The Singapore Ministerial Conference: An Overview

The guest editor, Peter Lloyd, outlines the scope of the Singapore Ministerial meeting of the WTO and assesses its achievements and disappointments.     

从坎昆会议看WTO多边贸易体系存在的缺陷及其改革

ＷＴＯ第五届坎昆部长级会议以失败告终，这是继上次西雅图会议后出现的第二次ＷＴＯ部长级谈判无果而终。本文在分析坎昆会议失败原因的基础上，指出ＷＴＯ多边贸易体系在贸易、投资自由化等原则方面存在严重缺陷；在管辖范围、职责与功能方面存在无限外延的困惑；在议事规则与决策程序上缺乏公平与透明度等问题。文章最后对发展中国家在ＷＴＯ的改革中应发挥的作用及改革前景提出了一些个人的观点与看法。     

坎昆之后……

WTO在坎昆遭受重创,发展中国家与发达国家在农产品问题上针锋相对,泾渭分明,谈判无果而终。坎昆之后,我们该做什么?一、全面启动双边自由贸易谈判。美国已经表示,将全面开展地区和双边贸易谈判。美国国会去年8月赋予布什总统贸易促进权(TradePromotionAuthority,即原来的FastTr     

Environmental Policy in the European Community: Harmonization or National Standards?

This paper explores the claim that the setting of environmental standards needs to be centralized in order to avoid a competitive race to the bottom. Such a claim represents a fundamental challenge to the basic theory of fiscal federalism. But the theory of interjurisdictional competition, although diverse in approach and findings, does not provide a fully compelling basis for this proposition. Moreover, the terminology is itself misleading. The paper suggests that in the absence of environmental spillover effects across jurisdictional boundaries, there remains a strong case for decentralized environmental management.     

Optimal Pollution Standard in an Open Economy: Characterizing Environmental Diversity

The paper examines the optimal pollution standard for a large open economy. Using a two-country partial-equilibrium framework, the optimal standards are charaterized for autarky, free trade, and free trade together with cooperation among countries in setting standards. If pollution is local, at the free-trade equilibrium, the exporting country imposes a stricter standard than does the importing country. The ranking may be reversed if pollution is transnational. A surpriising implication is that if pollution is local, cooperation may imply a less stringent standard for both the exporting country and the importing country.     

WTO在全球环境治理中的困境与出路

随着环境越来越受到世界各国的重视,环境与贸易问题也越来越广泛地在WTO领域里被涉及,从而使WTO成为全球环境治理的一个重要主体。WTO在全球环境治理中做出了重要的贡献,但同时由于其内外在原因,也面临着困境和挑战。为此,我们必须寻求这一困境中的出路。     

环境政策与绿色计划——新加坡环境管理解析

城市化进程中的环境效应与环境保护是当代城市环境科学研究一个非常重要的领域。本文对新加坡城市环境规划、环境保护发展三十余年的历史经验和措施，从城市环保的各个角度进行了简要的纵览和分析，从而让人们直观地了解到新加坡如何成功地解决人与环境和谐发展及其建设环境友好型宜居城市的城市管理模式。同时，也为寻找我国经济和城市化水平高速发展的城市环境综合治理的途径及如何处理其规划中亟待解决的问题，特别是如何树立科学发展观，建设宜居的“现代化绿色城市”提供了许多有益的借鉴。     

Macroeconomic Stabilization in the EMU: Rules Versus Institutions

This paper investigates the macroeconomic implications of different regimes of international fiscal coordination and monetary‐fiscal cooperation in a monetary union with independent fiscal authorities, that act strategically vis‐à‐vis a common central bank. In the presence of other policy goals than cyclical stabilization, such as interest rate smoothing and fiscal stability, we show that coordination among national fiscal authorities can reduce output and inflation volatility relative to the non‐cooperative setting in specific circumstances, as in case of demand disturbances, while turning potentially counterproductive otherwise. The adverse effects of union‐wide coordinated fiscal measures can be attenuated in a regime of global coordination, namely, when a centralized fiscal stabilization is coordinated with the common monetary policy as well.     

Regional stock market integration in Singapore: A multivariate analysis

This paper evaluates the time-varying integration of the Singapore stock market in the ASEAN-5 region based on a conditional version of the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM) with c-DCC-FIAPARCH parameters. This model allows for dynamic changes in the degree of market integration, regional market risk premium, regional exchange-rate risk premium, and domestic market risk premium. Our findings show several interesting facts. First, the time-varying degree of integration in the Singapore market is satisfactorily explained by the level of trade openness and the term premium of US interest rates, which have recently tended to increase, however these markets remain substantially segmented from the world market. Second, the local market risk premium is found to explain a significant proportion of the total risk premium for emerging market returns. Our findings illustrate several important implications for portfolio hedgers for making optimal portfolio allocations, engaging in risk management and forecasting future volatility in equity markets. Our results are also of interest for both policymakers and investors, with respect to regional development policies and dedicated portfolio investment strategies in the ASEAN-5 region.     

