Irrigation water productivity in Cambodian rice systems

Knowledge of the marginal productivity of water is crucial for decisions about its allocation between uses, which is particularly important in the context of increasing competition for water. Using primary, plot‐level panel data, this article estimates the marginal productivity of water from supplementary irrigation in lowland rice systems in Cambodia, taking into account farmer and plot heterogeneity as well as self‐selection of supplementary irrigation. Our estimates indicate a range of elasticities for rice output with respect to water inputs of between 0.057 and 0.069 for wet season production, substantially lower than previous estimates based on either aggregate or trial data. We discuss the policy implications of these results, in particular with respect to the utility of demand management policies and the challenges they pose to the decentralization of water management to Farmer Water Users Groups.     

灰灰的亲事

朋友把三三和灰灰寄养在我这儿.三三是女猫,灰灰是男猫.灰灰有点闹,他最喜欢的就是坐在窗台上看楼下的流浪猫出神,然后扯着脖子喊两声.他知道我不喜欢他喊,只要我一叫"灰灰",或者看他一眼,他就立刻把后半声咽回去,挺可怜的.     

Managers and Wage Policies

Do individual top managers matter for wages and wage policies? Are there general differences in “style” among managers with respect to worker compensation? To shed light on these questions, we exploit a large panel dataset from Portugal that allows us to match workers, firms, and managers, and follow the movements of the latter across different firms over time. While accounting for the effect of worker and firm heterogeneity, we estimate the role of top manager fixed effects in determining wages and wage policies. The estimates suggest that (i) top managers have a significant influence on wages and wage policies; (ii) there exists different managerial “styles”; and (iii) managers’ (observable) attributes matter for worker compensation.     

The innovation performance of MNE subsidiaries and local embeddedness: evidence from an emerging economy

We examine the innovation performance of MNE subsidiaries and their embeddedness in sources of local knowledge in a policy framework within the context of an emerging economy. Based on first-hand evidence from multiple case studies, we found that: (1) there was variability between the subsidiaries in terms of the cumulative manner and speed at which they improved their innovation performance over time, using progressively levels of accumulated capability as a proxy; (2) these differences in innovation performance improvement reflected heterogeneity between the subsidiaries in terms of the learning efforts made to acquire knowledge from local organizations; (3) the varied frequency in which the subsidiaries developed such local relationships reflects their differing responses to a common industrial policy that makes use of tax incentives to stimulate such links. The paper reveals the limitations of this conventional type of industrial policy in stimulating industrial development and the embeddedness of MNEs. It also suggests that a new direction for policy, which incorporates public–private negotiations and a focus on the firm-centred building of innovation capabilities, should be pursued in order to accelerate the innovation performance progress of latecomer firms.     

主房公积金沉淀资金存款收益优化研究

在我国住房公积金制度的发展与普及过程中,沉淀资金投资收益低下的问题目益明显。基于某市近年来住房公积金沉淀资金投资银行存款的数据,利用基于持续期的多目标规划模型,分析了沉淀资金存款收益与风险的变化关系,提出了提高沉淀资金收益的存款优化方案。结果表明,优化方案可在当前风险条件下使收益率提高0．213个百分点,或在风险调整的条件下使收益率提高0．518个百分占、。相关结论可为改进住房公积金沉淀资金银行存款管理策略提供支撬提高公积金沉淀资金的存款收益。     

环新疆经济圈视角下新疆物流中心布局研究

本文是在环新疆经济圈视角下对新疆物流中心的布局进行了研究。通过对这一视角下影响新疆物流中心布局的贸易发展、口岸分布、产业布局、主体功能区建设及资源分布等因素进行分析,将乌鲁木齐确定为综合性的国际物流中心,奎屯、克拉玛依、喀什确定为大型物流中心,哈密、伊宁、库尔勒、阿拉山口口岸、霍尔果斯口岸确定为特定功能型物流中心,并有重点、有层次地进行建设,最后形成新疆完整的物流网络。     

Networks,firms, and trade

Fixed costs associated with learning about demand and setting up distribution networks are expected to be lower when there are more potential contacts in the destination market, suggesting a greater probability of market entry and larger export revenues. We match historically-determined emigration stocks with detailed firm-level data from Portugal to examine the effect of migrant networks on these export outcomes. We find that larger stocks of emigrants in a given destination increase export participation and intensity. In addition, we show that the former of these effects tends to be more pronounced among firms that are more likely to have close ties with the emigrants. These results are consistent with a multiple-destination version of the Melitz (2003) model featuring market-specific entry costs and idiosyncratic firm-destination demand shocks.