A preliminary examination of the relationship between consumer attitude towards space travel and the development of innovative space tourism technology

With increasing global competition in service sectors, innovative technologies have radically changed the tourism industry, and to be successful innovative products/services must have clear, significant points of difference that are related to needs in the market place. Furthermore, changes in consumer perceptions that emanate from an innovation are central to its effective product and service design. Although for most of us space travel is still a faraway dream, it is in fact a future probability that will increasingly attract travellers who seek new vacation experiences, and as a result, sustain academic interest. Thus, in initiating space tourism for the purposes of recreation, leisure and knowledge enhancement, a preliminary estimation of potential global demand characteristics that are specific to consumer innovators for space travel needs to be undertaken prior to promotion of research and development. In this context, this paper investigates both consumer attitudes towards space travel by analysing the components of motivated consumer innovativeness and the interest that potential consumers have in developing space tourism technology innovations within Taiwan. Consumer innovativeness is complex and comprised four innovativeness types, namely, social, functional, hedonic and cognitive. As product/service innovation development has been relatively unexplored in the mature industry of tourism, many business managers would welcome an understanding of which vacation travellers are most likely to be the earliest buyers of such an exciting new product. With data collected from a sample of 354 Taiwanese, this research uses mediated regression to examine the influence of the four types of consumer innovativeness on consumer's attitudes and acceptance of a space tourism technology innovation, and the mediating role perceived novelty plays in the relationship. The findings indicate that only hedonic and social innovativeness are associated with improved consumer attitude and that novelty partially mediates the relationship for those two types of consumer innovativeness. The implications for theory and practice are discussed. Limitations and directions for future research are also addressed.     

Do Individual Employees' Learning Goal Orientation and Civic Virtue Matter? A Micro‐Foundations Perspective on Firm Absorptive Capacity

Research summary : In this study, we build on the micro‐foundations perspective and investigate how individual characteristics contribute to the development of firm absorptive capacity. In particular, we assess how individual learning goal orientation affects firm potential and realized absorptive capacity. Furthermore, we study how individuals' civic virtue acts as a micro‐level social integration mechanism that moderates the effect from firm realized absorptive capacity to potential absorptive capacity. Using the multilevel structural equation modeling technique and data from 871 core‐knowledge employees nested in 139 high‐technology firms, we find support to our major hypotheses. Together, this study finds support for the micro‐foundations' perspective and generates novel insights on how individual‐level factors could be linked with firm‐level heterogeneity in absorptive capacity. Managerial summary : We study how employees' characteristics contribute to a firm's absorptive capacity, that is, the ability of a firm to identify, assimilate, and exploit knowledge from the environment. Because firms have increasingly tapped into external resources to foster innovation over the past two decades, absorptive capacity is crucial to firm learning and success. Using data from 871 core‐knowledge employees in 139 high‐technology firms, we find that individual employees' learning goal orientation, the tendency to seek improvements in employees' competence and to understand or master new things advances the development of a firm's potential and realized absorptive capacity. More important, individual employees' civic virtue, the discretionary involvement in company issues, serves as a social integration mechanism that reduces the gap between firm potential and realized absorptive capacity. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国崛起的认识论及其叙事衍生

从自我认同与群体归属两种需要的分析视角,作者得出了四种观察中国与非中国之间关系的视野:国家、亚洲、文明与天下。其中,从中国的角度出发,观察非中国的视野主要是国家与天下。如果继续按照自我认同与群体归属两种需要的区分,我们可得出国家权力、霸道、主权身份以及中心-边陲四种叙事的文本。简言之,看待中国崛起不是一件纯粹的客观之事,而是涉及观察者的群我关系之深层需要。中国研究不仅是一个应该适应国情并随之调整的方法论问题,而且它还涉及知识形成的前提,亦即中国与非中国关系所涉及的群我关系。群我关系的形成与认知须靠文化形塑,进而使行为主体形成对中国崛起的认识角度与文本选择。     

集体林区生态公益林建设对劳动力转移的影响——以浙江省为例

生态公益林作为我国政府强化生态文明建设的重要举措,在保障生态安全方面发挥着重要作用.本文使用浙江省的农户调查数据,使用Heckit模型实证检验了农户生态公益林面积和生态公益林损失性补偿对农户家庭劳动力转移的影响.结果表明:尽管生态公益林面积的增加促进了农户劳动力转移,但是生态公益林补贴与劳动力转移呈现出倒U形关系,即随...     

