Self‐help in housing and chengzhongcun in China's urbanization

This article focuses on the housing issues of rural migrants arising from urbanization, with particular reference to chengzhongcun, a topic with considerable impact on policymaking. An attempt is made to understand the underlying rationale of self‐help in housing and the important role of chengzhongcun in sheltering rural migrants in the context of China's rural‐urban dichotomy. As demonstrated in this study, chengzhongcun accommodate, with little in the way of government resources and assistance, millions of rural migrants because of their social accessibility and affordability. While not denying their social problems, we argue that chengzhongcun in fact act as an innovative and positive agent to promote urbanization in present day China by housing massive numbers of rural migrants and assimilating them into cities. Current government policies towards chengzhongcun have generated a wide range of interest conflicts and confrontations. The consequences of such conflicts show that the government policies were problematic and unworkable, as they violated basic market principles as well as citizen rights. Policy strategy towards the redevelopment of chengzhongcun must acknowledge their credibility in the Chinese road to urbanization and requires more thoughtful and prudent consideration of migrants' demands for affordable housing.     

The approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents,translog, and generalized Leontief forms

This paper compares the approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents translog and minflex generalized Leontief cost functions with their translog and generalized Leontief counterparts in Monte Carlo experiments. The minflex Laurent specifications generally provided closer approximations to underlying technical and economic parameters. Imposition of nonlinear restrictions on some of the parameters of the minflex Laurent models yielded measurable improvement in estimated elasticities of substitutions, returns to scale, and rates of technical change.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through E. Appelbaum.     

Software innovativeness: outcomes on project performance, knowledge enhancement, and external linkages

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between product innovativeness and groups of outcomes flowing from the computer software product development process and the associated knowledge acquisition process. Data from interviews of managers in 94 software projects are analysed, and three groups of outcomes are measured: project performance, knowledge enhancement, and the strengthening of linkages to external actors/sources. The high innovative products show higher project performance for all measures of project performance compared with low innovative products. Similar results were found for all measures of personnel knowledge enhancement outcomes. Changes in the importance of linkages to nine different external sources of knowledge used by the firms during the knowledge acquisition process, also show some positive outcomes with respect to rising innovativeness levels. Strengthening of external linkages is found for 66% of the investigated linkages between one or two innovativeness levels. Of these, the linkages to hardware manufacturers, co-operation partners, and universities and other research institutions show strengthening when high innovativeness products are compared with low-level products. As the project performance and knowledge enhancement outcomes are due, in part, to knowledge gained within linkages to external actors/sources, managers could consider whether giving special attention to managing these linkages would be a winning innovation strategy for their particular firm.     

公有制和其它经济成份并存的效应分析

本文以我国公有制和其它经济成份并存这一重要经济现象为研究对象,从“并存”的一系列纷繁复杂的后果当中提炼出了最突出的问题,并给以多视角的分析,最后给出了“并存”优化的对策建议。     

Industrial property letting: Traditional v radical approaches

Following the earlier article on GLC and GLEB property letting, this contribution argues that an industrial lettings policy is inadequate for the promotion of good employment practices and sector strategy.     

社会主义核心价值体系的文化内涵分析

在社会体制与社会结构深刻变动、思想观念深刻变化的新形势下，在思想大活跃、观念大碰撞、文化大交融的时代背景下，建设社会主义核心价值体系，具有极强的现实针对性。准确地把握社会主义核心价值体系的科学内涵及其精神实质，是建设社会主义核心价值体系的前提。对于倡导和谐理念，培育和谐精神，打牢全党全国各族人民团结奋斗的思想道德基础，具有极为重要而又深远的理论意义和实践意义。社会主义核心价值体系可以从文化内涵方面展开发掘，具体包括政治文化、思想文化、精神文化和道德文化四个层面以及与和谐文化构建的关系方面，这是研究社会主义核心价值体系的一个新视角。     

会计准则国际趋同的报告

全球六家主要的国际会计师事务所在2003年2月12日发布了一份最新的国际财务报告准则(IFRS)调查报告:《会计准则的国际趋同报告——2002年全球调查》。该项调查的目的是评价世界各国采纳《国际财务报告准则》的情况和完备程度。调查背景介绍随着国际投资者越来越多地在全球范围内考虑其投资决策,对一个全球一致的财务会计框架的要求也越来越强烈。2001年4月,国际资本市场提出,改组后的国际会计准则委员会应该担负起制定全球统一的、高质量会计准则的使命。世界上主要的会计师事务所对国际会计准则委员会在制定全球统一的会计准则方面所作出…     

Dividend Omissions and Intraindustry Information Transfers

We examine potential information transfers from companies that announce dividend omissions to their industry rivals. Specifically, we examine the abnormal stock returns and abnormal earnings forecast revisions of rivals after a company makes a dividend‐omission announcement. Our results show negative and significant abnormal stock returns and negative and significant abnormal forecast revisions for rival companies in response to the announcement, and a significant and positive relation between the two. We conclude that a dividend‐omission announcement transmits unfavorable information across the announcing company's industry that affects cash flow expectations and ultimately stock prices.     

An objective Bayesian analysis of common stochastic trends in international stock prices and exchange rates

This paper uses Bayesian methods to analyze unit root and cointegration properties of two different finance data sets. Avoiding the use of subjective prior information, the paper surveys and utilizes several different objective Bayesian methodologies in an investigation of common stochastic trends in international stock markets and in spot and forward exchange rates for several different countries.