影响东莞外来人口流动时间因素的分析

根据第五次人口普查资料，东莞市普查总人口为644．57万人。比1990年第四次全国人口普查增加了470．40万人，其中本市户籍人口154．51万人，比1990年第四次全国人口普查增加了22．66万人，10年中增长了17．2％，略低于广东省户籍人口平均增长率21．4％的水平。东莞市2000年外来人口为490．06万人，是户籍人口的3．17倍，外来人口比1990年增加447．74万人，年均增长44．8万人，年增长率27．75％，是户籍人口年增长率的17．4倍，比广东省外来人口平均年增长率17．64％还高出近10个百分点。由此可见过去10年间东莞市外来人口的增加规模以及速度。     

The influence of strategic patterns of internationalization on the accuracy and bias of earnings forecasts by financial analysts

This paper examines how financial analysts’ earnings per share forecasts are affected by strategic patterns that multinational firms have used to expand abroad. Prior empirical studies have examined a firm's internationalization level as a one-dimensional construct involving increased task complexity for financial analysts’ forecasting and therefore resulting in lower accuracy and greater optimistic bias in earnings forecasts. In contrast, we use two strategic patterns of internationalization associated with geographic dispersion and cross-border integration to characterize a firm's international strategy, and find different empirical results using a sample of U.S. public companies with domestic and international operations. The empirical evidence suggests that geographic dispersion contributes to increases in forecasting accuracy and decreases in optimistic bias. Further, the results support that cross-border integration leads to decreases in forecasting accuracy. The two strategic patterns of internationalization are a consequence of managerial choices and therefore these results are important for managers, investors and shareholders as they help explain the linkages between international strategies and earnings forecasts by financial analysts.     

Foreign Banks in Transition Countries: To Whom Do They Lend and How Are They Financed?

We use focused interviews with managers of foreign parent banks and their affiliates in Central Europe and the Baltic States to analyze the small‐business lending and internal capital markets of multinational financial institutions. Our approach allows us to complement the standard empirical literature, which has difficulty in analyzing important issues such as lending technologies and capital allocation. We find that the acquisition of local banks by foreign banks has not led to a persistent bias in these banks' credit supply toward large multinational corporations. Instead, increased competition and the improvement of subsidiaries' lending technologies have led foreign banks to gradually expand into the SME and retail markets. Second, it is demonstrated that local bank affiliates are strongly influenced by the capital allocation and credit steering mechanisms of the parent bank.     

Mass Society and Political Conflict: Toward a Reconstruction of Theory

Many recent studies in economics have uncovered the economic and socio-economic factors that are most related to differences among nations in citizens' self-reported levels of well-being (SWB). However, these cross-country studies have generally not taken into account the fact that around the SWB national average, a considerable spread of scores exists within nations. In an extreme case, a country may be in the midst of a major social upheaval, with a large group of dispossessed and disadvantaged individuals, yet this fact is completely hidden by the arithmetical average. Using cross-country data with diverse economic and socio-economic characteristics and the latest available dataset on well-being, we uncover the factors that appear to be the most highly correlated with the inequality of well-being within nations. We find the inequalities in individual incomes and quality of health, and the level of institutional qualities to be most important in explaining the inequalities of well-being.     

An Afriat Theorem for the collective model of household consumption

We provide a nonparametric ‘revealed preference’ characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general individual preferences that can be non-convex. Our main result is the Collective Afriat Theorem, which parallels the well-known Afriat Theorem for the unitary model. First, it provides a characterization of collectively rational consumption behavior in terms of collective Afriat inequalities. Next, it implies the Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP) as a testable necessary and sufficient condition for data consistency with collective rationality. Finally, the theorem has some interesting testability implications. With only a finite set of observations, the nature of consumption externalities (positive or negative) in the intra-household allocation process is non-testable. The same non-testability conclusion holds for privateness (with or without externalities) or publicness of consumption. By contrast, concavity of individual utility functions (representing convex preferences) turns out to be testable. In addition, monotonicity is testable for the model that assumes all household consumption is public.     

Attaining Sustainable Farm Management Systems in Semi-Arid Areas in Kenya: Few Technical Options,Many Policy Challenges

Soils in arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) are fragile, low in fertility and susceptible to erosion and leaching. To address these problems, activities were implemented in 1998–2003 to identify current problems, and design, test, implement, demonstrate and disseminate improved, integrated soil fertility management techniques. Current soil fertility management results in slightly negative nutrient balances, especially for phosphorus and potassium. Recycling of nutrients through crop residues and animal manure is inefficient, with evidently high losses. Due to the relatively high price of fertilisers and the high risks of crop failure, use of mineral fertilisers is restricted to market-oriented farms with access to irrigation facilities. Of the total farm household population, 35–85% lives below the poverty line. Applying higher rates of Farm Yard Manure (FYM) and/or fertilisers is unattractive and risky. Combinations of FYM and fertilisers give better financial returns than either of the two alone. Where irrigation is available, farmers adopt innovative farming systems that include higher application of mineral and organic fertilisers, and result in higher and more stable yields and higher financial returns. A set of specific policy measures for the semi-arid areas were identified to arrive at necessary changes in the economic environment, leading to a wider range of financially attractive technology options for smallholders.     

Education and social mobility

This paper shows that the design of education policy involves a potential conflict between welfare and social mobility. We consider a setting in which social mobility is maximized under the least elitist public education system, whereas welfare maximization calls for the most elitist system. We show that when private education is available, the degree of elitism that maximizes social mobility increases, while the welfare-maximizing degree of elitism decreases. The ranking between the welfare- and mobility-maximizing degrees of elitism may even be reversed. Utilitarian welfare is always higher when private supplementary education is available, but social mobility may be reduced.