娱乐产业的“经济学”

文化事业中的许多机构实体和制作团队将开始尝试市场化融资-对于投资机构而言,如何判断这些文化项目的价值、市场空间、风险,是需要学习的全新课程。娱乐产业包括媒体娱乐产业和现场娱乐产业两大类,前者包括电影、电视制作、广播电视、音乐、出版、媒体、玩具和游戏等产业,而后者涵盖了博彩业、体育运动、表演艺术和文化、游乐园和主题公园等。娱乐产业在美国、目本、法国等国家的经济中占有极大的比重。     

THE ECONOMICS OF THE GOVERNMENT BUDGET CONSTRAINT

This article summarizes the simple analytics of the macroeconomiceffects of government budget deficits. The presentation is organizedaround three key relationships: the national income accountsbudget deficit identity, the deficit financing identity, andthe dynamic equation for the evolution of the ratio of publicdebt to gross national product. The national income accountsidentity highlights the effect of the deficit on domestic savingand investment and the current account. Examining the financingof the deficit brings to light the different kinds of macroeconomicimbalance the deficit can cause—as a first approximation,printing money excessively shows up as inflation, excessiveuse of foreign reserves leads to crises in the balance of payments,high foreign borrowing leads to a debt crisis, and too muchdomestic borrowing leads to high real interest rates and crowdingout of private investment. The debt dynamics equation is usedto show the long-run constraints on fiscal policy.      

THE ECONOMICS OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE

This article examines the generation and management of municipalsolid waste through the lens of economics. The authors estimatethat the global burden of municipal solid waste amounted to1.3 billion metric tons in 1990, or two-thirds of a kilogramof waste per person per day. Industrial countries account fora disproportionately high share of the world's waste relativeto their share of world population, while developing countriesaccount for a disproportionately high share of the world's wasterelative to their share of world income. Analyses across countriesand over time reveal that the generation of municipal solidwaste is positively related to variations in per capita incomeand that the generation of municipal solid waste per capitadoes not vary with population size among countries with comparableper capita income. Practices for collecting, processing, and disposing of municipalsolid waste vary widely across countries, generally in accordwith the nature of the waste stream and key environmental andeconomic features. The least efficient practices tend to befound in developing countries, creating serious threats to localenvironmental quality and public health. Although considerableevidence indicates that the generation and management of wasteis sensitive to income and price variables, natural incentivesto overuse common property and the presence of inter- generationalexternalities both suggest that private economic behavior willnot yield socially optimal outcomes in this area. Communityintervention may be needed to promote the social good, withevidence accumulating in support of arrangements involving theparticipation of private firms. The authors' calculations alsosuggest that improvements made now in the handling of hazardouswaste will be far less expensive in discounted terms than undoingin the future the damage being caused by current practices.Addressing these issues from a rational societal perspectivewill become increasingly urgent in the future, especially inthe developing countries, where the authors project that municipalsolid waste will increase at an annual rate of 2.7 percent throughthe year 2010.      

THE ECONOMICS OF AN AUDIT FIRM: THE BENEFITS OF PARTNERSHIP GOVERNANCE

Audit firms have been given the option to incorporate only within the last 5 years. Since then, audit firms have chosen to change legal form, switching from partnerships to corporations. This paper investigates the governance effects of both the partnership and corporation form. I argue that although audit firms may adopt the legal form of corporation, the organizational characteristics of partnerships will be efficient in the current audit market and will be largely retained when firms switch legal forms. Some propositions are derived based on incomplete contracting theory that outlines complementary attributes of each organizational form. These propositions are illustrated by an in-depth case study of KPMG in the Netherlands, an audit firm that has recently made the transition.     

