The “swing of the pendulum” from public to market support for science and technology: Is the U.S. leading the way?

The structure and financing of science and technology activities are undergoing a slow, but profound, change. This change can be briefly characterized as a shift from relying and supporting public science to a stronger emphasis on “market-based” incentives for science and technology. In this paper we analyze this shift in a historical perspective, discussing both the theoretical explanations and the empirical trends of the ongoing change. While we do not claim to provide a comprehensive and exhaustive identification of the causes of this shift, we argue that it is largely driven by the perception of a shift of the U.S. policy towards market-based, rather than publicly supported, incentives for science and technology. This, in turn—given the strong economic performance of the United States over the 1990s—has influenced policies in most OECD countries, especially in Europe.We conclude by analyzing the evolution of research in U.S. higher education and find two major trends: an increasing diversity in the number of institutions of different types other than universities and a steady and continuous public funding of the leading U.S. universities. This has allowed the construction of an infrastructure now used largely by the private sector, but it also noted that the United States has not compromised public support for core areas or in those fields in which there is a clear perception that market incentives are not sufficient for meeting the strategic targets of the U.S. policy. The implication is that there is a considerable policy diversity in the U.S. practice and that all aspects of this diversity should be considered when using the United States as a reference.     

Are Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes more Volatile? Panel GARCH Evidence for the G7 and Latin America

This paper investigates empirically the relationship between exchange rate (ER) regimes and volatility of real exchange rate depreciation (RERD), comparing the G7 and 17 Latin American (LA17) countries, during 1970–2010. We estimate a panel autoregressive model with generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) errors and regime‐specific effects on both the conditional mean and conditional variance. For the G7, we find that, relative to the fixed ER regime, only the freely floating regime shows higher RERD volatility; under the managed floating regime the RERD is equally volatile and under the crawling peg it is actually less volatile. Instead, in the case of the LA17, more flexible ER regimes are associated with more volatile RERD rates, with higher volatility under the managed floating regime than under the crawling peg and with extremely high volatility under the “freely falling” ER regime.     

Fundamentals versus external shocks: Brazil's growing exposure to currency crises

While financial globalization does not lack theoretical economic merit, the more far-reaching practical consequences of this phenomenon are often not fully appreciated from the vantage point of North America or the European Union. In particular, globalization can make it more difficult for emerging economies to achieve macroeconomic stabilization. This is especially true if the countries in question have chosen the vehicle of pegged exchange rates as an important element of domestic anti-inflation policy. The chief macroeconomic difficulties for emerging economies in a world of volatile capital flows can include a loss of monetary control, a real appreciation of the domestic currency, and a worsening of economic fundamentals leading to damaging currency crises. This paper concentrates on the recent experience of Brazil as illustrative of the abject plight faced by many developing countries attempting to secure economic stabilization against the background of the present globalized international economy.This paper has benefitted from discussion with participants of the Forty-Sixth International Atlantic Economic Conference, Boston, MA, October 8–11, 1998.     

Environmental Policy Instruments: Technology Adoption Incentives with Imperfect Compliance

We study the incentives to adopt advanced abatement technologies in the presence of imperfect compliance. Interestingly, incentives under emission taxes and pollution abatement subsidies are the same that in the perfect compliance scenario. However, under emission standards imperfect compliance can increase firms’ incentives to invest, whereas under an emission permit mechanism investment incentives decrease only if widespread non-compliance induces a reduction in the permit price. Our results are valid for fairly general characteristics of the monitoring and enforcement strategies commonly found in both, theoretical and empirical applications.     

Changes in Global Trade Patterns and Women's Employment in Manufacturing, 1995–2011

This study investigates the feminization and defeminization trends in manufacturing employment in thirty countries from 1995 to 2011. Utilizing two separate methods, structural decomposition analysis (SDA) and factor content analysis (FCA), the study identifies the major industries and trade partners behind the structural shifts in trade that have induced changes in employment and thus in the rates of women’s employment. The findings highlight that, as a general trend, defeminization in manufacturing has persisted in the Global North, led by a negative trade impact in low-technology industries. In the Global South, feminization and defeminization trends are not as straightforward. Despite positive changes in women’s share of employment in medium-high- and high-technology industries, negative gender bias effects of trade changes are found particularly in high-technology industries, where occupations are notably gendered.     

制定现场检查规程 促进金融市场发展

为加强辖区金融市场业务的监管,促进金融市场业务健康、快速发展,防范金融风险、维护市场交易主体的合法权益,人民银行石家庄中心支行研究制定了《河北省金融市场业务现场检查规程（试行）》。该文介绍了《规程》制定的初衷、基本思路、内容特色及实施效果等,对其他部门的监管工作有一定的借鉴意义。     

区域货币市场监管工作探索

吉林省支农资金的紧张带来了资金的供需缺口,推动地方金融机构通过场外货币市场进行的资金融通业务活跃,而交易动机、流动性管理方式、监管强度不一致等因素,助长了异常交易行为的发生。人民银行长春中心支行立足实践、大胆创新,改进监测方式和监管手段,通过建立风险预警指标体系,对地方性金融机构货币市场业务实施非现场监管,动态监测金融机构流动性状况和市场风险情况,从实践上取得了良好的效果。这些有益的探索和尝试,对开展区域货币市场监管有一定的借鉴意义和参考价值。     

