中国因素对近年来日本产业空洞化的影响分析

近年来，有关产业空洞化问题的讨论在日本再次形成高潮，并与“中国因素”联系在一起。而分析日本对外直接投资的增长与日本进出口和就业的关系得知，“中国因素”不仅不是日本产业空洞化的祸首，反而是新一轮景气回升的重要动力．中国因素加快了日本逆工业化进程，尽管使日本制造业失业人数增加，但导致日本产业空洞化的真正原因是服务业过多的规制和劳动力市场缺乏弹性，使逆工业化过程中制造业释放出的失业人员不能向服务业进行有效转移。     

美国企业与慈善结缘

11月28日出版的《商业周刊》评出了2005年度美国50名最大的慈善家，也对致力于慈善事业的美国公司进行了评选。这些慈善家和企业的捐赠活动既造福于社会，也对企业的经营和发展起到了促进作用。     

Targeting public services through the unequal treatment of unequals

When private goods are publicly provided, government authorities have to determine the distribution of in-kind benefits to recipients. In this paper, the public service provider is assumed to maximize utility defined over public service supply to different target groups, given a budget constraint. The production technology is target-group-specific and depends on the ability of each target group to produce service outcomes. Three benchmark allocation principles are identified: equality of treatment (ET), equality of outcome (EO), and equality of marginal cost (EMC). These principles can be considered to be consistent with special cases of a public preference model, which allows for compromises between different allocation principles. The condition of technological dominance implies that there is a clear-cut equity–productivity trade-off, whereas violations of this condition may reduce the significance of the trade-off.     

Endogenous fertility and modified Pareto-optimality

In a world of endogenous fertility, where the number of descendants is an integral part of the economic allocation, the traditional concept of Pareto-optimality cannot be applied any longer: the number of individuals to be present on earth may vary between any two allocations we wish to compare. Therefore, the concept needs to be modified in order to give new life to the discussion of economic efficiency. This work introduces a straightforward variation of the Pareto-principle and characterizes the optimality of economic allocations according to this concept. It is shown that some of the well-known traditional results on intertemporal optimality do no longer hold. In particular, lump-sum tax instruments (or the rearrangement of initial endowments) are no longer a sufficient tool to achieve efficiency. Received: March 2003, Accepted: September 2005 This work has greatly benefitted from comments by Oded Galor, Karl Shell, Vasco Santos and an excellent anonymous referee. Many thanks to the Editor of this Journal for providing an impeccable refereeing process. Support by the European Union via the Human Capital and Mobility Grant #ERBCHBICT941218 is gratefully acknowledged.     

Clearer Polarization in Textile Industry

Lang Xianping, a Chinese economist, once said that in China the ,economy is polarized. That is to say. some industries are excessively hot, while others are excessively cold. The situation of textile industry becomes clear： it is not simply excessively hot or cold. This misunderstanding is resulted from people＇s focus on just parts of the whole industry. For example： last year,     

An inexact l2-norm penalty method for cardinality constrained portfolio optimization

Abstract

We analyze and solve a single-period portfolio optimization problem with non-convex constraints, which address practical concerns of investment such as the active share weights of sectors and the number of stocks held in a portfolio. We reformulate the problem to simplify the computation and propose an inexact l₂-norm penalty method to solve the problem.     

Foreclosure Delay and Consumer Credit Performance

The deep housing market recession from 2008 through 2010 was characterized by a steep rise in number of foreclosures. The average length of time from onset of delinquency through the end of the foreclosure process also expanded dramatically. Although most individuals undergoing foreclosure were experiencing serious financial stress, the extended foreclosure timelines enabled them to live in their homes without making mortgage payments until the end of the foreclosure process, thus providing temporary income and liquidity benefits from lower housing costs. This paper investigates the impact of extended foreclosure timelines on borrower performance with credit card debt. Our results indicate that a longer period of nonpayment of mortgage expenses results in higher cure rates on delinquent credit cards and reduced credit card balances. Thus, foreclosure process delays may have mitigated the impact of the economic downturn on credit card default—suggesting that improvement in credit card performance during the post-crisis period would likely be slowed by the removal of the temporary liquidity benefits as foreclosures reach completion.     

Simulated Attention-Tracking Methodologies: An Examination of Measurement Efficacy

This study introduces and examines a simulated attention-tracking methodology as an emerging technique to improve the study of in-store shopper behavior and decision making. To assess the viability of this new methodology, we examine its efficacy in producing consumer behavior data consistent with results predicted by the marketing literature. Empirical data across five grocery categories are used to examine the influence of personal, product, and situational differences on external information search. Findings show that the attention-tracking methodology is able to demonstrate expected results in almost all cases. The methodology is also able to provide a more complete view of external information search through tracing the observed search behavior preceding decision making. This proof of methodology responds directly to calls in the marketing and retailing literature to test new and emerging methodologies in support of research on in-store marketing and shopper behavior. Findings also provide managers with a methodology to examine the actual impact of marketing actions intended to capture shoppers’ attention at the retail shelf and to influence behavior.