绩效与不足:建国初期农村信用合作社的借贷活动的历史考察——以鄂湘赣三省为中心

农村信用合作社是建国初期农村金融体系的重要组成部分，它的产生是新中国乡村借贷关系转型和现代化的标志之一。信用社借贷有利于农户的生产生活经营，推动了农村经济的恢复与发展，但其也存在一定的缺陷。     

Estimation of Agricultural Production Functfons on a World-Wide Basis

Agricultural production is becoming increasingly capital and research intensive. Hayami and Ruttan, along with others, have developed and applied the metaproduction functional approach to the examination of this phenomenon on a worldwide basis. Limitations to the approach derive from a restrictive functional form chosen for estimation, and from a restrictive specification of agricultural capital and land. This study addresses those difficulties by use of the flexible translog functional form for estimation and by specifying an overall agricultural capital index and a land measure incorporating differences in the quality of land (agricultural natural resource) endowments. Estimation results indicate that agricultural comparative advantage in production is likely shifting to developed countries relative to LDC's due to capital constraints in the latter. Also agricultural potential (i.e., land endowments) do not serve to differentiate nations on the basis of agricultural production. Investment in agriculture, including land improvement, is key to the determination of comparative advantage. La production agricole fait appelle de plus en plus a beaucoup de re-cherches et de capitaux. Hayami et Ruttan, avec d'autres, ont developpe et appliqué l'approche fonctionnelle métaproduction pour examiner ce phénomena à l‘échelle du monde. Les limitations de cette approache provienneent de la forme fonctionnelle restrictive choisie pour l'estimation, et de la spécification restrictive de capitaux et terres agricoles. Cette étude traite ces difficultés en utilisant la formule “translog’ fonctionnelle adaptable pour l'estimation et en spécificant un indice du capital agricole global et une mesure de terre qui incorpore les différences du qualité des terres agricoles (ressources agricoles naturelles). Tous les résultats estimatifs indiquent que l'avantage comparatif agricole de production s'incline vers les pays développés parraport aux PMD dû aux constraintes de capitaux dans ces derniers. Aussi la capacité agricole (c'est à dire la richesse des sols) ne sert pas à différencier les nations sur le plan de production agricole. L'investissement dans l'agriculte, notamment l'amélioration de terre, est la cief pour déterminer l'avantage comparatif.     

How to get firms to invest: A simple solution to the hold-up problem in regulation

Abstract. Many governmental programs are effective only if firms make costly investments. The inability of authorities to precommit to a regulatory scheme creates incentives for firms not to invest and to hold-up the regulator. This paper describes a simple subsidy/tax scheme embedded in a four-stage mechanism that solves the hold-up problem. We design a self-financing subsidy/tax scheme which benefits a complying firm at the expense of a non-complying firm. In order to be credible, the subsidy and tax rates must maximize social welfare for any combination of investment decisions. We show that there exists a unique subgame perfect equilibrium in which all firms invest and no actual implementation with subsidies and taxes is required. We discuss in which cases the mechanism can work under incomplete information. Received: 30 December 1998 / Accepted: 12 October 2001     

Symmetry and order in the portfolio allocation problem

Summary. This research studies the role of multivariate distribution structures on random asset returns in determining the optimal allocation vector for an expected utility maximizer. All our conclusions pertain for the set of risk averters. By carefully disturbing symmetry in the distribution of the, possibly covarying, returns, we ascertain the ordinal structure of the optimized allocation vector. Rank order of allocations is also established when a permutation symmetric random vector is mapped into the returns vector through location and scale shifts. It is shown that increased dispersion in the vectors of location and scale parameters benefit, ex-ante, investors as does a decrease in the rank correlation coefficient between the location and scale parameter vectors. Revealed preference comparative static results are identified for the location and scale vectors of asset returns. For most issues addressed, we arrive at much stronger inferences when a safe asset is available. Received: August 8, 2000; revised version: January 8, 2001     