Telecommuting: The employee's perspective

Available telecommunication technology enables the substitution of commuting by “telecommuting”, or working at home, for a wide range of white collar occupations. Research on the potential of this phenomenon along with some ongoing experiments point at an array of social and personal benefits that may be realized by this working arrangement. An assessment of the possible implications of work-at-home on the individual employee indicate that the burden on him or her may be greater than the benefits accrued and, therefore, the journey to work may be a more desirable act than traditionally perceived by transportation planners. This paper focuses on two aspects of the work-at-home arrangement. Previous research on the sociology of work as well as preliminary empirical results indicate that 1) social interaction at work and 2) the need to separate home and work roles are important elements for the individual worker. The fact that work-at-home will affect these attributes, is likely to discourage wide-scale transition to this arrangement, despite the availability of the technology. Most research published to date on the subject is qualitative in nature, as only little empirical evidence is available. The objective of this paper is to stress, based on a wide literature review, the need for a thorough behavioral evaluation of the available technology to provide a sound basis for decision making on implementation of the technology.     

Liquidity risk and maturity management over the credit cycle

We show that firm demand-side factors are strong drivers of procyclical refinancing behavior over the credit cycle using novel data from the Shared National Credit program. Firms are more likely to refinance early when credit conditions are good to keep the effective maturity of their loans long and hedge against having to refinance in tight credit conditions. High credit quality firms are better able to hedge, making their refinancing propensity more sensitive to credit cycles than less creditworthy firms. There is a strong relationship between refinancing a loan, and subsequent growth in capital expenditure, especially when a loan is refinanced early.     

本土化和全球化并存下的企业责任和公司治理(英文)

近几年,公司治理日渐成为新的研究热点,吸引了各界广泛的兴趣。从传统意义上说,公司治理研究的是不同国家背景下的企业内部决策权分配的问题。本文却旨在超越传统观念,试图将公司治理概念与日益凸显的全球化统一起来。 为更好地探讨新的公司治理形式,我们粗泛地把它定义为：多重参与者影响下的、聚焦于企业合法利用国内外资源的企业战略决策。此定义带有与“战略方向”意义相一致的内涵。两者均承认治理决策对企业战略方向有影响,后者决定了企业和股东能否获得好的投资回报。 在战略管理领域,“公司治理专注于解决公司内部决策权分配的问题”（Gollis 和 Montgomery,1997）是一个被广泛接受的观点。传统观点认为,企业决策权的制定应局限于对企业资源有明确主张的内部利益相关者,而今,越来越多的人认识到企业外部的利益相关者也应获得企业决策权的合法权（Hill 和 Jones,2007）。尽管拓宽后的公司治理概念（也就是说,超越企业边界的社会群体与从中选举产生的董事会影响企业资源配置的决策权）常被归入企业社会责任范畴;可一量考虑到企业社会责任涵盖经济,生态和社会等内容,公司治理概念的外延也随之变得广阔起来——它要解决的问题不仅包括如何为公司股东聚焦财富,同时也包括如何对自然与社会环境施加直接的影响。 让我们把基本假设阐述得更清晰些。首先,政府的三个层面,即联邦、州（或省）及地方,对公司治理的影响是有效且关联的;其次,国际关系的描述性效用（可识别为各国基于企业资源决策的竞争性互动）对公司治理的影响越发显著。考虑到影响战略方向与绩效的国际层面互动,我们假设,除了三个传统的政府层面外,还存有重要性不弱于前者的第四层面（称其为超国家层面或许更恰当）。在此层面上,有众多影响企业治理的参与另两种组织（跨国公司、非政府组织）进行了详细讨论。 很明显,跨国公司、非政府组织是影响公司治理的新要素,它的出现已得到文献详细论述（Dah 和Jeegen,2003）。随着非政府组织影响的延展,要掌握当代公司治理的演化,我们需对“全球”和“本土”等几组概念进行扩展。举例而文言主,从“本土”视角看,拉丁美洲仅意味着地球的某一特定方位,如果拉丁美洲真的与世隔绝,用“本土”描述这一时空统一体当然是正确的。然而,由于快速沟通的实现,尤其是互联网的出现,只要点击鼠标,“本土”即刻成为了“全球”。因此,“本土”和“全球”合而为一是全球化的结果。 非政府组织领导者非常清楚全球性的根本改变,他们利用这种改变来增强自己的优势,并依据即定目标最大地发挥该组织的影响力。利用互联网的信息传播或是CNN的新闻报道,基于很低的成本,“绿色和平”组织可在几秒内把一件地区性小事（村落传闻）变成全球性大事（国际流言）。有鉴于此,“本上”不仅仅是方位,它还是发生在这个方位上的所有事件,而这些事件能迅速转化为国际性焦点。无疑,本土和全球已融为一体,我们也必须将他们视为一体。 为进一步阐明公司治理近几年已发生根本变化的观点,本文运用三个安全例来支持这种改变是如何在利益相关者试图影响公司战略方向的情况下发生的。案例一讲述执行墨西哥组装工厂计划的跨国公司回应关于外界呼吁其自主披露战略导向的故事。案例二描写的是沃尔玛在美国某社区建立分店的意图遭非政府组织与当地市民反对而最终落败的历程。案例三介绍多元化的利益相关者（政府、非政府组织、跨国公司、联合国等）如何通过国际制裁、国内立法和行业自治等手段以保护钻石产业免受战略性威胁。