Capital needs in Eastern countries

This paper reviews estimated capital needs for Eastern Europe and rejects most of the claimed foreign capital contributions as too high and, in fact, unnecessary. It argues that whilst foreign investments may usefully assist reforms, they can neither substitute for reforms nor assure the success of reforms. Historically there is no evidence of sustained growth predominantly financed by foreign capital anywhere. The West's effort should therefore focus on assisting reform efforts, providing some capital but, above all, opening its markets to Eastern products.Opinions expressed in this paper are strictly personal. I would like to thank H. Handler for his comments.     

政府信息化项目的策略模式选择

政府信息化项目的策略模式选择,对于降低政府信息化投资风险与投资成本、提高效益水平至关重要。以信息化项目的全生命周期为分析视角,探讨了政府信息化项目在各个环节可选择的各种策略模式,分析了不同策略模式的特点,并给出了策略模式选择的建议。     

Asymmetric FDI and tax-treaty bargaining: theory and evidence

Tax treaties are often viewed as a mechanism for eliminating tax competition, however, this approach ignores the need for bargaining over the treaty's terms. This paper focuses on how bargaining can affect the withholding taxes set under the treaty. In a simple framework, we develop hypotheses about patterns in treaty tax rates. A key determinant for these patterns is the relative size of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) activity. In plausible situations, more asymmetric countries will negotiate treaties with higher tax rates. This theory is then tested using 1992 data from US and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) bilateral tax treaties. Overall, the data supports the prediction that greater asymmetric FDI activity increases the negotiated tax rates.     

Existence of a competitive equilibrium in a one sector growth model with heterogeneous agents and irreversible investment

Summary. We prove existence of a competitive equilibrium in a version of a Ramsey (one sector) model in which agents are heterogeneous and gross investment is constrained to be non negative. We do so by converting the infinite-dimensional fixed point problem stated in terms of prices and commodities into a finite-dimensional Negishi problem involving individual weights in a social value function. This method allows us to obtain detailed results concerning the properties of competitive equilibria. Because of the simplicity of the techniques utilized our approach is amenable to be adapted by practitioners in analogous problems often studied in macroeconomics. Received: September 13, 2001; revised version: December 9, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" We are grateful to Tapan Mitra for pointing out errors as well as making very valuable suggestions. Thanks are due to Raouf Boucekkine and Jorge Duran for additional helpful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his/her helpful comments. The second author acknowledges the financial support of the Belgian Ministry of Scientific Research (Grant ARC 99/04-235 “Growth and incentive design”) and of the Belgian Federal Goverment (Grant PAI P5/10, “Equilibrium theory and optimization for public policy and industry regulation”). Correspondence to: C. Le Van     

东道国ESP系统与东道国外商直接投资特征研究--以中国为例

国际直接投资地域结构的时空差异性对忽视东道国因素的传统国际投资理论提出了挑战。文章研究了东道国因素对国际生产资本地域运动的影响，提出了国际直接投资是东道国因素与投资主体三优势综合作用的结果，东道国环境、体制、政策系统的状态特征决定了东道国外资特征等观点，并实证研究了中国改革开放进程与外商对华投资规模和结构的内在互动性。     

Why Skew Selection, a Model of Parental Exploitation, Should Replace Kin Selection

Synopsis In his 1964 paper, William Hamilton wrote that inclusive fitness trumps direct fitness if, and only if, the effect of interactions among siblings on their parent’s fitness is ‘zero’. Kin selection models have succeeded only because they have ignored the fact that, if an altruist dies saving two siblings, the ‘zero impact on their parent’s fitness’ constraint is violated. Imagine a parent with three offspring. If two offspring drown, parental fitness is 1. On the other hand, if one altruistic offspring dies saving its two drowning siblings, parental fitness doubles to 2. Thus, direct fitness trumps inclusive fitness as an explanation for the evolution of altruism. In other words, parents that produce some portion of altruistic offspring willing to die to save some of their siblings (who would die without the intervention of the altruist) will realize greater fitness than parents producing no altruists. Skew selection, a bioeconomic extension of Michael Ghiselin’s (1974) parental exploitation model, is presented to explain the evolution of altruism from a direct fitness point of view.     

宏观投资的影响因素与实证分析

在界定宏观投资的基础上，选择储蓄、价格、利润和利率等影响因素的代表变量，建立固定资产投资的理论模型；以1985－1999年为样本区间，采用SPSS统计分析软件包，对变量数据进行相关性分析和主成分分析，构建我国固定资产投资的回归模型；通过实证分析得出我国固定资产投资各影响因素的结论并给出相应的政策含义。     

欠发达地区民间借贷的对策研究

近几年民间借贷案件数量不断上升,金融风险问题增多。从民间借贷风险防范的视角,以欠发达地区安徽省某地级市为例,介绍了欠发达地区民间借贷的现状,剖析了民间借贷存在的风险问题,如投资渠道不够畅通、民间借贷市场发展不规范、群众诚信意识不强、群众风险意识薄弱,提出风险防范建议,如加强政府对正规金融的支持、加强金融监管、加强诚信机制建设、增强民众金融素养。     

股票投资价值的灰色多层次评价

股票投资价值的评估是一个多目标、多层次和多因素组成的复杂系统,对其进行综合评价对投资决策是至关重要的。本文根据灰色系统理论,以灰色关联度为测度,提出了股票投资价值的灰色多层次评价模型,并通过实证研究和理论分析,表明该模型对投资者的决策有较高的参考价值。     

International Comparisons of Australia's Infrastructure Performance

International benchmarking has played a key role in the reform of Australia's infrastructure industries by promoting indirect or yardstick competition, in highlighting the need for further reform and building a consensus for implementing necessary changes. The international benchmarking of infrastructure performance by the Bureau of Industry Economics (BIE) between 1991 and 1996 did much to focus attention on the need for change. The BIE examined the performance of eight infrastructure industries relative to international best practice: electricity, rail freight, telecommunications, the waterfront, road freight, coastal shipping, aviation and gas supply. Performance comparisons concentrated on indicators of price, service quality, labour productivity and capital productivity. This paper reviews and summarises the performance comparisons the BIE undertook over the last three years of its infrastructure benchmarking program. The BIE international benchmarking program provides a useful role model for other countries wanting to seriously pursue reform of their infrastructure industries.