调整政府支出结构促进居民消费增长——基于政府支出与居民消费互补性关系的分析

本文主要从政府支出与居民消费的互补性关系出发,提出政府支出结构调整的三个主要方面,即加大农村基础设施的投资、加大教育和健康服务等优效品的支付以及加大社会保障和收入支持的支出,以此促进居民消费快速增长,推动经济增长由主要依靠投资和出口拉动向主要依靠内需特别是消费拉动转变。     

The political economy of tariff protection in China: evidence from the WTO accession

We analyze China's tariff rates at WTO accession using a political economy approach. A model drawing on Branstetter and Feenstra ( 2002 ) is used to derive an optimal tariff rate for each industry. The model predicts that a government would set a high tariff rate if an industry is of large state‐owned enterprise (SOE) share, multinational share, or small foreign import share. From the model we reveal the Chinese government's preference towards different interest groups under the binding tariff constraint from the WTO commitments. The estimated structural parameters imply that the political weights on both the SOE profits and consumer income diminish with the economic opening. More important, the government still favours SOEs over consumer income. Our findings are consistent with the special features of China's economy.     

Trade liberalization,wages, and specialization in China

This paper studies the evolution of regional specialization in China in response to trade liberalization. Using a panel of Chinese export data at the detailed commodity level over the period of 1988–2006, we show that China’s regional specialization follows a U-shaped pattern: both the interior and coastal regions diversify from 1988 to 1994 but specialize during the later reform period of 1994–2006. A theory of tariff reductions is proposed by constructing the Dornbusch–Fischer–Samuelson (1977) continuum of goods Ricardian model in a setup of two countries and three regions. The U-shaped pattern of specialization can be obtained from foreign tariff reductions followed by Chinese tariff reductions. This finding is supported by simulations, US–China trade policy review, and the pattern of China’s coast–inland wage ratio.     

Panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test and PPP in Africa

This study revisits purchasing power parity (PPP) theory for 20 African countries using panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test proposed by Emirmahmutoglu and Omay (2014), through the sequential panel selection method of Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009). While standard panel unit root tests fail to support the PPP, the empirical results from panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test do support the PPP. However, additional tests reveal that support in all 20 African countries is mostly due to stationarity of the real effective exchange rates of Ghana and Rwanda where the adjustment process towards equilibrium is nonlinear and asymmetric.     

非标准工作与体面劳动:数据化带来的劳动问题与政府对策

数据化促进了经济发展,也造成了传统雇佣模式的变化.本文以互联网平台为例,从国际视角分析了数据化带来的劳动者权益保障问题,并简要概括了国际劳工组织与发达国家解决这些问题的对策.笔者提出,互联网平台从业者大部分从事的是非标准工作,这类工作存在体面劳动方面的诸多缺陷.笔者认为,在传统雇佣关系发生变化之后,无需再用传统的定义和标准去研讨非标准工作从业者是否具有“雇员”的身份,而应当将这些通过劳动获得报酬的从业者视为“劳动者”.笔者指出,政府应当尽其所能,制定和修改劳动政策,为他们提供底线型的基本保障,帮助他们实现体面劳动.     

Comparative advantage and unemployment

Worker heterogeneity in productivity and labor supply is introduced into a matching model. Workers who earn high wages and work high-hours are identified as those with strong market comparative advantage—high rents from being employed. The model is calibrated to match separation, job finding, and employment in the SIPP data. The model predicts a big drop in employment for workers with weak comparative advantage during recessions. But the data show that workers with strong comparative advantage also display sizable employment fluctuations, implying that aggregate employment fluctuations are not explained by the responses of workers with small rents to employment.