我国煤炭波动周期分析与近中期发展趋势推演

通过对我国改革开放以来GDP增速、煤炭消费增速历史数据的分析,发现不管是经济发展,还是煤炭发展过程中都存在周期性的波动变化规律。而通过对煤炭与经济波动曲线的拟合,发现煤炭与经济发展呈协同波动变化。基于以上煤炭与经济协同波动规律,对未来煤炭与经济发展走势进行了推演,发现煤炭消费增速最早要在2015年前后才能企稳提高,由此进入新一轮上升期。综合分析表明,煤炭抗波动能力较弱,未来要实现煤炭平稳发展,需根据经济发展节奏的不断变化,及时主动地调整煤炭发展步伐,从而避免因煤炭发展的冒进或硬着陆给煤炭及关联产业发展带来长时间、高强度的冲击和损害。     

ANSI认可标准制定组织以及美国国家标准批准程序

美国作为市场化程度高、技术水平先进的国家，其标准化管理体制和运行模式遵循了标准化的自身规律。能够快速响应不断变化的市场需求、政府监管的需要，同时又能支持技术创新、促进经济、贸易发展，提升美国的竞争实力。美国国家标准是自愿性的，并且由美国国家标准学会（ANSI）认可的标准制定组织制定。本文分析了ANSI的基本情况、ANSI认可标准制定组织的管理程序、美国国家标准批准和废止的条件及程序。希冀对中国的标准化改革有所借鉴。     

Evaluating municipal landscape plans and their influence on selected aspects of landscape development – An empirical study from Germany

In this paper we examine the question of whether and how municipal landscape plans exert a positive influence on and/or correlate with selected aspects of the landscape. To this end, a representative sample of municipal landscape plans in Germany and a statistical-quantitative evaluation approach are used to uncover correlations between planning and landscape development. As a result, we can show that municipalities which draw up a landscape plan have a higher proportion of natural areas and a lower hemeroby index, i.e. a lower level of human influence. The model also reveals a significant relationship between the quality of the landscape plan as well as its duration of impact and the density of landscape structural elements. It is also determined that municipal landscape plans help protect grassland areas. The indicator-based method provides impulses for the international discussion on the evaluation of plans.     

Rural Residential Land Transition in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region: Spatial-Temporal Patterns and Policy Implications

Rural residential land transition (RRLT) dominates rural land use transition. Therefore, analysing the laws of transition and differentiation of land use is not only the basis for the differential management of rural residential areas but key to the sustainable use of rural land. This study constructs a conceptual model of RRLT using multi-period remote sensing monitoring data based on a comprehensive index method, ArcGIS, and FRAGSTATS landscape pattern analysis, among others. It also analyses the characteristics of the transition extent, transition trend, transition morphology, and transition intensity of rural residential land in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region from 1980 to 2018. The results show that, from a vertical comparison of long time series, the transition extent is characterised by a process of ‘slow growth—expanding start—fast expansion—slowing down’; the transition trend is characterised by an increase in the amount of cultivated land occupied by rural residential land, followed by a large number of rural residential land is reclaimed as cultivated land; the transition morphology is characterised by an increase in mean patch size and degree of irregularity, as well as aggregation; and the transition intensity is characterised by fluctuations in the process of ‘small-scale reduction—small-scale growth—substantial growth—small-scale growth and reduction’. A horizontal comparison of counties in the BTH region reveals a long-lasting and active growth trend in transition extent and transition intensity in the Beijing-Tianjin region, and a gradually slowing trend in the areas around the region. The transition morphology features of the northwest Hebei region are more prominent, and show that the scale of rural settlements is small, the plaques fragmented and irregular, and the layout more scattered. The BTH region should formulate a differentiated transition direction for rural residential areas based on the different functional areas, and play into the agglomeration, scale, and synergy effects of urban agglomerations. It should also coordinate and improve the human–land relationship in rural areas, and construct an orderly and densely distributed pattern of urban and rural spatial development with a reasonable layout and complementary functions.     

Going green,going clean: Lean‐green sustainability strategy and firm growth

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of “going green” and “going clean,” limited research has focused on the impact of lean‐green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean‐green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power, and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialized economies (the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), we found that lean‐green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power, and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.     

