Stochastic Production and Heterogeneous Risk Preferences: Commercial Fishers' Gear Choices

We present a model of fishers' gear choice, which allows for heterogeneity both in production technology and risk preferences and apply it on a panel of Swedish trawlers. Stochastic revenue functions are estimated and used to predict the mean and standard deviation of revenue for each trip. In a random-parameters logit model, we test if these predicted values explain gear choice. A majority of fishers respond positively to increased mean and negatively to increased variability of expected landing values, indicating risk aversion, but also show a strong tendency to choose the same gear used on the previous trip.     

实际汇率偏离研究述评

购买力平价说是一种基本的汇率决定理论，但影响购买力平价关系成立的短期或长期经济因素众多，从而使得实际汇率经常偏离平价关系。文章对有关文献中各种购买力平价偏离模型进行了综合分析，阐明了生产率、政府支出、货币供给、偏好需求和定价策略等基本因素作用于实际汇率的经济机制。     

上海社区商业的发展模式研究

社区商业无论是功能还是商品都有别于商业中心。社区商业是以一定地域的居住区为载体,以便民利民为宗旨,以不断提高社区居民生活质量为目标的属地型商业。建设社区商业并不仅仅是简单的商业网点分布,而是要立足于引导社区居民新型的生活消费。随着上海经济的迅速发展,上海的社区建设出现了新的飞跃。而作为现代服务业组成部分的祉区商业也日益凸显其重要性,这就要求上海既有繁荣繁华的中心商业,又要有便民利民的社区商业。本文在对上海社区商业现状和定位分析的基础上,对上海社区商业的发展模式进行了研究,希望以此促进上海社区商业的发展。     

商业银行效益与风险多目标最优的区间测算与优化

本文以效益最大化、风险最小化为双重目标,依据统计学优化标准,构建了商业银行两阶段效益风险优化模型,对效益与风险的关系进行优化协调。第一阶段完成对资本结构、贷存款存量及流量分布、实际利率等因素及效益、风险的优化;第二阶段完成对总股本净回报率、总资产收益率、营业收入利润率、准备金覆盖率、资本充足率、流动性比率的优化及效益、风险的再优化。最后利用两阶段优化模型确定各类银行的资产规模优化边界和应对宏观投资过热或低迷状况的银行绩效优化策略。     

ECONOMIC WELFARE ANALYSIS OF THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS: A CGE MICROSIMULATION MODEL FOR COLOMBIA

In this paper, a computable general equilibrium (CGE) microsimulation model is used to analyze the effects of an ex ante legalization of drugs on the Colombian economy. The model consists of 11 productive sectors, 3 different labor force categories with unemployment, and 20 households divided by income and location. Changes in wages and migration are estimated using a labor participation model, and a NIDS estimates the demands of the households. Changes in household economic welfare, measured by changes in income and prices (CV and EV measurements), are very sensitive to the reinvestments that the government makes in the economy. By analyzing six different scenarios with different assumptions about changes in drug prices, investments of the government, and the termination of the armed conflict, the results suggest that economic welfare improves when the government reinvests military expenditures in other productive sectors or when the ‘economy of war’ continues and the legalization does not end the armed conflict.     

世界城市居住区空间结构模式的历史演变

城市居住区的分化与隔离,是人与人、社会群体与社会群体关系在地理空间上的客观反映。在不同的城市发展阶段,城市居住区空间结构具有不同的模式起源期城市属于“混合”型居住空间结构;前工业城市居住区空间属于“舒伯格”传统同心圆结构,在这基础上又叠加上“行会”与“家庭”两大特殊因素的作用;成熟期工业城市居住区空间演变成“伯吉斯”现代同心圆结构,呈现沿公共交通干道向外辐射的“星状”大都市居住空间特点;郊区化时期形成以郊区为主体的圈层状弥漫大都市居住空间结构;“后工业”时期“边缘”城市与“无边缘”城市开始产生,形成多中心的“星系状”大都市居住区空间结构。中国必须防止美国式的“弥漫状”郊区化居住空间模式。     

Frontier Production Functions and Technical Efficiency Measures

The concept of technical efficiency is central to measuring the firm performance. The measurement of technical efficiency has proved difficult and complex, and the literature provides a range of methodologies. This paper reviews the various methodologies for measuring technical efficiency and offers a comparison between established methods of measurements. The discussion is literary with less mathematical jargons and equations. The objective of this paper is not to be exhaustive, but to be up‐to‐date and to provide a significant discussion on some of the core methods of measuring technical efficiency.     

Testing for Linearity

The problem of testing for linearity and the number of regimes in the context of self‐exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) models is reviewed. We describe least‐squares methods of estimation and inference. The primary complication is that the testing problem is non‐standard, due to the presence of parameters which are only defined under the alternative, so the asymptotic distribution of the test statistics is non‐standard. Simulation methods to calculate asymptotic and bootstrap distributions are presented. As the sampling distributions are quite sensitive to conditional heteroskedasticity in the error, careful modeling of the conditional variance is necessary for accurate inference on the conditional mean. We illustrate these methods with two applications — annual sunspot means and monthly U.S. industrial production. We find that annual sunspots and monthly industrial production are SETAR(2) processes.     

Forecasting economic and financial variables with global VARs

This paper considers the problem of forecasting economic and financial variables across a large number of countries in the global economy. To this end a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model, previously estimated by Dees, di Mauro, Pesaran, and Smith (2007) and Dees, Holly, Pesaran, and Smith (2007) over the period 1979Q1–2003Q4, is used to generate out-of-sample forecasts one and four quarters ahead for real output, inflation, real equity prices, exchange rates and interest rates over the period 2004Q1–2005Q4. Forecasts are obtained for 134 variables from 26 regions, which are made up of 33 countries and cover about 90% of the world output. The forecasts are compared to typical benchmarks: univariate autoregressive and random walk models. Building on the forecast combination literature, the effects of model and estimation uncertainty on forecast outcomes are examined by pooling forecasts obtained from different GVAR models estimated over alternative sample periods. Given the size of the modelling problem, and the heterogeneity of the economies considered–industrialised, emerging, and less developed countries–as well as the very real likelihood of possibly multiple structural breaks, averaging forecasts across both models and windows makes a significant difference. Indeed, the double-averaged GVAR forecasts perform better than the benchmark competitors, especially for output, inflation and real equity prices.     

Seniority bias in a tournament

The paper presents a model where the probability of promotion tends to increase with seniority (overall labor market experience) without relying on the accumulation of general human capital. To this end, we consider the optimal design of a tournament (a relative compensation scheme) between two agents with different time horizon, the young and the old, in an overlapping generations framework. When the principal can only imperfectly monitor each agent’s effort level, the difference in time horizon leads to the ex post difference in the marginal value of effort between the two agents. In this case, the optimal tournament necessarily involves a bias towards the old agent. Within this framework, we also examine the relationship between: (1) the monitoring accuracy and the optimal bias; and (2) the value of outside options and the optimal bias.