Application of appreciative inquiry in tourism research in rural communities

Appreciative inquiry is a participatory research method based on positive psychology. Founded upon grounded theory and the social constructivist paradigm, appreciative inquiry is a simple, effective, and epistemologically sound tool to understand the rural population’s knowledge, needs, and priorities without alienating them from research. Based on the study conducted to comprehend the interrelationships among conservation, livelihood, and tourism development in three rural communities located in the vicinity of Chitwan National Park, Nepal, this study argues that appreciative inquiry can be a useful tool for conducting tourism research in rural communities. This study employs five steps, including grounding, discovery, dream, design, and destiny.     

Tourists’ impulse buying behavior at duty-free shops: the moderating effects of time pressure and shopping involvement

This study investigates the consumer behavior of tourists at duty-free shops who experience different limitations on shopping than do consumers at general shopping malls. The target for sampling was outbound tourists who shopped in two hotel duty-free shops in Seoul, Korea. The final analysis used data from 343 respondents and the results revealed (1) the more positive the emotions felt by tourists, the more impulsive buying behavior occurs; (2) time pressure during shopping reinforces negative emotions, resulting in increased affective impulse buying; and (3) increased shopping involvement directly increases cognitive impulse buying.     

Welfare effects of the Telecommunication Reform in Mexico

The telecommunication sector in Mexico was highly concentrated until 2013. The sector was mostly composed by a dominant player, a rationed market (low density of services), a poor institutional design, high tariffs, and weak regulation agents. The Herfindahl-Hirschman (HHI) index was 5333 for mobile telephone and 7,029 for fixed telephone services—among the highest scores in the world. In order to promote competition in the sector, Congress approved a reform in 2013 to establish a new regulator empowered to impose asymmetrical rules in the case of the predominance of a single firm. A declaration of preponderance of the dominant player was issued, promoting free interconnection rates and the mandatory sharing of its passive and active infrastructure with the rest of the firms in the industry. The new institutional design led to increased competition in the sector, decreasing the mobile and fixed telephone prices while increasing the coverage and penetration of these services. In this article, an applied general equilibrium model for the Mexican economy is employed to assess the impact of the Telecommunication Reform in Mexico in the telephone sector, consumer welfare, and income distribution. The model is static, encompassing 10 types of consumers (rural and urban and the five income quintiles) and 40 sectors (of which four are disaggregate telecommunications industries). It assumes fixed wages and capital rental prices as well as idle resources. The main results indicate that the effects of the reform are not minor; the drop in telephone prices would reduce the general consumer price index by almost 2%, and the value added would increase by more than 3%, benefiting mainly households in the highest income quantiles.     

Ugo Broggi: a precursor in mathematical economics

The concern for the existence of solution to the Walras - Cassel model is usually dated at the beginning of the 1930s, and one decade later the proof of existence of utility function. Ugo Broggi, however, posed both issues in 1923 and 1919, respectively, and even hinted at modern ways of solving them. He was an outstanding mathematician, a former disciple of David Hilbert and collaborator with the Giornale degli Economisti. Broggi's achievements are also linked to a critical reading of Osorio's treatise on Paretian economics.     

我国省对县(市)一般性转移支付的绩效评价——基于DEA二次相对效益模型的研究

一般性转移支付是我国转移支付制度的重要组成部分,它是中央财政为了平衡地区间财力差异、促进基本公共服务均等化为目的的重要制度安排。然而,中央财政以均等化为目标、以标准财政收支差为依据对省(市、自治区)拨付一般性转移支付资金,以及省对县(市)级政府拨付该项资金时,并没有规定具体用途,因此,县(市)级地方政府拥有对这部分资金完全的自主支配权。在多重目标,尤其是经济增长目标的压力下,一般性转移支付资金可能被挪用和挤占,上级政府实现公共服务均等化的政策意图难以达到预期的效果。本文的目的是:从制度层面论述一般性转移支付政策目标与效率评价的内在联系;探讨DEA二次相对效益模型对一般性转移支付绩效评价的适用性;从基本公共服务资金配置和提升效率两个方面,构建了省对县(市)一般性转移支付绩效评价体系;以云南省的县(市)为样本,对一般性转移支付绩效进行实证模拟评价;提出建立绩效评价是完善省对县(市)一般性转移支付制度的重要内容。     

货币冲击与中国经济波动——基于DSGE模型的数量分析

基于1993~2008年的季度数据,本文在一个包含Calvo价格粘性的新凯恩斯主义模型中,讨论了中国货币冲击与经济增长的关系。在假定货币政策通过调整货币供给增长实施的前提下,本文根据模型模拟和实际数据的对比以及脉冲响应函数分析得出以下结论:(1)货币并非我国经济波动根源,实际产出对货币供给具有一定反馈作用。(2)通货膨胀的顺周期性和领先增长表明中国经济周期存在总需求拉动的特性。物价波动在中短期主要由货币供应量波动引起。(3)货币政策对实体经济有效但效果有限,货币供给变动对投资的作用效力更大,对消费需求刺激有限。     

Distance measures between free trade and autarky for the world economy

We develop a methodology to determine numerically how globalized the world economy is. We present a global general equilibrium model capturing major OECD economies and a residual rest of world for which alternative metrics of distance between observed, free trade and autarky equilibria can be developed. We use data for 2000 and report a number of distance measures between the 2000 observed trade restricted equilibrium and both free trade and autarky equilibria noting the absence of prior literature on metrics of distance between equilibria. The measures are used to determine the degree to which the world economy is globalized.     

论美国关税法337条款在GATT1994下的合法性——基于国际判例的思考

对337条款在GATT1994下合法性的正确评判,将会影响对337条款的态度及应对策略的制定.20世纪80年代,加拿大和欧共体曾经分别在关贸总协定体系内挑战过337条款的合法性.第一个案件专家组报告肯定了该案中337条款的合法性,第二个案件专家组报告对337条款的合法性总体上予以肯定,但也指出了337条款四个具体违法之...     

Probability of survival in a random exchange economy with dependent agents

Summary. In this paper I analyze the general equilibrium in a random Walrasian economy. Dependence among agents is introduced in the form of dependency neighborhoods. Under the uncertainty, an agent may fail to survive due to a meager endowment in a particular state (direct effect), as well as due to unfavorable equilibrium price system at which the value of the endowment falls short of the minimum needed for survival (indirect terms-of-trade effect). To illustrate the main result I compute the stochastic limit of equilibrium price and probability of survival of an agent in a large Cobb-Douglas economy. Received June 7, 2001; revised version: January 7, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" I would like to thank Mukul Majumdar and Thomas DiCiccio for helpful discussion and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions.