Consequences of Economic Partnership Agreements between East and Southern African Countries and the EU for Inter- and Intra-regional Integration

Abstract

The European Union is currently negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with six African, Caribbean and Pacific country groupings, aiming at establishing mutual free trade. This paper empirically assesses the impact of the EPAs on trade flows and government revenues for 22 East and Southern African countries and discusses implications for intra-regional integration. The results indicate that while moderate trade effects can be expected, relatively large budget effects are likely to occur in a number of these countries, exposing them to considerable structural and financial adjustment requirements. In addition, EPAs would strengthen the need to consolidate overlapping intra-regional integration schemes.     

Economic freedom in the long run: evidence from OECD countries (1850–2007)

This article presents historical indices for the main dimensions of economic freedom and an aggregate index for the developed countries of today, specifically pre‐1994 OECD members. Economic liberty expanded over the last century‐and‐a‐half, reaching more than two‐thirds of its possible maximum. However, its evolution has been far from linear. After a substantial improvement from the mid‐nineteenth century, the First World War brought a major setback. The postwar recovery up to 1929 was followed by a dramatic decline in the 1930s. Significant progress took place during the 1950s but fell short of the pre‐First World War peak. After a period of stagnation, steady expansion since the early 1980s has resulted in the highest levels of economic liberty of the last two centuries. Each of the main dimensions of economic freedom exhibited a distinctive trend and its contribution to the aggregate index varied over time. Overall, improved property rights provided the main contribution to the long‐run advancement of economic liberty.     

政府公共服务的企业化改革

传统政府治理中的一个误区是忽视服务提供和服务主体之间的区别，进而错误地认为如果政府放弃了服务生产者的功能，它自然就放弃了服务提供者的角色。政府的自信甚至自负导致公共物品垄断性的直接生产模式，它所伴随的高成本，低效率，质量不尽人意和回应性的缺乏，不仅损坏了公众对政府的信任，而且无端耗费了公共资源，导致普遍的低效。     

The surprising benefits of a parallel universe

Suppose that the successful completion of a project requires performing n tasks, each of which has a probability of success p. The paper establishes under what conditions it may be profitable to engage in parallel multi‐tasking, i.e. tackling each task by following two independent routes. It is found that for ?n>1 parallel multi‐tasking is profitable for a wide range of parameters when costs are linear and is always profitable for convex costs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HEATH–JARROW–MORTON INTEREST RATE DYNAMICS AND APPROXIMATELY CONSISTENT FORWARD RATE CURVES

We study a finite-dimensional approach to the Heath–Jarrow–Morton model for interest rate and introduce a notion of approximate consistency for a family of functions in a deterministic and stochastic framework. This amounts to asking the decrease of the minimum distance in least squares sense. We start from a general linearly parameterized set of functions and extend the theory to a nonlinear Nelson–Siegel family. Necessary and sufficient condition to have approximately consistency are given as well as a criterion of stability for the approximation.     

Continuity,Change, and New Product Performance: The Role of Stream Concentration*

Product development teams often face the challenge of designing radically new products that cater at the same time to the revealed tastes and expectations of existing customers. In new product development projects, this tension guides critical choices about continuity or change concerning product attributes and team composition. Research suggests these choices interact, but it is not clear whether they are complements or substitutes and if the level of change in one should match or not the level of change in the other. In this article, we examine the interaction between product attribute change, team change, and a new team-level factor, which we term stream concentration, as it captures differences among team members in terms of familiarity with the knowledge domain of the new product being developed. We measure stream concentration as team members’ prior NPD experience within a given set of products and assess its impacts on the management of change in new product development projects using longitudinal data from the music industry. We analyze 2621 new product development projects between 1962 and 2008 involving 34,265 distinct team members. Results show that stream concentration is a critical factor in new product development projects that, together with product attributes and team composition, affects new product performance. We discuss implications for research and practice.     

A NEW MULTIPLICATIVE DECOMPOSITION FOR THE FOSTER–GREER–THORBECKE POVERTY INDICES

This paper shows that Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty indices can be written as the product of components summarizing the incidence, intensity and inequality dimensions of poverty and provides an empirical illustration of the decomposition using Spanish household budget surveys data.     

城市创新生态指标体系构建及广州-深圳比较研究

城市创新生态是指城市中政府、企业、机构及人等行为主体的创新过程中所依赖的城市基本"生态"状况。城市创新生态对于城市创新因素积聚,促进城市内部创新行为主体创新行为有重要作用。各城市创新生态具有不同的特色,创新生态水平也不同。以广州和深圳为例,基于问卷、访谈及数据统计资料,通过建立测度城市创新生态水平的指标体系,运用层次分析法及特尔菲法相结合的综合评价方法,对广州与深圳城市创新生态水平进行评价。研究表明:广州与深圳城市综合创新生态水平基本处于相当地位,广州略优于深圳。在城市创新生态的各个具体方面上,广州与深圳则各有优劣。