Rethinking the role of NCBs in the EMU

Five years after the introduction of unified monetary policy in the EMU, some member countries are wondering whether they have ceded too much of their policy-making powers. The fact that National Central Banks no longer carry out sizable expansionary open market or foreign exchange market operations suggests that they face substantially reduced abilities to set economic policy.This paper demonstrates that, in fact, very little power has been yielded: on the fiscal front, the force of such policy initiatives is enhanced by the fixity of the exchange rate. On the monetary front, we show that there is an observational equivalence between all Central Bank actions under fixed exchange rates. This implies that the authorities retain the same amount of policy flexibility as before. So long as they use an alternative form of policy initiative, carrying out what previously would have been characterized as sterilized foreign exchange market operations, their ability to influence the macro performance of their economy is undiminished.     

The causes and consequences of sector‐level job flows in Poland*

We look at the determinants and consequences of job reallocation in the 22 2‐digit sectors of the manufacturing industry in Poland over the period 1995–99. We find that import competition and a competitive market structure (weak concentration) have a positive and significant effect on job reallocation. Moreover, higher job reallocation is associated with higher labour productivity growth in some specifications. This confirms implications from neo‐Schumpeterian growth models: one channel through which competition might positively affect growth is through the reallocation of scarce resources from declining firms to rising ones. JEL Classifications: F16, J24, J6, O3, P3.     

土工实验中的液、塑限测定浅议

文章分析了当前土工实验中的液、塑限测定过程中应当注意的问题及其存在的问题,并论述了如何对其实验数据进行处理和分析的方法。     

The approach to transforming the traditional agricultural economy: a research on the multiple paths of poverty alleviation and transformation in rural China

Transforming a traditional agricultural economy into a modern economy is one of the main themes in economic development. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper finds out that the key to transformation is to raise the economic value of people, to improve human capital investment and to match the stocks of physical and human capital. China’s rural economy is on the edge of economic take-off, and different zones may pursue different paths for transformation. The source of rural poverty is not the scarcity of income or consumption, but the deficiency of education, social security, medical care and economic opportunity, which we define as “capability poverty”. __________ Translated from The Journal of World Economy (世界经济), 2005,(2) (in Chinese)     

汇率决定理论的发展与前沿述评

汇率决定问题是国际金融领域的一个重要命题,其间得到不断地丰富和发展。本文对汇率决定理论的发展脉络、内容、前沿作系统性地概述,并作出精要地评判。文章指出汇率行为的复杂性将是汇率决定理论研究的一个方向,非线性分析工具将成为汇率行为研究的主要手段。     

Got milk? The rapid rise of China’s dairy sector and its future prospects

This paper synthesizes recent research and new empirical findings to build a more comprehensive understanding of developments in China’s dairy sector. China’s tremendous rise in dairy demand has been driven by several mutually reinforcing factors: including rapid income growth, promotion by the government and dairy industry, changes in urban lifestyles, and the development of new, more sophisticated marketing channels. Domestic milk output has grown to satisfy rising demand largely by increasing the dairy herd. Substantial increases in productivity have been achieved through technology adoption, but there is evidence that the torrid growth has created inefficiencies because adaptations to marketing rules, infrastructure, and institutions have not kept pace with the changing environment. These results suggest there is ample room for future growth in both domestic milk production and dairy demand, but multinational firms and imported products will likely play and increasing role as China’s dairy market continues to develop.     

China''''s Economic Prospects and Sino-US Economic Relations

I. Introduction The rapid rise of the economic weight of China in the world economy has increasingly caught the attention of many analysts as well as policy-makers, eliciting various opinions on the global implications. Although China’s economic performance in the past 2 decades46 Pingfan Hong / 45 – 55, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2006 or so is indeed miraculous, the rest of the world should become less surprised or bewildered if they see China’s recent performance from a long-run historical perspe…     

中国进口与经济增长关系的区域差异分析

利用面板数据对中国东、中、西部的进口额和GDP增长关系进行的实证研究。在短期内，GDP增长对进口额影响最小是中部地区，在长期，西部GDP增长对进口额影响最大。中国经济增长对拉动世界经济增长起了十分重要的作用，中国经济增长减速也会影响全球经济。     

Addressing the growth failure of the oil economies: The role of financial development

The oil exporting countries have experienced a relatively continuous fall in GDP per capita over the last 30 years. This is in spite of benefiting from a more than average of the rest of the world investment rate. The findings of this paper, report a lower level of financial development for the oil economies when compared with the rest of the world. We will show in this paper that the higher rate of investment of the oil economies can be explained mainly by the oil revenues and surprisingly, financial development has a net dampening effect on investment for these economies. The paper also shows that the weakness of financial institutions, contributes to the poor performance of economic growth of the oil economies and the weakness of financial institutions might be associated with the dominant role of government in total investment and the weakness of private sector.