The Performance of Service Industries in Canada: A Real Value Analysis

The performance of service industries in Canada has been lower than that of good industries over the last four decades, with noticeable exceptions such as for railways and telecommunication carriers. Service industries were less economically (and technically) efficient in that they generated less output value (quantity) per hour worked (level and growth) or per combined unit of labour and capital (multifactor productivity growth) than good industries. The relative output price of services declined slightly over time compared with goods. At the disaggregated level, changing relative output prices were substantial and proved to be an important factor explaining the relative satisfactory economic performance of many service industries despite their low technical performance. Nevertheless, the output share of service industries increased over that period, sustained, mainly, by the growing recourse of all firms to outsourcing of services.     

The Impact of the Implementation of Technology Education on In-Service Teacher Education in South Africa (Impact of Technology Education in the RSA)

In this article the impact of technology education, as a new learning area (subject) in the curriculum, on in-service teacher education in South Africa is described in order to ascertain the extent of the impact. The research on which this article is based draws on a variety of experiences and observations in the field at grassroots level (in particular an outreach project in rural communities). The envisaged impact of technology education on South African schools, communities, teacher educators and teachers, the range of in-service teacher education that is required, and the impacts in urban and rural areas are discussed. Finally a number of concluding remarks are made about the extent of the impact of the inclusion of technology education in the new National Curriculum Statement and whether the situation has changed since the implementation of a pilot technology education project in 1998. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents,translog, and generalized Leontief forms

This paper compares the approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents translog and minflex generalized Leontief cost functions with their translog and generalized Leontief counterparts in Monte Carlo experiments. The minflex Laurent specifications generally provided closer approximations to underlying technical and economic parameters. Imposition of nonlinear restrictions on some of the parameters of the minflex Laurent models yielded measurable improvement in estimated elasticities of substitutions, returns to scale, and rates of technical change.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through E. Appelbaum.     

A NOTE ON ARBITRAGE AND CLOSED CONVEX CONES

We give an example of a subspace K of     such that     , where     denotes the closure with respect to convergence in probablity. On the other hand, the cone   C ≔ K − L ^∞₊  is dense in   L ^∞  with respect to the weak-star topology  σ( L ^∞, L ¹)  . This example answers a question raised by I. Evstigneev. The topic is motivated by the relation of the notion of no arbitrage and the existence of martingale measures in Mathematical Finance.     

Lead markets, innovation differentials and growth

This article suggests that the specialization of countries in international trade is determined by the lead-lag market pattern of national markets. Many internationally successful innovations have been adopted first in one country while other countries initially either preferred other designs or an established product. A model for the international diffusion of innovations is presented in which nationally preferred innovation designs compete to become a globally dominant design. In this model, there are country-specific market attributes that increase the likelihood that the choice a country makes among alternative technologies is followed around the world. It is argued that technological knowledge gaps are not the origin of an international competitive advantage. Instead, a country gains a competitive advantage because a specific innovation design was adopted earlier than in any other country. This gives local firms a head start in producing, gathering marketing intelligence and securing the property rights of a globally successful innovation. In countries with lag market characteristics, domestic innovations are less likely to get adopted worldwide. Lag markets often switch from a domestic innovation design to a foreign innovation design, which increases imports. The lead-lag market explanation of trade specialization has implications for national policies. In this model domestic innovations do not always foster exports; idiosyncratic innovations induced by lag market contexts can hamper the export chances of local firms and in the end lead to an increase in imports. It is suggested that in order to increase exports, national policies have to distinguish between a domestic lead and lag market context in each industry. While in a lead market context, traditional policy instruments that enhance the rate of innovations are effective, in a lag market situation national follower strategies are more appropriate.     

Simulating the Evolution of the Implied Distribution

Motivated by the implied stochastic volatility literature (Britten–Jones and Neuberger, forthcoming; Derman and Kani, 1997; Ledoit and Santa–Clara, 1998) this paper proposes a new and general method for constructing smile–consistent stochastic volatility models. The method is developed by recognising that option pricing and hedging can be accomplished via the simulation of the implied risk neutral distribution. We devise an algorithm for the simulation of the implied distribution, when the first two moments change over time. The algorithm can be implemented easily, and it is based on an economic interpretation of the concept of mixture of distributions. It can also be generalised to cases where more complicated forms for the mixture are assumed.     

The anticipated and concurring effects of the EMU: exchange rate volatility, institutions and growth

Reduced exchange rate volatility and higher and less heterogeneous quality of institutional rules and macroeconomic policies are two of the main (anticipated and concurring) effects expected from a currency union.In this paper, we measure the magnitude of these two effects for the Eurozone countries looking at real effective exchange rates (REER) and at different indicators of quality of institutional rules and macroeconomic policies (QIRMP). We find that the first effect is much stronger than the second when we compare relative changes for Eurozone countries and the rest of the world in the relevant period.We further evaluate the impact of both effects on economic growth on a larger sample of countries. Our findings show that both have significant impact on levels (more robust) and on rates of growth (weaker) of per capita GDP.     

我国经济发展水平与劳动力就业数量关系研究——兼论我国劳动力资源是否过剩

我国劳动力对经济发展而言，其生产率高于资本，因而经济发展对劳动力就业的促进作用逐渐减弱（经济增长的就业弹性逐渐变小）。据测算，我国2013年以前劳动力就业压力很大，2015年以后劳动力又会供不应求。所以，我国未来经济发展中，2014年前后应采用不同的产业结构调整策略来充分满足劳动力就业的要求。     

票据无权代理追认制度微探

票据行为是一种法律行为，自然也可以以代理方式为之。民法上有关代理制度的规则一般也都可以适用于票据代理行为。但由于民法与商事法的立法旨趣各有侧重，为促进票据流通、保障交易安全，票据代理不能照搬民法上关于代理制度的规定。票据的无权代理是票据代理中一个非常典型的问题，与民法上的无权代理区别很大，其中存在的问题很多。对于票据的无权代理中是否应当赋予本人以追认权，多数大陆法系国家的立法例与英美法系国家之立法例有所不同。     

无锡市城乡统筹发展初探

城乡统筹发展是解决三农问题的关键,就目前对其内涵的理解存在不同的见解。文章主要在界定城乡统筹发展内涵的基础上,介绍了无锡统筹发展的成果及今后发展的措施。