Does Money Have a Role in Monetary Policy for Price Stability under Inflation Targeting in Thailand?

This paper deploys Thai quarterly data for the study period 1999q1–2014q4 to econometrically investigate the proposition that money growth is an important, if not the sole, determinant of inflation under inflation targeting and that the money growth-inflation relation is not conditional on the stability of the money-demand function. The autoregressive distributed-lag (ARDL) bounds-testing results suggest that, across the study period, the Thai money stock (narrow or broad), real output, prices, interest rates and exchange rates maintained a long-run equilibrium relationship. The associated error-correction model of inflation confirms the cointegral relationship among money (narrow or broad), real output, prices, interest rates and exchange rates. It also suggests that money growth has a significant distributed-lag impact on inflation. The presence of this money growth-inflation relationship was associated with a stable narrow money-demand function, whereas the broad money-demand function remained unstable. These results for the study period are consistent with the view that the causal relationship between money growth and inflation holds in Thailand under inflation targeting when the Bank of Thailand deploys a short-term policy interest rate, rather than a monetary aggregate, as the instrument of monetary policy and that this relationship is not conditional on the stability of the money-demand function.     

液压无杆采油泵技术在油田的应用

随着油田开发的进一步深入,稠油开采难度逐渐加大,严重制约了油田的正常开发,因此急需探讨新的开采技术来解决稠油开采难题。本文阐述了液压双作用无杆采油泵技术在辽河油田的应用现状以及效果,从而为稠油开发提供了新的技术支撑。     

The valuation of risk transfer in UK school public private partnership contracts

A number of studies have examined the public private partnership (PPP) policy and have questioned the risk transfer argument used by the UK government to legitimise its adoption. This paper contributes to the literature by illustrating how accounting numbers have been used to value risks and justify the PPP decision. Data from the full business cases of two UK PPP schools and semi-structured interviews are used to illustrate the complexities and subjective judgements involved in valuing risks and achieving optimal risk transfer. The analysis suggests that the accounting numbers used to value risks are not neutral or objective but are socially constructed and may be manipulated to justify the PPP decision.     

汽车座椅舒适性开发的初步研究

文章通过深入分析消费者对汽车座椅舒适性要求的诉求模型，系统地阐述了座椅舒适性的定义及基于此定义的舒适性目标的建立，并结合多年项目经验提出了汽车座椅舒适性设计开发的一般原则和要点，以及舒适性分析验证及完善的主要手段，同时围绕整车开发流程概述了座椅舒适性设计开发流程和主要关键节点，最后对座椅舒适性设计开发在汽车上的实际应用效果进行了辨证分析和总结，对其未来的发展趋势进行了展望。     

服务型社会的服务外包合作实证研究

通过12个服务外包示范城市面板数据GC检验和虚拟变量半对数面板数据模型,从供给角度研究中间需求与技术进步对服务外包合作的影响.研究结果证明：在服务型社会中,价值链整合能力与服务外包合作之间相互影响;一国政策制度开放程度高会直接对服务外包合作产生正面影响;一国信息技术发展水平高、基础设施完善直接对服务外包合作产生推动作用;一国区域资源禀赋越丰富,进行服务外包合作的可能性越强.     

A Railway ‘Route’ as a Linear Heritage Attraction: The Hijaz Railway in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Hijaz Railway was constructed in the early part of the 20th century to link the Levant with Islam's Holy cities of Madinah and Makkah. The railway was never completed beyond Madinah and its operational life was cut short by World War I, never to be revived again. The significance of the railway lies not only in the technical, military and religious importance of the track, but also in the ‘route’ which is closely linked to a number of historic pilgrim and trade routes, including that used by the Frankincense traders. Although a few sections of the railway have survived in Syria and Jordan, in Saudi Arabia the track bed today remains only a palimpsest in the desert landscape. Most of the railway buildings lie abandoned, with the exception of several centres where the buildings have been restored. This paper considers the potential role of the Hijaz Railway as a ‘cultural route’ in stimulating heritage tourism in Saudi Arabia. In doing so the paper considers how the physical remains of the railway can be used as an anchor for the preservation and interpretation of the Islamic and pre-Islamic cultural heritage of the route. Considerations include focusing on clusters as primary and secondary nodes for tourism activity that will support an incremental development approach while preserving the integrity of the railway and its route within a landscape setting.     

Books Received

The international community is placing increasing emphasis on aid for trade to assist low income countries to integrate into the global economy and to address their domestic constraints to export driven growth. There is, however, scant information on the effectiveness of previous support for export development to inform the design of new initiatives. In this paper, we exploit information on product specific technical assistance for trade and estimate a simple partial equilibrium model to assess the impact on the key measurable outcome – exports of the product subject to assistance. We apply a difference in differences approach to isolate the impact of the policy interventions and draw four main conclusions: on average, export development (ED) programs have coincided with or predated stronger export performance; such programs appear to be more effective where there is already significant export activity; there is some concern about the additionality of the programs and that support may be being channeled to sectors that would have prospered anyway; ultimately, conclusions strongly depend on what one postulates would have happened in the absence of the policy intervention, so the definition of a credible counterfactual is of utmost importance for the evaluation of technical assistance for exports.     

区域性产学研基地建设的探索与研究

针对学校、企业、政府三个层面对产学研基地建设中的“校企合作、工学结合”的现实情况，可在客观分析之后。并以宁海产学研基地为实际范例，找出各方面的制约因素，进而可扩展出去对高职合作教育改革面临的困难，从产学研结合的要求出发，提出对策建议，以使区域产学研基地的建设不断取得新成效。     

An introduction: the challenges of the Chinese electricity industry and its reform

This introduction is to highlight comprehensively the Chinese electricity industry for issues related to the institutional reform, capacity growth, pricing regime, technology development, supply structure and new investment in upgrading electric power grids. Through reviews of statistics and documentaries, we provide a generally updated understanding of the current development and reform of China’s electric power industry, which is one strategic focus of the Chinese Government for its further reform in the energy sector.