China's investment and rate of return on capital revisited

We revisit China's suspected overinvestment problem by examining the rate of return on capital from two perspectives. First, we find that two existing methods of estimating the rate of return generate conflicting results, and we succeed in reconciling them. Our revised estimates show that the rate of return rose sharply from 1998 to 2014, which helps explain the strong investment drive. Second, we explore what caused the rate of return to rise. We find the explanation lies mainly with the long-term factor of rising total factor productivity but that the short-term cyclical factor of low real interest rates has also contributed.     

Dutch disease,real effective exchange rate misalignments and their effect on GDP growth in EU

In this article we study the impact of real effective exchange rate misalignments, based on determinants including different types of foreign capital inflows, on GDP growth in the EU. For this analysis, we use a panel of 27 EU countries for the period 1994–2012, with annual frequency.Core countries have been only slightly undervalued from the crisis onwards, while the periphery was overvalued. However, the gap for the periphery has reduced in the last two years. As regards the new member states, these were overvalued for the entire time span. The results seem to be generally driven by the inflows of bank loans. The misalignments are associated with lower long-run growth. The exchange rate volatilities are not robust in affecting GDP growth, while spillovers and global factors seem to matter in all the specifications both in the short and long run.     

The economic costs of avoided deforestation in the developing world: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis aims to identify the key factors governing the economic costs of avoided deforestation in developing countries. To this end, data were collected from 32 primary studies published between 1995 and 2012, yielding 277 observations. Results show that unit costs depend significantly on cost features like estimation methodology, inclusion or exclusion of cost components, carbon accounting method, area size, alternative land uses and beneficiaries, time horizon, and the continent in which the forest protection scheme is implemented, but also factors like the share of agriculture in a nation's economy play a significant role in explaining unit costs. In future studies, greater attention needs to be paid to additional cost components like transaction costs and the presence of the co-benefits of avoided deforestation.     

A framework to account for the tourism carbon footprint at island destinations

Given concerns over greenhouse gases and the role of tourism in generating such environmental externality, a consistent carbon measurement framework is needed. This paper combines principles derived from production and consumption accounting measures to better allocate the responsibility for carbon emissions. Utilizing a boundary that includes domestic tourism expenditure, inbound tourism expenditure, and local spending associated with outbound travel, this paper (a) proposes a framework to measure the domestic total carbon effect and foreign-sourced effect, and (b) applies the analytical framework to Taiwan. The empirical study indicates that the carbon emissions for domestic tourism industries, international aviation, and imports accounted for 47%, 28% and 25% of the tourism carbon footprint. It is suggested that an island's dependence on both aviation and international trade leads to a larger share of emissions outside their geographic territory with respect to tourism development.     

The effect of on-site forest experience on stated preferences for low-impact timber harvesting programs

An important issue in the design of stated-preference surveys is whether the information provided to respondents within a survey instrument is adequate to yield valid value estimates. Providing respondents with on-site experience about forest ecosystem management alternatives may influence their expectation of the effects from new policies and programs. In the research reported here, we investigate whether preference parameters for attributes of low-impact timber harvesting programs differ between respondents to a mail survey versus respondents provided with an on-site forest experience (walk through a research forest). The empirical analysis in our application shows that stated preferences for timber harvesting attributes are not statistically different between the mail and on-site applications of the survey, and this result is robust to pretest (before experience) and post-test (post experience) applications.     

Inflation-targeting and real interest rate parity: A bias correction approach

This paper investigates whether inflation-targeting influences real interest rate parity (RIP) by a bias correction approach under cross-sectional dependence. The recursive mean adjustment (RMA) method proposed by So and Shin (1999) and Shin and So (2001) is employed to correct the downward bias in the panel unit root tests and in the half-life estimates of real interest rate differentials for traded and non-traded goods. The empirical findings differ depending on whether we apply the RMA. More importantly, the empirical results show that as more homogeneous economies become involved in terms of inflation-targeting regime, stronger mean reversion and much a tighter confidence interval are present. Thus, inflation-targeting plays an important role in providing favorable evidence for long-run RIP.     

Buyers' and sellers' agents in the housing market

We explain why buyers in the housing market use an agent employed by the seller. Such agents reduce buyers' search costs so that more buyers search a particular house. This increases the probability of the sale of the house and possibly also its selling price. However, since the selling price increases, if at all, by less than the fee paid by the seller to the agent, both buyers and sellers are better off. We identify two characteristics that give rise to sellers' agents and show that markets that do not have such agents are missing at least one of these characteristics.     

The tax-induced holding periods of real estate Investors: Theory and empirical evidence

This article reexamines holding period decisions in real estate investment. It develops and empirically tests a holding period model recognizing not only taxes but also refinancing and investor-specific determinants. Based on a sample of over 1,000 real estate transactions with observed holding periods, the results of our tests support the conclusion that investors' consumption and investment preferences and prevailing market interest rates are more important than tax issues in determining the holding periods of real estate investors.     

Social incidence and economic costs of carbon limits

This paper discusses both distributional and allocational effects of limiting carbon dioxide emissions in a small and open economy. It starts from the assumption that Switzerland attempts to stabilize its greenhouse gas emissions over the next 25 years, and evaluates costs and benefits of the respective reduction program. From a methodological viewpoint, this paper illustrates, how a computable general equilibrium approach can be adopted for identifying economic effects of cutting greenhouse gas emissions on the national level. From a political economy point of view it considers the social incidence of a greenhouse policy. It shows in particular that public acceptance can be increased and economic costs of greenhouse policies can be reduced, if carbon taxes are accompanied by revenue redistribution.     

物业管理早期介入如何贯穿房地产开发全过程

针对目前物业管理早期介入中的难点进行分析,并提出一些有效的方法;物业管理早期介入在房地产开发的不同阶段工作重点和作用各不相同,对此进行了归纳和对比。物业管理早期介入对整体物业项目建设质量的提高,对房地产开发企业品牌的树立和持续发展,具有深远的现实意义。