Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

出口贸易中的物流管理

物流管理是外贸企业进出口业务管理的一个重要方面,它关系到企业的经营和资信能力。本文主要对外贸企业物流系统的功能、效果、因素及控制点的设计等方面进行了初步探讨。     

生产率增长测算的半参数估计方法:理论综述和相关探讨

半参数模型是参数和非参数回归模型的一种概括统一，其中的参数分量部分用于对确定性影响因素进行分析，而非参数分量部分则用于对随机干扰因素的刻画。Olley和Pakes最早给出了关于生产率增长测算的半参数估计方法的研究，Ackerberg和Caves对这一研究进行了修正和补充。但由于理论发展方面还不够成熟，限制了方法的实证应用。半参数方法对经济现实的描述更接近真实，随着半参数估计理论的日渐成熟，半参数估计方法在生产率增长测算领域必将发挥越来越大的作用。     

非农投资总量、结构和要素替代对就业的影响

将影响非农产业就业量的增长因素分解为:投资总量效应、结构变化效应和要素替代效应;投资总量的增长是拉动非农就业增长的主要力量,投资的行业结构变化效应以及要素替代效应导致了非农就业的下降。     

人力资本与区域全要素生产率分析

本文采用Malmquist指数分析了我国30个省级行政区1996—2003年的全要素生产率(TFP)增长,并将其分解为技术进步指数和效率变化指数。为了减少计算偏差,我们在使用承认无效率项存在的生产前沿技术的同时,引入了人力资本要素。本文的分析结果表明我国的人力资本水平增长迅速,30个省区的经济增长效率差距逐年扩大。同时我们发现在引入人力资本要素后,1996—2003年区域全要素生产率的增长得益于技术进步;如果不考虑人力资本存量,则低估了同期的效率提高程度,而高估了期间的技术进步指数。     

企业并购的财务动因分析

本文从主并企业的角度出发,主要分析了企业实行并购的财务动因。从企业自身的角度分析,趋于并购的财务动因一般基于获取规模经济效益、降低企业资金成本、平衡企业经营风险、实现合理避税、获得特殊资产等。同时笔者也认为,要获取相应的财务效果,并购后的整合管理尤为关键也最为棘手。     

Externalities, efficiency, regulation, and productivity growth in the U.S. electric utility industry

This paper examines the decomposition of total factor productivity growth for firms subject to regulation, given the production of a bad output. The production of good and bad outputs provides benefits and costs to society. Corporate socially responsible firms recognize the cost to society of producing the bad output. The paper separates the production technology and regulation effects from both the scale and technical change components. The paper also examines the measurement and decomposition of productivity growth when not accounting for production of the bad output. Using a 1992–2000 panel of 34 U.S. investor-owned electric utilities, results indicate that improvements in the scale, efficiency change, and technical change components contributed to positive growth. Not accounting for production of the bad output led to, on average, an overestimation of both the rate of productivity growth, and the contributions of scale economies and technical change to changes in productivity growth.

Economic reforms,efficiency and productivity in Chinese banking

This paper analyzes the impact of banking reforms on efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) change in Chinese banking industry. Using an input distance function, we find that joint-equity banks are more efficient than wholly state-owned banks (WSOBs). Furthermore, both WSOBs and joint-equity banks are found to be operating slightly below their optimal size, suggesting potential advantages in expansion of their businesses. Overall, TFP growth was 4.4% per annum for the sample period 1993–2002. Joint-equity banks experienced much higher growth in TFP (5.5% per annum) compared to the WSOBs (1.4% per annum).      

Information value and efficiency measurement for risk-averse firms

This paper has three goals. First, we demonstrate that standard arguments and methods from production and duality analysis can be used to provide a comprehensive and general treatment of the value of information for a risk-averse firm with expected-utility (linear-in-probabilities) preferences and a general stochastic technology. Second, we place bounds on the value of information for a risk-averse firm and relate these bounds to characteristics of the technology and the producer’s preferences. The third and final goal is to derive the implications that information differences can have for measured efficiency differences and to relate the bounds on the value of information to those measured differences.      

A two-sector Kaleckian model of growth and distribution with endogenous productivity dynamics

This study extends a two-sector Kaleckian model of output growth and income distribution by incorporating endogenous labour productivity growth. The model is composed of investment goods and consumption goods production sectors. The impact of a change in wage and profit shares on capacity utilisation and output growth rates at the sectoral and aggregate levels are identified. The study reveals short-run cyclical capacity utilisation rates and productivity growth dynamics. Even if the short-run steady state is stable, the capital accumulation rate in the consumption goods sector must decrease more than that in the investment sector for long-run stability. When simultaneous rises in profit shares in both the sectors affect long-run aggregate economic growth differently at a steady state, the distributional interests between the same class in different sectors may hamper the long-run economic growth. A policy message is that the effect of income distribution on industrial output growth is not always beneficial. These phenomena are specific to two-sector models and cannot be observed when using conventional aggregate growth models.