The Structure of Municipal Water Supply Costs: Application to a Panel of French Local Communities

Network losses and returns are importantissues for water resource management, that are addressed in thispaper by modeling the structure of production for municipal waterutilities with two outputs: water sold to final customers andwater network losses. We propose a measure of economies of scopeto assess the benefit associated with joint production of waterfor final customers and water losses, and several measures ofreturns to evaluate potential gains in exploiting technologicalflexibility of water networks. We estimate the cost structureof water utilities using a GMM procedure with a Translog costfunction and panel data. Estimation results reveal a positivedegree of economies of scope, and short-run returns to productiondensity and returns to customer density that are not significantlydifferent from 1. Significant economies of scale indicate thatlocal communities may benefit from merging into water districts.     

Buying a Home with a Resale Value: Location,Location, Location*

We develop a dynamic multiregion model, where a household's choice of housing location depends on its current wealth and its current type, and involves both consumption and investment considerations. The relative strength of the consumption motive and the investment motive determines the equilibrium pattern of residential sorting. A strong investment (consumption) motive implies sorting according to household type (wealth). The model predicts that large house‐price fluctuations are associated with a low degree of sorting by type. This prediction is consistent with evidence from US metropolitan areas when income, education, and age are used as proxies for household type.     

Checkmating the Consumer: Passive Consumption and the Economic Devaluation of Culture

Early neoclassical economics embodied a gendered symbolic system that devalued consumption and enabled economists to ignore a basic contradiction underlying their treatment of consumption. According to consumer-sovereignty dogma, the consumer determined which firms would survive by actively pursuing maximum individual utility. While this consumer retained the culturally masculine attributes of initiative and agency, consumption itself was devalued because, from a systemic point of view, it is not important which firms survive. At the macro level, consumption was marginalized through Say's law, which holds that excessive acquisition of commodities for consumption is potentially dangerous, because saving and investment drive the economy. The rise of mass consumption and Keynesian macroeconomics threw into question the cultural gendering of consumption – which had acquired feminine attributes like passivity and frivolity – and rendered the neoclassical devaluing of it increasingly untenable. The postwar, neoclassical synthesis and subsequent developments have reinstated the pre-Keynesian gendering of consumption and devaluation of culture.     

开展数学实验提高《复变函数与积分变换》课程教学质量

阐述了为加强大学数学教育过程中的实践性教学环节,注重大学生对数学知识应用能力的培养,在《复变函数与积分变换》课程中开展数学实验教学的必要性;着重探讨了我们在《复变函数与积分变换》课程数学实验教学中正在进行的教学方法、教学内容和课程考核等方面的改革。     

An experimental study of decisions in dynamic optimization problems

Summary. We study decisions of subjects who are given an incentive to solve dynamic optimization problems with the structure of a single-agent, one-sector, closed economy macroeconomic model. The decision task involves a sequence of choices of consumption and investment levels. Treatment variables consist of the initial endowment of capital stock, the production technology available to the economy, and the method of creating the structure of an infinite-horizon model. The study includes and contrasts data from both American and Japanese participants. We find that whether over- or underinvestment relative to the optimum occurs depends on the production technology, but not on the initial endowment of capital stock, nor the subject pool used, nor the method of implementing the infinite horizon. Sudden episodes of maximal consumption called binges, which are always suboptimal, are widely observed. Received: December 7, 1998; revised version: March 12, 1999     

论消费需求新趋势及其对企业营销工作的影响

当今社会的消费需求呈现出不少新的特征,在需求层次、价值取向、消费手段等方面都发生了质的变化.这些变化对企业营销工作带来了许多新的问题,企业应积极转变营销观念,寻找新的营销策略.     

新形势下中原油田技术监督的改革与发展

中原油田的技术监督工作为油田管理水平和经济效益的提高发挥了应有的作用.随着油田体制改革的深化,油田技术监督工作应进一步完善技术监督体系,强化监督与服务职能,建立高素质的技术监督人员队伍.以适应新形势的要求.     

浅析如何有效发挥网络媒体在国家形象传播中的作用

国家形象是一个国家软实力的重要组成部分,树立良好的国家形象已经成为全球化时代的重要生存之道。同时,随着信息化时代的不断发展,世界各国已经强烈地意识到,利用网络媒体进行国家形象传播已经成为一条方便、快捷、效率高的现实新途径。     

湖南省农村消费市场现状及发展对策探析

本文以影响农村消费需求实现因素的重要性为原则,选取了农村居民生活、生产两个方面的需求现状以及农村消费环境现状作为分析的基础,通过分析得出湖南省农村的消费比例和人口比例不成正比,消费结构和消费环境不相适应等问题,并提出了切实可行的对策,以期为湖南省农村消费市场的发展提供现实依据。     

Local elections and consumption insurance

During our sample period from 1987 to 2002, Chinese villages completed the transition from government‐appointed village leaders to elected ones. This article examines if and how much democratic elections of the village leaders affected consumption insurance by Chinese village residents. Exploring a panel dataset of 1,400 households from this period, we find that consumption insurance is around 20 percent more complete with elected village leaders. Furthermore, local elections improve consumption insurance only for the poor and middle‐income farmers, but not for the rich. The results are robust when we allow for pretrending, potential endogeneity of elections, and higher measurement errors for rich residents. We also find that the effects on consumption insurance are stronger when closer to the upcoming election year and when the village committees consist largely of non‐Communist Party members. These findings suggest that the election effects on consumption insurance partly come from increasing accountability to local constituents.