Creditworthiness evaluation of Italian SMEs at the beginning of the 2007–2008 crisis: An MCDA approach

In this paper we use a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach in order to evaluate the creditworthiness of about 40,000 Italian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) viewed as potential applicants for bank loans in the three-year period 2006–2008, a timespan embracing the beginning phase of the recent economic and financial crisis. This approach is able to consider simultaneously different factors affecting the firms’ solvency level. The results obtained in terms of classification into homogeneous rating classes, scoring and migration probabilities show that the proposed approach is able to unveil early signal of recession in the Italian SMEs sector. Furthermore, some comparisons between our approach and a couple of known methodologies for creditworthiness assessment show the goodness of our method.     

Evaluation and monitoring of community youth prevention programs using a robust productivity index

Evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for youth behavioral and mental problems have been implemented by many local community program providers. Due to the differences among communities in resource availability and the demand for services, however, policymakers and program practitioners require ways of measuring organizational efficiency in terms of resource commitment and improvement in individual outcomes. In this paper, we propose a robust productivity index for monitoring managerial performance and detecting exceptions in dynamic environments. Robust productivity bounds are constructed to identify innovators who make a technical shift. The approach is illustrated with panel data on youth outcomes from a selected multi-site community prevention program between the fiscal years 2010 and 2015. The results suggest that our approach not only permits classification of the innovators, but also recognizes patterns of change in productivity.     

The ‘postcode lottery’ of the Italian public health bill analysed with the hierarchy Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis

Over the last two decades, due to strong decentralization and widespread budget constraints, the Italian co-payment for health care has become a way to finance public health. This phenomenon has provoked a continuous increase of private costs of public health and an evident regional heterogeneity. As a result, a pervasive spatial inequality of access to public health care is becoming increasingly clear. The aim of this paper is to measure this inequality, mainly determined by the differences among regional co-payment prices. Access, equity, and needs are all part of the phenomenon ‘inequality of access’, and they are difficult to define and measure in health care. For this reason, most of the previously proposed measurement methods have inherent limitations and have prompted us to use an innovative approach focused exclusively on the supply side. In particular, we focus only on the cost of health benefits (co-payment). From a methodological perspective, we use a recent new version of the Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis (SMAA), which is a methodology mainly used to build composite indicators of multidimensional phenomena out of the market. In order to deal with the hierarchical structure of the Italian health care system, we use the Hierarchy Stochastic Multiobjective Acceptability Analysis (HSMAA), which takes into account the uncertainty with respect to the weights assigned to the considered criteria, as in the standard SMAA, but also the uncertainty with respect to the weights assigned to the considered sub-criteria. Applying for the first time HSMAA to measure inequality allows us to create a unique index for each region and then to make a classification among them. The results show that, since there are different prices for the same health benefits among different regions, there are strong spatial inequalities in the cost of the Essential Levels of health care in Italy.     

An Interview with Chris Skinner

Chris Skinner was born in London on 12 March 1953. He completed a BA in mathematics in 1975 at the University of Cambridge. He then obtained an MSc degree in statistics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1976 and worked as an assistant statistician in the Central Statistical Office for 1 year. After working as a research assistant in LSE from 1977 to 1978, he joined the University of Southampton as a lecturer in 1978, where he earned a PhD in social statistics in 1982. He remained at the University of Southampton, where he became a senior lecturer in 1989 and professor of statistics in 1994. While serving as the head of his department from 1997 to 2000, he played a crucial role in the creation of an MSc programme in official statistics in 1999. In 2011, he returned to the LSE, where he currently holds the position of professor of statistics. Chris is the author of over 80 peer‐reviewed articles in statistical journals and the co‐editor of two influential books on the analysis of survey data. He made significant research contributions covering areas that include the analysis of survey data, inference in the presence of non‐response and measurement errors and statistical disclosure control. He served on several advisory committees, including the Statistical Methods Advisory Committee at Statistics Canada (from 2000 to 2011) and the National Statistics Methodology Advisory Committee in the United Kingdom (from 2001 to 2010). He has received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding contributions to survey sampling and social statistics. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. In 2009, he received the West Medal from the Royal Statistical Society for contributions to social statistics, and in 2010, he was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 2019, he also received the Waksberg award to recognize his contributions to survey methodology. The following conversation took place at LSE on 21 May 2019.     

