What do professional forecasters actually predict?

This paper studies what professional forecasters predict. We use spectral analysis and state space modeling to decompose economic time series into trend, business cycle, and irregular components. We examine which components are captured by professional forecasters by regressing their forecasts on the estimated components extracted from both the spectral analysis and the state space model. For both decomposition methods, we find that, in the short run, the Survey of Professional Forecasters can predict almost all of the variation in the time series due to the trend and the business cycle, but that the forecasts contain little or no significant information about the variation in the irregular component.     

Forecasting turning points in tourism growth

Tourism demand exhibits growth cycles, and it is important to forecast turning points in these growth cycles to minimise risks to destination management. This study estimates logistic models of Hong Kong tourism demand, which are then used to generate both short- and long-term forecasts of tourism growth. The performance of the models is evaluated using the quadratic probability score and hit rates. The results show that the ways in which this information is used are crucial to the models’ predictive power. Further, we investigate whether combining probability forecasts can improve predictive accuracy, and find that combination approaches, especially nonlinear combination approaches, are sensitive to the quality of forecasts in the pool. In addition, model screening can improve forecasting performance.     

人民币实际汇率波动对中欧进出口贸易影响的实证研究

本文通过建立GARCH模型量度了人民币对欧元实际汇率的波动性,并运用协整检验模型、误差修正模型、脉冲响应函数和方差分解技术就人民币实际汇率变动对中国与欧元区之间进出口贸易的影响进行分析。分析结果表明,中国对欧元区出口在长期内随汇率波动而增加,而进口却随汇率波动而减少;在短期内汇率波动推动中国进口,抑制中国出口。人民币升值在长期内给双边出口均造成伤害,但对中国出口伤害更大;在短期内人民币贬值将对中国进出口均有推动作用。本文分析还表明,在长期内,中国对欧元区出口收入效应远远大于欧元区对华出口收入效应;在短期内,中国实际收入变动对欧元区出口表现负向冲击,而欧元区实际收入变动对中国出口表现为正向冲击。中国汇率制度改革对中国出口欧元区产生推动作用,对欧元区出口产生抑制作用,且前者大于后者。实际汇率水平及其波动性变化对欧元区对华出口变动的解释力高于中国实际收入水平变化的解释力,而对于中国对欧元区出口的变动,欧元区实际收入水平变动的解释力高于实际汇率水平及其波动性变化的解释力。     

服务业对外直接投资的出口效应——基于我国微观企业的研究

文章基于我国服务业上市企业数据,采用多维固定效应模型,探讨和分析了我国服务业OFDI对服务贸易出口的影响,经研究发现：第一,服务业OFDI通过吸收东道国先进技术经验提升企业生产率水平和避开东道国服务贸易壁垒降低贸易成本,促进企业服务贸易出口增长;第二,我国服务业OFDI显著提升了企业服务贸易出口的二元边际,具体而言,整体上服务业OFDI会促进服务贸易出口增长4.82%,同时会提升企业的出口概率;第三,我国服务业OFDI"出口效应"存在明显的区域和行业的异质性,具体表现为：生产性服务业和消费性服务业OFDI存在显著的"出口效应",其OFDI带动服务贸易出口的增长分别为5.68%和3.52%,而公共服务业则不存在显著的"出口效应";东部地区和中部地区服务业OFDI存在显著的"出口效应",其OFDI带动区域服务贸易出口的增长分别为4.97%和3.56%,而西部地区则不存在显著的"出口效应"。上述研究结论对化解我国服务贸易出口增长困境和完善服务业对外直接投资政策机制具有一定的启示意义。     

Electricity price forecasting: A review of the state-of-the-art with a look into the future

A variety of methods and ideas have been tried for electricity price forecasting (EPF) over the last 15 years, with varying degrees of success. This review article aims to explain the complexity of available solutions, their strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats that the forecasting tools offer or that may be encountered. The paper also looks ahead and speculates on the directions EPF will or should take in the next decade or so. In particular, it postulates the need for objective comparative EPF studies involving (i) the same datasets, (ii) the same robust error evaluation procedures, and (iii) statistical testing of the significance of one model’s outperformance of another.     

中国省级税制结构变动的主导动因——基于面板门限模型的检验

国际经济一体化和国内政策调整主导了税制结构变化.政策制定者若顺应税制结构一般演变规律相应进行调整将会实现社会和谐发展,调整应同时兼顾国际化带来的冲击.从长期来看,经济发展对税制结构的作用程度减弱.若不存在冲击波动,税制结构将趋于稳定;税收来源的多元化和税收收入的指数化有利于降低税制结构波动程度.因此,开征财产税,实现社会保障的费改税,建构多元化且指数化的税收收入体系是我国中长期税制改革的方向.     

Increasing the Effectiveness of Export Assistance Programs

Abstract

This study focuses on the export assistance needs of small and medium-sized firms in the California EnviroTech industry. The objectives of this study are to: (1) provide public sector assistance providers research-based recommendations to increase the effectiveness of their export assistance programs to the EnviroTech industry; and (2) promote the advantages of a single industry study as the basis for providing public sector export assistance.     

新疆喀什地区外向型经济发展：优势、障碍与政策建议

喀什地区地处祖国西部边陲，具有发展外向型经济的资源、区位、人文和政策等优势。本文在调研①的基础上，对喀什地区外向型经济发展现状和障碍进行了分析，从国家和喀什地方政府两个层面提出了喀什地区加快外向型经济发展的政策建议。     

Influences of Managerial Drivers on Export Sales Units’ Performance of Small and Medium-Size Enterprises

ABSTRACT

This report offers a contribution to the theories related to firms' export performance. Job satisfaction and behavioral and outcome performance of export managers have received attention in export literature. However, the relationships between export managers’ rewards system and the level of export managers’ morale with export managers’ job satisfaction, behavioral and outcome performance, and export sales units’ performance of small and medium-size enterprises have not thoroughly been examined, tested, or validated. A new model is developed based on export managerial psychology theory, which integrates two constructs, the export managers’ rewards and level of morale, as critical variables affecting export performance. The research findings suggest that four connected relationships in a PLS model are positive, significant, and substantial. Particularly, managers’ financial and nonfinancial rewards influence managers’ level of morale, which in turn affects managers’ behavioral performance, and managers' behavioral performance influences managers’ outcome performance, which, finally, affects firms’ export performance.     

Determining an optimal hierarchical forecasting model based on the characteristics of the data set: Technical note

The efficient flow of goods and services involves addressing multilevel forecast questions, and careful consideration when aggregating or disaggregating hierarchical estimates. Assessing all possible aggregation alternatives helps to determine the statistically most accurate way of consolidating multilevel forecasts. However, doing so in a multilevel and multiproduct supply chain may prove to be a very computationally intensive and time-consuming task. In this paper, we present a new, two-level oblique linear discriminant tree model, which identifies the optimal hierarchical forecast technique for a given hierarchical database in a very time-efficient manner. We induced our model from a real-world dataset, and it separates all historical time series into the four aggregation mechanisms considered. The separation process is a function of both the positive and negative correlation groups' variances at the lowest level of the hierarchical datasets. Our primary contributions are: (1) establishing a clear-cut relationship between the correlation metrics at the lowest level of the hierarchy and the optimal aggregation mechanism for a product/service hierarchy, and (2) developing an analytical model for personalized forecast aggregation decisions, based on characteristics of a hierarchical dataset.