Does a stricter enforcement policy protect the environment? A political economy perspective

The conventional wisdom suggests that a stricter enforcement policy can reduce pollution emissions. Nevertheless, this present paper argues that this assertion does not necessarily hold if the stringency of environmental regulation is subject to the influence of lobbying. A stricter enforcement policy increases the polluters’ expected financial burden, and induces them to exert greater political pressure on reducing the stringency of environmental regulation, thereby resulting in a larger amount of pollution emissions. We also show that tightening the enforcement policy can reduce efficiency. We highlight the possibility of policymaking being misguided due to overlooking the political effect of enforcement policy.     

S&P Downgrade Positive for China's Stock Market in the Long Run

The Standard & Poor's(S&P) rating agency announced Friday night(August 5) that it has downgraded the U.S.debt from a stellar AAA rating by a notch to AA+,and lowered the outlook on the new U.S.credit rating to negative, indicating that another downgrade was possible within one year or two.After the downgrade,it was largely expected     

2011-2012年中国宏观经济分析与预测——复苏放缓、风险上扬与结构刚性冲击下的中国宏观经济

本文通过全面总结2011年中国宏观经济的3大表现,利用中国人民大学宏观经济预测模型,指出2012年中国将面临外部经济放缓、内部房地产市场深度调整、泡沫经济逆转以及金融风险加剧的冲击,但在结构刚性的约束下,政府将全面转变政策定位,从而保证中国经济在加速回落中实现反弹,全年经济增长呈现“前低后缓”的模式.     

A Generic Framework for Automated Multi-attribute Negotiation

Agents in a negotiation may have to negotiate multiple issues simultaneously. Automated multi-attribute negotiation provides an important mechanism for distributed decision makers to reach agreements on multiple issues. Moreover, it also furnishes the opportunity to reach “win–win” solutions. In this paper, we first provide a survey that synthesizes the research on multi-attribute negotiation. We discuss the limitations of the existing research and conclude that three key issues need further study: incomplete information, Pareto optimality, and tractability. We then present a generic framework for automated multi-attribute negotiation with two new mechanisms that address the above issues. Finally, we discuss the challenges and directions for future work.     

Service quality gaps of business customers in the shipping industry

This paper extends the gaps model of [Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. 1990. Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectation. The Free Press, New York] from the service provider to the business customer side by examining two service quality (SQ) gaps. One is the SQ gap between types of business customers and the other is the SQ gap among employee statuses of business customers. Besides that, the five-factor SERVQUAL measure as the initial hypothesized model is also tested. The applicability of SERVQUAL to measuring the perceived SQ of customers in the shipping industry of Taiwan is rejected empirically. The existence of the two hypothesized gaps is verified by the method of MANOVA.     

The incremental value of a futures hedge using realized volatility

A number of prior studies have developed a variety of multivariate volatility models to describe the joint distribution of spot and futures, and have applied the results to form the optimal futures hedge. In this study, the authors propose a new class of multivariate volatility models encompassing realized volatility (RV) estimates to estimate the risk‐minimizing hedge ratio, and compare the hedging performance of the proposed models with those generated by return‐based models. In an out‐of‐sample context with a daily rebalancing approach, based on an extensive set of statistical and economic performance measures, the empirical results show that improvement can be substantial when switching from daily to intraday. This essentially comes from the advantage that the intraday‐based RV potentially can provide more accurate daily covariance matrix estimates than RV utilizing daily prices. Finally, this study also analyzes the effect of hedge horizon on hedge ratio and hedging effectiveness for both the in‐sample and the out‐of‐sample data. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 30:874–896, 2010     

伊朗局势前景走向及其影响分析

2011年末以来,伊朗紧张局势不断升级,其背后体现的是美欧等西方国家对中东地区的利益追求和战略控制。未来伊朗局势发展有多种可能,不确定性较大。如果伊朗局势进一步恶化,将导致国际油价面临剧烈波动,拖累世界经济复苏,进而对我国石油供应和经济发展带来较大冲击,我国石油企业亦将受到重大影响,须及早谋划,做好应对准备。建议:在国家层面上,密切跟踪伊朗局势变化,加强危机预警和应对能力;在企业层面上,灵活调整应对策略,努力保证国内油气平稳供应。     

Estimation of the Natural Unemployment Rate in the Russian Federation, 1994–2004

To specify the problem of unemployment in Russia, we estimate the natural rate of unemployment by consecutively estimating the optimal size of the labour force and the optimal employment. For estimation of the optimal values we used a modified Hodrick–Prescott filter technique. The results show that the natural rate of unemployment in Russia during 1994–97 was stable around 13–13.5% and decreased to 7.1% by mid-2004. Moreover, before 1998 the actual unemployment was significantly lower than the natural rate and today practically equals it.     

Perceptual differences between recruiters and students on the importance of applicant and job characteristics: a research note based on evidence from Singapore

This study compared the perceptions of various important job applicant characteristics, job characteristics and job benefits between 107 corporate recruiters and 191 business undergraduates in Singapore. Results indicated significant incongruence between recruiter and student perceptions of a large number of job characteristics and benefits. However, perceptual differences were less extensive in the case of applicant attributes. The implications of these findings, and suggestions for greater perceptual congruence between recruiters and applicants, are discussed.     

风险为本的反洗钱监管动态评估体系建设研究

本文通过梳理国际上风险为本的反洗钱监管模式,结合我国实际,构建了一套比较全面的金融机构洗钱风险评估指标体系,并运用该体系对辖区20家金融机构进行了评估,分析了开展评估存在的问题,并提出建议.