Market Risk of Developed and Emerging Countries During the Global Financial Crisis

This study compares the performance of the widely used risk measure, value at risk (VaR), across a large sample of developed and emerging countries. The performance of VaR is assessed using both the unconditional and conditional tests of Kupiec and Christoffersen, respectively, as well as the quadratic loss function. The results indicate that VaR performs much more poorly when measuring the risk of developed countries than of emerging ones. One possible reason might be the deeper initial impact of the global financial crisis on developed countries. The results also provide evidence of the decoupling of the market risk of emerging and developed countries during the global financial crisis.     

How and why transition made income inequality increase in urban Russia: A local study

Using sample surveys from the city of Taganrog in 1989 and 2000, we investigate household income, its composition, and its distribution in urban Russia. Income inequality increased greatly as real income at the lowest part of the distribution decreased considerably. Earnings are more concentrated in the upper part of the income distribution in 2000 than in 1989. For many households, public transfers, allowances, private transfers, or subsidiary earned income prevented income from falling further. However, Russia did not inherit from its Soviet past an efficient progressive tax system or programs to protect jobless workers and households facing severe drops in income. Journal of Comparative Economics 33 (4) (2005) 772–787.     

China: Workshop of the world?

Because China's transformation process is complex and remains open-ended, there are many partial answers provided to the many questions asked by foreign observers and Chinese people alike about where China is heading. The argument here is that it is wrong to assert China's coming collapse, just as it is not correct to assert that the dynamics so visibly at work in China will lead to China becoming the world's workshop. It is closer to the truth to maintain that the dynamics at work in China can lead in any direction, and that the necessary, let alone the sufficient conditions for them leading to a desirable outcome are daunting, but not impossible to achieve. This article suggests both necessary and sufficient conditions for China to emerge as the world's workshop, and then looks forward to assess whether we may expect regime change or political development.     

Modeling Energy and Development: An Evaluation of Models and Concepts

Most global energy models are developed by institutes from developed countries, focusing primarily on issues that are important in industrialized countries. Evaluation of the results for Asia of the IPCC/SRES models shows that broad concepts of energy and development, the energy ladder and the environmental Kuznets curve, can be observed in the results of the models. However, improvements can be made in modeling the issues that underlie these concepts, like traditional fuels, electrification, economic structural change, income distribution, and informal economies. Given the rapidly growing importance of energy trajectories of developing countries for global sustainability, the challenge for the future is to develop energy models that include all these aspects of energy and development.     

Private savings and transition

After the collapse in the early transition years, saving rates in Eastern European EU‐accession countries have recovered strongly. But is private saving in these countries now driven by the same forces as in the EU? A GMM estimator is applied to analyze the determinants of private saving in both country groups. The main results are: saving rates are rather persistent; income growth increases saving, whereas public saving crowds out private saving. There is evidence that in both country groups domestic saving and foreign capital operate at least partly as substitutes, which is an indicator for international financial integration. The long‐run effects of income growth and public saving are larger in the EU‐15 than in the EU‐accession countries.     

民营企业治理转型困境与超越——基于路径依赖理论的分析视角

随着民营企业由初创期走向“二次创业”阶段,公司治理模式由封闭、集权的家族主导型向开放、制衡型的现代公司治理转变,就成为企业发展壮大的必然要求。然而,这种有利于效率改进的制度变迁却没有普遍发生,企业陷入公司治理模式的转型困境。本文运用路径依赖理论,从初始产权结构、传统文化和企业家行为倾向3个角度分析和揭示了民营企业治理转型困境的路径依赖效应,阐述了要超越和克服路径依赖,必须将注意力集中于发挥国家和企业家等制度变迁主体的积极作用,从而使公司治理模式脱离无效率的“锁定”状态,步入有效率的演进路径。     

发展中国家对接跨国公司R＆D资源转移研究

跨国公司的R＆D资源从封闭到向发达国家开放，再到向发展中国家转移．经历了特殊的发展阶段。目前，发展中国家正成为发达国家跨国公司主导的全球R＆D网络的重要节点，本文基于UNCTAD2005年的世界投资报告，分析了跨国公司R＆D资源向发展中国家转移的现状．提出了发展中国家对接跨国公司R＆D资源转移的比较优势理论，揭示了“推拉吸引”四个促进R＆D资源向发展中国家转移的动力机制，并剖析了发展中国家利用跨国公司R＆D资源方面存在的不足，结合中国实际，提出了有针对性的对策建议。     

Why is the issue of land ownership still of major concern in East Central European (ECE) transitional countries and particularly in Hungary?

In recent negotiations related to agriculture in connection with EU accession, the candidate countries asked for and received a period of 7–12 years exemption from EU rules with respect to the free movement of capital for the purpose of purchasing agricultural land. This means that, with some exceptions, foreigners will be prevented from buying land in most new member countries for a transitional period. The negotiating governments of the prospective new Member States claimed that a transitional period would be necessary because land prices are much lower in their countries than in the 15 EU ‘old’ countries. They claimed that without such an exemption, land in their countries would be bought cheaply by people of the ‘old’ EU countries, thus causing land scarcity for domestic farmers. However, statistical data do not support fears about land scarcity at present or in the future. The reasons for ‘keeping away’ foreigners from ‘national land’ are ideological rather than economic. Land continues to play a crucial role in rural-nationalist ideology, which has survived even after the disappearance of its bases, i.e. rural over-population and genuine land scarcity.     

Evaluating service quality and consumer satisfaction in emerging markets

Developing economies offer tremendous potential for future growth and organizations appreciating these consumers’ requirements stand to reap considerable returns. However, compared with more developed economies published consumer studies are few. In particular, there is a dearth of service quality research and hardly any from Africa. Furthermore, the little available research tends to apply Western methodologies, which may not be entirely appropriate. This research investigates East African consumer perceptions of retail banking using an approach that takes account of the research context. Qualitative research was undertaken to define the relevant service attributes. Performance along these was then investigated through a survey with over 2000 respondents. Principal component analysis identifies 13 core service dimensions and multinomial logistic regression reveals which are the key drivers of customer satisfaction. Comparison of the results with studies from other regions confirms that established standardized research instruments are likely to miss or under‐represent service attributes important in developing countries.