产业集群的竞争优势分析

产业集群是现代经济中重要的产业空间组织形式,表现出强劲、持续的竞争优势,引起了众多学者的关注并从不同角度对其加以分析和概括。本文先对产业集群的概念和基本特征作了简单介绍,然后对产业集群的竞争优势进行了较为详尽的分析。本文认为,产业集群的竞争优势主要体现在以下几个方面:资源集聚优势、资本利用效率优势、交易成本优势、学习创新优势、范围经济优势、外部经济优势和区位品牌优势。     

International Trade, OECD Membership, and Religion

Transaction costs in trade gravity equation are proxied by the distance that separates two trading partners, under the assumption that the distance elasticity is the same across all trading partners. We show that distance elasticity, however, critically depends on whether trading partners are industrial countries (i.e., members of the OECD) or share same religion. These heterogeneities are both statistically and economically significant. For instance, expected trade flows are the largest when an OECD member trades with a non-member and both are non-religious. Expected trade flows fall as much as by 62.9% between two non-religious, non-OECD members. Expected bilateral trade drops by 48.1% when both countries in the pair are OECD members while one is Christian and the other is Islamic. Both religion and OECD membership significantly affect the typical transaction costs implied by the gravity equation. JEL Classification Number: F13     

Devaluation, Capital Formation, and the Current Account

This paper re-examines the effects of devaluation and a rise in the rate of devaluation on capital formation and the current account in an optimizing monetary model of a small open economy with endogenous labor, investment with adjustment costs, and perfect capital mobility. It is shown that devaluation leads to capital accumulation and a current-account deficit in the long run and during the adjustment process, whereas a rise in the rate of devaluation has an ambiguous impact on capital formation and the current account depending on the relationship between consumption and real balances in the utility function. If consumption and real balances are separable or complements, then a rise in the rate of devaluation produces capital decumulation and a current-account surplus in the long run as well as on the transition path. These results stand in sharp contrast with Calvo (1981). JEL Classification Numbers: F41     

ADOPTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPACT OF MODERN RICE VARIETIES IN BANGLADESH

Technological progress has helped Bangladesh to achieve self‐sufficiency in rice production in 2001 from a heavy import‐dependence, despite doubling of population and a reduction in arable land since its independence in 1971. As the adoption of modern varieties (MV) of rice is reaching a plateau, particularly for the irrigated ecosystem, an important issue is whether the research system will be able to sustain the growth of production. The present paper addresses the following questions: (i) to what extent farmers have been replacing the old MV with the new MV, and (ii) what has been the impact of the variety replacement on productivity and profitability. How crucial is the continuous research and release of improved rice varieties toward improving farm production and income for farmers comes out as a clear message to policymakers from the current paper.     

安徽省45家上市公司经营业绩评析

上市公司是我国经济运行中最具发展优势的群体,上市公司的健康发展是夯实资本市场基础、促进资本市场健康稳定发展的根本.文章采用因子分析法,通过建立多元化因子模型,利用案例样本(安徽省45家上市公司)的相关财务数据对样本公司的经营业绩进行实证分析,并依据分析结果对样本公司经营业绩进行综合评价.     

Trade Costs,Trade Balances and Current Accounts: An Application of Gravity to Multilateral Trade

In this paper we test the well-known hypothesis of Obstfeld and Rogoff (NBER Macroeconomics Annual 7777:339–390, 2000) that trade costs are the key to explaining the so-called Feldstein–Horioka puzzle. Our approach has a number of novel features. First, we focus on the interrelationship between trade costs, the trade account and the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle. Second, we use the gravity model to estimate the effect of trade costs on bilateral trade and, third, we show how bilateral trade can be used to draw inferences about desired trade balances and desired intertemporal trade. Our econometric results provide strong support for the Obstfeld and Rogoff hypothesis and we are also able to reconcile our results with the so-called home bias puzzle.

Multinationals: Too Many or Too Few?— The Proximity–concentration Trade-off

The paper builds an analytically tractable model that illustrates the “proximity–concentration trade-off” involved in horizontal multinationals. For low trade costs, firms are single-plant firms, for intermediate costs, some are single-plant firms whereas others are multinationals, for large trade costs, firms are multinationals. Because of the modeling strategy, the model is suited for a welfare analysis of multinationals. It shows that too many firms choose to concentrate their production in only one location. Also, for some transport costs, a reduction in transport costs worsens welfare.

Wall of cash: The investment-cash flow sensitivity when capital becomes abundant

In the mid 2000s the oil and gas industry was hit by what might be best described as a ‘wall of cash’ as oil prices successively reached new record levels and access to external financing improved greatly. In this article we investigate what this sudden abundance of liquidity implied for the investment-cash flow relationship, the interpretation of which continues to generate controversy in the literature. For financially constrained firms we find that the investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases in the abundance period (2005–2008), suggesting that the financing constraints became less binding in this period. For financially unconstrained firms the investment-cash flow sensitivity instead increases over time, suggesting that this relationship is driven by agency problems related to free cash flow. Our paper is the first in the investment-cash flow literature to bring evidence from a natural experiment in which there was an unexpected, exogenous, substantial, and persistent decrease in the cost of external financing.     

What explains the value premium? The case of adjustment costs,operating leverage and financial leverage

This paper empirically examines and compares the different theoretical predictions on how adjustment costs, operating and financial leverage influence the value premium. Consistent with Ozdagli (2012), financial leverage plays a dominant role, supported by adjustment costs (which represent the degree of investment irreversibility). Specifically, the observed value premium is driven by the financial leverage differences between value and growth firms, partially neutralized by investment irreversibility. The relation between the value premium and investment irreversibility is contrary to the intuition in Zhang (2005) and Cooper (2006). Operating leverage does not significantly influence the value premium.     

Foreign Direct Investment in the Enlarged EU: Do Taxes Matter and to What Extent?

Foreign direct investment is of increasing importance in the European Union. This paper estimates the effect of taxes on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and on three sub-components of these flows for the countries of the enlarged European Union. The model in the spirit of gravity equations robustly explains FDI flows between the 25 member states. Sample selection needs to be addressed in the estimation. We show that the different subcomponents of FDI should and indeed do react differently to taxes. After controlling for unobserved country characteristics and common time effects, the top statutory corporate tax rate of both, source and host country, turn insignificant for total FDI and investment into equity. However, high source country taxes clearly increase the probability of firms to re-invest profits abroad and lower the percentage of debt financed FDI. This might reflect profit re-allocation to avoid taxes. Market size factors have the expected signs.