高技术制造业创新效率评价及要素投入差异性研究

高技术制造业发展及竞争优势提升依赖于其技术创新能力。以高技术制造业下属行业为研究对象,运用DEA-Malmquist指数法分析高技术制造业每个行业动态效率变化值,并结合熵值法确定投入指标权重,采用灰色关联分析法深入研究各创新投入要素对产出的贡献度。结果表明：①我国高技术制造业在2014-2015年的全要素生产率最低,但整体上创新效率发展态势较好;②技术进步效率是影响全要素生产率变化的主要因素;③相同投入要素在不同行业中的贡献度差异较大,主要归因于指标投入强度及技术创新能力差异。     

动态能力理论研究现状与热点的文献可视化分析

动态能力作为企业管理领域的核心理论受到学者广泛关注,但目前国内缺少对其直观可视化的概览性回顾。而且,互联网时代下企业管理环境发生了巨变,亟需对动态能力的理解进行更新。基于文献计量分析方法,应用CiteSpace软件对Web of Science（WOS）和中国知网（CNKI）中以动态能力为主题的文献进行可视化分析并形成知识图谱。结果发现,动态能力研究热度呈逐步上升趋势,美国、中国和欧洲学者是该领域的主要研究力量,动态能力扎根于经济与管理学跨学科研究,Teece、焦豪和魏江等学者为核心研究主体,但也存在发文机构和作者间合作网络较分散的问题。基于分析结果,提出继续加强中国学者在国际上的对话质量;强化学者、机构、国家间合作网络;拓展对新组织现象解释力等3个未来发展趋势。     

基于聚类分析法的保定市土地利用分区及建议

通过选定土地利用功能分区的指标体系,针对河北省保定市土地利用现状的特点以及经济发展趋势,以聚类分析法为基础,构建了保定市土地利用功能分区等级体系。并在此基础上探讨了经济发展与地域特点之间的内在联系,针对保定各县市的优势产业和特色农业发展现状提出了相关的土地利用建议,以实现经济发展与土地利用的和谐可持续发展。     

Assessing the efficiency of Turkish secondary education: Heterogeneity, centralization, and scale diseconomies

This paper begins with a historical overview of the Turkish educational system. We then use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and econometric methods to evaluate the system's efficiency. In doing so we identify scale diseconomies and relate them to underlying structural characteristics of the system. Selected suggestions on improving performance are offered. The roles of heterogeneity and centralization are also highlighted. Heterogeneity is modeled as an undesirable measure. The linkage between indicators of centralization and scale diseconomies was found to be statistically significant. The authors believe this to be the first study that investigates the impact of systemic characteristics such as heterogeneity and centralized structure on educational outcomes for Turkey. Since the country straddles the Middle East and the Balkans, culturally as well as geographically, it may be of interest to other countries in the region.     

对限价房政策的经济学分析

"限价房"是政府对房地产市场的一种直接管制,是一种典型的行政调控.政府通过限地价和限房价.直接参与了市场竞争.对限价房政策的经济学分析表明,限价房会导致过度需求、出现销售者偏好,于是,可导致政府偏好代替销售者偏好,限价房还可能造成歧视,致使市场扭由,建筑质量下降,甚至出现黑市,导致腐败和资源浪费.限价房是一种典型的砖头补贴,结论认为,应从砖头补贴走向人头补贴,大力发展廉租房.     

贸易增长与产业效益关联度分析

本文在对制造业贸易增长和产业效益关系进行分析时,把适用于较大样本的计量回归模型和适用于贫信息、小样本的灰色关联分析相结合,从不同的时间序列和时间节点展开研究,用以考察中国制造业和工业制成品贸易的发展与相关制造业产业效益的关系。其中对制造业整体的贸易与产业效益关系进行衡量时,运用6个计量模型对贸易与产业利润和生产率关系进行分析,此后就制造业中9个主要部门的直接经济效益,通过灰色系统理论中的灰色绝对关联度和相对关联度进行分析,得出高技术密集型产业的经济效益与贸易的关联性要高于劳动和资本密集型产业。