Is Financial Fragility a Matter of Illiquidity? An Appraisal for Italian Households

We investigate household financial fragility in Italy, providing three main contributions. First, we propose a novel characterization of financial fragility that is not necessarily linked to indebtedness, distinguishes between expected and unexpected expenses, takes portfolio composition into account, and is free of subjectivity bias. Second, we use it to assess the importance of household portfolio composition for determining the difficulties related to coping with unexpected expenditures, besides socio‐economic and demographic factors. Third, we test its ability to forecast future conditions of financial distress. The empirical analysis is based on the Bank of Italy Survey on Household Income and Wealth. The results highlight the relevance of portfolio choices as determinants of financial distress, that is, they provide evidence that homeownership increases the likelihood of financial fragility while the presence of a mortgage decreases it. Moreover our measure is shown to act as an early warning indicator of distress.     

How Does Trade Openness Affect Regional Demographic Transitions? Evidence from China's Provincial Panel Data

This paper investigates the effect of trade openness and other variables on the demographic transition in China using the instrumental variables regression method based on provincial panel data for the period between 1981 and 2013. The results indicate that trade openness is one of the determinants of China's demographic transition and has two distinct effects: (i) an income effect that accelerated the demographic transition by increasing per capita income; and (ii) a human capital effect that suppressed the demographic transition by reducing human capital accumulation. The effects of trade on demographic transition vary across different regions. This study identifies the important determinants of demographic transition in China's regions, and has rich policy implications for demographic transition and the upgrading of trade structure.     

Technical change and total factor productivity growth: The case of Chinese provinces

In the literature technical change (TC) is mostly assumed to be exogenous and specified as a function of the time trend or time dummies. However, some exogenous external factors other than time can also affect TC. In this paper we model TC via time trend (external non-economic) as well as other exogenous (external economic) factors (technology shifters). For this we define technology indices based on the external economic factors and the time trend. The specification of production function is then amended to accommodate these technology indices which are not necessarily separable from the traditional inputs. That is, these technology indices allow for non-neutral shift in the production function. In doing so we are able to decompose TC (a component of TFP change) into two parts. One part is driven by time and the other part is related to producer-specific external economic factors. The latter can further be decomposed into each external economic factors. The empirical model uses panel data on Chinese provinces. We identify a number of key technology shifters and their effect on technical change and TFP growth of provinces are examined.     

虚拟研发中的知识产权管理策略——基于案例的分析

科学的知识产权管理是虚拟研发成功的关键。波音7E7飞机的研发实践表明:依据虚拟研发组织的周期性、发挥核心企业主导作用、认真选择合作伙伴并恰当分解任务、完善信息系统是知识产权管理的最主要因素。我国的C3G联盟研发实践,也对虚拟研发及其知识产权管理模式进行了初步的探索。我国虚拟研发应当在发挥企业主体地位、合理选择合作伙伴和合作模式、注意运行安全的基础上,全过程完善知识产权管理。     

Do household definitions matter in survey design? Results from a randomized survey experiment in Mali

Household definitions used in multi-topic household surveys vary between surveys but have potentially significant implications for household composition, production, and poverty statistics. Standard definitions of the household usually include some intersection of keywords relating to residency requirements, common food consumption, and intermingling of income or production decisions. Despite best practices intending to standardize the definition of the household, it is unclear which types of definitions or which intersections of keywords in a definition result in different household compositions. This paper conducts a randomized survey experiment of four different household definitions in Mali to examine the implications for household-level statistics. This approach permits analysis of the trade-offs between alternative definition types. We find that additional keywords in definitions increase rather than decrease household size and significantly alters household composition. Definitions emphasizing common consumption or joint production increase estimates of the levels of household assets and consumption statistics, but not on per adult equivalency asset and consumption statistics, relative to open-ended definitions of the household. In contrast, definition type did not affect production statistics in levels, though we observe significant differences in per adult equivalency terms. Our findings suggest that variations in household definition have implications for measuring household welfare and production.     

超声测量虚拟仪器的设计与开发

文章基于超声测距的原理,利用4轴数控基础作为运动控制平台,结合超声采集卡设计并开发了超声测量系统实现复杂型面构件的测厚,利用Visual C++实现了超声测量的虚拟仪器软件功能,最后对标准试块进行了测厚实验,实验结果验证本超声测量系统的有效性。     

Using Market Expectations to Test for Speculative Bubbles in the Crude Oil Market

The wide fluctuations of oil prices from 2003 to 2008 have attracted the interest of academics and policymakers. A popular view is that these fluctuations were caused by speculative bubbles due to the increased financialization of oil futures markets. This hypothesis, however, is difficult to examine since the fundamental price of oil is unobservable and, therefore, econometric evidence in favor of bubbles may actually be due to misspecified market fundamentals. In this paper, we extend two recently proposed methodologies for bubble detection that alleviate this problem by using market expectations of future prices. Both methodologies provide no evidence of speculative bubbles.