Diffusion of mobile telephony: An empirical study in Taiwan

Mobile telephony penetration is a major indicator of mobile telephony diffusion. Taiwan had a mobile telephony penetration of 108% in 2002, ranking first in the world. This study analyzes this accelerated diffusion in terms of growth model and determinants of the diffusion rate. To eliminate the inherent uncertainty associated with choosing the optimal growth model, this study compares the performance of three conventional models, namely Gompertz, Logistic and Bass, to identify the most appropriate model, and to distinguish the forces driving the diffusion rate. Empirical results indicate that the most appropriate model is the Logistic model. Network externalities, which this study shows to be the same as the imitation effect in the Bass model, explain the superiority of the Logistic model. Moreover, market competition, which markedly reduces service prices, is identified as a primary driver of the diffusion rate of mobile telephony in Taiwan. Economic conditions, technological innovation and number of operators are insignificant factors. Finally, mobile telephony is a substitute for fixed-line telephony in Taiwan.     

西部地区村级规划体系构建研究

构建适于西部地区农村发展的村级规划体系、编制实用型村庄规划,对于实施乡村振兴战略和农村人居环境整治工程具有重要的理论探索和实践意义。文章在剖析西部地区村级规划编制中存在的"缺位或流于形式、实用性较差、无视规划用地"等问题基础上,采用对比分析法,厘清村级层面各类规划相互关系,进而提出村级规划体系构建的原则与框架。研究表明:(1)西部地区村庄规划体系建立与规划编制迫在眉睫;(2)现有主要村级层面规划中,乡村振兴战略规划是村庄产业发展导向与战略功能定位,村土地利用规划是村庄用地空间布局与管制规划,共同构成多元化完整的村庄规划体系;(3)"一张图"融合、战略定位先行、公众参与等是构建实用型村级规划体系的基本原则;(4)村级规划体系的逻辑架构为"双结构""双理念"和"5维导向",实施模式以"1+N模式";(5)西部地区村级规划应以多个村落共同编制为主要形式,同时探索留白机制,提高规划弹性。     

Simultaneous screening and college admissions

We analyze a simultaneous screening problem in competition among top schools. The model predicts that when the second best school has similar prestige to the best one it could attract better students by choosing the same entrance examination date.     

公积金：内地要向香港学习

为解决人口急剧老龄化问题，保障大多数人的退休生活，香港特区政府自2000年12月起正式推行强积金（强制性公积金）计划。强积金是以职业为基础的退休保障计划，除豁免人士外，凡年龄在侣岁至65岁之间的雇员和自雇人士都必须参加强积金。强积金计划推行时间虽然不长，但其效果非常明显，目前已覆盖了86％的香港就业人士。在强积金投资上，香港特区政府对投资范围、投资比例及投资工具等都作了详细的规定，保证了基金的稳健运营。由于人们可以灵活地选择其养老金账户的投资方式，近年来，强积金的总资产净值每年增长超过三成，截至去年底已滚存至1200亿港元。     

China＇s Outward Direct and Portfolio Investments

This paper analyzes developments and trends related to China's outward direct and financial investments by examining Chinese firms’overseas acquisitions, China's holdings of US Treasury securities, and the recently formally launched Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor programs. Strategies should be developed to reach optimal decisions for both direct and portfolio investments. We argue that China should have a longer‐term view for both direct and portfolio investments, enabling China to become the leader in Asia while maintaining its sustainable growth objective. China should invest heavily in the development of the Asian bond market and the Asian Currency Fund when making both portfolio and direct investment decisions.     

Joint estimation of technical efficiency and production risk for multi-output banks under a panel data cost frontier model

This article generalizes production risk from a single output production function to a multiple output cost frontier, which is able to examine input-oriented technical efficiencies and production risk simultaneously in the context of a panel data. Furthermore, the joint confidence interval estimates for technical efficiencies are constructed by means of multiple comparisons with the best approach. Whether taking production risk into account or not offers quite dissimilar implications in terms of the average technical efficiency measure and the identification of multiple efficient banks achieving the optimal cost frontier. It is suggested that inferences drawn on the basis of the confidence intervals of technical efficiency provide much more fruitful and insightful information than the point estimation alone. Bank specific risk parameters are found to be highly and positively correlated with fixed-effect estimates, implying that the more risk-averse a bank is, the more technically efficient it will be.

Has SOX Enhanced Non–Big 4 Auditors' Ability to Deal with Client Pressure?

We investigate whether non–Big 4 auditors have enhanced their ability to resist client pressure over accrual reporting following the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX). Regressing abnormal accruals on proxies for economic bonding, we find that changes in the association, defined as (Post–Pre), are significantly negative, implying an improvement in auditor independence after SOX. Among non–Big 4 auditors, only Tier 3 auditors compromised reporting objectivity before SOX, but neither Tier 2 nor Tier 3 auditors yielded to client pressure after SOX. Evidence that these two groups of non–Big 4 auditors differ in the way they cope with client pressure in a loose regulatory regime highlights the importance of assessing the efficacy of SOX separately for subsets of auditors and contributes to an understanding of the underresearched, but inherently important, segment of the audit market served by non–Big 4 auditors. Further analysis indicates that the low pre‐SOX audit quality observed in the full sample is driven by non–PCAOB registrants.