Sustainability concerns in luxury supply chains: European brand strategies and French consumer expectations

Sustainability in supply chain management has become a concern in both research and practice. Although consumption and purchasing have been significantly explored in the luxury sector, a gap in supply chain studies is still evident. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine how industry bodies and supply chain partners address sustainability concerns in the European luxury sector and how they respond to consumer expectations. In an explanatory study, we have collected data about sustainable supply chain practices in 11 European luxury good companies, by interviewing and surveying 13 managers. In a first consumer study, we held interviews with French luxury consumers in Bordeaux about their sustainability expectations (N = 170). The results show that while the distribution of attention is dependent on the respective supply chain activities, luxury goods companies address sustainability concerns and aim to take responsibility for their activities. However, the emphasis is on the dimension of economic sustainability. A comparison with sustainability expectations of French luxury goods consumers suggests that business practices are not perfectly well aligned with these expectations. Consumers put more emphasis on social and environmental sustainability dimensions. On the other hand, business activities concerning waste reduction and raw material management rather well match consumer expectations.     

Environmental Multi‐dimensionality and Staff Localization in Multinational Enterprises: The Case of Korean Firms

The person–environment fit theory posits that the term “environment” can be defined at different levels. This study delineates two environmental dimensions (strategic and organizational) and empirically examines the potential moderating effects of two strategic factors (intra‐ and inter‐regional diversification) on the relationship between two organizational factors (subsidiary ownership and host‐country experience) and MNE subsidiary staffing composition. The results indicate that strategic and organizational dimensions have impacts on subsidiary staffing composition. This study also finds that the interaction effects between strategic and organizational factors are significant only when there is congruence between demands from different environmental dimensions.     

Evaluating universal primary education in Uganda: School fee abolition and educational outcomes

This paper analyzes the effect of lifting primary school fees on educational attainment in Uganda. After the abolishment of school fees in 1997, the enrollment rate more than doubled. Two decades later, we know little about the effect of the policy on educational attainment. With recent data on eight cohorts exposed to free education, we analyze the impact of the policy on years of completed primary school, completion of primary school, and transitioning to secondary school. We use a straightforward regression analysis with cohort dummies and household fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that lifting school fees had no effect on the years of primary school achievement and the likelihood of primary school completion. We find some weak evidence that the likelihood of those who completed primary education to start secondary school increased after Universal Primary Education.     

Will FinTech make regional banks superfluous for small firm finance? Observations from soft information-based lending in Germany

Regional banks have a competitive advantage in that short distances to clients enable the use of soft information for superior lending decisions. If the ambition of FinTech start-ups to create superior screening and monitoring technologies materialises, this advantage would be diminished and regional banks would become superfluous for small firm finance. To explore this claim, the paper in hand analyses qualitative empirical data about the lending processes and rating system use of regional German savings banks. In essence, the results from participant observation and interviews clarify the importance of “real” soft information for critical lending decisions. The context specificity and limited verifiability of “real” soft information hamper it from being hardened through the use of rating systems and other bank-ICT. Though FinTech's scoring technologies may overcome the first limitation, it appears likely that in the course of scoring development “real” soft information will be systematically crowded out due to the manipulation problem. The paper expects improved access to finance for SMEs if FinTech solutions overcome both limitations of “real” soft information use, or if peer-to-peer lending and regional banks coexist. Deteriorated access to finance is expected if FinTech companies displace the relationship banking of regional banks due to enhanced competition, without preserving the advantages of “real” soft information with superior screening and monitoring technologies. The paper concludes with recommendations on how to prevent deteriorated access to finance for small firms by promoting fair competition and FinTech innovations.     

A Framework for the Simultaneous Measurement of Spatial Variation and Temporal Movement in Prices in a Heterogeneous Country: The Dynamic Household Regional Product Dummy Model

This paper contributes to the growing literature on spatial prices in large heterogeneous countries. While the literatures on spatial variation and temporal movement in prices have grown in parallel, this study marks a departure by providing a unified treatment and proposing a comprehensive framework that allows both approaches. The proposed model is based on twin extensions of the household version of the “country product dummy model” by allowing for a dynamic stochastic specification and interdependence of spatial prices of geographically adjacent regions. Tests of temporal stability and regional independence of the estimated spatial prices are proposed and applied in this paper. The paper shows that the introduction of an autoregressive error process of order one, AR(1), improves the efficiency of the estimates of parameters, urban‐rural and temporal price indices under certain conditions. The Indian application points to a rich potential for using the proposed framework in cross country comparisons such as the International Comparison Program (ICP) exercises.