“济南就是我的家”——济南外商服务月侧记

5月下甸,又是一个烈日炎炎的夏日,杰克·史密斯先生按照惯例早早就起了床。但与平日不同的是,作为公司行政总监的他并没有直接去自己的办公室开始一天的工作,而是手拿一份查体表来到了济南市中医院,成为济南市第二届外商服务月活动中的首项内容“为济南市外企员工查体活动”的第一批受益者。在经过非常细致的心、脑、血液等项目的     

浅谈我国银行保险的发展

伴随着加入世贸步伐的加快，中国金融业真正面临着国际化竞争所带来的巨大机遇和挑战。正是在这样的大背景下，最近一段时期，各保险公司纷纷与银行达成合作意向，合作内容包括代理保险、提供全方位的金融服务、资金网络清算、基本客户群的共建、金融创新、信息交流等方面。同时，各家保险公司的各种产品在银行和邮政的柜台上摆开了战场，一种全新的金融服务——银行保险，进入了人们的视野。这正是企业之间强强联合、优势互补、资源共享、以促进市场开拓和业务创新的必由之路，它必将推动我国保险业与国际保险业的接轨和新型业务产品的发展。     

Lies,damned lies and statistics: the accuracy of survey responses

That survey research is error prone is not a new idea and different varieties of non-sampling error have been investigated in the literature as well as consideration being given in many statistics textbooks to the issue of sampling error. The paper here considers research upon corporate environmental reporting. It compares information provided by corporate environmental reports with information that survey respondents claim their organization’s environmental report contains. This enables the accuracy of the claims to be assessed. Consideration is given to two different industries the Water industry and the Energy industry. Errors due to inaccurate reporting by survey respondents are shown to be relatively infrequent and respondents appear just about as likely to claim they report information that they do not, in fact, report as to fail to indicate that they report information that is, in fact, actually reported.     

中国的对外贸易盈余失控了吗——来自中国1995年1月到2007年10月月度贸易数据的证据

本文以中国1995年1月~2007年10月月度进出口贸易数据为样本,依据理论模型的推导,采用较简洁的Engle&Granger协整关系方法论,对全样本和以2001年12月为界的两个子样本:1995年1月~2001年11月与2001年12月~2007年10月分别进行了协整检验,且对两个子样本在协整回归的基础上建立了误差修正模型(ECM)。我们得出如下结论:无论对于全样本还是两个子样本,我们发现中国月度出口和进口之间的协整关系都是存在的。中国的贸易盈余并没有失控,经常账户的跨期预算约束并没有被违反。     

Environmental Taxation and Vertical Cournot Oligopolies: How Eco-industries Matter

This article specifies what an optimal pollution tax should be when dealing with a vertical Cournot oligopoly. Polluting firms sell final goods to consumers and outsource their abatement activities to an environment industry. It is assumed that both markets are imperfectly competitive. Thus, the tax is a single instrument used to regulate three sorts of distortions, one negative externality and two restrictions in production. Consequently, the optimal tax rate is the result of a trade-off that depends on the firms’ market power along the vertical structure. A detailed analysis of Cournot-Nash equilibria in both markets is also performed. In this context, the efficiency of abatement activities plays a key-role. It gives a new understanding to the necessary conditions for the emergence of an eco-industrial sector.      

Competition Policy: What are the Costs and Benefits of Measuring its Costs and Benefits?

Summary  Competition authorities are increasingly measuring the effects of their enforcement actions, seeking a robust justification for the proliferation of competition policy. We highlight the importance of identifying the right counterfactual against which to measure effects, and set out the relevant categories of costs and benefits. We then explore how a balance can be struck between the benefits and inherent limitations of these measurement exercises. Relatively crude analyses of cartel action benefits can be sufficient to achieve public legitimacy for competition policy. Assessing the effects of merger and conduct inquiries is often ambiguous, but could be used to improve decision-making processes. Director and Managing Consultant, respectively, at Oxera, Oxford and London. The valuable comments of Fod Barnes, Kerry Hughes and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors alone.     

Determinants of Current Account Imbalances in 16 OECD Countries: An Out-Of-Sample Perspective

We employ panel data as well as country-specific models to uncover empirically the determinants of current account imbalances. We find evidence of slope heterogeneity likely rendering the fixed-effect estimator inconsistent. Mean group estimation is followed to overcome the latter difficulty. Both estimation techniques are evaluated by means of in- and out-of-sample criteria. The mean group estimator outperforms the fixed-effect approach and, moreover, only three economic variables are found to impact on the current account balance significantly. These are the government budget balance, the domestic output gap and the changes of the terms of trade. We finally propose a parsimonious dynamic model of the current account, including only these variables and illustrate that it has similar predictive accuracy as country-specific benchmark models. JEL no. F32, C23, C53