游客运码头和五通海空联运码头已经完工.     

论新时代共享发展和全面建成小康社会的辩证关系

党的十八大提出了全面建成小康社会的发展目标,党的十八届五中全会提出了五大发展理念,其核心是共享发展。将共享发展和全面建成小康社会有机结合起来,全面促进中国特色社会主义的发展:首先,共享发展和全面建成小康社会具有契合性;其次,共享发展是全面建成小康社会的目的;最后,全面建成小康社会是共享发展的途径。准确理解共享发展和全面建成小康社会之间的关系,有利于丰富马克思主义发展观的理论意义和现实意义。     

浅议恩格尔定律对我国全面建设小康社会的启示

该文通过改革开放以来人民生活水平不断提高的切身体验,纵观世界各国"恩格尔系数"的差别,分析各国社会、经济的发展轨迹,提出在加快社会主义现代化建设的进程中,必须认真实施科教兴国战略和经济发展与人口、资源、环境相协调的建议。     

South Africa's economics of education: A stocktaking and an agenda for the way forward

This paper reviews some of the existing economics of education literature from the perspective of South Africa's education policymaking needs. It also puts forward a suggested research agenda for future work. The review is arranged according to five areas of research: rates of return, production functions, teacher incentives, benefit incidence analysis and cross-country comparisons. Production functions, especially if translated to cost-effectiveness models, can point to important policy solutions. Teacher incentives is a policy area that is in need of a better theoretical and empirical basis. Rates of return are difficult for policymakers to interpret, but suggest a need for a qualification below the Grade 12 level. While benefit incidence analysis can demonstrate large improvements in the equity of public financing, cross-country comparisons reveal that not only is the distribution of schooling outcomes particularly unequal, on average it is well below what the country's level of development would predict.