CONTRACTING FOR VALUE: EVA AND THE ECONOMICS OF ORGANIZATIONS

EVA becomes more difficult to apply the farther down in the company you go, especially in organizations with more traditional “functional” designs. Because centralized functions are not independent self-contained entities with direct control over their own revenues, costs, and capital, the performance measures used to evaluate them are necessarily incomplete; they reveal only part of the picture. For example, Marketing may increase sales and operating income—the measures on which it is evaluated—but at the same time drive excessive use of capital in the Manufacturing plants. Manufacturing may reduce unit cost through long production runs, thereby minimizing changeovers and setups, but create excess inventory in the process. Costreducing measures could also lead to declining quality and customer satisfaction, ultimately eroding the company's reputation. In short, each critical function influences results in other parts of the company, and focusing only on activities under a manager's direct control can result in myopic and misleading measures of performance. In organizing key processes as internal EVA Centers, joint costs and benefits shared by different corporate functions or business units can be built into financial measures in a way that encourages collaboration. As one example, a firm can attempt to replicate market forces internally by requiring each marketing region to contract for capacity with the internal manufacturing group. In a traditional management system, Marketing reserves (and relinquishes) manufacturing capacity at no cost; the consequence is excessive demand for resources. An internal pricing mechanism that requires Marketing to pay a fee for capacity will force its managers to assess trade-offs as if it were contracting with an outside party. Such a system effectively requires that functional managers take a more company-wide view of their responsibilities. By including the cost of capital, it forces managers to define costs more carefully. By including the impacts on other functions, it also forces a broader definition of costs. And by using multi-year contracts among different divisions, the framework extends the time horizon over which costs and benefits matter.     

唱响金融宏观调控主旋律 ——中国人民银行着力提高货币政策针对性灵活性，支持经济发展方式转变

中央经济工作会议已经对2010年的经济工作做出部署,面对新形势．新情况、新问题,金融系统根据会议精神,并结合自身实际将提出哪些新思路．新办法和新举措,我们在本期《新闻背后》栏目,集中回顾中央银行、政策性银行、国有银行和股份制银行等金融机构辉煌的2009年,以激励的目光展望2010年,期待金融业能够再创佳绩。     

THE TWO WORLDS OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL

The machine metaphor depicts organizations as if they were designed and operated like machines. Management control systems also build upon this metaphor. In this paper experiences from a longitudinal case study in the City of Bergen are reported. The study is based on data from the management control process, i.e. adopted budget data, prognoses during the accounting year, and actuals as reported in annual reports. The period studied is 1983–1987. From the reported data we can draw the following conclusions: (1) Decisions of future actions have little influence on the execution of future actions; (2) Data on past actions have little influence on decisions of future actions; (3) Data on past actions have little influence on prognoses of future actions; (4) Data on past decisions have some influence on prognoses of future actions; and (5) Data on actual prognoses have little influence on budgets for the next year. Consequently, we only observe elusive links between parts where the links are supposed to be strong.     

ECONOMICS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORM

This paper develops three basic economic principles for effective corporate governance: (1) information accuracy and timeliness, (2) management accountability, and (3) auditor independence. Accuracy and timeliness of information is critical to providing market participants with the data necessary to monitor and evaluate managers. Management accountability focuses on strengthening the incentives of managers to act in shareholders' interests and on increasing the likelihood and magnitude of punishment for wrongdoing. Auditor independence reduces the incentives and likelihood that auditors would give managers more leeway to undertake fraudulent or questionable acts.
The author provides a preliminary assessment of how well legislative reforms, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, regulatory changes at the SEC, and private sector responses such as those from self-regulatory organizations like the NYSE and NASDAQ, conform to these economic principles. The paper concludes by commenting on current proposals from the SEC on "shareholder democracy" and emphasizing the importance of balancing private and public regulatory responses.     

THE ECONOMICS OF NATURAL RESOURCE EXTRACTION: A PRIMER FOR DEVELOPMENT ECONOMISTS

As developing countries become major consumers of the globalsupply of commercial energy, it is essential to understand thedeterminants of future energy prices. At the same time, manydeveloping countries are relying on exports of their own naturalresources—tropical hardwoods, oil, tin, gold, and otherminerals—to generate badly needed foreign exchange. Governmentpolicies influence how much of a resource is extracted todayand how much is saved for the future. Flawed policies needlesslywaste precious national wealth.