Heterogeneous returns to chemical fertilizer at the intensive margins: Insights from Nepal

Increased fertilizer use is considered important for agricultural development in low-income countries. Promoting increased use of chemical fertilizer by lowering its price may be ineffective if demand is price inelastic. In theory, the price elasticity of demand depends on the returns to its use, but the evidence is scarce. Furthermore, while returns are often estimated for small changes in chemical fertilizer use, returns to larger changes in its use (intensive margins) are less understood. Through the inter-zonal comparisons in Nepal, we provide indicative evidence that greater returns to chemical fertilizer are associated with greater price elasticities of demand. Moreover, the evidence suggests that returns at the intensive margins, rather than returns to small changes, may largely account for inter-zonal differences in returns to chemical fertilizer within Nepal. The results suggest that better understanding the returns at the intensive margins is critical for effective agricultural inputs policies in developing countries.     

Are EU trade preferences really effective? An impact evaluation assessment of the Southern Mediterranean Countries’ case

This work assesses the causal impact of the EU trade preferences granted to the Southern Mediterranean Countries (SMCs) in agriculture and fishery products over the period 2004–2014. It overcomes some of the weaknesses of previous assessments and presents several methodological improvements. Firstly, it relies on a continuous treatment – i.e. preferential margins – to capture the ‘average treatment effect’ of trade preferences, rather than on a binary treatment based on dummy variables. Secondly, it uses highly disaggregated data at sectoral level in order to evaluate properly the preferential treatment. Thirdly, it applies a non-parametric matching technique for continuous treatment – specifically, a generalized propensity score matching. The results show, on the one hand, that the impact of the EU preferences is positive and significant on SMCs trade and is better evaluated using impact evaluation techniques. On the other hand, they demonstrate that the relationship between preferences and trade flows is asymmetric and warn against the risk of providing too much of a good thing. These results raise important issues for policy-making. First, they demonstrate that raising the level of preferences is not the solution to foster the SMCs trade towards EU. Second, that the policy-makers should put more emphasis on complementary factors other than trade barriers.     

Impact of contracts in high yielding varieties seed production on profits and yield: The case of Nepal

Nepal’s population continues to grow, but the agricultural sector’s performance remains almost stagnant. This has led to a decline in the per capita availability of food. Increasing agricultural productivity is the key to agricultural growth, and one strategy for increasing agricultural productivity is to use improved seeds. This study investigates the impact of contract farming (CF) in high yielding varieties (HYV) of paddy seed production on costs, yield, and profits of smallholder farms in Nepal. Using farm-level data and a non-parametric propensity score matching estimator, the study finds a significant positive impact of contract HYV seed farming on revenues, profits, and yield, and a significant negative impact on total costs of production. Additionally, very small farms (⩽0.43 ha) with CF in HYV paddy seeds tend to gain the most when it comes to yield per hectare. Our estimates reveal that the average smallholder household in Nepal engaged in CF with input conditions receives higher profits. However, farmers engaged in CF with output conditions tend to have higher yields but smaller profits. Finally, farmers engaged in CF in HYV paddy seeds with both input and output conditions have the highest yield gains and significantly higher profits.     

Economic evaluation of human urinary kallindinogenase for patients with acute ischemic stroke in China

Objectives: In China, both human urinary kallindinogenase (HUK) and 3-n-butylphthalide (NBP) are recommended for clinical use to improve cerebral blood circulation during an acute ischemic stroke (AIS). The objective was to evaluate the economic value of HUK vs NBP for patients with AIS from a Chinese payer’s perspective.

Methods: An economic evaluation based on data of patients who have been treated with either HUK (n?=?488) or NBP (n?=?885) from a prospective, phase IV, multi-center, clinical registry study (Chinese Acute Ischemic Stroke Treatment Outcome Registry, CASTOR) was conducted to analyze the cost and effectiveness of HUK vs NBP for AIS in China. Before the analysis, the patients were matched using propensity score. Both a cost-minimization analysis and a cost-effectiveness analysis were conducted to compare the matched pairs. A bootstrapping exercise was conducted for the matched arms to demonstrate the probability of one intervention being cost-effective over another for a given willingness-to-pay for an extra quality-adjusted life-year (QALY).

Results: After propensity score matching, 463 pairs were matched. The overall medical cost in the HUK arm is USD 2,701.20, while the NBP arm is USD 3,436.83, indicating HUK is preferred with cost-minimization analysis. Although the QALY gained in the HUK arm (0.77176) compared with the NBP arm (0.76831) is statistically insignificant (p?=?.4862), the cost-effectiveness analysis as exploratory analysis found that, compared with NBP, HUK is a cost-saving strategy with the lower costs of USD 735.63 and greater QALYs gained of 0.00345. Among the 5,000 bootstrapping replications, 100% indicates that HUK is cost-effective compared with NBP under a 1-time-GDP threshold; and 97.12% indicates the same under a 3-time-GDP threshold.

