Capital Flows to Latin America (2003–17): A Critical Survey from Prebisch’s Business Cycle Theory

ABSTRACT

The economic literature on capital flows to developing countries has shared two important commonalities since the 1990s. Published works (whether they focus on the external situation or stress the domestic determinants of capital flows) tend to assume a beneficial effect of capital inflows, which leads to an improvement of peripheral institutions, whose deficiencies are ostensibly the main cause of economic turmoil and/or failure in attracting capital flows, in continuity with New Institutional Economics. In doing so, mainstream economists deliberately overlook the asymmetric characteristics of the international monetary system and the persisting hegemony of dollar. Raul Prebisch’s pioneering work on business cycles in Latin America provide an alternative view, one capable of amending the existing mainstream literature. On the one hand, Prebisch stressed the destabilizing role of capital inflows on Latin American economies, particularly short-term speculative capital. On the other hand, Prebisch designed a set of counter cyclical monetary policies in order to contrast capital volatility, particularly during downturns. An analysis of stylized facts shows that, when correctly updated, Prebisch’s theory has remarkable explanatory potential when applied to Latin America’s current economic and financial situation.     

生命周期评价方法及其应用

介绍了生命周期评价的目的、意义和基本方法，并运用该方法对燃煤发电、废纸造纸、废旧塑料气化发电等几种不同工业过程的环境影响进行了分析。     

Multiple generation product life cycle predictions using a novel two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis method

Product life cycle (PLC) prediction plays a crucial role in strategic planning and policy definition for high-technology products. Forecast methodologies which can predict PLCs accurately can help to achieve successful strategic decision-making, forecasting, and foresight activities in high-technology firms, research institutes, governments, and universities. Over the past few decades, even though analytic framework strategies have been proposed for production, marketing, R&D (research and development), and finance, aiming at each stage of PLCs, forecast methodologies with which to predict PLCs are few. The purpose of this research is to develop a novel forecast methodology to allow for predictions of product life time (PLT) and the annual shipment of products during the entire PLC of multiple generation products. A novel two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis method is proposed in this paper. In the first stage, the product life-time of the specific generation to be analyzed will be predicted by the fuzzy piecewise regression line that is derived based upon the product life-time of earlier generations. In the second stage of the forecast methodology, the annual shipment of products of the specified generation will be predicted by deriving annual fuzzy regression lines for each generation, based upon the historical data on the earlier generations' products. An empirical study predicting the life-time and the annual shipment of the 16 Mb (Mega bit) DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) PLC is illustrated to validate the analytical process. The results demonstrate that two-stage fuzzy piecewise regression analysis can predict multiple generation PLT and PLC precisely, thereby serving as a foundation for future strategic planning, policy definitions and foresights.     

THE CHANGING VOLATILITY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

During the last decade economic literature explored the presence of and reasons for what became known as “the great moderation” in the US and other G7 countries. “The great moderation” describes the decrease in economic volatility experienced in many of the G7 countries. This paper finds that in South Africa volatility is also not constant (it even finds that there are autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic effects present) and that volatility also decreased, particularly since 1994. Following the literature, the paper explores several reasons for this decrease and finds that smaller shocks, better monetary policy and improvements in the financial sector that place less liquidity constraints on individuals and allow them to manage their debt better are some of the main reasons for the reduction in the volatility of the South African economy. The literature on the G7 also suggests that better inventory management contributed to the lower volatility. However, this seems not to be true for South Africa.     

Learning across the life cycle: Experimentation and performance among the hollywood studio heads

Guided by notions from the literature on organizational learning, this paper investigates how product line experimentation and organizational performance change across the careers of top managers. Its subjects are the studio heads who ran all the major Hollywood film studios from 1936 to 1965. The study found first, that product line experimentation declines over the course of executive tenures; second, that there is an inverse U‐shaped relationship between top executive tenure and an organization's financial performance; and third, that product line experimentation is more likely to benefit financial performance late in top executives' tenures. These findings are consistent with a three‐stage ‘executive life cycle’. During the early years of their tenures, top managers experiment intensively with their product lines to learn about their business; later on their accumulated knowledge allows them to reduce experimentation and increase performance; finally, in their last years, executives reduce experimentation still further, and performance declines. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

北京先行经济指数研究

"北京先行经济指数"是我国第一个区域性先行经济指数,在试运行中取得了很好的效果。该指数以我国现行统计制度为基础,紧密结合北京实际,通过构造基准循环、"提取"先行指标、编制指数、返回检验等步骤,对北京先行经济指数的科学性和有效性进行了分析。先行指数超前GDP增速变化4～8个月这一重要研究结论在返回检验中得到了很好的证实。     

浅谈工程项目投资的全过程控制

章简述了工程项目投资全过程控制的原理，以及各阶段对工程项目投资控制所起的作用和控制的方法。在工程建设中投资控制应注意抓住投资决策控制和设计控制，它们是工程项目投资的全过程控制的关键性环节。     

对称等距抽样在Spss软件中的实现

Spss是国内外流行的统计分析软件之一,人们在借助此软件进行对称等距抽样时,需要编写带有循环结构的程序,但其语言结构不具备循环结构的特点,为此,该文就对称等距抽样在Spss中如何实现进行了探讨,井通过实例说明了本方法的实用性、准确性和可靠性.     

企业生命周期与技术生命周期的联动机制及其组织结构特征研究

企业成长的周期性是经济周期发生的微观基础,探索技术创新与企业规模关系的微观机理可以从企业生命周期与技术生命周期的联动机制入手。在分析了企业生命周期与技术创新关系,以及技术生命周期与技术机会关系的基础上,文章提出企业生命周期与技术生命周期并非以时间为联动依据,而是在一定时间内通过分散决策与集中决策的力量对比形成联动机制,这一机制能够大致刻画出两个生命周期之间互动的传导性,最后分析了作为这种联动机制载体的组织结构特征。     

生产分割、周期协同与主要贸易伙伴的关联:1995～2008年

利用中国与17个主要贸易伙伴国1995～2008年的投入产出表和分行业双边进出口贸易数据,测算不同时期的双边生产分割程度。然后基于动态面板数据模型,综合分析了影响国际经济周期协同的决定性因素。研究发现,贸易在影响中国与主要贸易伙伴国的国际经济周期协同中存在两种不同方向的作用机制:以双边生产分割程度度量的互补品贸易对经济周期协同存在正向影响,而以双边贸易强度指标度量的替代品贸易对经济周期协同存在负向影响。同时研究还表明,双边金融整合程度对国际经济周期协同有正向影响,而产业结构相似性对国际经济周期协同的影响并不显著。