Tools of Survival: Sovereign Wealth Funds in Singapore and China

The rise of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as major investors in the global economy has raised worries that they serve the geopolitical ends of owner countries. However, given the paramount importance of surviving domestic political competitions, SWFs are likely also tools of domestic political survival. In examining the corporate governance and underlying political environment in which SWFs in Singapore and in China operate, this paper further examines the role of political unity in directing SWF behaviour in authoritarian regimes. The main finding is that a highly unified autocracy is more likely to direct SWFs to maximise long-term profit, while a fragmented one like China is more likely to treat its SWF as an arena for domestic political and bureaucratic infighting. SWFs operating in a fragmented regime are unlikely to make long-term profit and foreign policy objectives top priorities, and their behaviour can be highly unpredictable.     

Floor-level premiums in private housing: the case of condominiums in Singapore

Using a sample consists of 3367 actual condominium sales transacted in resale market from May 2012 to April 2015 from the Singapore Urban and Redevelopment Authority, a hedonic pricing model is used to investigate for the presence of floor-level premiums in the private housing market, condominium, in District 23 of Singapore. Unit size, types of land tenure and the distance to the nearest mass rapid transit (MRT) station are also used as other independent variables. The estimated coefficient of each of these independent variables is statistically significant. Each of these independent variables also has positive estimated coefficient, suggesting that they have positive effects on condominium resale prices. Main findings are (a) there is a presence of floor-level premium; (b) the condominiums with a distance more than 400 m to the MRT station get higher resale prices; and (c) there is an increasing effect of floor level on condominium price.     

Hierarchies Versus Committees: Communication and Information Acquisition in Organizations

In most firms workers are divided asymmetrically in terms of authority and responsibility. In this paper, we view the asymmetric allocations of authority and responsibility as essential features of hierarchy and examine why hierarchies often prevail in organizations from that perspective. A key departure is that we consider a case where the authority relationship is defined only by the allocation of responsibility through contingent contracts. Within this framework, we show that the contractual arrangement that allocates responsibility asymmetrically often emerges as the optimal organizational form, which gives rise to the chain of command pertaining to hierarchical organizations.     

Rates and Biases of Technical Progress and Returns to Scale in the Multi-output, Multi-input Production: Primal Versus Dual, Output-augmenting Versus Input-saving and Long-run Versus Short-Run

I examine the relationships among various dual concepts of output-augmenting and input-saving rates of technical progress as well as various dual concepts of returns-to-scale measures in the long run and short run. Output-augmenting rates of technical progress are all equal, and so are input-saving ones. Returns to scale plays an important role in the relationship between output-augmenting and input-saving rates of technical progress. Capacity utilization plays an important role in the relationship between the long run and short run. The bias of technical progress is also briefly referred to.
L Classification Numbers: D24, O030, O047.     

Annuity Values in Defined Contribution Retirement Systems: Australia and Singapore Compared

Annuities promise to play an increasingly important role in countries with national defined contribution retirement systems. In this article we examine life annuities in two countries, Singapore and Australia, each of which has a national mandatory pension program. Exploiting data on annuity pricing and purchase behaviour, we compare the money's worth of life annuity products across these two nations. Our results indicate that, after controlling on administrative loadings, there are important differences in measured adverse selection. Part of the explanation may be due to the different structures of the two countries’retirement systems.     

Competition and petrol pricing in the smartphone era: Evidence from Singapore

This paper examines how pre-tax petrol and diesel prices in Singapore respond to changes in crude oil prices using an asymmetric error correction model. We pay particular attention to the effect increased use of smartphones may have had in altering the pattern of price adjustment as consumers become more informed about fuel prices and as search costs decline. The results suggest that increases in the use of smartphones and tablets have increased the estimated short-term response rate but only for the adjustment of retail prices to decreases in crude oil prices. We find no evidence of a smartphone effect for wholesale prices indicative of the different roles played by consumers in competition.     

The Role of United Charities in Fundraising: The Case of Singapore

Abstract: Theory suggests that a united charity helps to economize on fundraising costs by reducing competition for donations among member charities. However, donors often cannot control the allocation of their donations, and charities may dislike the monitoring of their activities. This paper examines these and other issues relating to the Community Chest of Singapore. The results, based on analysis of financial positions and fundraising costs of a large number of charities, suggest that the Community Chest does possess important fundraising advantages. Thus charities in financial difficulties or in need of funds for additional programs tend to seek membership. However, organizations that value their autonomy and independence, and that are able to achieve low fundraising costs tend to remain as non‐members. Thus a monopoly agency raising funds for all charities in the future is unlikely in the case of Singapore.     

我国企业环保宏观调控机制应对入世的法律分析

主要剖析我国政府在企业环境管理方面的现状,并置放于全球化视野中,进行国际比较,找出差距,我国企业环保宏观调控机制与WTO市场体制的不适应性,进而提出解决问题的对策建议.     

软件企业的质量标准:ISO 9000与CMM的比较

ISO9000和CMM是国际上通行的质量标准，它们都可用于软件过程的管理和改进。针时2000版ISO9001标准和CMM进行综合的对比分析，并对我国软件企业如何选择质量标准进行了探讨。