Conclusion: This economic evaluation study indicates that administrating HUK is a cost-saving therapy compared with NBP for managing blood flow during AIS in the Chinese setting.     

Exploring the mismatch between credit ratings and loss-given-default: A credit risk approach

It is commonly observed that high grade loans with better ratings are often associated with low recoveries if they default (i.e. with relatively high loss-given-default (LGD)). To address the mismatch problem, this paper proposes a credit risk approach by minimizing LGD for higher rated loans as a risk-rating matching standard in the sense that the decreasing LGD from creditors’ perspective is associated with higher credit rating for the borrower. This standard forces customers’ credit rating of each grade to be optimally determined in correspondence to its LGD, which means the LGD of high grade loans tends to be low. The approach is then tested using three credit datasets from China, i.e. credit data from 2044 farmers, 2157 small private businesses and 3111 SMEs. The empirical results show that the proposed approach indeed guides the way to solve the mismatch phenomenon between credit ratings and LGDs in the existing credit rating literature. By optimally determining credit ratings, the findings derived from this paper help provide a valuable reference for bankers, and bond investors to manage their credit risk.     

基于供应链的物流企业战略匹配能力研究

文中通过回顾之前对物流能力所作的研究及相关理论背景的基础上，认为物流企业战略匹配能力是企业物流能力的一个重要方面，并做了简单的探讨分析，丰富了对物流企业能力的研究。     

电子商务技能型人才需求与高职教育培养匹配研究

产业转型升级发展对专业技能型人才的需求发生变化,作为技能型人才重要培养主体的高职院校,面临着如何培养新时代高素质技能人才的挑战。通过招聘大数据挖掘电子商务技能型人才的需求特征,同时调研相关高职院校电子商务专业人才培养现状,分析供需匹配度。结果表明:电商企业需要德技并修的高素质技能型人才,而高职院校的课程体系以专业技能、商务技能等硬技能教学为主,忽视综合素养软技能教育,同时,高职院校电子商务专业课程开设未能根据行业技术更新和产业转型发展及时调整。基于研究结果,从课程体系建设、校企合作深化、工匠精神培育等方面提出相关建议。     

Time-varying inter-urban housing price spillovers in China: Causes and consequences

The spatial spillovers of housing prices across regions are well documented by a large body of previous studies. This paper tries to investigate the dynamic (time-varying) evolution of spatial interactions and their underlying driving factors intensively. Using a recently developed Generalized Autoregressive Score (GAS) model, this paper examines the time-varying spatial spillovers of housing prices in 70 major and median cities of China from 2006 to 2019. We find that the GAS model can well capture the impact of time-varying critical events of Chinese real estate market on the whole. However, different regions display heterogeneous variation patterns over time. Further investigation shows that inter-regional labor mobility and trades are two major channels, accounting for 1.25% and 2.58% of the monthly standard deviations of spatial spillover effects from one city to another, respectively. We also characterize and distinguish between three time-varying patterns of spatial spillovers within different regions of China. Our results shed lights on the understanding of spatial spillovers across regional real estate markets across different city network structures within China.     

Waste of money or growth opportunity: The causal effect of EU subsidies on Hungarian SMEs

Although EU subsidies aiming at economic development play a pivotal role not only for Hungary but for the entire European Union as well, there is a debate regarding their effectiveness in the literature. This paper investigates the impact of direct economic development subsidies extended in the context of Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund as part of the 2007–2013 programming period of the European Union on Hungarian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Based on a micro database, we evaluate the impact of corporates’ first subsidies on various performance indicators, using a combination of propensity score matching and fixed effects panel regression. According to our results, economic development funds had a significant positive effect on the number of employees, sales revenue, gross value added and, in some cases, operating profit. However, the labour productivity of enterprises was not significantly affected by any of the support schemes. Furthermore, by explicitly comparing non-refundable subsidies (grants) and refundable assistance (financial instruments), we find that there is no significant difference in the effectiveness of the two types of subsidy.     

Does managerial ability matter for cross-border M&As: Evidence from Chinese listed firms

With the deepening of economic globalization, cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBMAs) are increasingly becoming an important choice of transnational investment, and more Chinese firms are becoming involved in them. However, the success rate of CBMAs for firms in China seems to be lower than that for firms in other countries. Using data on the CBMA deals initiated by Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2003 to 2018, we examine the association between managerial ability and the likelihood of completing CBMAs. The empirical results show that the average impact of managerial ability on the likelihood of completing CBMAs is positive. Furthermore, by taking heterogeneity of the ownership structure into account, we find that the positive effect of managerial ability is significant only for non-state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the results from the mediation model show that relaxing financing constraints is a possible channel by which managerial ability affects the likelihood of completing CBMAs. Our results are robust to various model specifications.