《北京宣言》：世卫组织历史又一里程碑

2008年11月召开的世界卫生组织传统医学大会专门针对传统医药问题进行讨论，并准备了一份提议性文件——《北京宣言》。在《北京宣言》中，各成员认识到传统医药在提高公共健康方面的作用，并支持在适当情况下将其纳入国家医疗系统之中。     

大学教育的目的

大学教育与将来的职业选择没有必然的关系,大学教育没有任何实用主义的目的,它本身就是好的。它可以学会如何安排有限的事情,并最大化一个人的现实经历的意义。除此之外,大学教育对于道德和情感教育也十分重要。     

Total Factor Productivity and Efficiency of Australian Airports

By using a Malmquist total factor productivity index and data envelopment analysis it is possible to investigate the efficiency and productivity of Australian airports during the 1990s. The results from this analysis indicate that these airports recorded strong growth in technological change and total factor productivity, but did not fare all that well in terms of growth in technical and scale efficiency during the 1990s. At the international level it appears that Australia's largest airports fare reasonably well in comparison to airports overseas, although they still possess the potential to realise further gains.     

Revisiting the convergence hypothesis for tourism markets: Evidence from Turkey using the pairwise approach

This paper empirically revisits the tourism markets convergence hypothesis (Narayan, 2006) for the case of Turkey by employing the newly developed pairwise approach to the analysis of stochastic convergence ( [Pesaran, 2007] and [Pesaran et?al., 2009]). This new approach allows for unit root tests to be conducted on all possible pairs of tourist arrival differentials across Turkey’s 20 major tourist source markets, thus avoiding the need to choose a base source market or total tourist arrivals figure as the benchmark. Using monthly data over the period January 1996 to December 2009, the main finding is that despite considerable ‘co-movement’ of international tourist arrivals in Turkey, there is no evidence of long-run ‘convergence’ among Turkey’s major tourism markets. Cluster-based club convergence analyses alongside bivariate pairwise estimations confirm the lack of convergence and highlight specific tourist source markets with considerable untapped potential. These findings have profound policy implications for Turkey’s inbound tourism planning and promotion.     

Trade Integration and Business Cycle Convergence: Is the Relation Robust across Time and Space?*

In this paper we investigate the relationship between trade intensity and the business cycle correlation using a panel data set taken from 24 countries over the period 1959–2003. Most previous studies did not account for the possibility that the business cycle correlation may be influenced by unobservable country‐pair specific effects. Our estimates, using both fixed‐ and random‐effects methodologies, suggest that trade intensity and the business cycle correlation are positively related to one another. However, detailed investigation shows that this relationship exists mainly for the European countries.     

Immigrant earnings differentials in Canada: A more general specification of age and experience effects

This paper investigates empirically the role of age and arrival cohort effects on immigrant earnings differentials. The dataset used consists of a sample of 5,069 adult Canadian male employees from the 1973 Job Mobility Survey, a non-census dataset that provides information on actual work experience, language attributes, and numerous parental family background characteristics. It thus allows a more general specification of foreign-born/native-born earnings differentials, particularly the effects of age, work experience and years since immigration. The results confirm the importance of cross-sectional age cohort effects and refine previous findings on arrival cohort effects. Sample selectivity bias is investigated and found to be significant only when respondent's occupation is not controlled for. Adjustment for sample selection bias leaves essentially unchanged the main findings.For their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at a Labour Economics Conference at The University of Western Ontario, the authors would like to thank Martin Dooley, John Vanderkamp, Hank Farber, David Card and John Abowd. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the useful comments offered by members of the Labor Economics/Institute for Research on Poverty Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an anonymous referee. The authors, of course, retain full responsibility for all remaining errors and shortcomings. The first version of this paper was written while the second author was visiting the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

Food and agricultural marketing in China

The author reports on the marketing and distribution system in China, the world's most populous country. He examines the scope and dimension of the system, the incentives for production, the various marketing channels, transport, seasonal pricing, locational differences, consumer services, and prices and margins. The marketing system is relatively simple but effective, does not offer a wide consumer choice but provides basic requirements for all. As mechanization enables increased productivity the author expects more land to be made available to produce a wider range of foods.     

Potential Welfare Losses Due to Tied Food Aid

Potential welfare losses for aid recipients due to conditions which have accompanied or have been proposed to accompany food aid are examined, and optimal (second-best) policy responses are found. Food aid is tied to importation of specific commodities, often at concessional terms rather than as an outright grant. Further conditions are imposed by donors to direct the use of the aid to achieve donor objectives. Constraints on consumption, production and importation of the aid good are considered here using a standard two-good trade theoretic model. Potential welfare losses due to income redistributional effects are also considered when factors are immobile between sectors. The primary gain from food aid equals the foreign exchange saved due to the concessional terms offered. The recipient then incurs a cost to meet donor conditions which can exceed that primary benefit. The extent to which consumption, production or importation is driven from optimality, the magnitude of the grant component of the food aid. and the extent of distribution of food aid to food producers relative to their loss in marketed surplus determine the likelihood that welfare losses can occur. An active tax and subsidy policy directly altering consumption. production, importation or income distribution is necessary to meet donor conditions and maximize social welfare. Les bénéficiaires de I'aide son! Exposés à une diminution possible du Pouvoir d'Achat, diminution provoquée par les mesures qui ont accompagné ou qui sont suceptibles d'accompagner la politique des subventions alimentaires. Ces mesures sont tout d'abord examinees, pour être, ensuite, optimalisées par le choix d'une juste politique. L'aide alimentaire est le plus souvent liée à Importation de denrees spécifiques distribuées avec des concessions partielles de prix plulôl qu'en lermes de subvention complete. De plus, certaines conditions sont imposees par les donneurs réglemenlant l'emploi de la subvention dans le but d'atteindre les objeclifs que ces derniers se sont fixes. On considerera les contraintes posées sur la consommation, la production el 1'importation des biens, comme faisanl partie d'un modele théorique normalise ou se négocient deux biens. On lient également compte des diminutions possibles du Pouvoir d'Achatprovoqueespar les effects de redistribution du revenu, dans le cas ou les agents économiques sont immobile! enlre les differents secteurs. Le premier bénéfice de I'aide alimentaire égale en fail les économies réalisees sur le change extérieur, ainsi done apporte par les differentes concessions. Le bénéficiaire supporte ensuite desfrais, ceux-ci pouvant dépasser le bénéfice initial, dans le but de rèpondre aux conditions du donneur. La maniére dont on atleint 1'optimalite dans le cas de la consommation, de la production ou de 1'importation d'eterminera la probability avec laquelle des diminutions du Pouvoir d'Achat peuvent seproduire. II en sera de méme lors du choix de I'importance de la subvention alimentaire nette et de l'étendue de la distribution de cette derniére aux producteurs, leurs produils etant confrontés à un surplus de l'offre sur le marché. Une laxe directe combinée d'une politique de subsides modifianl directemenl la consommation. la production 1'importation ou la distribution des revenus, est done nécessaire pour répondre aux conditions des donneurs et maximiser le bien-être social.