Business economics in a post-truth era

Business economists face increasing challenges at this political and policymaking juncture. “Experts” and economists are out of favor with the public and with certain policymakers. In response, business economists should be frank about our failures and the limits of our models. We can then be ready to defend truth against falsehood. In our defense of fact-based decision making, we must first assert that data matter, and the unbiased integrity of that data matters. We must support and defend the work of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Census Bureau. Business economists must be story tellers, transmitting historical memory of past crises, of past attacks on our profession and data sources (such President Nixon’s targeting of the Bureau of Labor Statistics).     

单车场无时间窗甩挂运输车辆调度的启发式算法

考虑了牵引车空驶、带空挂车行驶和带重挂车行驶所引起的成本差异，定义了牵引车运行成本的概念，将总运行成本最小作为调度方案优劣的判别指标，并同时考虑牵引车数量最少。将牵引任务分为四种类型，定义了任务链、虚拟任务、链内交叉和链间交叉的概念，提出了一种求解该类单车场甩挂运输车辆调度无时间窗约束的启发式算法，包括初始调运方案、链内优化、空车调运交叉、牵引车数量优化和链间交叉。最后给出了仿真算例，算法优化后的最终方案与初始方案相比，牵引车数量减少，总运行成本降低，验证了算法的有效性和可行性。     

Intensity of R&D competition and the generation of innovations in heterogeneous setting

This paper discusses the role of technological spillovers and technological races in dynamic strategic interactions setup. Two firms invest simultaneously into new products creation and into further development of the quality of these products. Each firm may benefit from the costless technological spillover in case of technological leadership of the other firm. At the same time they cooperate in the joint creation of new products. Three different scenarios emerge: constant technological leadership, the technological leapfrogging and symmetric outcome with or without potential spillovers. R&D is maximal for the first scenario and minimal for the symmetric play under the threat of spillover with endogenous specialization of firms’ activities in cases of constant leadership and leapfrogging. Definition of technological competition intensity as inverse to the technology gap allows to recover inverted-U relationship between those two in a multidimensional context.     

An algorithm for panel ANOVA with grouped data

In this paper, we present an algorithm suitable for analysing the variance of panel data when some observations are either given in grouped form or are missed. The analysis is carried out from the perspective of ANOVA panel data models with general errors. The classification intervals of the grouped observations may vary from one to another, thus the missing observations are in fact a particular case of grouping. The proposed Algorithm (1) estimates the parameters of the panel data models; (2) evaluates the covariance matrices of the asymptotic distribution of the time-dependent parameters assuming that the number of time periods, T, is fixed and the number of individuals, N, tends to infinity and similarly, of the individual parameters when T → ∞ and N is fixed; and, finally, (3) uses these asymptotic covariance matrix estimations to analyse the variance of the panel data.     

Inflation and the Exchange Rate: The Role of Aggregate Demand Elasticity

This paper examines the effect of aggregate demand elasticity on the exchange rate when inflation occurs. We discover that both the source of the inflation, whether demand-pull or cost-push, and the elasticity of aggregate demand with respect to the price level, are of consequence for the exchange rate. We obtain two primary conclusions. First, the effect on the exchange rate of cost push inflation is ambiguous and is partially determined by the price level elasticity of aggregate demand. In particular, and assuming that the two examined countries have equivalent aggregate supply elasticities, we conclude that the nation with the less elastic aggregate demand function will see its currency appreciate relative to the other. Second, demand-pull inflation results in an unambiguous increase in the exchange rate but the size of that increase is partially a function of aggregate demand elasticity. Assuming again that two countries have equivalent aggregate supply elasticities, that country with the more elastic aggregate demand will experience currency appreciation.     

Computer assisted text analysis in the social sciences

We use the term “Computer Assisted Text Analysis” in a broad sense to refer to a range of current techniques from quantitative social science and content analysis to ‘data mining’ and ‘text classification’, including the analysis of open-ended survey questions, transcribed interviews and speeches, wherever, in fact, the researcher is confronted with data in the form of natural language texts of social scientific interest. These methods are often used in exploratory data analysis, but can also be applied systematically with moderate statistical rigour in the development and testing of hypotheses at various theoretical levels, ranging from the statistics of word usage to changes within or between discourses over time. The general approach is in the tradition of content analysis, by which words which occur together in relatively close proximity in the same context are interpreted as relating to a common theme or concept in the discourse studied. We review a comprehensive set of tools to identify and visualize structures of co-occurrence of words and concepts both within, and in comparing, a number of texts. These produce results not essentially different from those reached by representing word co-occurrences in terms of network analysis or neural network programming using schematic linguistic templates of various kinds. A comparison of the relational data analysis vs. a dictionary-based MDS approach shows that these provide very close if not identical results, despite the fact that the underlying assumptions are frequently represented as different theoretical approaches.     

基于组织协同系统的创客组织发展稳定性实证分析

创客组织是实现组织协同创新的重要载体。创客位于组织协同系统的核心层，创客入驻创客组织的创新状态决定了协同创新发展状态；创客组织位于组织协同系统的中间层，起组织协调作用，其发展稳定性影响着整个系统；协同组织位于外部层，其参与程度决定了整个系统的组织协同和协同创新吸引能力。基于波动系数计量模型，对240家创客组织的12项评价指标进行分析，结果显示，以高校主导的创客组织衡量指标波动系数为标准，创客组织在整体上处于发展不稳定状态；分类别分析结果表明，高校和科研院所主导的创客组织发展稳定性明显优于企业和个人主导的创客组织。研究结果可以为完善创新政策、促进创客组织稳健发展提供参考。     

地方人大中的地域代表现象探析——基于五省市人大代表建议的内容分析

本文试图探析在中国地方人大中是否存在地域性代表及其相关因素。通过收集和分析2017年国内五省市人大收到的近四千条代表建议,发现在地方人大代表的履职行为中,一定范围内存在从整体资源中为选区争取利益的现象。进一步回归分析的结果显示:来自经济发展水平相对较低的地区的代表,更倾向于提出地域性建议;由代表联名提出的建议更可能是地域性建议;担任地方党政领导职务的省市人大代表,在提出建议时更倾向于提出地域性建议。上述实证发现对中国地方人大地域性代表的实现机制提供了初步启发性证据,也有助于丰富我们对非竞选体制下的政治代表性和回应性机制的理解。