The impact of German-speaking online media on tourist arrivals in popular tourist destinations for Europeans

This empirical study analyzes the relationship between the sentiments in online media with regard to travel destinations and corresponding tourist arrivals. We expect the media reports on political and economic instability and turmoil to enhance tourist arrival nowcasts and forecasts, as they can probably complement them with information on disruptions and shocks. Therefore, we believe this research will help to build better models for tourism demand nowcasting and forecasting. We use the sentiment in the German-speaking online media because the German-speaking region is the most populated in Europe and has the largest group of travelers visiting destinations in and around Europe.

An artificial neural network is used to analyze the mood of the media. The software classifies news items regarding potential tourist destinations with either positive or negative labels. The number of positive and negative news items is used to build sentiment indices for popular tourist destinations for Europeans.

Our results show strong correlations between the mood concerning tourist destinations and tourist arrivals in these countries. Indeed, disruptions and shocks prevalent in the news are reflected in similar ratios in both tourist arrivals and sentiment indices. These results can be used as a new explanatory variable for tourism demand modelling.     

货币需求稳定性、货币目标制与中国货币政策框架改革

稳定的货币需求是货币目标制有效发挥作用的前提条件。文章首先从理论上阐述了货币需求与货币目标制的内在关联。其次,基于协整理论与误差修正模型,利用1996-2011年季度数据实证检验了中国货币需求函数的稳定性。实证研究结果表明,中国长期货币需求函数和短期货币需求函数的系数都缺乏稳定性。货币需求函数的不稳定势必增加中国以货币供应量为中间目标的货币政策操作难度,从而导致现行货币目标制的有效性和适宜性不断降低。最后提出为提高货币政策框架的有效性,中国应择机引入通胀目标制。     

Economic policy uncertainty and firm investment: evidence from the U.S. market

This paper examines the impact of economic policy uncertainty on firm-level capital investment, by not only delving into the long-term investment-uncertainty relation like previous studies, but also analyzing the short-term investment-uncertainty relation for the U.S. market. The empirical investigations show that firms decrease short-term, long-term, and total firm investments when encountering higher economic policy uncertainties. The research also explores the non-linear investment-uncertainty relation based on various theories. Our findings present a U-shaped relationship between short-term, long-term, and total investments and uncertainties. Policy implications are provided from our empirical results.     

中国经济扭曲的表现及形成机制:一个奥地利学派的角度

中国经济发展过程中存在某种形式的扭曲已是不争的事实,既往发展模式的不可持续性也已逐渐显现,但对造成该扭曲的深层次原因在理论上仍然存在分歧.从奥地利学派的角度吸取合理的部分可以更深刻地认识中国经济发展历程.中国经济扭曲最突出的表现是在城市化过程中,政府主导式发展制约了全体公民共同参与,而在发展思路上则过于强调需求管理的短期政策,忽视了供给在长期经济发展中的核心作用,经济的健康发展应是一个分工和专业化不断深化的过程.     

Measuring the Underground Economy with the Currency Demand Approach: A Reinterpretation of the Methodology,With an Application to Italy

We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of the value of cash transactions—the flow of cash withdrawn from bank accounts relative to total non‐cash payments—as the dependent variable in the money demand equation. This allows us to avoid unrealistic assumptions on the velocity of money and the absence of any irregular transaction in a given year, overcoming two severe critiques to the traditional CDA. Second, in place of the tax burden level, usually intended as the main motivation for non‐compliance, we include among the covariates two direct indicators of detected tax evasion. Finally, we control also for the role of illegal production considering crimes like drug dealing and prostitution, which—jointly with the shadow economy—contributes to the larger aggregate of the non‐observed economy and represents a significant component of total cash payments. We propose then an application of this “modified CDA” to a panel of 91 Italian provinces for the years 2005–08.     

民办普通高等学校加强大学生创业教育的探析

民办普通高等学校多以培养应用型人才为己任,而创业教育是培养应用型人才的重要途径。但是,目前多数民办普通高等学校开设创业教育的时间并不长,还存在诸多问题。分析了民办普通高等学校大学生创业难的制约因素,在借鉴国外先进的创业教育经验的基础上,提出提升创业教育质量的建议。     

Ecological Transfers in Non-Human Communities Parallel Economic Markets in a General Equilibrium Ecosystem Model

Synopsis: The oft-cited analogies between ecological and economic systems are exploited to develop a many-species model of population dynamics. In economies, markets are the fundamental institutions in which the interaction of demands and supplies determine the quantities and prices of goods. However, economic markets are not appropriate for ecological communities, because markets rely on voluntary exchange, whereas plants and animals engage in involuntary transfers of biomass. A properly defined counterpart to markets based on biomass transfers permits a general equilibrium model of predator/prey and competitive interactions in a many-species community. Functional response from optimal foraging and predation risk provide the demand and supply, respectively, in the biomass transfers. Energy per unit time is scarce and predators and prey make optimum choices with respect to functional response and risk avoidance based on required energy expenditures. The energy expenditures are similar to economic prices: they determine foraging strategies and are beyond the control of the predators and prey, yet they are determined by the aggregate choices of all predators and prey and by population densities. The energies acquired from foraging are used in a new way to construct difference equations that determine the population dynamics. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Creating Opportunities for Women in the Renewable Energy Sector: Findings from India

This paper identifies opportunities and constraints that low-income women face in accessing livelihoods in the renewable-energy sector in India through qualitative and quantitative research conducted in collaboration with The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) and the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in 2012–13. Whereas previous research has focused on women mostly as end users of solar and biomass technologies, this research attempts also to understand women's potential as entrepreneurs, facilitators, designers, and innovators. Findings reveal that although access to technology and employment in the energy sector is limited by inadequate purchasing power and low social status, there is tremendous potential to create livelihoods for women at all levels of the energy supply chain. Broader findings indicate that women can gain optimal traction from employment in the energy sector only if there are wider socially progressive policies in place, including state intervention to create a robust social welfare infrastructure and accessible, high-quality, public services.     

Hooliganism and Demand for Football in Italy: Attendance and Counterviolence Policy Evaluation

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between stadium attendance, hooliganism and counter‐violence policy measures in Italian Serie A. In particular, this paper analyses the impact of counter‐hooliganism policies adopted in 2007 on the quantity of game tickets sold. The counter‐hooliganism measures, grounded on an entry card, namely a ‘fidelity card’, were designed to keep out hooligans from stadiums so favouring the attendance of either occasional spectators or uncommitted fans. According to our econometric investigation the expected substitution between committed fans and uncommitted fans did not take shape. In sum, the ‘fidelity card’ did not turn to be successful if evaluated on the average attendance perspective.     

Infrastructure of the digital economy: Some empirical findings with the case of Korea

While different conceptions of the digital economy exist, there is a common ground where discussion on digital economy can be fostered. Taking the notion that digital economy as a continuum from the existing old economy, this paper regards the manufacturing sector of the digital equipment as the digital infrastructure. Upon this, this research attempts to analyze the supply and demand side development patterns of the infrastructure of the digital economy in Korea between 1989 and 2000 with the Bank of Korea's data in order to present the dynamic that brought the growth of digital economy. Research findings show that there has been an unique mechanism in the development of IT sector in Korea, while policy measures have been broadly identical to the promotion of other sectors.