The Black Enterprise Magazine Ranking of Colleges for African Americans: A Structural Analysis

This paper assesses the Black Enterprise Magazine (BE) ranking of the “top 50 colleges for African Americans,” which it publishes biennially. Its principal objective is to evaluate the statistical consistency in the ranking over the distribution of institutions that compose it. The paper attempts to address two-related questions. Does the BE report provide an unbiased and consistent assessment of the educational value associated with the institutions included in their listing? Is the ranking method internally consistent? Two experiments were used to evaluate the consistency of the BE ranking. First, structural difference in the model used to rank the institutions in the upper and lower half of the distribution is tested. Second, structural difference in the model used to rank HBCU and non-HBCU institutions included in the BE listed ranking is tested. In both cases the null hypothesis of the same structure is rejected.     

Family Income and Educational Attainment: A Review of Approaches and Evidence for Britain

It is widely recognized that, on average, children from poorerbackgrounds have worse educational outcomes than their better-offpeers. There is less evidence on how this relationship has changedover time and, indeed, what exactly leads to these inequalities.In this paper we demonstrate that the correlation between familybackground (as measured by family income) and educational attainmenthas been rising between children born in the late 1950s andthose born two decades later. We then consider the extent towhich these associations are due to the causal effects of incomerather than the result of other dimensions of family background.We review the approaches taken to answering this question, drawingmainly on the US literature, and then present our own evidencefrom the UK, discussing the plausible range for the true impactof income on education. Our results indicate that income hasa causal relationship with educational attainment.     

新形势下高校财务管理模式的再思考

高等学校担负着培养具有创新精神和实践能力的高级专门人才以及促进科学文化技术发展和社会主义现代化建设的重大任务,随着高校改革的进一步深化,加强高校财务管理已是当务之急。因此,提高及改进高校财务管理水平,是适应社会主义市场经济条件下高校事业快速发展的客观需要,是解决高校财务管理实际问题的必要举措。     

NEA Presidential Address: Black Economists of the World You Cite!!

Economists who publish research in the economics and political economy of race seem averse to citing similar research by black economists. As citations are an important determinant of success as a research economist, black economists can possibly offset the aversion of non-black economists in citing black economists, by citing black economists themselves. This NEA Presidential address considers the relevance of black economist citations, and evaluates the extent to which black economists cite other black economists.

内地农民工返乡创业与沿海地区外力推动:一个机制框架

促进和扶持内地农民工返乡创业,是加快我国内陆地区经济发展步伐,促使城乡、地区之间协调发展的战略选择。系统的理论研究和对我国16个省份的实地调研表明,针对我国内地农民工返乡创业特点及影响因素,沿海地区应主动扶持内地农民工返乡创业,构建一个基于创业资源整合及创业环境互动的沿海地区反哺内地农民工返乡创业的整合-互动机制。     

The Skill Content of Inter- and Intra-Industry Trade: Evidence for the United Kingdom

In this paper we investigate the relative importance of net exchanges of skills embodied in intra-industry and inter-industry trade for the UK’s trade with some middle income countries. We also separately measure the net exchanges of skills embodied in vertical and horizontal intra-industry trade (IIT). We find that there are substantial factor exchanges involved in IIT, implying that traditional factor content studies may have seriously underestimated the actual factor content of total trade flows. This means that the adjustment effects of IIT may be greater than is often presumed. We also find, in line with theory, that vertical IIT involves similar net exchanges of labour of different skills to that of inter-industry trade, while horizontal IIT involves much smaller net exchanges of skills. JEL no. F11, F14     

Assessing the Equilibrium Exchange Rate of the Malaysian Ringgit: A Comparison of Alternative Approaches

Drawing on the behavioral equilibrium exchange rate and the fundamental equilibrium exchange rate approaches, this paper assesses the equilibrium value of the real effective exchange rate of the Malaysian ringgit over the past 25 years. For 2005, when the Malaysian authorities exited from the peg with the US dollar, both models determine a slight undervaluation of the currency. Openness and real GDP per capita have been the main drivers of real exchange rate movements in the past, although non-tradable productivity, government consumption, and net foreign assets have also had a sizable impact. The paper also highlights the limitations of applying the two approaches in the context of emerging countries.     

我国教育发展对收入差距影响的实证分析

教育对收入差距的影响在理论上是不确定的,实证分析上也未达成一致的结论。本文利用中国1995—2002年间的教育和收入分配数据进行实证分析,发现目前中国教育的拓展是居民收入差距拉大的重要原因,教育拓展随着教育年限的延长起了扩大收入差距的作用,教育分布的平等化并没有改变这一趋势,这与传统的理论和前人的研究不同。     

Asset Market and Balance of Payments Characteristics: An Eclectic Exchange Rate Model for the Dollar,Mark and Yen

In this paper we use an exchange rate model, which combines asset market characteristics with balance of payments interactions, to examine the nominal effective exchange rates of the German mark, Japanese yen and US dollar for the recent experience with floating exchange rates. Our approach may be interpreted as one which attempts to flesh out the missing links that arise in conditioning an exchange rate solely on relative prices, as occurs in a standard PPP analysis. Amongst the results reported in this paper are: significant, and sensible, long-run relationships for the currencies studied; complex short-run dynamics; a variance decomposition analysis which apportions nominal exchange rate error variances into real and nominal elements.     

