“Step into the Real Texas”: Associating and claiming state narrative in advertising and tourism brochures

Texas is one of the most popular states for tourists. Using quantitative and primarily qualitative methods, we analyzed how marketers of small cities and towns associate their place to four central components of the Texas state narrative – the flag, official and unofficial symbols, territory, and social–historical mythology – in advertising and tourism brochures in the years 2008–2010. We discovered that in parallel to the overuse of the “associating to well-known brand/narrative” strategy, marketers also invest efforts toward claiming the narrative. Thus our second goal was to discover which techniques were used in order to claim the state narrative. Using the state of Texas as an example may provide a test case for typology, associating and claiming state narratives in promotional materials.     

功率超声场对A356半固态微观组织形成的作用机理

根据功率超声工艺制备A356铝合金半固态浆料实验结果,探讨在功率超声场作用下,A356铝合金半固态凝固过程中初生α-AL相细化和球化的机理。从合金的微观结晶过程描述了浆料中的形核和晶体的长大在超声场作用下的改变,提出了超声效应对合金凝固过程的综合影响。     

Revisiting Purchasing Power Parity in OECD

This study revisits Purchasing Power Parity theory (PPP) in the 34 OECD countries during January 1994–August 2013. We use a new panel stationary test with both sharp breaks and smooth shifts, a novel approach to panel unit-root testing, proposed by Bahmani–Oskooee et al. (2014). The results indicate that the PPP holds in half of the 34 OECD countries. These results indicate the importance of proper modelling of both sharp breaks and smooth shifts in real effective exchange rate series of OECD countries.     

关于国有公司国有资产所有权主体问题

解决国有公司国有资产所有权主体问题主要不在于国有资产管理机构的设置,而在于“政 企分开”和“政资分开”。解决国有资产所有权主体缺位的有效途径：一是通过确立国有资本产权在国有 企业中的“人格化”;二是通过设立对委托人和代理人的约束和激励机制来减少委托代理成本。     

Asset‐based poverty transition and persistence in rural China

This article tests empirically for transition and persistence of poverty in rural China based on the theory of asset‐based poverty traps. It proposes an analytical framework mitigating the problem of endogenous switching between accumulation regimes and disentangling the true state‐dependence of poverty. Specifically, a dynamic asset threshold separating households into downward and upward mobility regimes is identified after taking households’ unobserved characteristics and observed regime‐differentiated accumulation strategies into account. The static analysis identifies causality running from settling into a downward mobility regime to the probability of poverty measured by consumption. Furthermore, allowing for endogenous initial poverty status, the dynamic analysis finds strong true state‐dependence in poverty. Households with the same characteristics are nearly twice as likely to be poor as if they had not previously switched to the accumulation regime. Assets below the dynamic threshold serve as a conduit through which poverty propagates itself. Factors that help to break this vicious circle are identified.     

Global supply network embeddedness and power: An analysis of international joint venture formations

As a subset of the international business literature, cross-border equity based partnerships have drawn significant academic attention. In the context of inter-firm partnerships, the power dynamics between parties and the implications that power has on the relational dynamics between firms is an important consideration. Research that connects power with network theory has recently emerged, suggesting that the network, as a source of power, plays a significant role in inter-firm dynamics. Yet, while there has been a substantial body of work either articulating the antecedents and consequences of power, little research has paid attention to the role that power plays in international JV formations; this presents a significant gap in the international business literature. Consequently, this study investigates the role that global network structure plays in the formation of new equity based international partnerships. Secondly, it contributes to the international JV literature by developing and testing a theoretical framework that examines inter-firm power dynamics as derived from the network position of each firm in the global network. Global network prominence, brokerage and weakness are key factors utilized in the analysis. The hypotheses are tested using a global manufacturing joint venture longitudinal dataset that contains 985,689 observations from 1985 to 2003. The results of the event history analysis indicate that for the manufacturer global network prominence, brokerage and weakness play an important role in new joint venture formations. On the other hand, only global network prominence is a significant factor for the potential partner.     

关于状态空间方法中状态空间模型的札记（下）

章对状态空间方法中状态空间模型的基本思想进行了论述,并对一般献中未详细证明的部分给出了证明,便于从事实际工作的统计工作和自学领会和掌握该模型。     

关于状态空间方法中超参数估计的札记

章对状态空间方法中超参数估计的基本思想进行了论述,并对一般献中未详细证明的部分给出了证明,便于从事实际工作的统计工作和自学领会和掌握该模型。     

States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints

State capacity has become one of the most discussed concepts in development economics and political economy. In this survey we argue that the study of economic history provides vital insights into the process through which modern states have acquired ‘state capacity’. By evaluating the process of state building across a range of different countries in Europe and Asia, we are able to ‘decompress’ the relationship between state capacity and economic growth. Our analysis emphasizes the variegated nature of the state building process. We focus on recent research that helps to elucidate the mechanisms that relate state capacity to economic growth.