Dimensions of quality upgrading

The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies’ trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU‐15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE‐5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE‐5 show no evidence of entering a ‘low‐quality trap’ in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching‐up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low‐quality specialization may be applicable within the high‐tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group.     

Minimum Quality Standards under Asymmetric Duopoly with Endogenous Quality Ordering: A Note

In this note, we revisit minimum quality standards (MQS) under a vertically differentiated duopoly. We generalize the model in Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) by introducing asymmetry into the fixed cost of quality improvement and by explicitly taking into account the endogeneity of quality ordering. In the generalized model, we show that the results derived by Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) are largely robust.     

建湖县林农人工复合系统工程与生态经济效益浅析

建湖县运用生态学原理，充分发挥资源潜力，建立了几种林─农复合生态系统，结构合理，能流物流流通合理、利用充分，取得了很好的生态效益与经济效益。     

非国有经济发展对中国经济增长质量影响机理研究——来自VEC模型的新证据

转轨以来,中国非国有经济的发展促进了经济增长的数量扩张.这是因为,经济非国有化改革作为一种制度创新,是一种增量式改革.这种改革使得体制内利益在未受影响的条件下,实现了帕雷托式的增长.然而,非国有经济的发展并没有带来中国经济增长质量的同比改善.这是因为,中国民营企业发展一般都过分强调以利润为中心,忽略环境成本,并且由于融资困难等因素导致了其技术创新能力的弱化;其次,中国引进的外资不仅在技术和管理创新的扩散效应上没能达到预期效果,而且日益增加的加工贸易通过转移定价方式使中国经济不能充分享有出口增长带来的利润贡献.     

Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

我国金融监管法律制度的反思与改造

作为部门行政法律制度建构的一部分,金融监管法律制度在国家经济生活中具有十分重要的作用。目前我国的金融监管法律制度还存在着较大的缺陷,突出表现在金融监管立法不完备,法律、法规混杂、重复、遗漏及空白之处甚多,对监管主体的规定存在缺失,央行的独立监管地位弱化,关于金融监管的手段、方法的规定不完善,以致造成执法缺乏力度。在国外资金大量涉入国内、国际金融及监管规则约束国内的金融机构之前,必须完备我国的金融监管法律制度。     

休闲观光农业经营管理方案研究

休闲观光农业是一种利用田园景观、自然环境、生态资源，结合农林渔牧业生产、农村文化及农家生活，在不耽误农业生产的基础上又为城市居民提供休闲体验活动的农业经营模式。休闲观光农业能够利用当地丰富的农业资源、旅游资源和劳动力资源实现当地农业可持续发展。但它的发，晨过程也可能带来很多负面影响。这就要求我们在设计休闲观光农业的经营方案时要根据农业与旅游这两个行业的特点。通过各自的经营管理要素对其分别进行比较分析，找到了两个行业的异同，并采用经营管理构建方法。逐步导出休闲观光农业的经营方案。     

加速城市建设应注意的几个问题

目前,我国城市化进程不断加快,城市数量增加,规模扩大,成效显著.但是,也必须清醒地看到,城市建设工作中的短期行为和浮躁之风相当严重,应当引起人们的高度重视.本文认为,城市规模扩张必须以产业支撑为前提,不能搞空壳城市;城市公共设施建设慎向民资伸手,不能滥用市场化手段;居民区搬迁改造应多些人文关怀,不能一拆了之;应遵循城市发展的客观规律,正确处理城市建设中的几个关系问题.     

人力资源管理系统模型研究

本文依据信息技术对人力资源管理的影响,建立了人力资源管理系统模型,并提出人力资源管理思维、方法及原则。