Using data envelopment analysis approach to estimate the health production efficiencies in China

By using Data Envelopment Analysis approach, we treat the health production system in a certain province as a Decision Making Unit (DMU), identify its inputs and outputs, evaluate its technical efficiency in 1982, 1990 and 2000 respectively, and further analyze the relationship between efficiency scores and social-environmental variables. This paper has found several interesting findings. Firstly, provinces on frontier in different year are different, but provinces far from the frontier keep unchanged. The average efficiency of health production has made a significant progress from 1982 to 2000. Secondly, all provinces in China can be divided into six categories in terms of health production outcome and efficiency, and each category has specific approach of improving health production efficiency. Thirdly, significant differences in health production efficiencies have been found among the eastern, middle and western regions in China, and among the eastern and middle regions. At last, there is significant positive relationship between population density and health production efficiency but negative relationship (not very significant) between the proportions of public health expenditure in total expense and efficiency. Maybe it is the result of inappropriate tendency of public expenditure. The relationship between abilities to pay for health care services and efficiency in urban areas is opposite to that in rural areas. One possible reason is the totally different income and public services treatments between rural and urban residents. Therefore, it is necessary to adjust health policies and service provisions which are specifically designed to different population groups. __________ Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2006, (7): 92–105     

科技文献中标点符号的正确用法

标点符号在科技工程界的书面语言中是十分重要的。为此，根据ＧＢ／Ｔ１５８３４－１９９５《标点符号用法》，结合工作经验，阐述了标点符号在科技文献中的正确用法     

The Geopolitics of Protected Areas

ABSTRACT

The conservation enterprise is embedded in ideas of the environment through which it promotes a vision of the world and the relations between the non-human and human. The papers in this forum analyse conservation from various vantage points to draw the links between geopolitics and conservation. The authors use three themes to demonstrate these links. The first theme draws on the concept of environmentality to show the mobilization of ecological rationalities and power towards the creation of protected areas. The second pays attention to networks formed across the distance, and how they influence the location and governance of protected areas. The third focuses on the strategies the conservation lobby uses to align local identities with global conservation ideals and goals. Collectively, these themes highlight features of conservation geopolitics.     

The impact of credit constraints on the performance of Chinese agricultural wholesalers

This article evaluates the impact of credit constraints on the performance of Chinese agricultural wholesalers. We estimate a stochastic frontier function using transaction and credit data of agricultural wholesalers from across China to estimate the efficiency and productivity impacts of credit constraints on sales of affected agricultural wholesalers. Empirical results show that micro- and smaller wholesalers are disproportionally impacted by credit constraints and that eliminating these constraints would increase the sales of affected agricultural wholesalers by approximately 15%. Thus, policies aimed at providing credit access for these wholesalers would significantly boost the performance of smaller agricultural wholesalers while improving the overall performance of the Chinese food supply chain without requiring additional non-credit inputs.     

中国金融市场潜在风险分析及其防范对策研究

金融风险指金融市场主体从事货币、资金、信用交易过程中遭受损失的可能性。文章对我国金融市场面临的潜在风险进行了分析和研究,对如何化解和防范金融危机提出了相关对策。     

我国电力短缺根源研究

我国电力短缺主要源于供给基础不够坚实,需求仅是诱因、表象,是供给不足和供给不能适应需求变化调整所导致的结果,其根源是电力市场行政性垄断和由此造成的扭曲而僵化的电价体制。因此,根治电力短缺应打破行政垄断,建立科学合理的电力投资体制和电价形成机制,长期要着眼于建立坚实供给基础、提高供给弹性战略,短期可实施挖潜现有供给能力等措施。     

中国制度变迁和经济增长的实证分析

文章运用人工神经网络和回归的方法对我国制度变迁与经济增长进行了实证分析,并对全要素生产率增长率的波动与实际产出增长率的波动进行了比较分析。结果表明制度变迁对经济增长有显著的非线性影响,全要素生产率增长对经济增长贡献的潜力和空间很大。今后我国经济制度的变迁应致力于提高全要素生产率。     

基于主成分分析法的人类发展指数替代技术

在本文中,我们采用基于协方差的主成分分析法来分析1990年以来UNDP发布的中国人类发展数据,然后采用Spearman秩相关系数来分析获得的主成分与HDI之间的关系。研究表明,主成分分析法不仅能够有效地替代传统的人类发展指数编制方法,其形成的动态权重结构还可以有效地透视人类发展差距模式的历史演进过程,以及人类发展的各个方面(如预期寿命、知识教育和体面的生活等)在整体发展进程中的角色变化。对中国人类发展数据的分析结果也表明,尽管1990年以来中国各地区在经济、教育和健康方面均取得了重大进步,但三项发展之间存在着严重的不协调,地区发展差距也越来越多地体现为经济发展差距,这些反映了改革开放以来中国各级政府过分强调经济增长而带来的片面、不协调的人类发展。实现经济社会的协调发展,是时代的要求,也是当前我国各级政府面临的主要任务。而强调公共服务职能、推动地方政府的服务型转型,是消除不平衡发展的关键。     

Sample attrition and labor force dynamics: Evidence from the Spanish labor force survey

In this paper we examine a number of issues that arise in investigating labor force dynamics using the Spanish Labor Force Survey (EPA). These issues are by no means specific to the Spanish case and apply to most European-style labor force surveys. Our main conclusions may be summarized as follows. First, survey nonresponse cannot be neglected. Second, the EPA tends to underestimate employment and participation of high-educated young people, and to overestimate those of the low-educated elderly. Finally, we find little evidence that attrition causes important selection biases in estimating quarterly transition probabilities.     

Service Quality,Competition, and Regulatory Policies in the Postal Sector

This paper presents a simple model which illustrates the possible policy- and welfare-implications of endogenous product selection in the postal sector. The cost of a unit of mail depends on its "quality" (e.g., speed of delivery) and on the type and location of the addressee (firms, urban households, and rural households). Senders have inelastic demands and differ in their willingness to pay for quality. Addressees are passive but their utility may affect social welfare. Two operators play a two-stage game, first choosing qualities and then prices. We first show that the equilibrium with two private (profit maximizing) operators results in an inefficient provision of quality. Then, we consider the mixed (Nash) equilibrium with one private and one (welfare maximizing) public operator. If the budget constraint of the public firm is not binding, this equilibrium is shown to be first-best efficient even if social welfare accounts for the utility of addressees. If the budget constraint is binding, the mixed equilibrium is not efficient but yields a higher level of welfare than the private equilibrium. Finally, we study the impact of minimum quality standards within our setting.