关键货币境外余额的国际政治经济学——美国的境外美元管理及其对中国的影响

关键货币境外余额是重要的国际经济变量,它不仅会影响关键货币的国际地位和全球金融市场稳定,也关系到境外关键货币持有国的经济稳定和储备资产安全。关键货币国通过经济、外交甚至军事手段对境外货币余额的规模、资产配置、地区分布以及持有者结构实施管理,以便实现对外融资、获取经济安全和榨取财富等多重目标。在金融危机背景下,基于经济安全、国际博弈和对外融资的目的,美国大致会阶段性地吸引美元回流并调控其在国外的分布,但美元霸权地位和美国国内的两党政治体制将使其境外美元余额的规模在长期内进一步扩张,因此人民币近期仍面临升值压力,欧洲和新兴市场国家金融动荡将会持续甚至加剧。随着中国国内资产价格的下跌,美元的升值和回流在中期时段内可能会冲击中国宏观经济稳定;如果美国不能控制其财政赤字,中国将长期面临美债和美元违约的巨大风险。中国需要降低宏观脆弱性,加速调整经济发展模式,从根本上摆脱美元陷阱。     

A new proposal for the reunification of the two Koreas: Economic issues

We present an alternative five-step plan which not only supplements the deficiencies of the current official plans for reunification, but also incorporates recent developments, such as, joint membership of North and South Korea of the United Nations (1991), and mutual agreements on reconciliation, nonaggression and economic exchange and cooperation (1992). The plan starts with a preliminary step for the normalization of relations between the two Koreas, and then subsequently moves on to economic integration, social integration, political integration, and military integration. However, as the political confrontation in the Korean peninsula has already been well-researched elsewhere, We discuss economic issues which are likely to present themselves during the unification process. Economic issues, rather than the political ones, could prove to be of the greatest concern to a smooth reunification between the peninsula's long- divided neighbors.     

The Information Content of the Yield Curve for Monetary Policy: A Survey

The information content of the yield curve with respect to future inflation as well as future real economic activity is discussed. Both theoretical arguments and the empirical validity of these arguments are reviewed. The empirics favouring the yield curve as leading indicator for inflation is not found to be entirely convincing. The curve possesses information content, but it is difficult to empirically discriminate between the effects on real interest rates and future inflation. The yield spread is a stable leading indicator for future real economic activity, but there are several theoretical interpretations of this (positive) relationship, depending on the nature of shocks hitting the economy and the behaviour of prices in the economy. The proper reaction of monetary policy could differ among these interpretations. All in all, care should be taken in using the yield curve as information variable for monetary policy.     

A search for leading sectors over the business cycle: The case of Korea

This paper studies the sectoral mechanism of shock propagation in business cycles by performing a case study. After we transform business survey indices of different industries into comparable metrics, we trace and compare them before and after reference dates. From these observations, we show that manufacturing industry leads the peak and the trough of the most recent business cycle in Korea; and six sectors are major players in manufacturing industry, i.e. ‘food products and beverages,’ ‘chemicals,’ ‘machinery,’ ‘motor vehicles, etc.,’ and ‘basic metals,’ and ‘fabricated metals.’ In conclusion, the heavy and chemical sectors may be the key to understanding recent business cycles in Korea.     

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.     

国外电力改革对我国电力零售市场建设的启示

我国电力市场改革已经走出了第一步：厂网分开,实现了发电侧的竞争。但是真正完善的市场,还必须在售电侧引入竞争,才能实现电力市场化改革的目的。因此,我们要及时建立起竞争性的电力零售市场,通过零售竞争,获得全面、充分的经济效益。文章主要对英国、美国和北欧等电力产业改革比较典型的国家和地区的改革进行系统阐述,通过对他们的经验教训进行总结,为我国进一步构建完整的竞争性电力零售市场提供有益的借鉴。     

与权力做斗争——拒绝美国国际关系研究中的实证主义

中国国际关系学的发展受到实证主义和美式方法论幽灵的威胁。如果这个幽灵得逞,中国的国际关系学将不过是美国国际关系学苍白的翻版而已。更有甚者,中国国际关系学者与为数甚少的美国学者之外的世界其他国家学者对话的能力将受到极大局限,而美国学者也缺乏与非美国学者进行对话的兴趣。一些在美国受训的中国学者强调,那种与美国式的形式建模法密切相关的实证主义和方法论胜过其他方法,因而必须为中国学界所采用。这对中国国际关系学的未来是一个非常危险的时刻。作者主张国际关系学采取反思主义研究法,拒绝国际关系研究中实证主义的谬误和美式的科学主张,并呼吁中国学者不要着迷于美国学界的资金能力和慷慨大度,而要认识到美国之外的国际关系理论建设还有更令人感兴趣的发展。     

A Rationale for the WTO Prohibition of Export Subsidies: Strategic Export Subsidies and World Welfare

This article presents a model that provides an economic rationale for multilateral agreements, such as the WTO, that prohibit export subsidies. The model is a multicountry version of the well-known Brander and Spencer (Journal of International Economics (1985) 18, 83–100) analysis of profit-shifting export subsidies, with the addition of an opportunity cost of government revenue greater than unity, as in Neary (Journal of International Economics (1994) 37, 197–218) to capture the fact that the export subsidy will typically be funded by distortionary taxation. It explains the unilateral incentive for welfare-maximizing governments to provide export subsidies and shows how the multilateral prohibition of export subsidies may increase world welfare.