许宁宁谈《服务贸易协议》

2007年1月，东盟系列峰会和东亚峰会在菲律宾第二大城市宿务举行，会议取得了丰硕成果。对内，东盟在加强组织机构、确定远景目标和解决共同关注的一些地区问题上取得了重要进展；对外，东盟与各对话国在政治、经济、社会文化等方面的合作更加深入、广泛和务实。具体到中国-东盟自由贸易区的建设，更是取得了重要突破，双方签署了中国-东盟自由贸易区《服务贸易协议》，标志着中国-东盟自贸区的建设向前迈出关键一步，为如期全面建成自由贸易区奠定了基础。会议刚刚结束，被媒体称为“中国-东盟首席商务专家”的中国-东盟商务理事会中方秘书处副秘书长许宁宁教授就接受了本刊的采访，他表示：“《服务贸易协议》的签署，对中国-东盟自由贸易区的建设起到了极大的推动作用。”[编者按]     

论会计准则弹性域内机会主义行为的防范

会计准则弹性既赋予会计确认、计量和报告以审慎判断的权力,又使财务报告决策过程存在机会主义行为风险.防范会计准则弹性区域内机会主义行为风险要从公司内部财务报告权利配置、审计鉴证责任、政府监管力度、准则弹性解释权行使、社会监督网络以及弹性信息披露等方面共同治理.     

中国低龄老年人力资源开发研究

伴随全球性人口老龄化的浪潮,我国于1999年加入了人口老龄化国家的行列,而且人口老龄化速度惊人.人口老龄化带来了诸如劳动力资源供给不足、社会保障支付体系负担过重等一系列经济与社会问题.为了有效地应对这些问题,文章分析了低龄老年人力资源开发的必要性和可行性,透视了发达国家开发低龄老年人力资源的成功经验,针对我国国情,认为开发低龄老年人力资源是应对人口老龄化问题的重要举措.在此基础上,提出了开发低龄老年人力资源的政策建议.     

When Does Everyone Contribute in the Private Provision of Local Public Goods?

When does everyone genuinely contribute in the private provision of a local public good? We first introduce a monotonic condition to characterize the relationship between the structure of the network that underlie the noncooperative game of private provision of local public goods on the one hand, and the preferences of the agents on the other, showing that the monotonic condition is a sufficient and necessary condition of existence of a distributed Nash equilibrium (DNE) in which each agent exerts a positive amount of effort to provision of the public good (Theorem 1). We then study the number of equilibria, and, by using the monotonic condition, characterize the condition under which the DNE set is a singleton, a continuum, or null (Theorem 2). As it turns out, the structure of the network and the agents’ preferences jointly shape the effort profile in the provision of local public goods.     

Social Justice and Affirmative Action in Malaysia: The New Economic Policy after 50 Years

Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP), promulgated in 1971, established a two-pronged national social justice agenda of poverty reduction, and social restructuring or pro-Bumiputera affirmative action. This distinction of these policy objectives must be appreciated, but various misconceptions, especially regarding affirmative action, have resulted in polarization and stalemate after 50 years of the NEP. Social justice and affirmative action must be conceptualized and evaluated with clarity and rigor, with policy objectives, mechanisms and outcomes aligned. Malaysia needs to systematically formulate a new social justice paradigm, building on the NEP and anchored on the principles of equality and fairness. In the affirmative action sphere, this framework must focus on developing capability and competitiveness, and balance identity, need and merit in the allocation of opportunity.     

Adverse selection as an explanation of credit rationing and different lender types

An adverse selection model is utilized to demonstrate that informational asymmetry may make it wealth optimal for the financial intermediary (FI) to credit ration and to rationalize the existence of different lenders in the credit market. The crucial assumption is that borrowers differ in their tolerance for a lender-imposed default penalty, the severity of which also varies with the lender. The credit rationing portion proves that the FI will: 1) be forced by a binding regulatory constraint to overinvest in capital; 2) ration its worst risk class borrowers; 3) establish its optimal loan interest rate on the basis of the average quality of its loans and the interest rate elasticity of the borrower demand in its best risk category; and 4) decrease the total loan volume and increase the loan interest rate due to an increase in the capital requirement, but the effect on the default risk quality of its loan portfolio is ambiguous. The existence result is that if a lender has a high default penalty, he can charge a lower rate and attract only “good” borrowers, i.e., heterogeneous lender types encourage the screening of borrowers and vice versa.