Combining information for prediction in linear regression

This article deals with the prediction problem in linear regression where the measurements are obtained using k different devices or collected from k different independent sources. For the case of k=2, a Graybill-Deal type combined estimtor for the regression parameters is shown to dominate the individual least squares estimators under the covariance criterion. Two predictors ŷ _c and ŷ _p are proposed. ŷ _c is based on a combined estimator of the regression coefficient vector, and ŷ _p is obtained by combining the individual predictors from different models. Prediction mean square errors of both predictors are derived. It is shown that the predictor ŷ _p is better than the individual predictors for k≥2 and the predictor ŷ _c is better than the individual predictors for k=2. Numerical comparison between ŷ _c and ŷ _p shows that the former is superior to the latter for the case k=2.     

Evaluating FOMC forecasts

Monetary policy outcomes have improved since the early 1980s. One factor contributing to the improvement is that Federal Reserve policymakers began reporting economic forecasts to Congress in 1979. These forecasts indicate what the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members think will be the likely consequence of their policies. We evaluate the accuracy of the FOMC forecasts relative to private sector forecasts, the forecasts of the Research Staff at the Board of Governors, and a naïve alternative. We find that the FOMC output forecasts were better than the naïve model and at least as good as those of the private sector and the Fed staff. The FOMC inflation forecasts were more accurate than the private sector forecasts and the naïve model; for the period ending in 1996, however, they were not as accurate as Fed staff inflation forecasts.     

Predicting the geo-temporal variations of crime and disorder

Traditional police boundaries—precincts, patrol districts, etc.—often fail to reflect the true distribution of criminal activity and thus do little to assist in the optimal allocation of police resources. This paper introduces methods for crime incident forecasting by focusing upon geographical areas of concern that transcend traditional policing boundaries. The computerised procedure utilises a geographical crime incidence-scanning algorithm to identify clusters with relatively high levels of crime (hot spots). These clusters provide sufficient data for training artificial neural networks (ANNs) capable of modelling trends within them. The approach to ANN specification and estimation is enhanced by application of a novel and noteworthy approach, the Gamma test (GT).     

Consistent estimation in the bilinear multivariate errors-in-variables model

A bilinear multivariate errors-in-variables model is considered. It corresponds to an overdetermined set of linear equations AXB=C, A∈ℝ^m×n, B∈ℝ^p×q, in which the data A, B, C are perturbed by errors. The total least squares estimator is inconsistent in this case.  An adjusted least squares estimator is constructed, which converges to the true value X, as m →∞, q →∞. A small sample modification of the estimator is presented, which is more stable for small m and q and is asymptotically equivalent to the adjusted least squares estimator. The theoretical results are confirmed by a simulation study. Acknowledgements. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and corrections.? A. Kukush is supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship of the Belgian office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs, promoting Scientific and Technical Collaboration with Central and Eastern Europe.? S. Van Huffel is a full professor with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.? I. Markovsky is a research assistant with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.? This paper presents research results of the Belgian Programme on Interuniversity Poles of Attraction (IUAP V-22), initiated by the Belgian State, Prime Minister's Office – Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs of the Concerted Research Action (GOA) projects of the Flemish Government MEFISTO-666 (Mathematical Engineering for Information and Communication Systems Technology), of the IDO/99/03 project (K.U. Leuven) “Predictive computer models for medical classification problems using patient data and expert knowledge”, of the FWO projects G.0078.01, G.0200.00, and G0.0270.02.? The scientific responsibility is assumed by its authors.     

A spatial tax harmonization model

Policies to harmonize value-added tax rates are controversial in the European Union. This paper formulates a multi-country model over a one-dimensional space as a non-cooperative Nash game, in which each country aims at maximizing its tax revenue, subject to the constraint that its tax rate lies within a given common band. Then we examine the effects of changes in the common band on tax rates, tax revenues and the number of cross-border shoppers at Nash equilibrium. We also analyze the effects of geographical variation in country size and location.