Are Asian Sovereign Wealth Funds Different?

Sovereign wealth funds have become a prominent feature of the international financial landscape. However, legitimate concerns have been raised about these funds. Many of those concerns can be addressed via increased accountability and transparency by the funds. The Santiago Principles are a good start in doing so. My sovereign wealth funds scoreboard points to areas where these Principles can be improved. At the same time, the OECD effort to address concerns from the host‐country side has not resulted in the erection of new barriers to that form of cross‐border investment, but the OECD failed to reverse the creeping financial protectionism of the past decade. Because of their size and the source of their funding, some Asian funds stand out. As a result, those funds will be held to a higher standard of accountability and transparency.     

What constitutes a constitutional amendment culture?

Why are some constitutions amended frequently and others hardly at all? An obvious candidate determinant is constitutional rigidity, i.e., the size and number of procedural barriers to amendment. Given some demand for amendment, greater rigidity implies a smaller supply. However, measures of rigidity often do not correlate significantly (or even with the predicted sign) with amendment rates. Ginsburg and Melton (2015) argue that amendment culture – “shared attitudes about the desirability of amendment” – is a more important determinant of amendment rates. We study up to 128 constitutional episodes from 54 countries and estimate relationships between amendment rates and Hofstede cultural indices. Cultures that are more individualistic and less prone to uncertainty avoidance are associated with higher amendment rates. When cultural dimensions are controlled for, the lagged amendment rate (Ginsburg and Melton’s proxy for culture) is not a robust correlate.     

基于3S技术的土地利用数据库的构建与应用研究

,然后在GIS平台上与基年土地利用数据进行叠加分析,确定变更图斑,最后有针对性的通过GPS测绘对地物变化的部分进行地图构建.此方法可以减少人力物力的投入,降低成本,并保证地图的构建速度.是当前土地利用数据库建设与更新的主要技术手段.并针对所获得的土地的数据库,讨论其应用方式.     

The trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy: A simulation model analysis of the Norwegian defense industry

The paper investigates the trade-off between innovation and defense industrial policy. It presents an agent-based simulation model calibrated for the Norwegian defense industry that compares different policy scenarios and examines the effects of a pending EU market liberalization process. The paper points to two main results. (1) It finds that a pure scenario where national authorities focus on, and provide support exclusively for, either a) international competitiveness or b) national defense and security objectives, is more Pareto efficient than a corresponding mixed strategy where policy makers simultaneously pursue both international competitiveness and defense and security objectives. (2) Under the conditions of the new EU liberalization regime, it finds that a stronger and more visible trade-off will emerge between international competitiveness and national defense and security objectives. Policy makers will have to choose which to prioritize, and set a clear agenda focusing on one of the two objectives.     

International transmission of business cycles: Evidence from dynamic correlations

We exploit dynamic correlations to estimate determinants of output comovement between OECD countries. Trade intensity, financial integration, and specialization patterns have significantly different effects on comovements at different frequencies. This sheds more light on previous results based on statistical filters.