巨灾保险:内涵、市场失灵、政府救济与现实选择

巨灾保险问题是一个全球性的问题,是保险业正在拓展的一个新领域,也是保险理论研究的一个新课题。深刻剖析巨灾风险的特殊内涵,明确指出目前巨灾保险存在的“市场失灵”问题,并提出政府干预是解决该问题的根本方法,从而为我国巨灾保险制度建立和完善提供现实选择。     

Labour unions and leverage: evidence from firm-level union data

ABSTRACT

Using firm-level labour union data from Japan, this paper investigates the effect of labour unions on firm leverage. We find that as union coverage increases, both the level of and extent of change in leverage decreases. These relations remain robust when a firm falls into deficit. We also find that firms with higher union coverage have a higher interest coverage ratio. In addition, we find that firms with higher union coverage are less likely to choose issuing debt compared to issuing equity when they face financial distress. Our results imply that significant employee influence enhanced by labour unions increases fixed costs, crowds out the firm’s debt capacity and consequently reduces the firm’s leverage.     

The Effect of Risk Characteristics on the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions from Electric Power Generation

The objective of this study is to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction of mortality risks caused by fossil fuel (natural gas, coal and oil) versus nuclear electric power generation systems and to examine the influence of risk characteristics involved with electric power generation on WTP. A choice experiment was conducted to achieve these objectives. The attributes for nuclear risks in the experiment included the probability of disasters and the expected losses if a disaster occurs. We find evidence of (i) a baseline effect (where WTP is sensitive to hypothetical versus actual baseline expected mortality); (ii) a ‘labeling effect,’ where, surprisingly, the term ‘nuclear’ has no effect on WTP, but the term ‘fossil-fueled power generation’ results in lower WTP; and (iii) disaster aversion, meaning that people focus on the conditional loss from a nuclear disaster, not the probability. We also find that the WTP for reducing deaths from a nuclear disaster is about 60 times the WTP for routine reducing fossil-fuel generation-related deaths.     

What drives the choice of the type of partner in R&D cooperation? Evidence for Spanish manufactures and services

We analyse the heterogeneity in firms’ decisions to engage in R&D cooperation, taking into account the type of partner (competitors, suppliers or customers, and research institutions) and the sector to which the firm belongs (manufactures or services). We use information from the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) for Spanish firms and estimate multivariate probit models corrected for endogeneity which explicitly consider the interrelations between the different R&D cooperation strategies. We find that placing a higher importance to publicly available information (incoming spillovers), receiving public funding and firm size increase the probability of cooperation with all kind of partners but the role is much stronger in the case of cooperative agreements with research institutions and universities. Our results also suggest that R&D intensity and the importance attributed to the lack of qualified personnel as a factor hampering innovation are key factors influencing positively R&D cooperation activities in the service sector but not in manufactures.     

品牌经济学的理论基础——引入品牌的需求曲线及其经济学分析

需求定律是经济学分析的理论基础之一,品牌经济学的理论基础为引入品牌的需求曲线或考虑选择成本的需求定律。把品牌引入经济学中后,品牌信用度的提高使需求曲线右移并变得更为陡峭,同时品牌信用度的提高改变了需求曲线的位置,使得均衡价格提高,均衡数量增加,增加了消费者剩余和生产者剩余,提高了社会福利水平。文章为“品牌战”替代“价格战”提供了理论依据,即通过品牌建设提高品牌信用度,使得在价格提高的条件下需求量增加,而这只有在需求曲线改变位置时方能做到。     

基于产业集群生命周期理论的研究与探讨

对产业集群生命周期的正确认识与划分在区域产业集群的持续发展中有着重要的意义。本文首先对产业集群的概念及产业集群生命周期的理论进行了系统的回顾,接着重点对其相关研究成果进行了归纳,主要从产业集群发展动力与演进路径进行了阐述,最后提出了有待深入的相关研究与展望。     

Labour adjustment costs: Estimation of a dynamic discrete choice model using panel data for Greek manufacturing firms

In this paper we estimate a dynamic structural model of employment at firm level. Our dataset consists of a balanced panel of 2790 Greek manufacturing firms. The empirical evidence of this dataset stresses three important stylized facts: (a) there are periods in which firms decide not to change their labour input, (b) there are periods of large employment changes (lumpy nature of labour adjustment) and (c) the commonality is employment spikes to be followed by smooth and low employment growth periods. Following Cooper and Haltiwanger [Cooper, R.W. and Haltiwanger, J. “On the Nature of Capital Adjustment Costs”, Review of Economic Studies, 2006; 73(3); 611–633], we consider a dynamic discrete choice model of a general specification of adjustment costs including convex, non-convex and “disruption of production” components. We use a method of simulated moments procedure to estimate the structural parameters. Our results indicate considerable fixed costs in the Greek employment adjustment.     

浅析我国发展企业绿色物流的战略选择

在全球大力提倡经济可持续发展的今天,现代化物流的发展必然能够为企业提供更长久的发展动力。我国的企业想要在世界经济大发展的趋势下获得更多的公众信任和资本青睐,必然要走企业绿色物流的发展道路。文中在比较欧美日与国内企业绿色物流发展现状的基础上进行了分析并提出了我国发展企业绿色物流的三种战略选择,希望能够通过绿色物流的发展压缩国内企业贸易成本,化解绿色壁垒带来的经营风险,增强物流国内企业应对市场挑战的能力并抢得市场先机。     

双向转诊制度实现路径:体系完善和机制创新

本文通过对英国NHS改革的经验总结,探讨双向转诊制度实现的必要条件,深入分析我国双向转诊制度现状和存在的不足,提出我国双向转诊制度实现路径。     

Do Inflation‐Linked Bonds Still Diversify?

The diversifying power of inflation-linked (IL) bonds relative to traditional asset classes has changed significantly. In this paper, we study the dynamics of conditional volatilities and correlations for three asset classes, IL bonds, nominal bonds and equities, in the USA and Europe. Using a DCC-MVGARCH for the period 1997–2007, we highlight the change that took place in 2003. Although IL bonds once had definite diversification power, they are now highly correlated with nominal bonds and have reached similar volatility levels. As a result, the two asset classes are practically substitutable. This seems to be due to more stable inflation expectations and to a more liquid IL bond market. Although diversification was a valuable reason for introducing IL bonds in a global portfolio before 2003, this is no longer the case. Dynamic portfolio optimisation using our estimates of conditional correlations and volatilities clearly demonstrates that the optimal weight of IL bonds in a portfolio decreased sharply in 2003 in favour of nominal bonds and equities.