Capital Accumulation and Convergence in a Small Open Economy

Outward‐oriented economies seem to grow faster than inward‐looking ones. Does the literature on convergence have anything to say on this? In the dynamic Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson model, with factor‐price equalization, there is no convergence of incomes. This is because with identical preferences and return to capital, irrespective of initial levels, the growth rates of consumption are the same. In the specific factors' model, there is factor‐price equalization in the long run, but incomes depend on endowments of non‐accumulable factors. Different specifications for the intersectorally mobile factors have different implications for development (as well as convergence).     

India shining and Bharat drowning: Comparing two Indian states to the worldwide distribution in mathematics achievement

Increasing evidence suggests that the level and distribution of cognitive skills is more important to economic development than absolute measures of schooling attainment, and that income and skill inequality are inextricably linked. Yet for most of the developing world no internationally comparable estimates of cognitive skills exist. This paper uses student answers to publicly released questions from an international testing agency together with statistical methods from Item Response Theory to place secondary students from two Indian states—Orissa and Rajasthan—on a worldwide distribution of mathematics achievement. These two states fall below 43 of the 51 countries for which data exist. The bottom 5% of children rank higher than the bottom 5% in only three countries—South Africa, Ghana and Saudi Arabia. But not all students test poorly. Inequality in the test-score distribution for both states is next only to South Africa. The combination of India's size and large variance in achievement give both the perceptions that India is shining even as Bharat, the vernacular for India, is drowning. How India's development unfolds will depend critically on how the skill distribution evolves and how low- and high-skilled workers interact in the labor market.     

A neural network approach to the prediction of going concern status

The assessment of a firm's going concern status is not an easy task. To assist auditors, going concern prediction models based on statistical methods such as multiple discriminant analysis and logit/probit analysis have been explored with some success. This study attempts to look at a different and more recent approach—neural networks. In particular, a neural network model of the feedforward, backpropagation type was constructed to predict a firm's going concern status from six financial ratios, using a data set containing 165 non-going concerns and 165 matched going concerns. On an evenly distributed hold-out sample, the trained network model correctly predicted all 30 test cases. The results suggest that neural networks can be a promising avenue of research and application in the going concern area.     

银行上市、绩效考察与对策研究

国有控股银行的改革对中国的经济发展具有重要意义.通过实证检验得出的结论有二:第一,单纯依靠重组治理结构来改善银行的经营业绩是不现实的;第二,目前中国商业银行的拓展市场业务比改善治理结构更重要.     

International Trade and Manufacturing Employment in the South: Four Country Case Studies

This paper investigates the impact of international trade on manufacturing employment in developing countries, by undertaking a comparative study of four countries—Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam. It does so by employing a variety of methodological approaches: factor content; growth accounting; and econometric modelling. The main empirical finding is that international trade seems to be associated with the net creation of jobs in Bangladesh and Vietnam, with female workers being the key beneficiaries. In contrast, international trade has been associated with adverse employment outcomes in Kenya, and possibly in South Africa. This suggests that there may be crucial differences between Asia and Africa in terms of the impact of globalization on employment opportunities in manufacturing. Some alternative explanations for such differences are offered in the paper.     

虚拟经济核算：问题与解决方案——基于统计技术层面的研究大纲

虚拟经济概念的提出及理论架构的建立,是我国一项重要的经济学理论创新.虚拟经济核算体系的构建,则可为该理论提供指导实践的工具.本文基于国民经济核算SNA体系的基本原理,以资金交易流量为核心概念,以重复交易流量为重点,以交易数据取得为突破口,从统计学理论与数据搜集技术层面,针对虚拟经济测度体系中的基本理论、核算方法与系统结构、数据的收集与处理、模拟实验及应用检验四方面问题,提出了解决方案.     

Corporate borrowing and profitability in India

This paper examines effects of different types of corporate borrowing on firm profitability in India. We show that in contrast to the conventional thinking on the importance of monitored debt in determining firm performance, what matters more is arm's‐length lending in the form of fixed deposits in influencing firm profitability. We argue that the strategic implications of fixed deposits can be mainly attributed to the fact that they are both unsecured and privately held, which make the creditors associated with this type of debt the most likely to monitor firms' performance. The results suggest that debt structure matters, and it is important to take into account institutional differences and the heterogeneity of debt in the analysis of capital structure on firm performance. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theory of the firm in relation to exchange rates,import substitution and export

Neoclassical theory deals with the profit maximizing beheviour of the firm in a closed economy. Once an open-economy condition is introduced, the impact of the exchange rate on the cost and price parameters of the firm and, consequently, its import substitution and export decisions becomes relevant. A model is presented with case studies in which, given the exchange rate, the firm seeks to determine the optimal level of import substitution, output and export with the objective of maximizing its profit. In today's competitive world when countries are liberalizing and moving towards an open trade regime, the influence of exchange rates on the decision-making processes of firms is bound to be significant. An approach which provides them with a methodology for spelling out their options and making optimal choices is, therefore, of considerable practical interest.     

非参数回归在物流配送中心库存量中的应用

以物流配送中心库存管理策略（R，S）中库存量预测的问题为研究对象，提出应用非参数回归方法对库存量进行拟合，用该方法与最小二乘法比较。并用非参数K邻近法则对库存量进行预测，丰富订货期制定方法。以某物流配送中心31天大米滞留库存量数据为例，研究结果表明，核回归模型拟合值较一元二次回归模型优异，得到较为理想的结果，实现通过统计模型客观地对物流配送中心库存信息智能化管理提供理论依据。