Socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency according to the capability approach: An endogenous stochastic frontier analysis

We investigate the role of private and public resources in educational attainments and the socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency in Italy. Following the Sen's capability approach, we consider social capital and the quality of government part of the social conversion factors through which resources can be converted into human capabilities, such as education. We analyze the case of Italy by constructing a new longitudinal dataset from 1993 to 2012, using repeated cross sections from the main social survey of the Italian Statistical Institute and a panel stochastic frontier model that takes into account endogeneity. The results show the relative importance of private resources (measured by an ad hoc constructed wealth index), the complementarity between private wealth and public expenditures on education, and the positive impact of social capital and the quality of government on educational resource efficiency.     

Basel regulations and banks’ efficiency: The case of the Philippines

Using stochastic frontier analysis, this paper has examined the impact of Basel II on the cost efficiency of Philippine commercial banks from 2001 to 2011. The overall mean cost efficiency estimate is 0.75, indicating substantial inefficiencies in the banks averaging to 25% of total costs. Findings show that higher capital requirement tends to improve the cost efficiency but more powerful supervisors can adversely affect the efficiency of the banks. The other potential correlates that may help explain the efficiency of the banks are risk and asset quality and bank-specific variables. From a policy perspective, this study is informative to policymakers on the general direction in which to proceed with reforms (i.e., maintain higher capital requirements, curtail powerful supervisors, and enhance private monitoring) and in identifying factors that could contribute to banks’ efficiency especially in light of the newly implemented Basel III in the country. In effect, this paper also assesses the readiness of the banks toward the implementation of Basel III.     

Resource-envy-free and efficient allocations: A new solution for production economies with dedicated factors

I consider the problem of determining an equitable and efficient allocation of resources in production economies with factors which must be dedicated to production and cannot be consumed directly. First, I show that in such economies envy-free and efficient allocations exist under standard assumptions. However, I argue this notion of fairness is unsuitable for the present context. I then introduce a new notion of fairness, which I call resource-envy-freeness. First, I associate with each consumption bundle its resource footprint consisting of the vector of factors used to produce it. I then show that preferences over consumption bundles can be extended to preferences over factor bundles. An allocation is resource-envy-free if no agent prefers another agent’s resource footprint to its own. The analysis of resource-envy-free allocations in production is exactly analogous to the analysis of envy-free allocations in exchange. I establish that resource-envy-free and efficient allocations exist under standard assumptions, and I demonstrate that such allocations are intuitively appealing.     

Relationship between city size and firm productivity – A new interpretation using the Chinese experience

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between city size and firm productivity by focusing on agglomeration, selection (market competition), and sorting (presence of firms with diverse productivity) effects using Chinese firm-level data for 1998–2013. Contrary to the existing literature, our parametric regression estimates from nearly two million firms show that when the selection effect is controlled, productivity advantage in big cities is reversed. This outcome is explained through a quantile regression showing the existence of left-sided sorting (inefficient firms sort themselves to larger cities) in big cities which is not captured in existing empirical literature. We further find that (1) left-sided sorting is stronger in exporters than non-exporters; (2) is also generated mainly in enterprises with high asset-liability ratios; and (3) selection has a positive effect on firm productivity, suggesting that market competition is key in an explanation of the rapid growth of big cities in China.     

Islamic and conventional portfolios optimization under investor sentiment states: Bayesian vs Markowitz portfolio analysis

This paper investigates the portfolio optimization under investor’s sentiment states of Hidden Markov model and over a different time horizon during the period 2004–2016. To compare the efficient portfolios of the Islamic and the conventional stock indexes, we have employed two approaches: the Bayesian and Markowitz mean-variance. Our findings reveal that the Bayesian efficient frontier of Islamic and conventional stock portfolios is affected by the investor’s sentiment state and the time horizon. Our findings also indicate that the investor’s sentiment regimes change the Islamic and the conventional optimal diversified portfolios.Moreover, the results show that the potential diversification benefits seem to be more important when using the Bayesian approach than when applying the Markowitz approach. This finding is valid for the bearish, depressed, bullish and calm states in Islamic stock markets. However, the diversification of potential portfolios is significant only for the bullish and the bubble states in the conventional financial markets.The findings of the study provided additional evidence for investors to exploit googling investor sentiment states to evaluate the portfolio performance and make an optimal portfolio allocation.     

