WHAT DETERMINES THE ELASTICITY OF SUBSTITUTION BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR? A LITERATURE REVIEW

This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the empirical and theoretical literature on the determinants of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. Our focus is on the two-input constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function. We start by presenting four concise observations that summarize the empirical literature on the estimation of . Motivated by these observations, the main part of this survey then focuses on potential determinants of capital–labor substitution. We first review several approaches to the microfoundation of production functions where the elasticity of substitution (EOS) is treated as a purely technological parameter. Second, we outline the construction of an aggregate elasticity of substitution (AES) in a multi-sectoral framework and investigate its dependence on underlying intra- and inter-sectoral substitution. Third, we discuss the influence of the institutional framework on the extent of factor substitution. Overall, this survey highlights that the effective elasticity of substitution (EES), which is typically estimated in empirical studies, is generally not an immutable deep parameter but depends on a multitude of technological, non-technological, and institutional determinants. Based on these insights, the final section identifies a number of potential empirical and theoretical avenues for future research.     

会计委派制利弊谈

会计委派制是财产所有者向其所属企事业单位统一委派会计人员,并进行统一管理的一种会计人员管理制度。它的实施,有其有利的一面,也有一定的弊端。文章对会计委派制的利弊两面进行了分析,并提出了完善会计委派制的几点建议。     

论国资委职能与会计监管模式的协作

面对国有资产所有者缺位,国有资产没有真正代表的现实状况,我国迫切需要建立起一套对国有企业实施有效监管(包括会计监管)的监控体系,国资委的成立就满足了上述需求。该文从会计及经济学视角出发,将国资委成立与会计监管两个问题结合考虑,通过探讨会计信息失真与国有资产所有     

我国政府采购制度完善若干重点问题探析

我国政府采购改革已取得显著成效，有中国特色的政府采购制度体系已基本形成。但政府采购制度建设中也存在不少问题，如政府采购规范范围不明确不确定、政府采购运行机制和管理体制不协调、政府需求规划和预算控制未能发挥应有的作用、政府采购政策功能缺乏具体的实施措施、加入WTO《政府采购协议》面临的问题等。本文针对这些重点问题分别进行了探讨，并就政府采购制度进一步完善提出了思路和建议。     

Appropriate technology in a Solovian nonlinear growth model

We propose a Solovian growth model with a convex–concaveproduction function and international technological spillovers.We test the empirical implications of the model, analysing theeffects of the productivity slowdown that followed the oil shocksof the 1970s. We argue that this slowdown, altering the worldincome distribution, affected the pattern of international technologicalspillovers, taking the poorest countries further away from thetechnological leaders, and therefore unable to exploit theirtechnologies. The result is the emergence of a poverty trapfor low-income countries.     

THE INDICATOR FUNCTION: A USEFUL DEVICE FOR DETERMINING CERTAIN MINIMAL SUFFICIENT STATISTICS

An elegant technique for obtaining minimal sufficient statistics in the case of families of distributions with support depending on the paramaters, is exposed.     

Are Interventions Self Exciting?

The time pattern of official interventions on the foreign exchange market exhibits periods of intense activity followed by long spells of inaction. In this paper, we examine whether the time interval between successive intervention matters for future interventions. To capture the properties of intervention duration an ACD model is used. The data are daily observations of interventions by the Federal Reserve, the Bundesbank and the Swiss National Bank. The evidence finds that the intervention duration is highly persistent and that the hazard is time dependent.     

Reserve characteristics and mining costs An empirical study of the phosphate industry

This paper deals with an estimation of phosphate mining cost function. Here, it is argued that other characteristics of reserves, besides their size, could be quite important in the cost function. The result of a cross-sectional analysis of phosphate mining in the world shows that reserve size and average total cost have a positive and modest statistically significant relationship in one of the two models. Among many qualitative characteristics and location factors tested in this paper, overburden, grade, ore/product ratio, water availability, and the price of capital are significant with expected signs. Finally, the results confirm the existence of economies of scale in phosphate mining which seem to be more related to mining technology than to reserve size.     

重构政府与高校关系 落实高校办学自主权

在社会转型过程中,影响我国高等教育运行的学术力量、政治力量、市场力量等因素正在重组。市场力量既影响举办者,又影响管理者,更影响办学者。影响办学者的结果是举办体制多元化,社会力量办学异军突起;影响管理者的结果是政府转换职能,落实高等学校办学自主权;影响办学者的结果是高等学校面向社会,依法自主办学。落实高等学校办学自主权,是政府和高等学校的共同责任。     

Minimax estimation under convex loss when the parameter interval is bounded

In the present paper families of truncated distributions with a Lebesgue density forx=(x ₁,...,x _n ) ε ℝ ⁿ are considered, wheref ₀:ℝ → (0, ∞) is a known continuous function andC _n (ϑ) denotes a normalization constant. The unknown truncation parameterϑ which is assumed to belong to a bounded parameter intervalΘ=[0,d] is to be estimated under a convex loss function. It is studied whether a two point prior and a corresponding Bayes estimator form a saddle point when the parameter interval is sufficiently small.