The water footprint of tourism in Spain

This study complements the water footprint (WF) estimations for Spain, incorporating insights of the process analysis and input–output (IO) analysis. We evaluate the virtual (both blue and green consumed) water trade of agricultural and industrial products, but also of services, especially through tourism, for a country in which more than 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) derives from this activity. We use domestic and import disaggregated tables in the agro-alimentary activities, based mainly on national agrarian, industrial, services and trade statistics. In order to obtain import coefficients, water data and IO tables of the main trade partners are used to reproduce the technology of these economies. Results show that 16% of the Spanish exports are due to foreign tourism, thus the water footprint of foreign tourism in Spain is 3.7 km³. Finally, we compare reductions in total tourism expenditure and the domestic and global water footprint of tourism using four scenarios.     

The role of outsourcing in driving global carbon emissions

Globalisation has narrowed the gap between producers and consumers of goods and services. The linkages between international trade and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions have started to be recognised, yet the extent of outsourcing of emissions across nations is unknown. Filling this gap in knowledge is critical for designing effective policy mechanisms for assigning responsibility for reductions in emissions. Here we present a structural decomposition analysis of global trends in outsourcing of emissions from 1990 to 2010 for 186 individual countries. To this end, we disaggregate total CO₂ emissions for each country into contributions from the domestic economy and international trade. This allows us to unveil outsourcing trends for all nations confirming a world-wide shifting of emissions-intensive production across borders. We categorise nations into “outsourcers” – countries that outsource carbon-intensive production to so-called contractor nations. Our detailed assessment of the commodity content of global outsourcing flows reveals interesting insights about the trade of carbon-intensive commodities.     

推广创造学 培养创新人才

本文概括介绍了创造学对知识经济时代的现实价值,并通过以下四个方面体现出来:激发创新意识,培育创新精神;破除思维定势,诱发创造性思维;掌握创造技法,增强创造能力;开展创造教育,优化人才素质,以此论述了创造学对培养创新人才的积极作用。     

行业贸易开放与行业产出波动的关系——基于中国制造业行业数据的经验分析

利用1999—2010年中国制造业行业数据,采用固定效应模型探讨了中国制造业行业的贸易开放度与产出波动的关系。实证结果表明:贸易开放对行业产出波动具有抑制作用。稳健性检验结果显示,上述结果不受关键指标选取和样本极端值的影响,且在控制了内生性问题后依然成立。最后指出:平抑产出波动是贸易开放的重要利得,我国制造业制定发展战略时仍需积极贯彻扩大开放的思路,同时倡导多样性的发展道路,其中产品多样性较市场多样性更为重要。     

Inflation Targeting in ASEAN‐10

The paper addresses the empirical question of whether economies that do not systematically target inflation (non‐inflation targeters) experience higher exchange rate volatility as compared with inflation targeters in 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) from 1990 to 2010. The paper examines the role of real exchange rate, exchange rate volatility and the reaction functions of central banks using dynamic panel estimation techniques. The results indicate that the output gap offers more useful information than the inflation gap in setting interest rates for inflation targeters, implying that the real term is more important than the nominal term. In turn, this suggests that an increase in interest rate can be wielded swiftly to reduce real gross domestic product and suppress inflation. The real exchange rate appears as a weaker determinant in setting interest rates for non‐inflation targeters. Inflation targeters experienced lower exchange rate volatility compared with non‐targeters in the ASEAN, which implies that implementation costs to their domestic economies may be marginally lower. Meanwhile, the non‐targeters follow a mixed strategy as both the inflation and real exchange rate are used as instruments to set the interest rates.     

The Global MRIO Lab – charting the world economy

ABSTRACT

We describe the creation of the Global Multi-Region Input–Output (MRIO) Lab, which is a cloud-computing platform offering a collaborative research environment through which participants can use each other’s resources to assemble their own individual MRIO versions. The Global MRIO Lab’s main purpose is to harness and focus previously disparate resources aimed at compiling large-scale MRIO databases that provide comprehensive representations of interregional trade, economic structure, industrial interdependence, as well as environmental and social impact. Based on the operational Australian Industrial Ecology Lab, a particularly important feature of this cloud environment is a highly detailed regional and sectoral taxonomy called the ‘root classification’. The purpose of this root is to serve as a feedstock from which researchers can choose any combination of regions and economic sectors to form a model of the economy that is suitable to address their particular research questions. Thus, the Global MRIO Lab concept enables enhanced flexibility in MRIO database construction whilst at the same time saving resources and avoiding duplication, by sharing time- and labour-intensive tasks amongst multiple research teams. We explain the concept, architecture, development and preliminary results of the Global MRIO Lab, and discuss its ability to continuously deliver some of the most prominent world MRIO databases.     

企业创新下的企业生态化发展研究

文章结合企业创新和企业生态化的内涵,分析了企业生态化对企业创新的需求,运用典型相关分析法定量研究了企业创新与企业生态化之间的关系,研究表明两者之间存在着显著正相关关系(第一典型相关系数高达0.954),得出结论:企业创新是企业生态化发展的持续的、螺旋上升的动力源泉,并提出企业创新下企业生态化发展的对策。     

The choice between multiplicative and additive production uncertainty

When modeling output uncertainty, the multiplicative specification is consistently chosen over the additive form, despite the latter being arguably intuitively more obvious. The rationale for this seems to be that when production risk is the only source of uncertainty, additive uncertainty does not reduce output below the certainty level, while multiplicative uncertainty does. We show that, in the absence of hedging, this result is drastically modified when there is simultaneous price and output uncertainty. In this situation the theoretical implications of the two specifications are sufficiently similar to preclude any a priori choice between the two. Thus the choice between the additive and multiplicative formulations may be dictated by how each performs in empirical analyses.