The Delphi method, impeachment and terrorism: Accuracies of short-range forecasts for volatile world events

Two experiments examined the effects of iterated polling and feedback on prediction accuracy for volatile world events using the Delphi paradigm. In both experiments, participants predicted rapidly changing geopolitical events. The first experiment occurred during the litigation surrounding the Clinton/Lewinsky affair in 1998. Results indicated that feedback improved individual and group accuracy for predictions of whether an event would occur. These types of predictions derived from group consensus were approximately 90% accurate, which was significantly higher than the average individual participant's accuracy. Neither polling nor feedback had much effect on time course predictions. The second experiment occurred during the American military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. In Experiment 2, participants were polled three times to determine if increasing the number of iterated polls would improve Delphi accuracy. The results showed that accuracy improved from the first to the second poll but not from the second to the third. The groups predicted whether these scenarios would occur with approximately 75% accuracy, which was significantly higher than the accuracy of any individual participant. Once again, the Delphi procedure did not enhance time course predictions in Experiment 2.     

不确定性情况下的居民资产组合行为与中国金融结构变迁

转轨经济的一个显著特点是各项制度不断变化,制度变迁带来的不确定性对居民资产选择行为产生重要影响,进而影响和决定了金融结构的形成与变迁.     

泰国城市化过程及其启示

20世纪60年代以来,泰国经济迅速发展,但城市化的进程却相对滞后.由于历史、政策以及政治体制等多方面原因,泰国在城市化过程中出现了城乡发展不协调、城市规模等级体系畸形化、贫民窟等严重的城市问题.泰国城市化过程的经验和教训对如何实现城乡协调和可持续发展具有重要的借鉴意义.对于发展中国家城市化而言,政府更应该重视优化城市层级,赋予城市一定的自治权,尊重农民的地方性知识并努力缩小城乡教育水平的差距.     

Climate Change Taxes and Energy Efficiency in Japan

In 2003 Japan proposed a Climate Change Tax to reduce its CO₂ emissions to the level required by the Kyoto Protocol. If implemented, the tax would be levied on fossil fuel use and the revenue distributed to encourage the purchase of energy efficient equipment. Analysis using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis (EPPA) model shows that this policy is unlikely to bring Japan into compliance with its Kyoto target unless the subsidy encourages improvement in energy intensity well beyond Japan’s recent historical experience. Similar demand-management programs in the US, where there has been extensive experience, have not been nearly as effective as they would need to be to achieve energy efficiency goals of the proposal. The Tax proposal also calls for limits on international emission trading. We find that this limit substantially affects costs of compliance. The welfare loss with full emissions trading is 1/6 that when Japan meets its target though domestic actions only, the carbon price is lower, and there is a smaller loss of energy-intensive exports. Japan can achieve substantial savings from emissions trading even under cases where, for example, the full amount of the Russian allowance is not available in international markets.     

Making green discourses matter in policy-making: Learning from discursive power struggles within the policy area of car taxation

This paper is about stability and change in the policy-making discourse of a traditional neoclassical policy area, the area of car taxation. Stability is here related to the unquestioned continuation of a traditional neoclassical economics perspective in policy-making, whereas change is related to the introduction and impact of environmental concerns. The aim of the paper is to investigate, what makes green discourses matter in traditional policy-making. It is based on an in-depth study of policy-making processes related to car taxation in two environmental front-runner countries, Sweden and Denmark.Making green discourses matter in policy-making is an important contemporary environmental challenge. Therefore, as Tian Shi argues, we need more research into the institutional setting of the policy-making process. Ecological economics as a policy science has to have a broad understanding of the political economic nature of the policy process. Taking this standpoint as the point of departure, the paper seeks to uncover questions such as, what is the policy-making reality in which Swedish and Danish green discourses have to make a difference? How do existing neoclassical regimes react, when green actors attempt to influence policy-making from an environmental point of view? And to what extent can green discourses actually have an impact on the policy world within the area of car taxation?The paper concludes that the traditional neoclassical economic discourse is particularly robust and resistant against alternative green discourses. Stability rather than change is the dominating picture. This does not imply that environmental concerns will not be taken into account in the future. Rather it implies that only the changes, which keep up the existing order, or enhance the narrow power-related interests of the dominating actors, will materialise more or less easily. The rest is a power struggle in which timing, coalition-building, persistence and thorough knowledge about the field in question is of importance. In this struggle change agents will also benefit from the ability to rethink dominating ways of thinking and doing in an environmentally benign way. A rethinking that is based on environmental values while at the same time holding positive visions that are ‘compatible’ with the existing dominating discourse.     

Uncertain Climate Change in an Intergenerational Planning Model

A three-generation planning model incorporating uncertain climate change is developed. Each generation features a production activity based on capital and an exhaustible resource. An irreversible climate change may occur in period two or three, reducing the productivity for this and the remaining generation. The model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. If the climate impact and climate change probability is constant, the optimal period one (and two) resource extraction is larger than for the reference case of climate stability. If, however, climate impact and climate change probability increases with increased aggregate resource use, this result is reversed.     

顾客需求的非对称性和动态性对新产品开发的影响

在分析顾客需求的非对称性和动态性的基础上，把产品的属性划分为必备、单向、吸引三类，结合客户需求变化、竞争产品策略和产品生命周期理论，为企业的产品创新提供了全新的视角：     

中国经济体制改革时期制度变迁的特征分析

从实质上说，中国经济体制改革的过程就是一个制度的重建过程，即以适应市场经济的制度安排取代适应计划经济的制度安排取代适应计划经济的制度安排的过程。在这一制度重建的进程中，市场取向的制度变迁表现出八个方面的典型特征：一是制度变迁需求的内性性；二是制度变迁供给的滞后性；三是制度变迁目标的动态性；四是制度变迁过程的渐进性；五是制度变迁轨迹的路径依赖性；六是从单项制度变迁向制度结构变迁演进；七是强制性制度变迁与诱致性制度变迁相结合；八是宏观经济制度变迁与微观经济制度变迁同步进行。     

文化变迁与教育价值观

文化变迁是历史发展的必然。我国文化现代变迁的主要特征为开放性、多元性。在重视人与人之间的关系、轻视人与自然之间关系的中国传统价值观的直接影响下,传统的中国教育价值观具有如下特点:重视教育的工具价值,轻视其内在价值;群体利益高于个人利益;重视教育的道德伦理价值,轻视其认知价值。当前,我们要注意科学价值观与人文价值观的有机结合,做好教育价值观的转型工作。     

制度变迁对中国汽车工业增长贡献的实证分析

中国汽车工业增长是粗放型的，技术的贡献极低，而制度变迁贡献的潜力非常大。为此，一方面，要加快汽车工业的技术创新进程；另一方面，要深化汽车工业领域的市场化的制度变迁进程，以推动汽车工业走上高效、集约武增长之路。