Services under siege--the restructuring imperative

Recent job losses in the U.S. service sector do not reflect a temporary recession. Those jobs are gone, the result of a massive restructuring of the sector that is just getting under way. The explanation for the restructuring is quite simple. Until recently, services have been shielded by regulation and confronted by few foreign competitors. They have allowed their white-collar payrolls to become bloated, their investment in information technology to outstrip the paybacks, and their productivity to stagnate. Now competition is heating up and exposing these inefficiencies. Just as intense competition forced the restructuring of Smokestack America in the 1980s, deregulation and foreign direct investment are shaking out service companies that cannot confront their shortcomings. The need for sweeping change in the service sector may come as a great shock to Americans who saw services as the means to continued economic prosperity. But there is a painful irony at work: job creation, the very thing proponents use to demonstrate the U.S. service sector's strength, is in fact a symptom of the sector's chronic neglect of economic efficiency. It is precisely that neglect that makes the service sector vulnerable as the race for market share intensifies and new players shift the terms of competition. Services must respond to the new competitive environment, but not by indiscriminate cost cutting. Instead, they should balance financial discipline with a comprehensive and immediate reexamination of strategy.     

美国房地产泡沫的崩盘:全球经济的魔鬼?

美国的房地产投机泡沫正在破裂。这种转变将通过多种途径影响到美国经济:建筑业下滑将使美国经济增长率减少约1．5个百分点,而财富效应的逆转会造成约0．5个百分点的影响。加之其他因素．房地产泡沫破裂将使美国经济增长率降低2．0个百分点以上。而对于失衡的全球经济而言．美国房地产泡沫的破裂将会造成很大影响。     

Renewable energy and low-carbon policy spillover effects on natural gas demand

Recent legislation intended to increase the use of renewable energy sources and lower the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from energy has changed the structure of energy markets. The effect of these policies on carbon-intensive fuel sources is rather obvious. For natural gas, though, the effect is not immediately clear. This letter uses a structural model of natural gas demand to uncover whether these policies have led to increased demand because natural gas is a relatively clean source of energy that couples well with renewables or if these policies have crowded out natural gas on net.     

中国平衡发展:全球化的重要一步

1990年,中国是世界排名第十位的经济大国,而今,是第四位。15年间,中国人均收入增长了四倍,令世人惊叹。虽然成绩显著,但中国经济目前还是到了一个重要关口：继续追逐不平衡的发展模式不仅会动摇自身的发展目标,也会给全球化带来潜在的负面影响。从国内来看,中国开放式的投资热潮面临过度和通缩的危险,更有甚者,城市化和工业化爆炸式发展所带     

Does raising indigent defender pay rates improve defendant outcomes? Evidence from New York

Beginning 1 January 2004, the rates paid to assigned counsel – private attorneys who defend the indigent in criminal cases when a public defender does not – were raised from a maximum of $40 per hour to $75 per hour in the state of New York. This article examines the extent to which this relatively large pay increase affects case outcomes. Efficiency wage theory would suggest paying workers higher rates can improve their productivity, and the results of this analysis are consistent with this. Using a difference-in-difference approach, I find that after the assigned counsel rate increase, case outcomes significantly improved in counties with higher poverty rates relative to those with lower poverty rates. The likelihood of conviction and the likelihood of pleading guilty both fell by more than two percentage points in high-poverty counties compared to low-poverty counties after the rate increase, and the differences in the likelihood of being convicted are especially pronounced for cases involving violent felonies. The results suggest raising assigned counsel rates can be an effective policy tool to improve indigent defence systems that are in need of reform.     

Technology and the services sector: The hidden competitive challenge

Information technology has always played an important role in the services sector of the U.S. economy. In recent years, however, services industries have stepped up their acquisitions of computers, telecommunications equipment, and other such products dramatically. As a result, the broad segment of the economy that can be classified as services providers now owns about 84% of the total U.S. stock of information technology items. Moreover, relative to goods-producing industries, a much larger proportion of the services sector's capital budgets is spent on information technology, revealing a significantly greater dependence by services on such technology as a factor of production. This reliance underscores technology's strategic importance in the United States' competitive challenge. With services now the predominant mode of economic activity in the United States, a productivity payback from information technology is absolutely essential to keep the economy on a longer term path of sustainable growth.So far, the services sector has little to show for its spending binge on technology. Quite simply, massive investments in information technology have failed to boost national productivity growth in the present decade. Furthermore, with manufacturing productivity now on the rebound, problems in the services sector loom increasingly large in the United States' broader competitive struggle. It is certainly not too late. New and creative applications of information technology could still enhance the productivity performance of the services sector's predominantly white-collar work force. Until that payback begins to occur, however, the role of technology spending will be under growing suspicion [3, 8, 9].In what follows, an attempt is made to provide a detailed industry-by-industry assessment of services sector spending on information technology. By way of background, the broad contours of capital formation in services industries are first examined over the post-World War II era.     

影响中国经济的因素及中国的"危"和"机"——摩根斯坦利亚洲区主席斯蒂芬·罗奇

中国面临的挑战 世界正处在20世纪30年代以来最痛苦的危机和衰退之中,对各主要经济体都具有深远的影响,中国也不例外.我想重点谈影响中国经济前景的三个方面,即战略、执行和信誉.这些对于处于严重的全球危机中的中国的发展和改革至关重要.     

2008:中国经济面临的全球新挑战

非常荣幸能够在此发言,这是我第二次参加这样的研讨会.这是一个给人留下印象深刻的研讨会.这里所有的发言人都是非常著名的,感谢主办者给我这样的机会.     

IT需求急剧减速对全球的影响

2000年的世界经济有五个教训。第一个教训是经济周期确实存在着。2000年出现了大量的过剩问题,尤其是那些属于模式改变的过剩现象,它们存在于所谓的新经济的核心中,第二个教训是对于一种经济模式的偏执对投资者和经济的健康是危险的,回顾起来,人们执迷于新经济造成了严重的过剩现象,这为新经济自身的灭亡埋下了种子。与第三个教训相关的是通货膨胀,以及宏观经济学家用以理解通货膨胀的决定因素及其后果的分析框架。通货膨胀的作用可能正在发生显著的变化,从推高利率日益转向决定收益状况.第四个教训反映了决策的艺术。决策者总是在寻求正确的决策,但是常常犯错误。最后一个教训是美国在全球经济和世界金融市场中惊人的支配地位,世界经济仍然过度依赖于美国。2000年是痛苦的,但又是有益的,它清除了新的宏观经济学支配的世界中的许多过度因素,我们把它称作旧宏观经济学的再生.——Stephen Roach T