Value of hedge and expected returns

We demonstrate how it is possible to generate value for an investor with a hedge attached to the buy-and-hold strategy of an S&P 500 index fund. We study the S&P 500 index portfolio (not including dividends) and the value-weighted S&P 500 index portfolio (including dividends) of the Center for Research in Securities Prices for 1967:01–2011:12, using the capacity utilization and the unemployment rates in real time to determine if a hedge position should be initiated or closed. A hedge is initiated if the capacity utilization, the unemployment rate or a combination of the two signals a contraction in the real economy. The hedge position is closed if it signals otherwise an expansion. We use utility gains (Campbell and Thompson 2008), the manipulation-proof performance measure (MPPM) statistics (Ingersoll et al. 2007) and the P-Sharpe ratio (Bailey and López de Prado 2012) to evaluate the performance of a particular hedge strategy. The empirical results show that there are infinitely many hedges that can generate positive utility gains, higher MPPM statistics and higher P-Sharpe ratios.     

Production complementarities and flexibility in a model of entrepreneurship

The focus of this paper is the flexibility in working hours as a motive for entrepreneurship. The model exhibits inflexibilities for workers and entrepreneurs, which arise due to complementarities in production. In addition, it allows for volatile value of leisure to make flexibility in hours desirable. Differences in occupation-specific flexibility, disciplined with the observed patterns in hours (level, persistence, dispersion) and income (persistence, dispersion), can explain relatively low income levels of entrepreneurs in the US and the occupation-specific distributions of working hours and income. Policy relevance of the model features is discussed using experiments of workweek restrictions and income taxation.     

Impact of quality on estimations of hotel efficiency

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of output quality on hotel efficiency. It demonstrates how ignoring quality can lead to erroneous efficiency estimates. The study uses stochastic frontier methodology and the model proposed by Battese and Coelli (1995) to estimate the efficiency of 838 hotels in Spain in the period 2009–2013. The key advantage of this methodology is its ability to estimate efficiency and identify factors that explain differences in efficiency in a single-stage sampling procedure. Estimates of cost efficiency, which only include the costs of higher quality, are compared to those of profit efficiency, which not only consider costs but also the revenues generated by higher quality. Results show that quality has a negative impact on cost efficiency and a positive one on profit efficiency. Thus, hotel management should implement strategies that increase the value of their services as a way to achieve sustainable competitive advantages.     

现代经济增长与教育发展的数学模型解析

人力资本是现代社会生产的决定因素.人力资本提高可使社会生产效益指数增长.各个学龄阶段的生均教育投入,都应随着科技知识的指数增长而增长.我国走科技先行、可持续发展的道路,2020年的高等教育毛入学率应达到50％,实现高等教育的普及化,公共教育经费占GDP的比重要在2012年达到4％的基础上继续提高,并在2020年达到4.6％至4.7％,以带动全社会的教育投入占GDP比重提高到7％.     

数据生产理论——数据资源权利配置的基础理论

人类正在进入数据驱动的时代,数据成为社会的基础资源,但数据一直被认为处于公共领域并妨碍着数据权利化,困扰着数据资源利用秩序的建立。描述特定对象的数据并不是天然存在的,而是被生产出来的,并将数据价值（预测分析、发现新知）的实现过程界分为原始数据生产（采集）、数据集生产（汇集性处理）和数据分析（分析性处理）三种行为,并将前两个行为称为数据生产,提出数据生产理论。数据生产理论首先应区分数据生产和数据分析,原始数据的生产是建立在分析原材料提供者基础之上,应承认其价值并配置适当权利,以满足各种分析目的的数据集的生产。同时,数据生产还应区别数据来源,来源于个人的数据并不一定是个人生产的,只有个人在提供或创制了数据时才是数据的生产者。因此,数据生产理论是在将数据视为一种资源的情形下为数据上权利配置提供理论支撑,通过配置相应权利,构筑从原始数据生产者到数据集生产者,再到数据分析者的数据利用秩序。