North–South terms‐of‐trade trends from 1960 to 2006

The composition of exports of developing countries is increasingly dominated by manufactured goods. This has not changed the fact that their major trading partners continue to be the developed countries. In order to properly assess the distribution of gains from trade, there is a pressing need to analyze the movements in the terms of trade of developing countries with respect to the developed ones. A statistical analysis of the North–South terms of trade reveals that the terms of trade have turned against the South since the 1960s. However, the terms‐of‐trade deterioration is neither continuous nor evenly distributed over different country groupings. The existence of a structural break in the mid‐to‐late 1970s together with the greatest adverse terms‐of‐trade movements against the highly indebted and least developed countries attest the discontinuity and unevenness of this process.     

基于古诺模型的四种市场的社会福利

市场根据垄断程度的不同。可以分为完全竞争、垄断竞争、寡头垄断和完全垄断市场四种类型。基于古诺模型,用博弈论方法研究n个厂商市场情形的总产量、价格、总收益和消费者剩余并把它们归纳为统一的公式。从四种市场情形总产量和价格的特点推出其供给曲线的形状,进而比较其社会福利的状况。研究结果表明,随着垄断性的加强,市场的社会福利会越来越劣,完全竞争市场的社会福利最好,垄断竞争市场次之,寡头垄断市场更次,完全垄断市场的社会福利最差。     

Effects of financial constraints on export performance of firms during the global financial crisis: microeconomic evidence from Korea

This study uses a manufacturing firm-level panel data set of South Korea for 2006–2013 to investigate the effect of financial constraints on the export performance of firms, with particular emphasis on the corporate ownership structure. The empirical results show that foreign multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries are not affected by financial constraint during both crisis and noncrisis periods, implying advantages of foreign ownership. However, domestic firms suffer more from financial constraints on exports during crisis years. In particular, domestic firms without parent firms are financially constrained during both crisis and noncrisis periods. However, those with parent firms do not experience financial constraints during noncrisis periods, although they too suffer from them during crisis periods. Thus, parent–subsidiary linkage among domestic firms plays an important role in alleviating financial constraints on export activity in noncrisis years but not as much during crisis years. Therefore, domestic parent firms exhibit less resilience to the global financial crisis, in comparison to foreign MNC parent firms.     

The efficiency of small and medium enterprises in informal metal manufacturing in Zimbabwe: Implications for stakeholders in the agricultural sector

This study uses the structure–conduct–performance framework to examine the structure and efficiency of small and medium enterprises in the informal metal manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Small and medium enterprises provide a lifeline to the country's resource-poor farmers, whose numbers increased exponentially after the agrarian reform in 2000. The study utilises nationally representative, enterprise-level data from five major towns (Harare, Chitungwiza, Bulawayo, Mutare and Rusape) in Zimbabwe. Various performance measures are applied at the industry level to assess efficiency, profitability and competitiveness; these include the Herfindahl–Hirschman index, concentration ratios, average yearly profits and Tobin's q ratio. The results indicate that small and medium enterprises in Zimbabwe are modestly efficient, profitable and competitive. These findings highlight the need to integrate informal metal fabrication activities into Zimbabwe's national economic development plans.     

Advertising,Price and Quality in Self–regulating Professions: A Survey

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between advertising, fees and quality in the self–regulating professions. Much of the literature is derived from the perspective of advertising as an information–enhancing device, helping to reduce the information asymmetry between professional and client. This is consistent with the majority of the empirical studies which suggest that advertising tends to have a downward effect on professional fees, with little if any adverse effect on quality. There are, however, important issues of method and measurement which may lessen the force of this conclusion     

论经济学的边界

有经济学家认为经济学的基本逻辑可以解释人类所有的行为,他们运用经济行为模式对其他学科的传统“领地”簪越扩张,进行“经济学帝国主义”,试图用经济学的基本分析法方代替所有社会科学。但是随着经济学的扩张,经济学的解释力减弱,扩张的边际收益递减;同时,要求的理论创新加大,即边际成本递增。当两者相等时就达到了一种扩张的均衡,由此可以确立经济学的合理边界。     

深入社会改革,加快建设和谐无锡——无锡“十二五”社会改革途径探讨

经过三十多年的改革开放以后,无锡和全国一样,经济社会有了巨大的发展,但是,社会发展滞后于经济发展的情况仍然存在,急需深入社会改革,推动社会发展。本文在回顾无锡在"十一五"期间社会改革取得的成就基础上,分析了无锡社会发展存在的问题和面临的挑战和机遇,提出了"十二五"期间无锡深化社会改革的目标以及在政府职能转换、社会管理模式创新、实现公共服务均等化和城乡协调发展等四个方面的改革建议,最后提出了保障改革的一些措施。     

Why do commercial banks hold government bonds? The case of Japan

We investigate the determinants of the demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs) by commercial banks in Japan. In particular, by estimating portfolio equations for JGB demand and bank loans, based on a panel data set from the late 1990s to the 2000s, we rigorously test the popular assertion that the long stagnation of the real economy caused a shift in the portfolios of commercial banks from bank lending to JGBs. We find that the popular assertion is not empirically supported. Rather, the portfolio shift from loans to JGBs has been caused by a fall in the ratio of the loan rate to unit lending costs, or the bank’s price–cost margin for lending.     

Monetary regime choice in Singapore: Would a Taylor rule outperform exchange-rate management?

A DSGE–VAR approach was adopted to examine the managed exchange-rate system at work in Singapore and to ask if the country had any reason to fear floating the exchange rate and adopting a Taylor rule. The results showed that, in terms of overall inflation volatility, the exchange rate rule had a comparative advantage over the Taylor rule when export-price shocks were the major sources of real volatility while a Taylor rule was preferable when domestic productivity shocks were dominant. The exchange-rate rule also dominated the Taylor rule for reducing inflation persistence.