移动电子商务发展研究综述

移动商务是建立在先进的移动终端、完善的无线通信协议以及丰富的Internet信息上的一种新型商务交易方式,移动终端对Internet的介入使得用户随时随地获取所需信息,极大地增加了交易的灵活性,带来了更多的商机,促进了商务活动的发展。研究根据最新数据分析了国内外电子商务发展现状,总结了移动环境下的WAP和J2ME关键技术,并展望了未来电子商务的发展趋势。     

基于J2EE的社保系统框架关键技术的研究应用

文章通过研究基于J2EE架构的社保系统框架,并结合本框架在实际软件项目开发中的运用实例进行实证分析,结果表明:通过运用可重用框架,系统开发人员不仅能极大地提高软件的开发效率和代码的复用度,而且还能增强系统的灵活性和可扩展性,更加有助于系统的维护和升级,从而在很大程度上减轻了系统开发及维护人员的工作负担。     

Booms and busts in housing markets: Determinants and implications

This study looks at the characteristics and determinants of booms and busts in housing prices for a sample of eighteen industrialised countries over the period 1980–2007. From an historical perspective, we find that recent housing booms have been amongst the longest in the past four decades. Estimates of a Multinomial Probit model suggest that domestic credit and interest rates have a significant influence on the probability of booms and busts occurring. Moreover, international liquidity plays a significant role for the occurrence of housing booms and—in conjunction with banking crises—for busts. We also find that the deregulation of financial markets has strongly magnified the impact of the domestic financial sector on the occurrence of booms.     

Regional and sectoral dynamics of the Dutch staffing labor cycle

This study analyzes the dynamic characteristics of staffing employment across different business sectors and across different geographical regions in The Netherlands. We analyze a micro data set of the market leader of the Dutch staffing employment market, i.e. Randstad. We apply the dynamic factor model to extract common information out of a large data set and to isolate business cycle frequencies with the aim of forecasting staffing and total employment. We identify regions and sectors whose cyclical developments lead the staffing labor cycle at the country level. The dynamic factor model exploits these leading characteristics at the disaggregate level to forecast the country aggregate. Finally, both dynamic and static factors turn out to be predictive summary statistics of the micro data set when employed to forecast total employment at the country level.     

Competition among banks and the pass-through of monetary policy

This paper introduces monopolistically competitive financial intermediaries into the New Keynesian DSGE setting. Modelling bank market power explicitly contributes to understanding two empirical facts: (i) The short-run transmission of changes in money market rates to bank retail rates is far from complete and heterogeneous. (ii) Stiffer competition among commercial banks implies that loan rates correlate more tightly with the policy rate. In my model, the degree of monopolistic competition in the banking sector has a sizeable impact on the pass-through of changes in the policy rate. In particular, a more competitive market for bank credit amplifies the efficiency of monetary policy.     

A study on the role of guanxi in entrepreneurship and employment

This paper examines the role of guanxi in influencing the decision of an individual to be an entrepreneur facing a risky technology or to become a worker facing an unemployment rate. Individuals are assumed to vary in terms of the strength of their established guanxi that could be utilized either to lower the set-up cost as entrepreneurs or to secure jobs as workers. Compared with the case where guanxi can only be used to reduce the individual's set-up cost to become an entrepreneur, it is shown that if guanxi can also help a worker find a job, then whether the employment rate might be improved or worsened will depend on the absolute risk aversion that is increasing or decreasing in income.     

Inflation targeting in Latin America: Empirical analysis using GARCH models

This paper studies inflation dynamics in eight Latin American countries, some of which have adopted formal inflation targets (IT) as their monetary policy frameworks. We analyze the possible benefits associated with IT, not only in terms of inflation level and volatility, but also regarding other nonlinear characteristics of these series, such as volatility persistence or the fulfillment of the Friedman hypothesis. To describe inflation dynamics we use an unobserved components model, where each component can follow a GARCH type process. Once we estimate the model, the main findings of the empirical exercise confirm the favorable performance of IT.     

What does it mean to find the face of the franchise? Physical attractiveness and the evaluation of athletic performance

We show that attractiveness, as measured by facial symmetry, leads to greater rewards in professional sports. National Football League quarterbacks who are more attractive are paid greater salaries and this premium persists after controlling for player performance.     

Are there pre-programme effects of active placement efforts? Evidence from a social experiment

This note estimates pre-programme effects of active placement programmes. Estimation is based on a social experiment conducted in three Swedish counties in 2004. I find that placement programmes could substantially increase transitions both to jobs and other exits before programme start.     

Regime-switching factor models in which the number of factors defines the regime

We develop regime-switching factor models in which the number of factors determines the operative economic regime. To illustrate the proposed methodology, we analyze the covariance structure of a widely studied set of 25 equity portfolios.