Development in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics

This paper outlines the ICT statistical developments that the ABS has undertaken over recent years. These developments have been on both the supply side (ICT industry) and the demand side (use of IT by sector). The content of ABS ICT surveys has changed significantly over the last few years and are expected to develop further in line with industry changes and emerging policy needs.
Recent developments in household collections have been the inclusion of IT use questions in the 2001 Census of Population and Housing and in various ABS social surveys such as Children's Participation in Culture and Leisure Activities. Annual business IT use surveys are now conducted and include topics such as Internet commerce and IT security. Biennial ICT industry surveys are conducted to provide data on ICT production, imports and exports, ICT industry employment, performance and structure information. An Internet activity survey is run every six months and provides regional Internet access details and infrastructure details on Internet service providers.
A major development for 2002–03 will be the compilation of an ICT satellite account. ABS intends to produce an ICT Information Development Plan to guide its future statistical development work in the ICT field.     

广东本地服装品牌的市场培育

本地原创品牌的发展塑造需要坚持,也需要本地市场的支持。品牌经营者必须充分了解市场需求,有针对性地进行市场培育,同时结合自身条件进行品牌营销,才能在市场上取胜。文章基于服装品牌消费者层次分析,提出以差异性的品牌推广方式来培育忠诚顾客的若干策略,从而提升原创品牌的市场竞争力。     

Bureaucratic integration and regional specialization in China

Fiscal decentralization introduced as part of China's economic reform since 1979 has unleashed strong incentives for China's local governments to pursue economic development, but the same incentives have also led to local protectionist policies inhibiting the process of regional specialization. This paper focuses on the constraints or freedom with which local governments can implement their protectionist policies. Using a panel data of 29 China's regions over the time period of 1985–1997, we find that China's political system of bureaucratic integration (specifically, concurrent appointment of local government officials in the central government) imposes constraints on the local governments from practicing protectionism. We also find that the effectiveness of local protectionist policies is limited by market competition, specifically, competition from foreign-invested firms operating in China and foreign imports. Our results on the role of local protectionism remain robust to controls for the regional variations in the size of the economy and the stage of economic development.     

A semiparametric GARCH model for foreign exchange volatility

A semiparametric extension of the GJR model (Glosten et al., 1993. Journal of Finance 48, 1779–1801) is proposed for the volatility of foreign exchange returns. Under reasonable assumptions, asymptotic normal distributions are established for the estimators of the model, corroborated by simulation results. When applied to the Deutsche Mark/US Dollar and the Deutsche Mark/British Pound daily returns data, the semiparametric volatility model outperforms the GJR model as well as the more commonly used GARCH(1,1) model in terms of goodness-of-fit, and forecasting, by correcting overgrowth in volatility.     

浅议提升地方政府决策力

决策力是地方政府行政能力建设的重要内容,决定着地方治理的成败。本文认识到现行行政决策机制存在的问题,以及提出相应的对策来提升行政决策能力     

中美政府职能比较

经过30年的改革开放,我国已经基本建立社会主义市场经济体制,但政府职能在许多方面仍然不能适应市场经济体制要求。作为发达国家代表,美国政府职能体系已发展得较为完善。将我国和美国政府职能结构相比较,探讨我国政府与美国联邦政府在职能结构配置上的差距,以便提出改进建议。     

后危机时代我国政府治理模式的转型与定位——以政府与市场关系为观察视角

政府与市场之间的关系是国家治理所必须思考的首要问题,是治理模式选择的重要依据。政府和市场之间的权力边界的确定是双方力量均衡的结果,每一次市场的经济波动总会为二者关系的定位提出新的思考。2008年经济危机过程中,主张政府干预的凯恩斯主义登场并取得了一定成效。在后危机时代,面对低碳经济的发展要求,中国市场呈现出消费需求不足、城市化潜力释放缓慢、投资结构不合理等问题。所以面对各类市场需求,在后危机时代,政府应转变治理方式,权力触角逐渐淡出经济领域,让市场实现自我完善的同时进一步推进社会治理。     

政府运行成本的比较研究——以沪、港政府为例

近年来,政府运行成本成为各国政府关注的一个重要问题,它不仅关系到政府自身效率的改进,而且影响到民众的福祉,以及整个社会经济的和谐发展。本文以沪、港政府为例,从经济学角度,利用财政支出等数据,阐述了两者在运行成本和结构上的差异,并分析了其中存在的原因,认为内地的地方政府需要降低运行成本,具体措施可以借鉴香港地区政府的成功经验,如改变政府运行理念、构建公共财政体系等,并提出了一些相关的政策建议。     

Adverse effect of social media on generation Z user's behavior: Government information support as a moderating variable

Social media emerged as a primary source of information among young users, but its severe effect on mental state due to information overload, still an area of concern for the researchers. Generation Z users' addiction to the mobile phone/gadgets is increasing with a rise in social media and consequently their behavioral outcomes have transformed completely. Nowadays behavioral issues including stress, fatigue, ‘fear of missing out’ and ‘phubbing’, anxiety etc. rising each day but the relationship among these issues and information overload is less examined. The social media users are unable to filter the trustworthy information due to its enormous size and thus role of information support from government becomes essential. The current study extends the S-O-R theory exploring relationship between the stimulus of enormous information on the responses generated among the Generation Z such as social media fatigue, ‘fear of missing out’, ‘phubbing’ and anxiety. The findings from a sample of 319 users belonging to Generation Z suggest that social media platforms need to understand user's compulsive usage that is resulting into fatigue and consequently anxiety. The role of government information support on reducing fatigue and anxiety is found to be positive. The relationship between ‘fear of missing out’, ‘phubbing’ and anxiety is found significant and shows presence of partial mediation. The study offers significant theoretical and practical implications. It is significant for the service providers and social media platforms to advance interfaces with minimum fatigue for the users and offers information support to the users to reduce stress caused by information load.     

城乡公共服务均等化视角下地方公共财政体制改革

城乡公共服务均等化高级阶段实现城乡人均公共支出均等化,实质是保证普遍公平。城乡公共服务均等化初级阶段实现城乡基本公共服务均等化,实质是保证最低公平。我国目前处在实现城乡公共服务均等化的初级阶段。为此,地方公共财政体制改革的框架,是建立以城乡公共服务均等化为目标的公共预算体制,建立以实现最低公平为条件的农村公共服务内容体系,建立以平衡政府间公共财力为原则的转移支付体制,建立主体合理、机制完善的农村公共产品供给体制。