论金融支持西部内贸发展和扩大消费

西部大开发十年来,西部地区金融机构通过不断创新信贷产品、改善服务形式,促进了西部地区贸易的快速发展、扩大了消费需求、推动了相关产业的发展,是西部地区扩大内需的有效途径之一。本文从西部地区内贸和消费十年成就出发,分析金融在其中发挥的作用及存在问题,对未来更好地发挥金融支持西部内贸发展和扩大消费的作用提出切实可行的政策建议。     

对当前广西消费价格走势的比较分析

2010年四季度以来,广西居民消费价格总水平出现持续快速上涨态势。混合型成因的集中爆发引起本轮价格上涨,而且表现出不同以往的特点,并进一步拉高对于未来价格高涨的预期。价格高低涉及居民的生活、企业的生产,而且与宏观调控政策的走向密切相关,成为关注焦点。当前价格运行拐点特征明显,在政策干预及各方面因素影响下,预计四季度CPI将继续保持高位运行,与前期相比略有回落。     

竞争法的消费者利益保护评析——以匈牙利竞争法为考察中心

2004年加入欧盟的匈牙利,在制定其经济政策和立法的过程中需要和欧盟的基本方针保持一致,1990年及1996年的竞争法都把保护消费者利益作为了一项基本原则并加以贯彻实施。虽然区别于消费者法和竞争法分别立法的二元式模式,匈牙利的一元式立法同样增强了消费者利益的法律保护力度,增强了国家和民众对消费者保护方面的认知和执行程度。借鉴匈牙利的竞争法立法模式,我国的反垄断法①虽然提出了消费者利益的保护,但目前还缺少在竞争法方面的具体措施,对我国的反垄断法进行细化,改变反垄断法执法难的现状,将会积极地促进消费者弱势地位的改善和市场经济的健康发展。     

Should we subsidize work? Welfare reform,the earned income tax credit and optimal transfers

During the 1990s, US income transfer and tax policies shifted towards trying to encourage work among low-income families. Optimal tax theory, however, suggests that work subsidies are usually an inefficient way to raise the incomes of poor families unless the work effort of recipients has external benefits and/or tax payer/voters prefer redistributing income to the working poor rather than the idle poor. This paper discusses the conditions under which work subsidies may be economically efficient and assesses empirical evidence that suggests that welfare reform and expansions of the EITC have increased work effort among low income families, but is inconclusive about whether the policy shift has enabled them to advance beyond entry-level jobs or benefited their children.     

Optimal income transfers

A substantial literature addresses the design of transfer programs and policies, including the negative income tax, other means-tested transfers, the earned income tax credit, categorical assistance, and work inducements. This work is largely independent of that on the optimal nonlinear income tax, yet formulations of such a tax necessarily address how low-income individuals should be treated. This paper draws on the optimal income taxation literature to illuminate the analysis of transfer programs, including the level and shape of marginal tax rates (including phase-outs), the structure of categorical assistance, and the role of work inducements in an optimal income transfer scheme. JEL Classification H21 · H53 · I38     

Learning good judgement: young Europeans’ perceptions of key consumer skills

A convenience sample of 27 European Union (EU) citizens and two Romanians residing in the Scottish Central Belt took part in in‐depth interviews to explore a wide range of consumer decision‐making scenarios which ranged from borrowing and saving to impulse buying and ‘value for money’ choices. The aim of the research was to identify and assess how well educated young EU consumers perceive the consumer education process and the precise nature of consumption specific skills. Given the focus of the present paper on consumer judgement, the role of values received particular attention. The Schwartz Value Inventory served as a conceptual framework for analysing the responses. The results show that the family in its role as primary creator of values was considered the most important agent in the consumer education process because it establishes a routine pattern of decision making. Further support from social networks in the wider community and real‐life experience through trial and error were cited as equally significant for acquiring useful consumer skills. There was consensus that the influence of schools was limited to providing generic citizenship education rather than specific consumer studies classes. The findings of this study point to the need for changing the current focus of consumer education and consumer policy from an emphasis on training the vulnerable consumer to a more inclusive agenda which concentrates on value education for all market players including producers and marketers.     

Inadequacy of technology and innovation systems at the periphery

Inadequacy of technology is a child of structuralism; the conceptof a national system of innovation (NSI) is a child of evolutionarytheory. A dialogue between these concepts can enrich our understandingof the problems involved in building NSIs at the periphery.Celso Furtado explains the structural roots of modernisation–marginalisationpolarisation and how the orientation of technology of underdevelopedcountries is embedded in income concentration. The formationof welfare states at the periphery provides NSIs with a new‘focusing device’, helping to break the marginalisationside of the process. The combined formation of NSIs and welfaresystems is an institutional response to modernisation–marginalisationpolarisation.     

Estimating consumer surplus in the mobile telecommunications market: The case of Korea

This paper estimates consumer surplus in the Korean mobile telephone services (MTS) market. The Korean mobile telecommunications market has grown rapidly since 1997 when competition was introduced and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology was commercialized. Because consumer surplus is relevant to the controversy over establishing an appropriate price level between consumers and service providers, the need for a robust measurement of benefit from MTS is increasing. The measured net consumer surplus estimated by means of elasticities of demand reached about US$48.8 billion in the period 1996–2004 and the changes amounted to about US$8.8 billion during the same period. In particular, after competition was introduced into the market with an accompanying price decrease and increase in the number of subscribers, consumers have benefited greatly. Therefore, it can be inferred that a facility-based competition policy and the reduction in price of access such as handset subsidies all played a positive role in the early diffusion of MTS in Korea. The estimated consumer surplus in this paper does not include network externality (option externality); if this were considered, the total social welfare of the consumer would be larger.     

创意经济条件下企业产品开发模式创新探析

在创意经济条件下，消费者的需求特征发生了重大的改变，它给传统的产品开发模式带来了巨大的挑战。针对这些挑战，提出了适应创意经济时代的创新型企业产品开发模式。