Externalities from Intra-Firm Trade by U.S. Multinationals

International Advances in Economic Research - The share of world trade attributed to intra-firm trade is large and fast-growing. This paper offers new information on the welfare outcome of these...     

美国清洁能源与安全法案概览及对中国的影响

由于美国是世界主要的温室气体排放上的重要国家,所以美国在应对气候变化上面的政策举措和立法备受瞩目。本文从多个角度全面的介绍了美国众议院于2009年6月通过的美国清洁能源与安全法案。着重反映了该法案的立法过程、主要内容、争议焦点以及各方对此法案的反响。并在此基础上,结合中国的目前的实际,总结美国在此立法上的得失,提出了中国可以借鉴的内容。同时也为中国将来采取何种减排措施作了分析,给出了相应的建议。     

A General Method of Deriving the Inefficiencies of Banks from a Profit Function

This article develops a new method of estimating inefficiencies in joint production and shows that unlike the approaches utilized in the previous studies of inefficiency, this method maintains a consistent relationship between the error term of a profit function and the error terms of its price derivatives. A useful by-product of the method is a proof of a Hotelling-like lemma that relates stochastic input demand and output supply functions to stochastic profit functions. While the previous studies fit a single frontier to data on all firms, this paper estimates a frontier unique to every observed firm to allow each one to have a different potential of achieving maximal levels of profit. The new method is applied in the analysis of annual data, 1984–1989, for U.S. commercial banks. Both the analytical and numerical results of the paper show that the residual that the previous studies attribute to inefficiency includes the effects of excluded variables and of inaccuracies in the specified functional forms. Once accurate estimates of these effects are subtracted from the residual, the distortions in the measured inefficiencies should be considerably reduced. Consequently, this article considers how such estimates might be obtained.     

May’s theorem in an infinite setting

We generalize May’s theorem to an infinite setting, preserving the elementary character of the original theorem. We define voting scenarios and generalized voting scenarios, and prove appropriate versions of May’s theorem. The case of generalized voting scenarios specialized to a countably infinite set of voters and the collections of all coalitions that have asymptotic density, shows that majority rule is the only aggregation rule that satisfies neutrality, irrelevance of null coalitions, anonymity, and positive responsiveness.     

Purchasing Power Parities for Industry Comparisons Using Weighted Elteto–Koves–Szulc (EKS) Methods

This study has three main objectives. First, it develops a generalization of the commonly used EKS method to multilateral price comparisons. It is shown that the EKS system can be generalized so that weights can be attached to each of the link comparisons used in the EKS computations. These weights can account for differing levels of reliability of the underlying binary comparisons. Second, various reliability measures and corresponding weighting schemes are presented and their merits discussed. Finally, these new methods are applied to an international data set of manufacturing prices from the ICOP project. Although theoretically superior, it appears that the empirical impact of the weighted EKS method is generally small compared to the unweighted EKS. It is also found that this impact is larger when it is applied at lower levels of aggregation. Finally, the importance of using sector specific PPPs in assessing relative levels of manufacturing productivity is indicated.     

美国联邦政府政务公开制度的实践及启示

美国联邦政府的政务公开制度包括两大方面：政府信息的公开和政府会议的公开。规范前者的法律是《信息自由法》和《隐私法》，规范后者的法律是《阳光下的政府法》和《联邦咨询委员会法》。两者都与政务公开和公民的知情权有关。本文通过对四部法案背景、主要规定的介绍，揭示了美国政务公开制度的核心内容，同时考察了政务公开法案实施的现状。最后，本文还结合中国实际，论述了我们可以借鉴的方面。     

Overall survival,costs, and healthcare resource use by line of therapy in Medicare patients with newly diagnosed metastatic urothelial carcinoma

Aims: Medicare patients with metastatic or surgically unresectable urothelial carcinoma (mUC) often receive platinum-based chemotherapy as first line of therapy (LOT), but invariably progress, requiring additional LOTs and healthcare resource use (HCRU). To better understand the evolving mUC treatment landscape, the economic burden of chemotherapy-based mUC treatments among US Medicare patients was estimated.

Methods: Newly diagnosed Medicare patients with mUC were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database. Patients were followed from diagnosis to death, disenrollment, or end of study to characterize LOTs (first [LOT1], second [LOT2], and third or greater [LOT3+]). Kaplan-Meier methods were used to estimate overall survival (OS) by LOT. HCRU and mean costs were reported over the follow-up period, LOT duration, and maximum LOT received.

Results: Among 1,873 eligible patients with mUC (median age?=?77?years; median follow-up?=?7.5?months), 1,035 (55%) received no chemotherapy. Among chemotherapy-treated patients, 61% had LOT1 only, 25% had LOT1 and LOT2 only, and 14% had LOT3+. Median OS was 8.1?months, range was 4.3 (untreated) to 29.8 (LOT3+) months. HCRU frequency increased with additional LOTs. Mean cumulative per-patient cost was $82,912 for all patients, increasing with additional LOTs (untreated?=?$57,207; LOT1?=?$99,213; LOT2?=?$125,190; LOT3+?=?$163,884). Mean per patient per month cost was $18,827 for all patients, decreasing with increasing number of LOTs received (untreated?=?$27,211; LOT1?=?$9,601; LOT2?=?$7,325; LOT3+?=?$6,017).

Limitations: Potential for treatment misclassification when using the algorithm defining LOTs and non-generalizability of results to younger patients.

Conclusions: Over 50% of Medicare patients with mUC received no chemotherapy. Among chemotherapy-treated patients, most received only one LOT. Additional LOTs led to higher mean costs and HCRU, but as patients were followed longer, monthly costs decreased. As treatments evolve to include immuno-oncology agents, these findings provide a clinically relevant economic benchmark for mUC treatment across different traditional LOTs.     

Timing decisions of new product preannouncement and launch with competition

We develop a game-theoretic model to study the timing of new product preannouncement and launch under competition. We derive firms’ optimal timing choices and conducted a numerical analysis to evaluate the role of various factors. Our analytical and numerical results showed that anticipated competitor’s timing choices are the most significant factors. A firm should not preannounce early unless the preannouncement is effective in creating pent-up demands. However, the preannouncement and launch should be rushed if the quality or profit margin of the new product is high, and postponed if the market share of the existing product is high. The market leader should preannounce earlier in a simultaneous game than in a sequential game, but the opposite for the market follower. Data collected from the microprocessor industry validated our model.     

城市产业发展战略的三大课题

城市发展战略是城市管理导引的主导性环节。城市产业发展战略是城市发展战略的核心内容。在当前形势下,我国城市产业发展战略面临以下三大课题:面对“入世”对我国提出的挑战和机遇,城市产业应提出“应对战略”;面对知识经济的到来和我国与发达国家存在的差距,城市产业应提出“追赶战略”;面对我国城市产业发展自身长期存在的不协调和不适应问题,城市产业应提出“调整战略”。