FDI facilitated by agglomeration economies: evidence from manufacturing and services joint ventures in China

The open door policy of China’s economic reform since the 1980s has attracted heavy foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into China and especially to Guangdong (particularly the Pearl River Delta region, PRD) and induced significant economic growth during the past two decades. While there exist various classical theories of FDI in attempting to identify the determinants of FDI inflow and to explain the behavior of FDI flows, limited attention has been given from the perspective of agglomeration effects generated by a core-periphery (CP) relation.This paper intends to study the impacts of agglomerations on FDI inflows in the context of Krugman’s CP relation (1991) by investigating (1) the formation of a CP relation via gravity model analysis; (2) whether different types of industry FDI flows will respond differently in the CP-system, given agglomeration effects; and (3) whether FDI origin and firm scale matter in affecting FDI flows.A database consisting of a population frame of 37,742 firm-level manufacturing and services joint ventures investing in Guangdong in 1998 was used. Empirical results show that the agglomerations of the CP relation have affected FDI flow patterns. While both manufacturing and services FDI and sources of investment responded differently to the impacts, smaller firms were found more responsive to the CP-agglomeration settings regardless of FDI by industry type and by source. The significance and implications of the CP-system to further facilitate FDI in the region are discussed.     

Repositioning the urban environment question in Zimbabwe: a review of the context,conditions and processes

This analysis is a reappraisal of two perspectives in urban development in Zimbabwe: environmental sustainability and human sustenance. The discussion seeks to reposition the conservation–survival debate by broadening it to the wider urban and national macroeconomic and sociopolitical context. It re‐examines Zimbabwe's environmental problems by examining the challenges posed by urbanisation, industrialisation and informalisation. To these ‘permanent’ strands are added the ‘transient’ phenomena of structural adjustment and indigenisation. The analysis is done within the overall national macroeconomic and sociopolitical environment. The article examines environmental sustainability and human sustenance as the two policy challenges that have to be reconciled in the quest for sustainable urban settlements in Zimbabwe. The analysis stresses that the exercise of striking a balance between the needs of humankind and those of nature has to take cognisance of the complexity of issues and the processes going on elsewhere in the urban and national context.     

Fragmentation, Engel's Law, and Learning

This paper outlines the conditions under which trade is beneficial for a developing country's growth. A developing country suffers from two disadvantages: low income and a comparative disadvantage in the production of modern manufactured goods—goods which allow a high rate of human capital accumulation through learning by doing. Low income together with Engel's law imply that developing countries consume and produce very few modern goods in autarky and hence grow slowly. With international fragmentation of production, a developing country may find comparative advantage in the production of some stages of modern goods despite an absence of comparative advantage in the production of modern goods under “100% local content.” More resources can then be allocated to the modern goods sector leading to greater learning externalities and hence growth under free trade than in autarky.     

外国对中国反倾销的措施及我国的应对策略

反倾销问题是近年来我国对外贸易中的热门话题，该项贸易保护措施对我国企业的频繁使用使我国企业蒙受巨大损失，也成为我国国际贸易发展的重大障碍。面对这种局面，我国政府和企业应加强协调配合，同时各司其职、各负其责，政府应加强宏观调控，同时完善反倾销应诉机制，促进和国外的交流与合作；企业应规范内部管理，优化出口结构，建立灵活的经营策略，只有这样才能最大限度地维护我国企业的利益     

武汉市人口与零售商业网点分布优化配置研究

本文根据湖北和武汉统计年鉴等资料中的人口数据和社会商品零售额数据 ,拟合出反映人口分布和商业网点分布的计量模型。然后根据模型的含义 ,并综合考虑其它影响商业网点配置的因素 ,提出适合武汉市人口分布的商业网点优化配置的合理性建议     

Robustness to the unavailability of data in block designs

We present general results for finding or boundingt _maxB , the maximum number of arbitrary whole blocks of observations which can be removed from a block design, and still leave all of the elementary treatment contrasts estimable. The block sizes may be larger than the number of treatments. The results are applied to BBDs, reinforced BIBDs and BBDs, BTIBDs, and a series of variance balanced incomplete block designs with two block sizes. Also given for most of these designs, are results fort _max, the maximum number of arbitrary, scattered observations that can become unavailable, and still leave all of the elementary treatment contrasts estimable.The work was undertaken while Dr. Whittinghill was visiting Ohio State University, and supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences Division, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.     

风景道的规划设计:以鄂尔多斯风景道为例

文章首先简述了国外风景道规划设计的发展,然后对在中国发展风景道的特殊意义,以及国内已进行的风景道实践探索和理论提升进行了论述,并从总体理念与原则、目标与形象定位、景观及植物配置、游憩服务设施、交通和信息标示系统、声音景观设计等方面对鄂尔多斯风景道规划设计进行了较为详细的阐述,最后对我国风景道实践和理论的发展提出了建议.