Causes and Remedies of the Japan's Long‐lasting Recession: Lessons for China

Japan has suffered from sluggish economic growth and recession since the early 1990s. In this paper, we analyze the causes of the prolonged slowdown of the Japanese economy (the lost decade). Economics Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has argued that Japan's lost decade is an example of a liquidity trap. However, our empirical analysis shows that stagnation of the Japanese economy comes from its vertical IS curve rather than a horizontal LM curve, so the Japanese economy has been facing structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. The vertical IS curve is caused by an insensitivity of investment to a lower interest rate partly because of the decline of sales due to the aging population and firms not wanting to invest. The structural problems come from the aging demographic, which is often neglected by scholars and policy‐makers, and also from the allocation of transfers from the central government to local governments, and the unwillingness of Japanese banks to lend money to startup businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), mainly because of Basel capital requirements. Many countries, like China, are expected to face similar issues, particularly given the aging population. The present paper will address why the Japanese economy has been trapped in a prolonged slowdown and provide some remedies for revitalizing the economy.     

收入、收入类别与环境库兹涅茨曲线

利用2000-2009年我国省际面板数据,对人均收入、收入类别与六种污染指标之间的关系进行了实证检验.结果表明:环境库兹涅茨倒U型关系取决于污染指标的选择,在样本期内,部分污染指标呈现出倒U型EKC关系;在倒U型曲线的转折点处,城镇人均可支配收入的临界水平高于农村人均纯收入的临界水平.     

Assessing the historical role of credit: Business cycles,financial crises and the legacy of Charles S. Peirce

This paper provides a historical overview of financial crises and their origins. The objective is to discuss a few of the modern statistical methods that can be used to evaluate predictors of these rare events. The problem involves the prediction of binary events, and therefore fits modern statistical learning, signal processing theory, and classification methods. The discussion also emphasizes the need for statistics and computational techniques to be supplemented with economics. The success of a forecast in this environment hinges on the economic consequences of the actions taken as a result of the forecast, rather than on typical statistical metrics of prediction accuracy.     

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS REVISITED: ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS INTO WHY THEY FAIL

Economic sanctions have a poor track record in achieving their objectives. In most cases, they are ineffective in bringing about policy change, cause increased suffering in the sanctioned country and reduce opportunities for business. This paper provides additional insights into why sanctions fail by examining two overlooked factors: power–dependency theory and pressure for political stability.     

Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies

We are interested in three related questions:(1) How should accounting prices be estimated?(2) How should we evaluate policy change in animperfect economy? (3) How can we check whetherintergenerational well-being will be sustainedalong a projected economic programme? We do notpresume that the economy is convex, nor do weassume that the government optimizes on behalfof its citizens. We show that the same set ofaccounting prices should be used both forpolicy evaluation and for assessing whether ornot intergenerational welfare along a giveneconomic path will be sustained. We also showthat a comprehensive measure of wealth,computed in terms of the accounting prices, canbe used as an index for problems (2) and (3)above. The remainder of the paper is concernedwith rules for estimating the accounting pricesof several specific environmental naturalresources, transacted in a few well knowneconomic institutions.     

Regularities in the vertical arrangement of land uses in Sydney's central area

Summary

Previous studies of the vertical arrangement of land uses within the central areas of cities have been few, incomplete and employed crude methods of analysis. The present study employs 24 categories of land uses and analyses their distribution over 50 floor levels in Sydney's central district. To model the data, the gamma distribution is employed, being a flexible curve type. With only trifling exceptions, this distribution represents the data remarkably well. The two parameters of the fitted curves are interpreted as: (a) a measure of the propensity of a use to be accommodated over a wide range of floor levels, and (b) as a measure of resistance to height. The values of the parameters are used to define, using a clustering algorithm, groups of uses having members characterized by the most similar floor level arrangement. The results are of major importance for three reasons: First, the degree of regularity in the way establishments seek locations in the height dimension has not been discovered before. Second, the gamma‐distribution offers utility in modelling vertical location and should be useful in testing aspects of different town planning policies on plot ratios. Third, draconian town planning restrictions imposed on height controls may introduce locational inefficiencies hitherto unsuspected.     

传统企业电子商务转型的价值曲线与收支曲线

本文阐述了传统企业电子商务转型的必要性，提出并分析了传统企业电子商务转型的价值曲线和收支曲线。     

The future of the mobile phone business

One of the fastest growing technologies of our times is that of mobile phones. In this article we use the assumption that the diffusion of mobile technology, as measured by the number of active mobile accounts, follows the well known S-curve of natural growth in competition systems. The accuracy of the logistic fit is tested against actual data for the whole world, Europe, China and the GSM system. Using the produced models predictions concerning the future of mobile business are deliberated.According to these models active mobile accounts around the globe are expected to grow from 1.7 billion in 2004 to approximately 2 billion in 2008, reaching a peak penetration of 29.2%. Growth barriers, apart from the age of the potential user, are also low income and extreme poverty. Europe, early adopter of mobile technology and leader in active mobile accounts against all other regions in the world, has apparently reached a peak with almost every European, apart from the very young or very old, using a mobile phone. The mobile market in China is anticipated to exceed 500 million active accounts and may increase even further depending on the economic and social reform that is currently under way in that part of the world. GSM will most likely remain the leading mobile technology in the future as it is today.The growth process for the world, Europe, and the GSM system is almost completed and during this stage instabilities may occur before the potential emergence of a new wave of growth.     

The Relationship between Federal Deficits and Real Interest Rates

Real interest rates fluctuated a great deal since the 1970s. In the 1980s federal deficits accelerated and their impact on both nominal and real interest rates gained lots of attention. Based on monthly and quarterly data from January 1971 to December 1997 it is found that federal deficits had significant positive effect on the real interest rates: Personal income or consumption are found to have significant positive impact on the real interest rates, whereas expected inflation and money supply are found to have negative impact on the real interest rates. These findings are consistent with the conventional economic theory.     

从增长与通胀的多重组合看我国的滞胀风险

通过基本菲利普斯曲线及英变换，探讨增长与通胀的多重可能组合，分析了开放条件下菲利普斯曲线的变化以及“滞胀”组合的成因。在此基础上，重点回答中国是否面临“滞胀”风险，以及如何避免出现“滞胀”局面。