Firm location choice in cities: Evidence from China,India, and Brazil

This paper contributes to the industrial location literature by examining why industry locates or refrains from locating in large, medium and small cities of India, China and Brazil using firm-level data from the World Bank. Results from ordered logistic regressions indicate that capital cities are not attractive for firms to locate, when they are large. In India and China, labor intensive firms do not locate in large cities. Proximity to inputs has a positive impact on firm location in China. While availability of inputs has a positive impact on firm location in India, the availability of raw materials has a negative impact on firm location in Brazil. Firms established in post-reform period in India tend to locate in large cities; in China, these firms avoid medium and large cities. The implications for urban governance in these countries are discussed.     

来博弈吧!

正经济学家长久以来一直在用博弈论理解世界。如今,工程师和计算机科学家也正在用这个理论重新构思他们的工作。你和一同犯下重大抢劫案的同伙都被警察抓获了,并且被关进不同的房间进行审问。如果你们两个都对犯罪保持沉默,就会被以较轻的罪名判处一年徒刑。如果你们两个都坦白交代,就都会坐5年牢。但是,如果你     

Least squares model averaging by Mallows criterion

This paper is in response to a recent paper by Hansen (2007) who proposed an optimal model average estimator with weights selected by minimizing a Mallows criterion. The main contribution of Hansen’s paper is a demonstration that the Mallows criterion is asymptotically equivalent to the squared error, so the model average estimator that minimizes the Mallows criterion also minimizes the squared error in large samples. We are concerned with two assumptions that accompany Hansen’s approach. The first is the assumption that the approximating models are strictly nested in a way that depends on the ordering of regressors. Often there is no clear basis for the ordering and the approach does not permit non-nested models which are more realistic from a practical viewpoint. Second, for the optimality result to hold the model weights are required to lie within a special discrete set. In fact, Hansen noted both difficulties and called for extensions of the proof techniques. We provide an alternative proof which shows that the result on the optimality of the Mallows criterion in fact holds for continuous model weights and under a non-nested set-up that allows any linear combination of regressors in the approximating models that make up the model average estimator. These results provide a stronger theoretical basis for the use of the Mallows criterion in model averaging by strengthening existing findings.     

Demographics and the long-horizon returns of dividend-yield strategies

This paper investigates the relationship between demographic changes and the long-run returns of dividend-yield investment strategies. We hypothesise that in a world where components of wealth are mentally treated as being non-fungible, the preference for high dividend-paying stocks by older investors means that the excess returns of high dividend-yielding stocks, relative to other stocks, should be positively related to demographic clientele variation. In particular, we find that, consistent with the behavioural life-cycle hypothesis, long-run returns of dividend-yield investment strategies are positively driven by changes in the proportion of the older population. Our results are robust when controlled for the Fama–French factors, inflation rate, consumption growth rate, interest rates, tax clienteles, time trend and alternative definitions of both dividend-yield strategies and demographic variation.     

Liquidity constraint,uncertainty and household consumption in China

This paper investigates the changing roles played by liquidity constraint and uncertainty in accounting for the dynamism of Chinese household consumption behaviour. Starting from the Euler equation-based model of Robert Hall, a framework encompassing an array of consumption models is developed and applied to Chinese data over the period 1961?1998. Empirical results reveal a regime shift in the early 1980s and imply that increases in the proportion of liquidity constrained consumers and increased uncertainty in the post-reform period are responsible for the extremely low consumption or high savings in China. Moreover, it is found that interactions between liquidity constraint and uncertainty reinforce each other's effects and lead to declines in both the level and growth of consumption.     

Interpersonal Relationship,Service Quality,Seller Expertise: How Important Are They to Adolescent Consumers?

Drawing upon social capital theory and psychosocial development theory, this paper argues that a true buyer–seller relationship is a key determinant of favorable consumer behaviors for adolescent consumers of hairstylist services. Other important determinants include quality of the service delivery process (i.e., service quality as measured by the five SERVQUAL factors) and quality of the core service (in this case, the hairstylist's expertise). A survey of 350 adolescent consumers confirms these predictions. It shows that a true interpersonal relationship negatively moderates the positive effects of service quality on consumer satisfaction with, and overall assessment of the hairstylist. This negative moderating effect is labeled resource substitution benefit and the argument made that this is the fourth social capital benefit. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Assessing the role of components of life satisfaction

Factors affecting subjective well-being and their gross effect measurement have been widely studied. However, how people derive utility from these factors has not been fully explored. This article provides a way to decompose the gross effect of major determinants on life satisfaction into direct and indirect effects and make inference for the latter. Because the indirect effect is nonlinear in parameters associated with different models in an equation system, it creates a problem in estimating the standard error. Besides, the categorical nature in survey data further introduces bias to the covariance estimation even asymptotically. To address these issues without knowing the form of heteroskedasticity under the null hypothesis, we propose to extend the wild bootstrap procedure in this particular context. Its robustness against various data properties is validated via several simulation experiments. Using three recent waves of World Values Survey, we find that the relative importance of life control has significantly increased recently, and endowing citizens with the right to enjoy their freedoms and liberties is a more effective policy in raising life satisfaction than promoting national income.     

京津地区金融合作的具体思路

在当前金融中心竞争日益激烈的背景下,京津两地金融合作显得十分必要,本文提出了加强资金流动、共建北方金融中心、加强金融创新合作和金融生态环境合作等具体思路。     

一堂精彩的“理实一体化”课堂教学

文章以校企合作单位上海欧姆龙公司培训教师曾庆球到学校上课为例,介绍了高职院校课程改革中,理实一体化课程的授课过程和授课方式,说明了高职院校课程改革的重要性及其目的。图文并茂,说服力强。     

Values,value types and moral reasoning of MBA students

This study uses the Schwartz Values Questionnaire and version 2 of the Defining Issues Test to investigate the values, value types (clusters of related values) and level of moral reasoning of a sample of 108 MBA students in a Canadian university. There are no statistically significant differences in the levels of moral reasoning attributed to gender. Male and female MBA students rank ‘family security’ and ‘healthy’ as their two most important values. For males, hedonism, achievement and self‐direction are the three most important value types, while for females they are benevolence, hedonism and security, respectively. There are statistically significant gender differences for the value types hedonism, achievement, stimulation and power. Overall, however, there are more similarities than differences between the male and the female students. Regression analysis indicates a statistically significant positive association between the postconventional level of moral reasoning as measured by P‐scores and the value‐type universalism. The findings provide further evidence that value types affect the postconventional level of moral reasoning.