Technology assessment: Impact of high-tech engineering research on energy consumption

A technology assessment (TA) program was launched in Switzerland in 1991. One project in the series of pilot projects was meant to assess the impact of so-called LESIT technologies on energy consumption. (LESIT was a priority research program and a German acronym for power electronics, systems and information technology.) In this paper the institutional environment, applied methods and main results of the TA study are summarised. One of the questions that arose was whether it is reasonable to expect a high-tech engineering research program to serve any societal goals other than the more immediate technical and economic goals the research partners in university and industry are accustomed to follow. It was found that without special efforts this expectation was not realistic. Politically desirable goals are best served when enough emphasis, time, and money are given to the process of bringing together research partners from academia and industry who all have a (self-serving) interest in furthering the politically desirable goal and then support their collaboration.     

基于网络环境的会计教学问题探究

随着互连网与通讯技术、计算机软硬件设备与科技的快速进步,信息技术将是会计教育与教学中的必要元素,信息技术与会计学科领域整合将是未来会计教育的主流。新的教育环境要求会计教育必须转变教育理念,改变传统的教学模式、更新教学内容、探究新的教学方法。本文就网络环境下的会计教育理念、教学模式、教学内容、教学方法等进行了研究。     

会计学原理精品课程教学创新——以人为本教学原则的探索及成果

专业课教学如何体现“以人为本”,这是会计教学面临的新课题。近年来,我们实行了给予学生选择教师权利的挂牌教学法促进学生个性发展的教学科研化方法,创新探索了学生自我评价及自发的经验学习等方法进行了创新与探索,取得了显著成效。本文对此进行介绍,对其对会计教学改革提供参考。     

An efficiency analysis of Swedish employment offices

In this paper the method–production frontier analysis is used to analyse differences in efficiency between different Swedish Employment Offices. Earlier empirical labour market policy evaluation studies have utilised various measures that, however, do not take into consideration differences between organisation units. The main result of this investigation is that employment offices show major differences in the efficiency with which they carry out their job matching services.     

Dissertation abstract: “Essays in applied economics on the intervention of a third player in agency relationships”

Agency theory has established that appropriate incentives can reconcile the diverging interests of the principal and the agent. Focusing on three applications, this dissertation evaluates the empirical relevance of these results when a third party interacts with the primary contract. The analyses provided rely on either laboratory or natural experiments. First, corruption is analyzed as a two-contract situation: a delegation contract between a Principal and an Agent and a corruption pact concluded between this Agent and a third player, called Briber. A survey of the recent microeconomic literature on corruption first highlights how corruption behavior results from the properties of those two agreements. We thereafter show that the Agent faces a conflict in reciprocities due to those two conflicting agreements. The resulting delegation effect, supported by observed behavior in our three-player experimental game, could account for the deterrence effect of wages on corruption. Second, health care is governed by contradictory objectives: patients are mainly concerned with the health provided, whereas containing health care costs is the primary goal of health care administrators. We provide further insights into the ability of incentives to balance these two competing objectives. In this matter, our theoretical and econometric analysis evaluates how a new mixed compensation scheme, introduced in Quebec in 1999 as an alternative to fee-for-services, has affected physicians’ practice patterns. Free switching is shown to be an essential feature of the reform, since it implements screening between physicians. Finally, the demand for underground work departs from the traditional Beckerian approach to illegal behavior, due to the dependence of benefits from illegality on competitors’ behavior. We set up a theoretical model in which the demand for underground work from all producers competing on the same output market is analyzed simultaneously. We first show that competition drastically undermines the individual benefits of tax evasion. At equilibrium, each firm nonetheless chooses evasion with a positive probability, strictly lower than one. This Bertrand curse could then account for the “tax evasion puzzle” i.e. the overprediction of evasion in models that ignore market interactions. We thereafter show that allowing firms to denounce competitors’ evasion is not likely to solve this curse—by providing a credible threat against price cuts, it fosters illegal work. Empirical evidence from a laboratory experiment confirms these predictions. Without denunciation, experimental firms often choose evasion whereas evasion benefits are canceled out by competition. When introduced, denunciation is rarely used by firms, but the threat makes evasion profitable. JEL Classification K42, I18, D21, C25, C91     

英语实施素质教育之我见

文章讨论了如何提高英语教师素质的几种途径 :勤于学习 ,扩大知识面 ,进修深造 ,以及在英语教学中优秀教师应当为学生创造良好的素质教育环境 ,以学生为中心 ,激发学生学习的兴趣 ,学导结合等。     

以新生入学指导与服务促高校学生事务管理

新生入学指导与服务是高校学生事务管理的首要环节,做好新生入学的指导与服务,对做好整个学生工作有着重要的指导意义。本文着重讨论新生入学指导与服务的需求分析、内容和方法。     

Seasoned Equity Issues in a Closely Held Market: Evidence from France

This paper examines seasoned equity offerings in France.Even though a rights offering is the primary flotation method, French companies are increasingly usingthe relatively expensive public offering method. We show that the market reaction to the announcementof seasoned equity issues is significantly negative for rights issues and insignificantly negative forpublic offerings. Our results suggest that the adverse selection effect is greater for rights issues thanfor public offerings, due to stronger underwriter certification for the public offerings. We find that theshare price effect is positively related to blockholders take-up renouncements for firms with priorconcentrated ownership. For these firms, the favourable ownership dispersion effect offsets the adverse selection effect.     

基于模糊控制的三相异步电动机的软起动系统

本系统主要通过对模糊控制器的设计 ,将异步电动机的起动电流既限制在了一定的范围内 ,又可得到较大的起动力矩。由于又采用了参数自调整作为辅助控制 ,不但改善了起动时的动态性能 ,而且改善了稳定运行时的静态性能     

A Semiparametric Method for Valuing Residential Locations: Application to Automated Valuation

This paper is motivated by automated valuation systems, which would benefit from an ability to estimate spatial variation in location value. It develops theory for the local regression model (LRM), a semiparametric approach to estimating a location value surface. There are two parts to the LRM: (1) an ordinary least square (OLS) model to hold constant for interior square footage, land area, bathrooms, and other structural characteristics; and (2) a non-parametric smoother (local polynomial regression, LPR) which calculates location value as a function of latitude and longitude. Several methods are used to consistently estimate both parts of the model. The LRM was fit to geocoded hedonic sales data for six towns in the suburbs of Boston, MA. The estimates yield substantial, significant and plausible spatial patterns in location values. Using the LRM as an exploratory tool, local peaks and valleys in location value identified by the model are close to points identified by the tax assessor, and they are shown to add to the explanatory power of an OLS model. Out-of-sample MSE shows that the LRM with a first-degree polynomial (local linear smoothing) is somewhat better than polynomials of degree zero or degree two. Future applications might use degree zero (the well-known NW estimator) because this is available in popular commercial software. The optimized LRM reduces MSE from the OLS model by between 5 percent and 11 percent while adding information on statistically significant variations in location value.