Does China’s trade defy cultural barriers?

Using annual data for China and 88 trading partners that span the period 1995–2011, we estimate whether cross-societal cultural differences influence China’s external trade flows. Our results, obtained from the estimation of a series of multi-level mixed effect random intercepts and coefficients models, indicate that China’s aggregate exports and imports are largely unaffected by the cultural distance between China and its trading partners. Examination of disaggregate trade measures and consideration of the underlying dimensions of our composite cultural distance variable produces a largely similar result. Taken collectively, our results suggest that China’s trade is less affected by cultural distance than has been reported for other countries in similar studies.     

Does trade creation by social and business networks hold in services?

Recent literature on the border effect has shown that the intensity of trade in goods is positively correlated with the migration stocks between any pair of countries/regions. The number of references for business networks is more limited, but they are also related with a reduction on information costs. In this article we investigate whether such a relation holds also for Spanish domestic trade flows in consumer services. To this end, we use a gravity model rooted in the Dixit–Stiglitz–Krugman theoretical framework and a unique data set on interregional trade flows for some of the main tourism service sectors, namely, accommodations and restaurants. Our industry-specific analysis finds a large positive effect for restaurants but a more limited effect for accommodations. Forces driving the demand in each sector explain this result and suggest the idea that although social networks can act as a substitute of firms in some sectors at the same time they can enhance trade flows in other sectors. We perform the same kind of analysis with a data set (obtained by a similar method) for domestic trade in goods and discover a different response to social and business networks. Finally, we treat the potential endogeneity by taking the instrumental-variable approach of the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator and thus obtain consistent results.     

Competitiveness of Egyptian cotton exports in the international market

Cotton plays a vital role in the Egyptian economy by meeting domestic and export demands,contributing significantly to agriculture,industry,export earnings,and providing a cash income to roughly one million small farmers.This paper examines the competitiveness of Egyptian cotton exports（ECE） in the international market during the period 1990-2006.It mainly aims at investigating the trends in cotton exports over the studied period,analyzing the competitive position of Egyptian cotton by employing several economic and trade indices,and identifying the key factors that influence Egypt＇s cotton exports to the world.The results revealed that the total quantity of ECE has fallen from 196.8 thousand tons in 2003 to 87.2 thousand tons in 2006.It also shows a high degree of geographic concentration of ECE,into India,Italy,the Republic of Korea,and Japan.Together,these markets imported about 50%of ECE during 1990-2006.The competitive advantage of Egyptian cotton would appear dependent on quality not price.Japan,the Republic of Korea and Italy presented the most stable markets for ECE.Linear regression analysis suggests that a one percent increase in the Egypt-to-USA export price ratio leads to a decrease in ECE by about 27.8 thousand tons.Such analysis has also shown a positive and significant effect of the World Trade Organization on ECE.     

金融危机背景下农村消费市场拓展问题研究

随着金融危机在全球的蔓延,我国的出口产业受到巨大冲击,产品开始转向内销,政府和企业界已经开始将目光放到农村这个潜力巨大但尚未充分开发的市场上.因此,一要认真进行市场调研,推销适合农民需求的产品;二要引导农民转变消费观念.合理健康消费;三要发挥政府作用,推动农村新型商贸流通体系构建;四要健全农村社会保障体系.     

An Empirical Study on Factors Influencing China＇ s Inbound Tourism Origin Stricture

在构建新的旅游地引力模型基础上,以1998～2008年面板数据为例,实证分析了影响我国入境旅游地区结构变化的主要因素。结果表明,影响亚洲国家进入中国境内旅游的最重要的两个因素是我国物价水平和旅游接待能力,因此,我们要用价格支撑价值、增加旅游产品附加值等策略来降低其对价格上涨的反感程度,同时需进一步改善我国的旅游基础设施;影响欧洲和北美洲国家进入中国境内旅游的最重要因素是地理距离,故要尽可能从心理和文化上“缩短”与欧洲、北美洲国家的相对距离来提升我国的入境旅游的吸引力。     

中国入境旅游客源地结构变化影响因素的实证研究

在构建新的旅游地引力模型基础上,以1998～2008年面板数据为例,实证分析了影响我国入境旅游地区结构变化的主要因素。结果表明,影响亚洲国家进入中国境内旅游的最重要的两个因素是我国物价水平和旅游接待能力,因此,我们要用价格支撑价值、增加旅游产品附加值等策略来降低其对价格上涨的反感程度,同时需进一步改善我国的旅游基础设施;影响欧洲和北美洲国家进入中国境内旅游的最重要因素是地理距离,故要尽可能从心理和文化上"缩短"与欧洲、北美洲国家的相对距离来提升我国的入境旅游的吸引力。     

本地市场效应、比较优势动态化与地方中枢型产业的选择

空间经济学理论表明,基于市场规模的产业本地市场效是新的比较优势的源泉。从产业本地市场效应角度考察我国区域间产业发展,利用《中国区域间投入产出表》测算中国不同区域和不同产业的本地市场效应大小,即“超常需求”的大小,发现伴随规模经济的“本地市场效应”可以较好地解释我国产业空间结构的现象。根据产业本地市场效应,即以市场需求为导向来培育主要产业是构建现代产业体系的途径之一,是未来我国产业升级的重要方向。     

Responses of international stock markets to oil price surges: a regime-switching perspective

We propose an enhanced regime-switching model to investigate the relationships between oil price surges and stock market cycles in five oil-dependent countries. Our model accounts for the joint effects of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent oil markets and simultaneously captures asymmetry, volatility persistence and regime shifts contained in the underlying financial data. We find that stock market returns strongly exhibit a regime-switching behaviour, but they react differently to the increases in the price of oil. More precisely, the conditional volatility of studied stock markets during the bear market phases is found to be less affected by oil price surges than during the bull market phases. Whether the effects of oil shocks are positive or negative depends greatly on the degree of reliance on imported oil, the share of the cost of oil in the national income and the degree of improvement in energy efficiency of a given country. Finally, the relatively opposite effects of the WTI and Brent oil markets suggest the potential of substitution between them as well as the necessity of a diversification strategy of oil supply sources.     

我国石油储备发展策略研究

石油是重要的能源和现代工业不可缺少的原材料,其稳定的供给关系到一个国家经济社会的持续、健康发展和国家安全,因此,构建完善的石油储备体系是必不可少的重要措施。石油储备具有实物性、法律强制性、可动用性及公共性等特性,其储备模式主要分为国家石油储备和商业储备。目前,我国已成为世界石油市场需求量第二大国家和增长量最快的国家,同时,石油对外依存度逐年扩大,建立科学完备的石油储备体系亟待我们认真研究、高度关注。通过阐述石油储备的内涵,分析了石油储备的作用和意义,从石油储备立法、石油储备结构完善、石油储备资金筹集等诸多方面,对我国石油储备体系建设的发展策略提出了建议。     

Location,internationalization and performance of firms in Italy: a multilevel approach

Competition is increasingly global. However, location still matters: often firms cluster in the same geographic areas in order to exploit locational externalities and improve their competitiveness. This article analyses how Italian firms' performance, proxied by their propensity to export, depends both on geographical and institutional context and on individual characteristics. Using a multilevel approach, we estimate and distinguish the effect of individual (firm level) and context (province level) variables on the performance of internationalized Italian firms. We show that both firms and province heterogeneity shape the results.