Tolerance for uncertainty and the growth of informationally opaque industries

Hofstede's [Hofstede, Geert H. 1980. Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.] cross-country psychological survey of IBM employees finds that some countries (societies) are systematically less tolerant of uncertainty, while uncertainty-tolerance is shown by some theoretic models to be essential to the growth of emerging sectors about which less is known. This paper first uses Durnev, Morck, and Yeung's [Durnev, Art, Morck, Randall, and Yeung, Bernard. 2004. Value-enhancing capital budgeting and firm-specific stock return variation. The Journal of Finance. 59(1): 65–105.] methodology to identify these informationally opaque industries. The hypothesis is then made that countries characterized by high uncertainty aversion (measured by Hofstede's indicator, and two other alternative indicators) will grow disproportionately slower in industrial sectors where information is less available. Using the Rajan and Zingales [Rajan, Raghuram G. and Zingales, Luigi. 1998. Financial Dependence and Growth. American Economic Review. Vol. 88(3): 559–586.] “difference-in-differences” methodology, which is relatively free from the endogeneity problem, the study provides robust evidence of such an industrial growth pattern in 34 countries and 36 manufacturing industries. It also shows that national uncertainty aversion is not driven by underdevelopment of financial sector, inadaptability of civil law systems, lower level of economic or human capital development, labor market inflexibility, or any of many other institutional factors. The results remain robust when religious (Catholic vs. Protestant) composition is used as an instrumental variable for national uncertainty aversion. The international evidence presented helps explain why some countries are slower in embracing “new” (vs. traditional) industries.     

Multiple generation product life cycle predictions using a novel two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis method

Product life cycle (PLC) prediction plays a crucial role in strategic planning and policy definition for high-technology products. Forecast methodologies which can predict PLCs accurately can help to achieve successful strategic decision-making, forecasting, and foresight activities in high-technology firms, research institutes, governments, and universities. Over the past few decades, even though analytic framework strategies have been proposed for production, marketing, R&D (research and development), and finance, aiming at each stage of PLCs, forecast methodologies with which to predict PLCs are few. The purpose of this research is to develop a novel forecast methodology to allow for predictions of product life time (PLT) and the annual shipment of products during the entire PLC of multiple generation products. A novel two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis method is proposed in this paper. In the first stage, the product life-time of the specific generation to be analyzed will be predicted by the fuzzy piecewise regression line that is derived based upon the product life-time of earlier generations. In the second stage of the forecast methodology, the annual shipment of products of the specified generation will be predicted by deriving annual fuzzy regression lines for each generation, based upon the historical data on the earlier generations' products. An empirical study predicting the life-time and the annual shipment of the 16 Mb (Mega bit) DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) PLC is illustrated to validate the analytical process. The results demonstrate that two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis can predict multiple generation PLT and PLC precisely, thereby serving as a foundation for future strategic planning, policy definitions and foresights.     

Bureaucratic integration and regional specialization in China

Fiscal decentralization introduced as part of China's economic reform since 1979 has unleashed strong incentives for China's local governments to pursue economic development, but the same incentives have also led to local protectionist policies inhibiting the process of regional specialization. This paper focuses on the constraints or freedom with which local governments can implement their protectionist policies. Using a panel data of 29 China's regions over the time period of 1985–1997, we find that China's political system of bureaucratic integration (specifically, concurrent appointment of local government officials in the central government) imposes constraints on the local governments from practicing protectionism. We also find that the effectiveness of local protectionist policies is limited by market competition, specifically, competition from foreign-invested firms operating in China and foreign imports. Our results on the role of local protectionism remain robust to controls for the regional variations in the size of the economy and the stage of economic development.     

迎接私营经济发展的新阶段——学习十六大报告体会之一

<正> 党的十六大在经济理论和经济发展方针方面的最大贡献有两个:一是建设全面小康社会,二是进一步发展非公有制经济,二者互为条件,相互促进,共同服从于我们党发展经济的根本目的——“提高全国人民的生活水平和质量”。用这样两个经济理论和方针来指导实践,必将带来社会主义市场经济体制的完善。     

"无过错责任"不是"猛虎下山"——对《最高人民法院关于审理触电人身损害赔偿案件若干问题的解释》的理解

“无过错责任”又称“无过失责任”、“客观责任”、“危险责任”、“严格责任”或“特殊侵权民事责任”，是指没有过错造成他人损害的，依法应当由与造成损害原因有关的人承担民事责任的确认责任准则。执行这一原则，主要不是根据责任人的过错，而是基于损害的客观存在，根据行为人的活动及所管理的人或物的危险性质与所造成损害后果的因果关系，它是一种不完全具备一般侵权民事责任的成立要件，也不一定直接由实施违法行为人承担主要责任的法律责任承担方式。     

德国如何成功举办世界杯足球赛

2006年德国世界杯足球赛是2008年北京奥运会之前全球最大的体育赛事。北京市发改委奥运经济高级顾问黄为专程前往德国，为北京奥运求取真经。[编者按]     

人力资源外包:提升中小企业集聚效应的新途径

一、人力资源外包服务的发展 外包是在20世纪90年代西方企业实施“回归主业，强化核心业务”的大背景下风行起来的一种企业新战略手段。其核心思想是企业在内部资源有限的情况下，为取得更大的竞争优势，仅保留其最具竞争优势的业务，而将其他业务委托给比自己更具成本优势和专有知识的企业。     

东部沿海八省市利用外资比较分析

随着引进外资量的不断增加，资金短缺局面的改善，我国应转变利用外资战略，更为重视利用外资的质量和绩效。经济发达的东部沿海地区利用了我国绝大部分的外资。本文以我国东部沿海地区三大经济区域（环渤海经济区、长江三角洲、珠江三角洲）的八个省市作为样本，对其利用外资的规模、业绩、质量、效益及潜力进行比较，客观地评价和审视其对外资的使用。     

计算机软件的可专利性探析

如何对计算机软件提供充分而不过度的保护，这是各国立法选择和司法保护上的一个难题，也是一个国际性的问题。通过对计算机软件可专利性理论和实践的分析，可知计算机软件兼有专利权和著作权客体双重属性，并且软件专利保护优于著作权保护。本文从西方国家特别是美国对计算机软件法律保护的发展进程及其不同阶段的分析，提出了我国计算机软件专利保护的对策。     

从海尔的"一流三网"谈主动存储

随着宏观经济的大发展及物流水平的不断提高，物流系统中存储观念发生很了大变化，传统库存正在向主动库存转变。本文以海尔成功经验为例，进行存储转变的分析。