The profit rate: where and how much did it fall? Did it recover? (USA 1948–2000)

This study is devoted to the empirical investigation of the gravitation of profit rates among industries around a single value in the United States since World War II. The framework of analysis is that developed by classical economists and Marx, and used in many contemporary studies. The gravitation of profit rates around a single value results from the mobility of capital seeking a maximum profit rate. A preliminary concern is to determine the field in which this mobility of capital is likely to occur. A segment of the economy is excluded because of its deficient capitalist nature. After this exclusion, it appears that the profit rates of industries do tend to gravitate around a common value. An important finding of this study is that this gravitation is not observable within a subset of industries, such as Transportation or Public Utilities, which utilize very large amounts of fixed capital in comparison to employment or output.     

Testing Vietnam's public safety net

The paper examines the impact of Vietnam's main welfare programs on moving poor people out of poverty and protecting the non-poor from becoming poor. To explore the role that transfers played in the country's dramatic reduction of poverty in the 1990s, counterfactual consumption levels are estimated allowing for behavioral responses. The findings suggest that transfers helped only a few people escape poverty and protected even fewer from poverty. Hence, the public safety net was largely irrelevant to Vietnam's poverty reduction. A larger and better designed public safety net is crucial for the future. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 661–679.     

Free admission to museums and monuments: an exploration of some perceptions of the audiences

• This paper considers the theme of the audiences' perceptions of free admission in national French museums and monuments. The results show that, from an individual perspective, perceptions of free admission are linked to perceptions of price, money and payment, hence complementing perceptions expressed in a collective perspective (a symbolic, political measure causing either adhesion or rejection). These perspectives are generally put forward by both advocates and opponents of the measure in their discussions. These different visions of free admission have managerial implications for managers of museums and monuments.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does rising landlessness signal success or failure for Vietnam's agrarian transition?

In the wake of reforms to establish a free market in land-use rights, Vietnam experienced a pronounced rise in rural landlessness. To some observers this is a harmless by-product of a more efficient economy, while to others it signals the return of the pre-socialist class structure, with the rural landless at the bottom of the economic ladder. We study the issue empirically using four household surveys spanning 1993–2004. Although we find rising landlessness amongst the poor, the post-reform landlessness rate tends to be higher for the non-poor. We find no support for the claim that the process of rising landlessness has been poverty-increasing in the aggregate.     

Fungibility and the flypaper effect of project aid: Micro-evidence for Vietnam

While most economists assume that aid is fungible, most aid donors behave as if it is not. Recipient government responses to development project aid are studied in the context of a specific World Bank-financed project. We estimate the impact of a rural road rehabilitation project in Vietnam on the kilometers of roads actually rehabilitated and built. Using local-level survey data collected for this purpose, we test whether the evidence supports the standard economic argument that there will be little or no impact on rural roads rehabilitated, given fungibility. Instead of full fungibility, we find evidence for a “flypaper effect”. Although impacts on rehabilitated road kilometers were less than intended, more roads were built in project areas. Our results suggest that there was fungibility within the sector, but that aid largely stuck to that sector.     

企业创新战略对绩效的影响机制——基于电子制造企业的实证分析

以往关于企业创新战略对企业绩效的影响机制的研究,侧重于分析不同技术创新能力对企业绩效的影响,忽略了产品创新战略对两者的中介作用。基于以往文献,文章提出技术创新能力、产品创新战略和企业绩效三者之间关系的理论模型。以长三角地区215家电子制造企业为调查对象,使用结构方程模型来验证理论假设。研究发现:Lall的技术创新能力三维度在中国情景下,被进一步分为六个子维度:与创新有关的投资能力、基于经验的生产能力、基于研发的生产能力、基于模仿的生产能力、外部网络联结能力和内部网络联结能力;企业不同的技术创新能力通过影响产品创新而对企业绩效产生影响。该研究丰富了企业技术创新的相关理论,为我国企业创新战略的选择及技术创新管理实践提供指导与建议。     

Measuring long-run marketing effects and their implications for long-run marketing decisions

This paper discusses the role of agents’ beliefs and their implications for the economic modeling of their behavior, in particular, their behavior over time. The paper also discusses the corresponding planning problems facing both firms and consumers in their current decision making. After a general discussion of the consumer and firm problem, we discuss recent examples of some of the emerging empirical literature on dynamic choice behavior in marketing.     

On the Use of the Susenas for Modelling Consumer Behaviour

Indonesia's National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) is a potentially important source of data for econometric modelling of consumer demands. The paper attempts to clarify aspects of the SUSENAS which have not been widely appreciated by past users of the data, particularly concerning its interpretation, internal consistency, and the valuation methods used. Specific issues discussed include price and quality valuation, the pricing method for consumption goods, and inconsistencies in the household expenditure aggregates, the quantity units, and the commodity classification. It is argued that these issues have econometric implications for modelling consumer behaviour.     

Why do global long‐term scenarios for agriculture differ? An overview of the AgMIP Global Economic Model Intercomparison

Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long‐term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of “real world commodity prices” differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between ?0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro‐economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross‐fertilize analyses at different scales.