Decentralisation of competencies and local development agencies in North-Eastern Italy

Despite the economic success of north-eastern Italy, some of its areas, such as those closest to the Adriatic coast, are still experiencing difficulties in industrialisation. Since the 1960s, some development policies have been implemented to stimulate economic restructuring. After the disappointing performance of centrally planned initiatives, most development policies are now the responsibility of local authorities. In fact, institutional and constitutional reforms have increased the competencies and the autonomy of lower levels of government, which have also been allowed greater responsibility in development initiatives. The establishment of development agencies is therefore increasingly left to local collective action.¹ This paper examines the effectiveness of such bottom-up initiatives driven by local institutions, and attempts to identify the best forms and the best regulatory framework for such activities.     

能源金融衍生品市场的发展与风险特征研究

能源金融衍生品是20世纪中后期兴起的新事物。以石油为基本核心产品的能源金融衍生品市场的发展对于各国的能源安全、金融安全和政治安全具有重要的意义。它有利于吸纳社会闲散资金,拓宽投融资渠道,也有利于市场经济条件下的企业风险管理。作为金融市场的重要组成部分,其发展对于完善市场结构、充分发挥市场功能、扩大市场规模,也具有重要的意义。本文分析了国外发达的能源金融衍生品市场的发展和我国目前的起步状况,并进一步分析了这一新兴市场的风险特征,为我国能源金融衍生品的合理定价和有效的能源金融风险管理打下了理论基础。     

A Repeatable E-Collaboration Process Based on ThinkLets for Multi-Organization Strategy Development

In recent years, multi-organizational collaboration has become more and more important in both business and research. We conducted an action research (AR) intervention with a consortium of Finnish universities that needed to revise its joint strategy. We designed and facilitated a repeatable collaboration process for this multi-organizational strategy development. The process was built using the Collaboration Engineering (CE) approach with thinkLets, which provides expert-level advice for novice facilitators, and it was powered by Group Support Systems (GSS). Our overall impression of CE’s ability to provide valuable design and facilitation support for complex processes is very affirmative. The consortium was satisfied with the intervention, as it saved huge amounts of time compared with conventional strategic work. The process was also seen as more democratic, because the GSS tools enabled equal participation during the session. Our study also provides a ready-to-apply CE process recipe to organizations for revising their strategy. Through this recipe, supplemented with knowledge on thinkLets, the strategy development process may easily be repeated by other facilitators or even practitioners.     

Business Ethics and E-learning: A contradiction in terms?

In seeking to stimulate the ethical awarenessof first year undergraduates on business andpublic sector courses, the potentialcontribution of e-learning should not beunderestimated. While ethics is traditionallyassociated with more discursive approaches,initially there is much to be gained fromproviding students with an interactiveelectronic facility which they can use at theirconvenience. If designed with due regard to thelimitations of educational technology andmodest aims, it can help students to becomemore ethically aware by familiarising them withthe language and concepts of ethical discourseand to acquire the skills needed to evaluatesituations from an ethical perspective.At Sheffield Hallam University, such afacility, based on the principles ofprogression and interactivity, is beingdeveloped within an action research framework.Involving close collaboration between tutors,those with relevant technical expertise andstudent volunteers, representing the interestsof potential users, all concerned are committedto enhancing the quality and rigour of thefirst year student learning experience.The challenges faced have included workingwithin the constraints imposed by the softwareplatform, Blackboard 5, and ensuring that thefacility is genuinely interactive rather thansimply the replication of a paper based system;is user friendly; enhances learning andencourages users to build on the foundationslaid. While face-to-face tuition must remain akey element in helping undergraduates becomemore aware of the ethical dimension of businesslife in its broadest sense, the projectdemonstrates that business ethics ande-learning are not a contradiction in terms.     

Study on Substantive Derivative Tools for Commercial Bank to Control the Fund Gap

Fund gap control, as an important and major managerial technique, has been widely used in western commercial banks （CBs）. Good management on fund gap can not only avoid interest rate （IR） risk, but also bring benefits to CBs. This paper discusses three substantive derivative tools that can be used to control fund gap, that is, interest rate futures, interest rate options and interest rate swap.     

证券市场集体诉讼 灵丹妙药还是救命稻草

作为纠错机制的一个重要部分，集体诉讼的目的是为了节约司法资源、提高上市公司管治水平，使信息披露更加透明、规范。但经过多年的实践，我们发现集体诉讼在提高上市公司的管治水平方面的作用有限；律师从中得到的好处远大于中小股东，以至于集体诉讼常常被律师滥用并对一些上市公司遣成了困扰。集体诉讼是美国政府平息民怨的一种作法。     

技术创新活动中政府和企业作用的实证分析

文章利用2003-2011年中国31个省、自治区、直辖市的面板数据,采用面板协整方法捕捉政府行为和企业自主行为对技术创新的动态影响。研究发现,企业行为是推动中国技术创新发展的重要动力,但企业技术创新的主体地位还没有完全确立;政府行为对促进技术创新发展有着重要意义：政府对人力资本的投入和技术市场的完善对技术创新有明显的积极作用,政府的技术创新投入对技术创新有促进作用,政府采购对技术创新有正向的作用,但显著度不够高。因此,建议加快确立企业技术创新核心主体地位,同时政府应加大教育投入力度,进一步完善技术市场,调整政府采购结构并加大政府采购对技术创新倾斜的力度。     

中国绿色食品产业集群创新的研究

培育和发展产业集群,提高地方产业的竞争优势,已成为新的经济增长点。通过产业集群的创新活动,使新增的产业竞争优势因素大于淡化、衰退的竞争优势因素,是保持产业持续竞争力的基础。产业集群的创新,包括主体、相关的产前、产后及支持性产业,通过集群的创新,使集群内部各环节协调发展,保持其综合竞争力上升,是发展产业竞争优势的关键。     

股东代表诉讼与传统诉讼形态之比较

作为对加强公司内部机关之间相互监督机能的补充,股东派生诉讼应运而生,这就要从诉讼法角度将其与传统诉讼制度进行概念和性质上的比较并探讨相互的整合问题,以便对我国公司法和证券法中涉及到的民事诉讼的条文做些概念上的辨析。     

CORRELATED DEFAULTS IN INTENSITY-BASED MODELS

This paper presents an intensity-based model of correlated defaults with application to the valuation of defaultable securities. The model assumes that the intensities of the default times are driven by common factors as well as other defaults in the system. A recursive procedure called the "total hazard construction" is used to generate default times with a broad class of correlation structures. This approach is compared to standard reduced-form models based on conditional independence as well as alternative approaches involving copula functions. Examples are given for the pricing of defaultable bonds and credit default swaps of the regular and basket type.