民营担保企业运作现状及法律风险问题分析

本着为中小企业提供融资担保服务的宗旨,民营担保企业在致力于实现目标的同时,为解决就业问题、增加国家经济总值和增加税收贡献了不小的力量。由于法律风险防范意识上的不足,民营担保企业面临的法律风险逐渐暴露并呈现扩大趋势。如何能够有效预防法律风险,将其造成的种种损害降至最低,对于担保企业日后发展尤为关键。     

房地产抵押价值评估中被动高估风险的成因分析

2010年以来,中国人民银行和银监会多次提示各家商业银行关注资产泡沫上涨等原因造成的贷款系统性风险,一再收紧银根并加强对存量贷款的风险管理。本文剖析了房地产抵押贷款评估中三个关键概念的混淆,指出这是造成被动高估风险的主要成因。建议重新审视现有抵押评估技术准则,以非公开市场基准下的抵押价值代替市场价值,并更多地考虑成本法和收益法的应用,以防止上述风险在新增房地产抵押贷款中的产生和扩散。     

Cropland use,yields, and droughts: spatial data modeling for Burkina Faso and Niger

For countries with recurrent droughts, the design of drought impact mitigation measures could benefit from analyses of determinants of yields and prices of local crops at regional and district level. This study applies dynamic spatial panel data regression models to yields and prices of four major food crops across regions of Burkina Faso and Niger, over sample periods between 1984 and 2006. Results lend support to mainly simultaneous spatial spillovers, particularly for millet and cowpea prices and sorghum yields in Niger, and maize yields in Burkina Faso. After accounting for these effects, most crop yields are found to be weakly price‐responsive, as envisaged by a supply‐side geographical diffusion hypothesis. Seasonal rainfall elasticity estimates suggest that dominant food crops have slight advantage margins in terms of relative resilience to rainfall shortages. However, this result is to be weighed against low millet yields in Niger, and marked drops in sorghum yields during officially declared droughts in Burkina Faso.     

Estimating consumer willingness to pay for food quality with experimental auctions: the case of yellow versus fortified maize meal in Kenya

Biofortification of maize with provitamin A carotenoids is a new approach to the alleviation of vitamin A deficiencies in Africa. Unfortunately these varieties are yellow or orange, while consumers generally prefer white. Consumer willingness to pay for yellow and fortified maize was compared in experimental auctions in three regions in Kenya. The premium that consumers are willing pay for fortified maize (24%) was higher than the discount they require to buy yellow maize (11%), and in one zone consumers prefer yellow. Yellow color is, therefore, not an impossible obstacle for biofortified maize, although it would clearly be easier to introduce this maize first in regions where yellow maize is currently grown.     

IMPERFECT INFORMATION AND THE CHOICE BETWEEN COLLUSION AND HORIZONTAL MERGER

If the payoff obtained by the parties of an agreement depends on the values set for variables the value of which cannot be described precisely or monitored accurately, then the first best outcome may not be achieved. It is shown here that in some cases a second best long term agreement gives the parties a higher payoff, in other cases a short term arrangement is preferred. The interpretation of this result given in the paper is that when a long term contract is preferable, then firms are unable to commit themselves to it through a collusive agreement, and they will try to merge. Vice versa, no need to integrate arises when the preferred second best agreement is the short term one. The last section provides an example, where advertisement effort is non-contractible, while prices are.     

西藏矿产资源及其可持续发展初探

根据西藏矿产资源丰富、地质环境复杂、生态环境脆弱、矿业开发蓬勃发展的现状,针对矿产资源在西藏区域经济发展中所处的地位以及西藏矿产资源开发中存在的对矿山地质环境和矿区生态环境造成不同程度的影响等问题,从推进西藏矿产资源可持续开发的角度出发,贯彻落实科学发展观,走可持续发展道路;科学规划矿业开发布局,合理有序地开发矿产资源;加大找矿力度,进一步摸清西藏矿产资源家底;坚持矿业开发与生态环境保护并重,建设绿色矿山;依靠科学技术,推动矿业健康有序发展。     

从区位商视角论证构建城镇群的意义——以珠三角、大珠三角和泛珠三角区域为例

随着全球化和区域经济一体化的迅速发展,通过构建城镇群等城市联盟增强区域整体实力已成为提升城市竞争力积极有效的手段。从二十世纪九十年代初期起,先后形成的珠三角、大珠三角和泛珠三角城镇群,通过城市间的资源互补和优势扩散,带动区域整体水平,取得了跨越式发展。本文通过对珠三角、大珠三角和泛珠三角地区不同层次下各城市及区域主要产业就业人口区位商的计算比较,揭示了珠三角区域在制造业方面,大珠三角区域在生产性服务业方面及泛珠三角区域在生活性服务业方面的竞争优势,体现了不同层次城镇群内各行业的竞争发展趋势,由此验证了建立不同层次城镇群的必要性和竞争优势,为区域合作的政策措施提供一定的理论依据。     

运用新制度经济学理论探讨城中村的发展与演变

城中村产生及发展的驱动机制深受国内外城市问题研究学者关注.运用新制度经济学理论,从产权界定保护及交易费用支付两个层面揭示城中村产生、发展、屡禁不止的原因,评价城中村存在的客观性和合理性,论证了政府制度安排及变迁对城中村演变的作用.最后,从建立明晰产权并全力执行的角度提出域中村管理及改善的建议.     

Composite commodities, housing characteristics and the Hicksian surplus measures of welfare change

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on previous research that deals with the implications of alternative housing concepts for the estimation of the welfare effects of housing programs. We compare one housing concept, which defines housing in terms of a composite good housing services with an alternative in which housing is treated as a bundle of attributes. We extend the analysis in the literature by concentrating on welfare measures that are applicable to a much broader class of government programs than those that have been discussed before. We focus in the Hicksian surplus measures which are particularly suited to handle structure in which constraints on quantity are impused. In the theoretical sections we rigorously show that the Hicksian surplus measures of welfare change based on the composite good housing services will be biased whenever a housing program imposes restrictions on the consumption of attributes. The direction of the bias depends on the nature of the program. Empirical work confirms the predictions of the theoretical analysis.     

What explains the performance of students in a heterogeneous environment? Conditional efficiency estimation with continuous and discrete environmental variables

Efficiency estimations which do not account for the operational environment where production units are operating in may have only a limited value. This article presents a fully nonparametric framework to estimate relative performance of production units when accounting for continuous and discrete background variables. Using insights from recent developments in nonparametric econometrics, we show how conditional efficiency scores can be estimated using a tailored mixed kernel function with a data-driven bandwidth selection. The methodology is applied to the sample of Dutch pupils from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD PISA) data set. We estimate students' performance and the influence of its background characteristics. The results of our application show that several family- and student-specific characteristics have a statistically significant effect on the educational efficiency, while school-level variables do not have impact on performance.