Are imports and remittances cointegrated for the Central and Eastern European countries?

In this article, we investigate the existence of long-run common trends between imports and remittances in 11 Central and Eastern European countries which are part of the European Union. Using the Engle–Granger two-step procedure, we determine that for all countries in our sample there are no long-run common trends (no cointegration) between imports and remittances. However, the results are mixed when running a Granger causality test. For nine countries, we can establish either a bidirectional or unidirectional Granger causality, indicating that past values of one variable have predictive content on the other variable. In two countries, there is no Granger causality between imports and remittances.     

Macroeconomic consequences of state fragility in sub‐Saharan Africa

Are poor macroeconomic outcomes primarily the result of economic policies, or of deeper underlying state fragility problems in sub‐Saharan Africa? We attempt to answer this question by using carefully specified dynamic panel regression techniques to show how state fragility conditions help to explain the differences in the macroeconomic performance of sub‐Saharan African economies, and to identify the most plausible mechanisms of transmission. We find that countries with greater fragility suffer higher macroeconomic volatility and crisis; they also experience weaker growth. When we disaggregate state fragility into its various components, we find that it is the security and social components that have the strongest causal impact on macroeconomic outcomes, while the political component is, at best, weak. Therefore, we conclude that it is state fragility conditions, and not necessarily macroeconomic policies, that are of first‐order importance in explaining the differences in macroeconomic performance for African countries. The knock‐on effects are mostly mediated through the fiscal channel, the aid channel, and the finance channel. Accordingly, we recommend that interventions in fragile states should best focus on exploiting the potential for using fiscal policy, aid, and finance as instruments to improve macroeconomic outcomes in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Do pensions foster education? An empirical perspective

The paper examines the effect of population ageing on public education spending. On the one hand, ageing is expected to have a negative effect on education, as an increasing number of retirees results in ‘intergenerational conflict’ and, hence, the condemnation of education expenditure. On the other hand, ageing, in combination with pay-as-you-go pension systems, offers incentives for the working-age generation to invest in the public education of the young in order to ‘reap’ the benefits (that is, higher income tax/contributions) of their greater future productivity. Empirical evidence derived from the application of a fixed effects approach to panel data for OECD countries shows that the increasing share of elderly people has a non-linear effect on education spending. This indicates a certain degree of intergenerational conflict. Nevertheless, we find that future population ageing, which reinforces the mechanism linking public education and pensions, reflects positively on education expenditure. Furthermore, by disaggregating total education expenditure by educational levels, we observe that this effect is led by levels of non-compulsory education, probably as a reflection of the direct connection to labor productivity.     

谈高校资料室网上信息资源的开发利用

面对浩如烟海的网络信息资源丰富又无序、新颖又形象、急需开发利用。本文探讨了开发利用网上信息资源的必要性,介绍了如何开发利用网上信息资源,为用户充当网络信息导航员,发掘网上信息,丰富现有信息源等几种方法。     

新形势下企业人力资源开发与管理策略研究

21世纪 ,企业面临“非连贯性”的新竞争环境 ,需要建立健全企业人才资源开发与管理的机制和相应的策略。本文在分析企业面临的新形势的基础上 ,对当前企业人力资源开发与管理机制进行了分析 ,并进一步提出企业人力资源开发与管理的相应策略 ,即彻底转变和更新人才观念 ;实施战略性人力资源管理 ;建立企业高素质人才资源开发机制等。     

零售企业敏捷供应链系统CSS-SCM的研究

供应链核心在于实现供应链环节中的信息沟通，数据互换和协同工作，改造和整合企业的业务流程，因此供应链系统模型应该具有动态可重构的特点，系统主体的构成也应反映这种思想，在系统中引入“大规模定制”，“工作流”的新思想和“异构系统兼容”，“通用报表”以及“三层架构应用体系及开发手段”等新技术将使供应链系统更为“敏捷”。     

浅谈我国中小企业信用担保体系的问题及对策

以信用担保为中介的中小企业信用担保机构主要发展和成熟于欧美、日本等国家。20世纪90年代以来,我国各地迅速涌现各有特色的中小企业信用担保机构,创造了一定效益,但由于多种原因,也制约着其本身的进一步发展。究其原因,主要是我国信用担保体系建设尚不完善,还存在着这样那样的问题。本文从我国中小企业信用担保体系发展的现状入手,全面分析在建设信用担保体系中出现的各种问题,具体地指出完善我国中小企业信用担保体系建设措施,以此促进我国中小企业信用担保体系的不断完善与健康发展。     

跨国公司技术联盟:动因、效应及启示

跨国公司技术联盟是在经济全球化与一体化的国际背景下发展起来的，它被愈来愈多的人认为是一种知识联盟，是一种独立的组织形式。跨国公司进行技术联盟的动因在于：获取与企业核心技术相关的上下游技术、适应网络竞争的需要及促进研究与开发等。跨国公司技术联盟既给合作方带来一定的积极效应，同时也产生相当的负面影响。在当前，跨国公司技术联盟对我国企业进行技术联盟与合作有积极的借鉴意义。     

浙江省民营企业集群式营销探讨

民营企业集群已成为浙江省区域经济快速发展的主流模式之一。与大型企业、跨国公司一起,已成为参与市场竞争的主角。因此,市场营销理论应用领域已从单个企业营销逐步延伸到民营企业集群式营销。民营企业集群式营销是民营企业集群成长的关键,浙江省民营企业集群的快速发展与其营销管理创新是分不开的。为了提高浙江省民营企业集群营销管理水平,本文着重探讨了浙江省民营企业集群营销战略、策略制定及组织实施问题。     

FDI facilitated by agglomeration economies: evidence from manufacturing and services joint ventures in China

The open door policy of China’s economic reform since the 1980s has attracted heavy foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into China and especially to Guangdong (particularly the Pearl River Delta region, PRD) and induced significant economic growth during the past two decades. While there exist various classical theories of FDI in attempting to identify the determinants of FDI inflow and to explain the behavior of FDI flows, limited attention has been given from the perspective of agglomeration effects generated by a core-periphery (CP) relation.This paper intends to study the impacts of agglomerations on FDI inflows in the context of Krugman’s CP relation (1991) by investigating (1) the formation of a CP relation via gravity model analysis; (2) whether different types of industry FDI flows will respond differently in the CP-system, given agglomeration effects; and (3) whether FDI origin and firm scale matter in affecting FDI flows.A database consisting of a population frame of 37,742 firm-level manufacturing and services joint ventures investing in Guangdong in 1998 was used. Empirical results show that the agglomerations of the CP relation have affected FDI flow patterns. While both manufacturing and services FDI and sources of investment responded differently to the impacts, smaller firms were found more responsive to the CP-agglomeration settings regardless of FDI by industry type and by source. The significance and implications of the CP-system to further facilitate FDI in the region are discussed.