Sovereign Risk Contagion in East Asia: A Mixture of Time-Varying Copulas Approach

This study analyzes sovereign risk contagion between four East Asian economies (China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea) and its structural changes through the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the European Debt Crisis (EDC) by applying the mixture of time-varying copulas to those economies’ credit default swap (CDS) spreads.

This article first finds a strong contagion from the US and PIIGS economies to the East Asian sovereign CDS markets and intraregional contagion within the East Asian markets. Second, the impact of contagion is different according to whether it is measured by the linear (Gaussian) or the upper tail dependence. Third, Japan plays an important role in increasing the linear dependence whereas China and Korea are crucial in terms of the upper tail dependence. Lastly, the GFC has structurally increased the linear dependence but not the upper tail dependence between the East Asian sovereign CDS markets.     

企业规模、规模经济与产业集群

企业规模问题一直存在着截然相反的观点和主张,造成冲突的原因在于“企业规模”是一个各取所需的含混的概念。具有经济学意义的企业规模应该从两个相互正交的维度上———企业的横向规模和纵向规模———来度量。规模经济来自于横向规模的扩张,而纵向规模的扩张可能会带来规模不经济。产业集群是观察企业横向、纵向规模一个好的样本。区分企业规模的不同性质,将会使与规模经济相关的理论研究出现明晰的路径。     

城市集聚经济微观机制及其超越:从劳动分工到知识分工

本文在区分集聚机制与集聚效应、劳动分工与知识分工、成本外部性与技术外部性的基础上,使用统一的分析框架解释了城市集聚经济的发生机制,特别是将知识创造、知识溢出和知识积累结合起来,分析了知识分工与技术外部性促进城市集聚经济的发生机制。知识分工通过协作机制、结构匹配机制和循环累积机制促进知识的创造和积累,交流外部性条件下技术外部性的创新集聚效应和动态累积效应实现了知识在更大空间范围内的低成本使用,二者共同促进了城市收益递增。     

甘肃省制造业产业集聚的实证研究——基于对EG指数修正后的指数分析

甘肃省作为中国西部欠发达的省份,其经济的发展一直受到政府的重视;根据中国历年经济发展统计数据来看,制造业在其生产总值中一直占有着较大的比重,我们运用张卉(2007)修正的产业地理集中指数对甘肃省24个制造行业2005~2009年的集聚程度进行了测定。结果显示,甘肃省的制造业的集聚程度有所下降并趋于稳定,整体上已经具备了产业的地理集聚并有进一步均衡化的趋向。     

Intra‐industry diversification and firm performance

We study how intra‐industry product diversity affects firm performance by analyzing the implications of expanding a firm's product line within its core business. We conjecture that increases in product diversity initially undermine performance because of negative transfer effects but then improve it due to economies of scope. We further theorize that this U‐shaped effect of product diversity becomes more pronounced as the firm increases the intensity of its technology investment, yet is likely to be attenuated by the firm's accumulated experience with intra‐industry diversification. Data on 156 U.S.‐based software firms operating from 1990 to 2001 furnish support for these conjectures. Our study advances emerging research on intra‐industry diversification by underscoring some of its contingent performance effects. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.     

Long-term sustainability of third-party facilitated market linkages: Evidence from the USDA marketing assistance program in the Armenian dairy industry

Public–private partnerships are increasingly seen as an important tool to build agri-food supply chains and develop markets for agri-food products in emerging economies. However, many of these initiatives fail when the public component of the program ends. One exception is the USDA Market Assistance Program (MAP) that facilitated the redevelopment of the Armenian dairy sector after privatization. This paper presents a case study of this initiative and hypothesize that the USDA MAP facilitated farmer investment in private enforcement capital. This investment resulted in sustainable market relationships between farmers and dairy processors even after the USDA MAP expired. We find empirical evidence to support this hypothesis using a panel dataset collected from 172 Armenian dairy farmers in 2004 and 2009.     

Business Cycles Around the Globe: Some Key Facts

We document massive heterogeneity in basic cyclical patterns within groups of developed and emerging market economies. While we detect marked differences between developed and emerging countries as well, the distributions of key business cycle statistics tend to overlap across different country groups.     

Capital flows to emerging market economies: A brave new world?

We examine the determinants of net private capital inflows to emerging market economies (EMEs) since 2002. Our main findings are: First, growth and interest rate differentials between EMEs and advanced economies and global risk appetite are statistically and economically important determinants of net private capital inflows. Second, there have been significant changes in the behavior of net inflows from the period before the recent global financial crisis to the post-crisis period, especially for portfolio inflows, partly explained by the greater sensitivity of such flows to interest rate differentials since the crisis. Third, capital controls introduced in recent years do appear to have discouraged both total and portfolio net inflows. Finally, we find positive effects of unconventional U.S. monetary policy on EME inflows, especially portfolio inflows. Even so, U.S. unconventional policy is one among several important factors influencing flows.     

Environmental factors influencing the management of key accounts in an Arab Middle Eastern context

Within the sales and marketing literature, it is recognised that a range of external factors can influence how companies in the business-to-business field manage business relationships within national and across international borders. However, there have been very few studies that explore the influence of the external environment on key account relationships, especially within the context of emerging economies. This study draws on the network approach and contingency theory to identify and highlight the influence of external environmental factors on the management of inter-organisational relationships with key customers in emerging economies in the Arab Middle East region. It is based on an extensive qualitative enquiry that utilises 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Jordan with endogenous and Western firms. It concludes that key account practices within an Arab context are shaped by a number of contingencies that are embedded in broader institutional contexts and the business environment, which may challenge the adoption of company-wide universal key account management policies across borders.