海关大型客户部

本文讨论并建议在海关建立和发展“海关大型客户部”（LTCU）。该建议参考了税务部门实行“纳税大户部”（LTU）的经验。     

Does bank capital affect lending behavior?

This paper investigates the existence of cross-sectional differences in the response of lending to monetary policy and GDP shocks owing to differences in bank capitalization. It adds to the literature by using the excess capital-to-asset ratio, which can better control the riskiness of banks' portfolios, and by disentangling the effects of the “bank lending channel” from those of the “bank capital channel.” The results, based on a sample of Italian banks, indicate that bank capital matters in the propagation of different types of shocks to lending, owing to the existence of regulatory capital constraints and imperfections in the market for bank fund-raising.     

Fair Trade in Italy: Too Much ‘Movement’ in the Shop?

With the advent of globalization, the track record of multinational corporations (MNCs) has been mixed at best in relation to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involvement in developing countries. This article attempts to cross-fertilize insights from the business-society and international business political behavior literature streams to identify relevant dimensions and contingencies that can be used to analyze the CSR of MNCs in developing countries and the extent of standardization or localization of their strategies. The article makes use of the new theoretical framework in the context of an interpretive research methodology to examine the CSR orientations of a sample of MNC subsidiaries in Lebanon. The findings reveal patterns of global CSR being diffused to developing countries, but also being diluted along the way in view of specific subsidiary endowments and host market characteristics.     

A Multi-Scale System of Macroeconometric Models: the Inforum Approach

The recent global crisis affected output, but the decline in international trade was even sharper, almost twice as big, so that in the literature it is referred as the Great Trade Collapse. Trade flows have transmitted the crisis through the world economy where international trade runs through much more intricate networks than in the past, involving a greater number of countries, firms, and products. All these relevant economic issues require a clear understanding of the possible positive and negative effects not only on the economy as a whole and on aggregate macroeconomic variables but especially on specific industries and commodities. This type of quantitative analysis can be pursued with several analytical tools and data. Macroeconometric models have a long-standing and remarkable tradition as a tool for analyzing the international transmission mechanism of shocks and policies and for forecasting their effects. In this paper, we present the INFORUM international linking system of models that includes a Bilateral Trade Model (BTM) and a set of multisectoral country models. The INFORUM international system of models is characterised by a detailed industry and commodity classification and the use of econometric equations for estimating the behaviour of economic variables and of bilateral import shares. Moreover, when the complete international system of models is linked through the bilateral trade model, simulation results include feedback effects from country models to all economies in the system through bilateral trade flows. Overall, this multi-scale system of models captures the heterogeneity across industries and countries and produces significant information for economic policy design.     

THE EFFICIENCY‐STABILITY TRADE‐OFF: THE CASE OF HIGH INTEREST RATE SPREADS IN VENEZUELA

This paper examines the determinants of the high intermediation spread observed in the Venezuelan banking sector during the 1990s (by far the largest in the Latin American region throughout the 1990s). We trace the evolution of the spread and its connection with other bank‐specific variables. A reduced‐form equation is estimated on the basis of a simple behavioral model for the banking firm previously developed by Shaffer and extended by Barajas, Steiner, and Salazar. Using different types of estimators for aggregate and pooled data of the financial system, we found that high spreads can be attributed to market power, high operating costs, and expected portfolio risk. The empirical results also suggest a trade‐off between assuring bank solvency and lowering profitability.     

The determinants of small and medium-sized firm internationalization and its relationship with productive efficiency

The Determinants of Small and Medium-Sized Firm Internationalization and Its Relationship with Productive Efficiency. — The creation of sale structures abroad (CSSA) is an intermediate stage in the process of internationalization when firms are small and foreign direct investment entail high sunk costs. This paper finds that ownership concentration (technological innovation, size, and age) negatively (positively) affects the CSSA decision and that, after controlling for the effect of access to foreign markets under the form of exports, CSSA firms are significantly more efficient than the control sample when efficiency is measured with a stochastic frontier approach. Ownership concentration seems to have two offsetting effects on efficiency: it increases participation to profits and therefore incentives to perform well, while it leads controlling shareholders to underinvest in risky ventures (such as internationalization).     

Governmentality in accounting and accountability: A case study of embedding sustainability in a supply chain

This paper examines how the introduction of sustainability accounting has been used by an organization as a means to seek to govern social, economic and environmental issues relating to suppliers. The concept of governmentality and four analytics of government are proposed as a means to examine systematic ways of exercising power and authority. This theoretical framework illuminates the specific rationales and practices of government that enable particular aspirations of reform – such as sustainability – to be constituted. The analysis is informed by the discussion of the implementation of sustainability-orientated regimes of practice in the context of a single supply chain within a major supermarket chain in the UK against the theoretical analytics of government. The paper provides novel empirical insights into how sustainability accounting shaped forms of power, rationales and practices in a supply chain. It explores the extent to which senior decision-takers frame and use sustainability accounting to foster disciplinary effects based ostensibly upon social and environmental goals. These are found in practice to be reformulated primarily according to an economic (rather than social or environmental) regime of practice.