创新点燃“消费升级”

去年的假期——也就是人们消费增多，而消费市场竞争激烈的时候——给我们提供了一个警戒性的事件，那就是利润从销售商转移到了消费者的口袋。只要了解了为什么有些种类的商品销售旺盛，而有些销售却不断下滑，就可以显著地把长期的成功与失败区别开。     

Beyond conjoint analysis: Advances in preference measurement

We identify gaps and propose several directions for future research in preference measurement. We structure our argument around a framework that views preference measurement as comprising three interrelated components: (1) the problem that the study is ultimately intended to address; (2) the design of the preference measurement task and the data collection approach; (3) the specification and estimation of a preference model, and the conversion into action. Conjoint analysis is only one special case within this framework. We summarize cutting edge research and identify fruitful directions for future investigations pertaining to the framework’s three components and to their integration.     

Tax competition when firms choose their organizational form: Should tax loopholes for multinationals be closed?

We analyze a sequential game between two symmetric countries when firms can invest in a multinational structure that confers tax savings. Governments are able to commit to long-run tax discrimination policies before firms' decisions are made and before statutory capital tax rates are chosen non-cooperatively. Whether a coordinated reduction in the tax preferences granted to mobile firms is beneficial or harmful for the competing countries depends critically on the elasticity with which the firms' organizational structure responds to tax discrimination incentives. A model extension with countries of different size shows that small countries are likely to grant more tax preferences than larger ones, along with having lower effective tax rates.     

Impact of government-sponsored pollution prevention practices on environmental compliance and enforcement: evidence from a sample of US manufacturing facilities

A two-way fixed effects Poisson model is used to investigate the impact of 43 EPA-sponsored pollution prevention (P2) practices on compliance and enforcement for a sample of facilities in the US manufacturing sector. I find that P2 adoption reduces environmental violations in three industries while increasing violations in two others. P2 adoption also spurs fewer enforcement actions in three industries. I further partition the P2 practices into three categories based on their approach to improve environmental performance. In doing so, I find that practices that involve changes in operating procedures—about a third of adopted P2 practices—such as instituting a self-inspection and monitoring program to discover spills or leak sources, improving maintenance scheduling and/or labeling procedures, are effective in reducing violations while practices that involve equipment or material changes are not. I also find that adopters of practices that require changes in either procedures or manufacturing equipment—about half of adopted practices—are rewarded with a more cooperative treatment of environmental infractions with fewer enforcement actions.     

UNDERSTANDING THE LONG‐RUN DECLINE IN INTERSTATE MIGRATION

We analyze the secular decline in gross interstate migration in the United States from 1991 to 2011. We argue that migration fell because of a decline in the geographic specificity of returns to occupations, together with an increase in workers' ability to learn about other locations before moving. Micro data on earnings and occupations across space provide evidence for lower geographic specificity. Other explanations do not fit the data. A calibrated model formalizes the geographic specificity and information mechanisms and is consistent with cross‐sectional and time‐series evidence. Our mechanisms can explain at least half of the decline in migration.     

Status building: Some reflections on the architectural history of Chartered Accountants' Hall, London, 1889–1893

This paper examines the architectural history of Chartered Accountants' Hall, London, from the point of view of its use by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to confirm and enhance its professional status in the early phase of its existence. Drawing on sociology of the professions literature, the study links the hall with the emergence of the professional headquarters of the main legal and medical bodies on which the Institute of Chartered Accountants based much of its behaviour. A loose model for such buildings is utilized as a framework within which relevant aspects of the detailed history of Chartered Accountants' Hall are elaborated.     

The Hong Kong Government’s Strategy for Promoting Home Ownership — An Approach to Reducing the Decommodifying Effects of Public Housing Services

The Hong Kong Government is a well-known believer in laissez faire values and capitalism. However, it provides massive public housing programmes. In order to reduce the adverse effects of the public housing programmes on capitalism, it has tried to promote the recommodification of public housing by encouraging and assisting public housing tenants to become home owners. The aim of this paper is to study the Hong Kong Government’s measures for promoting home ownership. It is argued that these measures are not very effective in reducing the decommodifying effects of the public housing services. Despite the fact that these measures aim to reduce people’s dependence on the government and to help them to re-establish their relation with the private market, they are paradoxically also a kind of decommodification — people can enjoy some benefits independently of how they perform in the private market. Hence, it can be said that the government’s measures for promoting home ownership serve more to change the form than to reduce the degree of the decommodification of the public housing services. Le gouvernement de Hong Kong est un partisan bien connu du laissez-faire et du capitalisme. Il fournit néanmoins des programmes massifs de logement public. Afin de réuire les effets adverses que les programmes de logement public ont sur le capitalisme, il a essayé de promouvoir la recommercialisation du logement public en encourageant et en aidant les locataires du logement public à devenir propriétaires. Le but de cet article est d’étudier les mesures que le gouvernement de Hong Kong a prises afin de promouvoir l’accès à la propriété. Cet essai soutient que ces mesures ne sont pas très efficaces pour réduire les effets de décommercialisation qu’ont les services de logement public. Bien qu’elles aient pour but de réduire la dépendance des habitants du gouvernement et de les aider à rétablir leur rapport avec le marché privé, elles sont aussi, paradoxicalement, une espèce de décommercialisation — dont les gens peuvent bénéficier indépendamment de leur performance sur le marché privé. On peut donc dire que les mesures prises par le gouvernement pour promouvoir l'accès à la propriété servent plus à changer la forme de la décommercialisation des services de logement public qu’à en réduire leur niveau.     

Contending voices: futures, culture and development

This essay discusses some aspects of the World Commission on Culture and Development (WCCD), a major UN initiative. It describes, in particular, the fate of a proposal to establish a General Agreement on Culture and Development (GACD) similar to other international agreements, but which takes a ‘bottom-up’ rather than a ‘top-down’ approach to negotiation. The proposed GACD would contribute to the resolution of culture-related crises and promote new directions for development based on cultural diversity and shared global values. The aim of the essay is: to indicate the aims and progress of the Commission; to consider how cultural futures-oriented thinking might assist in the conceptualization of a GACD; and to reflect on how different voices within the world community affect the progress of such initiatives and proposals.     

Experimental socio-economic models of Europe

The work described here was carried out as part of a Study Contract sponsored by the European Commission, to examine the feasibility of constructing mathematical socio-economic models of regional issues in the European zone. The final model would include numerous economic and demographic variables, including representations of trade between the EEC and other regions of the world. This article discusses the main problems in constructing a final model and indicates its various possible forms.