The Real Equilibrium South African Rand/US Dollar Exchange Rate: A Comparison of Alternative Measures

This article indicates how different measures of the real exchange rate, i.e., the exchange rate adapted for cost inflation, price inflation and labour costs, influence the equilibrium view and misalignment of the South African rand/US dollar exchange rate. The approach followed is based on the behavioural equilibrium exchange rate approach by Clark and MacDonald (1998), where the exchange rate is influenced by a number of fundamental and transitory factors. The real equilibrium exchange is estimated by using a single equation regression and a number of key explanatory variables. To determine the long-run relationship a Vector Error Correction Mechanism is used.     

Public policies as specification errors

Treating public policies as computable dynamic general equilibrium model specification errors offers computational and conceptional advantages for comparing models with data. The set of policies calculated to rationalize observed behaviors raises the substantive economic question whether, in any particular market, actual public policies sufficiently coincide with the model's behavior-rationalizing policies, or whether the model offers correct hypotheses about the determinants of demand and supply. As illustrations, public policies are calculated to rationalize, with respect to the stochastic neoclassical growth model, capital market behavior since WWII and labor market behavior in 1929–1950. One conclusion is that capital taxation drives a wedge between consumption growth and the expected pre-tax capital return, in the direction and amount predicted by the theory, and that capital taxation is the major intertemporal distortion in the postwar capital market. Second, a good theory of the Great Depression labor market must explain why measured MRS and MPL diverged so dramatically in 1929–1933 and why the wedge persisted.     

The optimal portfolio for the two-pillar mandatory pension system: the case of Poland

In the recent decade, there has been observed across the Central and Eastern European states the regulatory trend towards the increase of the non-financial (first) pension pillar size at the expense of the financial (second) pillar. It tends to question the consequences of this shift for the future retirement benefits. Applying the portfolio approach we address this issue by running a series of simulations to find out how to allocate pension contributions between both pillars in an optimal way. Our study contributes to the existing literature as follows. First, we do not perform the assessment of the predetermined regulatory solutions, but we look for an optimal one. Moreover, we allow our optimal rule to be time-varying, if necessary, which would be a true novelty in this research area. Second, we do not base our estimates on historical trends; rather, we apply the long-term economy’s projection to account for the society’s ageing impact, which is a crucially important factor for the solvency of the pension system. Adapting some of the simulation assumptions to fit the Polish case, our results confirm that current regulations underestimate the role of the capital pillar and the optimal allocation between both pillars should be time-varying.     

试论我国食品安全供应链综合管理

食品供应链综合管理的核心内容是质量认证与跟踪管理,其思想为解决我国食品供应链中的安全问题提供了基本的思路。本文在分析我国食品供应链中存在的与食品安全相关的问题基础上,对我国实践食品安全供应链综合管理进行了思考,提出了从宏观、中观、微观三个层面上进行食品安全供应链综合管理的框架,并对食品安全供应链综合管理中的信息集成与共享进行了探讨。     

福州市旅游客流量现状及其驱动因素

旅游客流量是衡量区域旅游业及旅游经济发展快慢的一个重要指标,也是反映旅游区景观质量好坏与综合服务水平高低的一个综合指标。文章依据福州市最近5年(1999—2003年)的旅游客流量及相关的社会经济数据,分年度、季度、月与黄金周等不同时段对近年来福州市区域旅游客流量的现状及其变动状况进行分析,并从旅游景区(点)内在的引力因素与外在的社会环境驱动因素两方面对影响福州市客流量的主要驱动因素进行了分析。     

FDI对江西经济增长的贡献

投资水平严重不足,资金紧缺已成为制约江西经济发展的瓶颈。FDI可提升产业关联度、促进人力资源开发和产生技术溢出效应。江西FDI的战略定位构想是:建立生态产业集聚园、营造良好的投资环境、完善区域性资本市场、培养“本土化”的高级人才。     

Full-cost pricing in the classical competitive process: A model of convergence to long-run equilibrium

In the last 10–15 years a lot of attempts has been devoted to study the calssical process of convergence of market prices toward natural prices. The two forces that one has thought could achieve this target were capital mobility, that determines the dynamics of output, and demand-supply forces, that determine the dynamics of prices. In this article a model of classical competition is proposed in which a full-cost pricing mechanism is adopted in the rule of evolution of market prices. An asymptotical stability result of long-run equilibrium is proved for a two-commodity model with and without a final demand.     

电子商务企业物流模式的经济学研究

电子商务企业对传统的物流提出了挑战．成为物流发展的强劲动力。本文从经济学理论角度对电子商务企业物流模式的选择进行了探讨：从对总成本的节约出发建立了企业自营与外包物流决策的成本模型．并分析了在电子商务的影响下该模型中成本因素的变化。得出第三方物流将是电子商务企业的好选择。     

Optimal mechanisms for siting noxious facilities

We study Bayesian mechanism design in the context of the siting of noxious facilities. Under incomplete information, we characterize optimal mechanisms facilitating the siting and cost sharing of the facility. These mechanisms are allocatively and Pareto efficient. However, it appears that transfers occur when the good is not provided. This result is due to the weakening of the incentive notion to Bayesian–Nash equilibrium and to the balanced budget condition. This phenomenon disappears if the setting is perfectly symmetric.      

On exact D-optimal designs with 2 two-level factors and n autocorrelated observations

In this paper we consider the exact D-optimal designs for estimation of the unknown parameters in the two factors, each at only two-level, main effects model with autocorrelated errors. The vector of the n random errors in the observed responses is assumed to follow a first-order autoregressive model (AR(1)). The exact D-optimal designs seek the optimal combinations of the design levels as well as the optimal run orders, so that the determinant of the information matrix of BLUEs for the unknown parameters is maximized. Bora-Senta and Moyssiadis (1999) gave some conjectures about the exact D-optimal designs based on their experience of several exhaustive searches. In this paper their conjectures are partially proved to be true.Received: January 2003 / Accepted: October 2003Partially supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C. under grant NSC 91-2115-M-008-013.Supported in part by the National Science Council of Taiwan, R.O.C. under grant NSC 89-2118-M-110-003.