我国酒店类旅游上市公司现金流量表分析

目前我国A股市场中严格以酒店为主营业务的旅游上市公司仅存6家，通过对这6家公司2004年度的现金流量表进行结构分析，使报表使用者能够了解其本期的现金流入、流出和结余情况，并运用比率分析法，选取一些指标，力争科学评估这类公司资产的流动性、收益质量、获取现金能力和发展能力。     

Killing off cohorts: Forecasting mortality of non-extinct cohorts with the penalized composite link model

Mortality forecasting has crucial implications for insurance and pension policies. A large amount of literature has proposed models to forecast mortality using cross-sectional (period) data instead of longitudinal (cohort) data. As a consequence, decisions are generally based on period life tables and summary measures such as period life expectancy, which reflect hypothetical mortality rather than the mortality actually experienced by a cohort. This study introduces a novel method to forecast cohort mortality and the cohort life expectancy of non-extinct cohorts. The intent is to complete the mortality profile of cohorts born up to 1960. The proposed method is based on the penalized composite link model for ungrouping data. The performance of the method is investigated using cohort mortality data retrieved from the Human Mortality Database for England & Wales, Sweden, and Switzerland for male and female populations.     

Environmental factors influencing the management of key accounts in an Arab Middle Eastern context

Within the sales and marketing literature, it is recognised that a range of external factors can influence how companies in the business-to-business field manage business relationships within national and across international borders. However, there have been very few studies that explore the influence of the external environment on key account relationships, especially within the context of emerging economies. This study draws on the network approach and contingency theory to identify and highlight the influence of external environmental factors on the management of inter-organisational relationships with key customers in emerging economies in the Arab Middle East region. It is based on an extensive qualitative enquiry that utilises 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Jordan with endogenous and Western firms. It concludes that key account practices within an Arab context are shaped by a number of contingencies that are embedded in broader institutional contexts and the business environment, which may challenge the adoption of company-wide universal key account management policies across borders.     

Improving footprint calculations of small open economies: combining local with multi-regional input–output tables

In a small, open and resource-poor economy, import and export dependency have an ever-growing impact on local policy decisions, which makes local (environmental) policy-makers increasingly depend on global data. This increases the interest in models that link local production and consumption data to global production, trade and environmental data. The recent increase in availability of global environmentally extended multi-regional input-output tables (EE-MRIO tables) provides an opportunity to link them with existing local environmentally extended input-output tables (EE-RIO tables). These combined tables make it possible (1) to analyse the links between local and global production and consumption and (2) to study global value chains, material use and environmental impacts simultaneously. However, estimations using input-output (I–O) analyses contain errors due to imperfect databases. In this article the magnitude of specification, aggregation and time errors are estimated and compared. The results show the need to combine local datasets with multi-regional ones and show that highest detailed (country and sector levels) as well as time series of I–O tables are the way forward for using I–O analyses in local policy-making. The paper provides guidance on trading off investments in model adoption and/or extension and the reliability of estimation results.     

THE BIAS OF THE MULTIPLIER MATRIX WHEN SUPPLY AND USE TABLES ARE STOCHASTIC

The literature on stochastic input–output (I–O) analysis has paid considerable attention to the bias in the Leontief inverse. This paper extends previous studies by assuming supply and use tables (SUTs rather than I–O tables or input coefficients matrices) to be stochastic. This is a natural starting point because SUTs have become the basic data sources for I–O applications. In a Monte Carlo simulation experiment, a given SUT is randomized in two different ways and the effects are determined for eight different multiplier matrices. The analysis is carried out for Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Finland, using their SUTs for 2006. The findings indicate that, in general, biases are statistically significant but negligibly small. This corroborates earlier findings obtained for stochastic I–O tables.     

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Singapore’s economic growth

Singapore’s remarkable success in economic development has been strongly associated with the country’s vigorous efforts to embrace the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution to promote economic growth. This study provides a comprehensive investigation of the contributions of ICT to Singapore’s economic growth during the 1990–2008 period. It documents three key findings. First, there is a strong positive association between the intensity of ICT use and value-added and labor productivity growth at the sector level. Second, ICT investment contributed approximately 1 percentage point to Singapore’s GDP during 1990–2008, and its role in driving economic growth has become increasingly important over time. Third, the contribution of the ICT manufacturing sector to Singapore’s growth was notable, but it was on the decline and faced difficult restructuring challenges. This paper also provides valuable policy lessons and strategic insights for governments in both developed and developing countries that aspire to embrace ICT to promote economic growth.     

Environmental turbulence and the functions of budgetary control

While budgetary control is a potentially significant tool when the economic environment is unstable and unpredictable, the analysis of its development demonstrates that its use has dramatically expanded over the time since companies have been able to run forecasts. In order to help them develop budgetary control, companies have implemented strategies that have reduced risks and hence improved their ability to make accurate forecasts. Such strategies have taken many forms and varied from one firm to another. They materialized as various types of agreement, including cartels, through strategies to effect market leadership, or via policies of nationalization. In those companies where the environment was stable and risk limitation was not important, budgetary control could be used for various internal purposes. In this respect, the analysis of the management of companies helps us to identify the purposes for which budgetary control is utilized. It is found that budgetary control allows for greater expansion opportunities and provides the means to strengthen the control of management within major companies. Our observations highlight a contradictory aspect of budgetary control: while it is relevant within an unstable environment, it performs best in an environment which is highly managed.     

A new approach to modeling waste in physical input-output analysis

It is important to treat waste properly in physical input-output analysis and a series of publications discussed this topic in this journal recently. In this paper, we propose a new approach to deal with physical input-output table (PIOT) measured in a single mass unit, by which the structure of PIOT need not be changed. The new approach yields consistent and reasonable results. It not only is simpler than the existing approaches but also can reflect the physical reality of economic systems. We first discuss and clarify the concept of different kinds of inputs and outputs of economic systems. We then present the details of the new approach. During the process we define a new multiplier, which builds a bridge between the total input and the final demand in PIOT, just like the traditional Leontief inverse in MIOT. We select the three-sector PIOT for Germany 1990 as a case study to show the validity of the new approach. Finally, we prove the equivalence between the new approach, Suh's approach and Dietzenbacher's approach and the equivalence of non-waste part and waste part multiplier of the new approach and Dietzenbacher's approach.     

Statistical disclosure in general three-dimensional tables

Statistical offices are concerned with problems of protecting confidential information when publishing data in statistical tables. One method to avoid disclosure is the method of cell suppression, in which the values of the sensitive cells in the table are suppressed from publication. To prevent the values of the sensitive cells from being calculated from the tables totals, additional suppressions are necessary. The problem of minimizing the loss of information caused by the additional suppressions is a difficult optimization problem. We present and compare the performance of some heuristics for cell suppression for general three-dimensional tables.