美英社会保障预算管理研究及启示

美国和英国是社会保障预算资金管理的重要代表。美国实行基金式资金管理,而英国实行的是全面预算资金管理。两类不同的社会保障资金预算管理模式,根植于不同国家的制度文化,表现出不同的制度特征,这对我国社会保障预算管理具有重要的借鉴意义。     

The impact of board size on firm performance: evidence from the UK

We examine the impact of board size on firm performance for a large sample of 2746 UK listed firms over 1981–2002. The UK provides an interesting institutional setting, because UK boards play a weak monitoring role and therefore any negative effect of large board size is likely to reflect the malfunction of the board's advisory rather than monitoring role. We find that board size has a strong negative impact on profitability, Tobin's Q and share returns. This result is robust across econometric models that control for different types of endogeneity. We find no evidence that firm characteristics that determine board size in the UK lead to a more positive board size–firm performance relation. In contrast, we find that the negative relation is strongest for large firms, which tend to have larger boards. Overall, our evidence supports the argument that problems of poor communication and decision-making undermine the effectiveness of large boards.     

Mobility,risk tolerance and competence to manage risks

Migration is a risky behaviour because of the uncertainty about future wages, living conditions, changing relationships with family and friends and cultural adjustment. While there has been some research on risk and uncertainty in migration, this has mostly been approached as a form of ‘rational’ decision-making: such approaches explain why some groups of individuals are more likely than others to migrate, but are limited in explaining individual variations in behaviour within these groups. Individual migrants vs. non-migrants are self-selected in terms of tolerance of risk and uncertainty but, with very few exceptions, there has been no research on migration within the framework of risk tolerance/aversion and competence to manage risk. Moreover, existing research is based on, and constrained by the limitations of, incumbent data-sets. Drawing on a specially commissioned large-scale survey of the UK population, this paper uses principal component analysis and logistic regression to analyse the extent to which risk and risk-related measures can be used to predict four different types of mobility profiles. There are significant associations between these individual mobility characteristics and general risk/uncertainty tolerance, and competence-based tolerance. These are strongest in terms of the two most polarised mobility types: the least mobile, the Stayers, and the most mobile, the Roamers. Recognising that previous migration is exogenous, a further analysis of migration intentions, with previous migration included as an independent variable, finds the propensity for future migration is, in fact, negatively associated with previous migration, probably due to the importance of ‘pure risk’ as opposed to acquired competence via migration experience, and to life cycle considerations.     

Financial innovation in the UK

This study employs a national survey of over 1100 British financial firms to ascertain the determinants of financial innovation and their sales success using the logit and the generalized Tobit models. We find that the likelihood of financial innovation rises with the size of financial firms, employee education, greater expenditure on research and development, the availability of finance and the extent to which firms cooperate with each other. Perceptions of economic risk and innovation costs are also influential. R&D, cooperation and human capital are the main variables driving the success of financial innovation, measured by the percentage share of innovations sold. Firms in London/the south have a significantly greater tendency to innovate, though Scotland also does well. Stock broking, fund management and related activities are more innovative than firms in the financial intermediation and pension/insurance sectors.     

Commoditization in Food Retailing: Is Differentiation a Futile Strategy?

This article addresses commoditization in food retailing whereby competition has a tendency to lead to a continuous addition of new but similar products in a category. This often results in products that are more homogeneous and may make it more difficult for firms to gain unique market positions. In light of this development, we ask whether product differentiation is a futile strategy in food products marketing. We also address how consumers perceive and react to the seemingly ever-increasing number of similar products. These questions are explored through insights from relevant literature and a small-scale study of a seemingly highly differentiated category—smoked salmon—sold at the flagship store of an upmarket UK supermarket chain. It was concluded that no product attributes could be described as truly innovative, unique, or difficult to imitate. Implications are highlighted and discussed.     

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Abstract

Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands.     

地质资料版权归属的国外模式与借鉴

澳大利亚、英国、美国等国地质资料版权归属制度的共同经验：地质资料版权归属是在版权范畴内平衡国家、创作者、投资方等各方利益,但由于地质资料与国家地理信息安全的高度联系,它的版权归属应遵循维护国家利益为主、兼顾投资者为辅的原则。这也是我国当前地质资料信息服务产业化落实版权制度的基本准则。建议：⑴国家投资形成的地质资料版权属于国家,授权给国土资源部行使;⑵社会投资的地质资料版权也属于国家,投资者有使用权等财产性权利。     

海上保险人的共同海损赔偿责任辨析——中、英法律和条款之比较

共同海损与海上保险都是现代海商法中重要的法律制度,两者之间存在着密切的联系,现代海上保险合同无不把共同海损和救助列为承保责任。人们往往误以为共同海损理算结果和海上保险赔偿责任之间完全能划上等号。在对外贸易实务中,海上保险人出于保护自身利益的目的,在保险单中,对共同海损责任认定及共同海损赔偿计算都有特别规定。另外,与英国海上保险实践相比,中国《海商法》和海上保险条款的相关规定过于笼统,不利于实务操作。文章给出了相应的修改建议。     

Dynamics of the UK natural gas industry: System dynamics modelling and long-term energy policy analysis

We present a dynamic model of the indigenous natural gas industry in the UK. The model has been built using a system dynamics approach. Using the model several scenarios have been analyzed. We found that management of the supply-side policy alone cannot substantially postpone the discovery, production and consumption peak. We also found that the dynamics of the main variables, namely, exploration, production and consumption, are sensitive to initial demand conditions. Postponing the onset of gas price increases can therefore be achieved more effectively through efforts to reduce demand growth. One might expect that a low taxation policy would encourage more exploration and production of gas and thereby stimulate higher consumption rates. Instead, there was no overall net effect on production and consumption in the long term. The depletion effect on cost of exploration acts as counterbalance to low taxation policy. Depletion effect causes cost and thus price to rise further which depress consumption rate. The advances in exploration and production technology can delay the peak of exploration, production and consumption. Technological improvements mean lower cost of exploration and production which pressure down the long-term pattern of price dynamics.     

The carbon footprint of UK households 1990-2004: A socio-economically disaggregated, quasi-multi-regional input-output model

This paper presents a socio-economically disaggregated framework for attributing CO₂ emissions to people's high level functional needs. Based around a quasi-multi-regional input-output (QMRIO) model, the study, in theory, takes into account all CO₂ emissions that arise from energy used in production of goods and services to satisfy UK household demand, whether the emissions occur in the UK or abroad. Results show that CO₂ emissions attributable to households were 15% above 1990 levels in 2004, and that although absolute decoupling occurred between household expenditure and CO₂ during the UK's switch from coal to gas in the early 1990s, since then only slight relative decoupling is evident. The proportion of CO₂ that arises outside UK borders in support of UK consumption is rising, and reducing these emissions is particularly problematic in a global trading system. Investigation into the carbon footprint of different segments of the UK population shows wide variation: the segment with the highest carbon footprint emits 64% more CO₂ than the segment with the lowest. Results show that recreation and leisure are responsible for over one quarter of CO₂ emissions in a typical UK household in 2004. We conclude that expanding lifestyle aspirations are significant factors in driving household CO₂ emissions, but the study also emphasizes that attention must be paid to the infrastructures and institutions that result in considerable amounts of CO₂ being locked up in basic household activities through which people meet their everyday needs for subsistence, protection, and communication with family and friends. The findings highlight the sheer scale of the challenge facing UK policy-makers, and suggest that policies should be targeted towards segments of society responsible for the highest carbon footprints.