透视安然的崩塌

因安然公布第三季度巨额亏损而引发的安然申请破产案，使这个全美最大的天然气与电力交易商、《财富》“美国500”中的第7强、最富创新精神和成长最快的公司之一，突然崩塌。虽然各种调查正在进行当中，但是不合规的股权货币化运作，与重大关联交易相关的隐藏投资损失和转移资金的黑洞等，可能是造成安然崩塌的部分原因。而少数高级管理人员的贪婪，独立会计审计的纵容，会计与审计制度的弊端，以及资本运作手段的过度使用，无疑是导致安然悲剧的深层原因。     

区域产业簇群的发展与政府职责

本文认为,现代产业簇群是基于地缘关系、产业技术链、同业交往等关系而共生的产生群体,是提高国家经济实力和国际竞争力的重要途径。它的产生与发展是技术进步和社会分工的结果,是产业发展的客观规律,经济全球化是现代产业簇群的必然趋势。为了促进我国产业簇群的发展,文章提出,政府在产业簇群的发展中应遵循产业簇群的发展规律,充分发挥其在重视与定位、研究与规划、宣传与传播、引导与协调、支持与宽容、保障与政策等方面的职能。     

现代金融是21世纪经济运行的轴心

在人类社会进入21世纪的今天,世界经济正在发生一些显著的、甚至是根本性的变化。这种显著变化的重要特征之一就是经济增长的方式和推动经济增长的基础要素正在发生根本性变化。传统经济增长理论认为,经济增长的要素有劳动力、土地和资本(资金),之后又加上了一些生产要素,如管理、信息等。有越来越多的迹象表明,在21世纪经济运行中,这些要素虽然仍将发挥着非常重要的作用,但有两个要素在经济增长过程中所起的作用将比以往任何时候都更加突出,这就是现代科学技术和现代金融。     

The dynamics of positive action in UK trade unions: the case of women and black members

This paper considers positive action strategies amongst UK trade unions, aimed at increasing membership and levels of participation and representation among women and black workers. It provides an overview of women’s, black members’ and race structures within large Trades Union Congress unions and a detailed case study of one large UK trade union. We find that there are salient differences in the way that unions approach issues of gender equality, compared with the approach adopted towards race equality. The paper explores possible explanations, justifications and implications of these differences.     

以设计为核心的质量管理体系

新世纪的来临，凸显出高科技搭上知识经济快速列车的征兆，在加快新产品开发步伐和缩短产品更新换代周期时间方面展示出美好的前景。以信息、技术和学习为基础的知识经济为提高生产率和经济增长开创了新的里程碑。面对这一新时期，更需要有个增值，适宜和有效的质量管理体系作为推进经济活动的发动机。     

建设有自己特色的职教体系——郑州工程学院化工职业学院机电系筹建中的调查与思考

中国的高职教育尚处于起步阶段,无成熟的模式可遵循。任何一所学校要想在激烈的竞争中求生存、图发展,一个重要的前提是:必须准确地自我定位,立足自我特色拓展发展的空间,只有这样才能培养出有鲜明专业特色并适应社会需求的优秀人才,才能使学校在竞争中立于不败之地。文章通过调查有关高职院校职教体系运行中出现的问题,提出了思考意见。     

General‐to‐Specific Model Selection Procedures for Structural Vector Autoregressions*

Structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) models have emerged as a dominant research strategy in empirical macroeconomics, but suffer from the large number of parameters employed and the resulting estimation uncertainty associated with their impulse responses. In this paper, we propose general‐to‐specific (Gets) model selection procedures to overcome these limitations. It is shown that single‐equation procedures are generally efficient for the reduction of recursive SVAR models. The small‐sample properties of the proposed reduction procedure (as implemented using PcGets) are evaluated in a realistic Monte Carlo experiment. The impulse responses generated by the selected SVAR are found to be more precise and accurate than those of the unrestricted VAR. The proposed reduction strategy is then applied to the US monetary system considered by Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans (Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 78, pp. 16–34, 1996) . The results are consistent with the Monte Carlo and question the validity of the impulse responses generated by the full system.     

Syndicated Loan Announcements and Borrower Value

Announcements of syndication loans increase borrowers' shareholder wealth if they are revolving credit agreements but not if they are term loans. Share price responses to revolving credit announcements are positive and significant, whereas the wealth effect for term loans is negative and significant. The results show that announcements from both the financial press and commercial information providers can affect borrower share price reaction. Overall, single syndication announcements appear to be more newsworthy than multiple announcements reported in the financial press, and we find evidence of information leakage, post‐announcement drift, or both.     

Noise Trading and the Management of Operational Risk; Firms,Traders and Irrationality in Financial Markets*

abstract Efficient market models cannot explain the high level of trading in financial markets in terms of asset portfolio adjustment. It is presumed that much of this excessive trading is irrational ‘noise’ trading. A corollary is that there must either be irrational traders in the market or rational traders with irrational aberrations. The paper reviews the various attempts to explain noise trading in the finance literature, concluding that the persistence of irrationality is not well explained. Data from a study of 118 traders in four large investment banks are presented to advance reasons why traders might seek to trade more frequently than financial models predict. The argument is advanced that trades do not simply occur in order to generate profit, but it does not follow that such trading is irrational. Trading may generate information, accelerate learning, create commitments and enhance social capital, all of which sustain traders' long term survival in the market. The paper treats noise trading as a form of operational risk facing firms operating in financial markets and discusses approaches to the management of such risk.     

The dynamics of moonlighting in Russia1

This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to analyse the dynamics of moonlighting by the working‐age population. We find that moonlighting is transitory and that a desire to switch jobs expressed in the past is positively related to moonlighting in the present and to actual job changes in the future. We also find that workers who moonlighted as self‐employed in the past represent 26.5 percent of the new self‐employed. These results suggest that moonlighting in Russia can be seen as an effective incubator for setting up new self‐employed businesses, thereby providing long‐term benefits for the economy.