普惠金融发展的地区差异、收敛性及影响因素研究*——基于中国省级面板数据的检验

本文利用2005—2016年省级面板数据，对我国各地区普惠金融发展水平进行测度，并在此基础上探讨其收敛性及影响因素。结果表明：（1）我国普惠金融发展水平在考察期内总体偏低，并且呈现出显著的地区差异性。（2）绝对β收敛在全国、中部和西部均存在，而东部不存在；条件β收敛在全国、东部和西部均存在，而中部不存在。（3）政府干预程度、市场化程度、人力资本质量、非正规金融以及外商直接投资对普惠金融发展均具有重要的影响。     

Measuring Inflation Anchoring and Uncertainty: A U.S. and Euro Area Comparison

We use several U.S. and euro‐area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation featuring time‐varying uncertainty. We obtain survey‐consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the U.S. and the euro area. Equipped with this model, we propose a novel measure of the anchoring of inflation expectations that accounts for inflation uncertainty. Our results suggest that following the Great Recession, inflation anchoring improved in the United States, while mild de‐anchoring occurred in the euro area. As of our sample end, both areas appear to be almost equally anchored.     

The structure of information release and the factor structure of returns

We model how firms releasing information on different dates causes the CAPM to fail, requiring an additional factor based on the information structure to price assets. We exemplify this mechanism’s empirical relevance using quarterly earnings announcements, which cluster across months along size and book-to-market. Seventy percent of the alpha reduction from including SMB and HML occurs in the four main earnings announcement months. The information structure factor accounts for all of SMB and HML’s seasonal alpha reduction and one third of their overall alpha reduction. Controlling for size and book-to-market, exposures to SMB and HML vary with firms’ earnings announcement month.     

Forecasting the UK economy with a medium-scale Bayesian VAR

We estimate a Bayesian VAR (BVAR) for the UK economy and assess its performance in forecasting GDP growth and CPI inflation in real time relative to forecasts from COMPASS, the Bank of England’s DSGE model, and other benchmarks. We find that the BVAR outperformed COMPASS when forecasting both GDP and its expenditure components. In contrast, their performances when forecasting CPI were similar. We also find that the BVAR density forecasts outperformed those of COMPASS, despite under-predicting inflation at most forecast horizons. Both models over-predicted GDP growth at all forecast horizons, but the issue was less pronounced in the BVAR. The BVAR’s point and density forecast performances are also comparable to those of a Bank of England in-house statistical suite for both GDP and CPI inflation, as well as to the official Inflation Report projections. Our results are broadly consistent with the findings of similar studies for other advanced economies.     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.     

Change within purchasing and supply management organisations – Assessing the claims from maturity models

It is a wide-held assumption that professional development and change within purchasing and supply management (PSM) organisations can be explained and guided by a maturity model. In this paper the guidance which the maturity model concept offers to understand a PSM organisation's performance is assessed. The methodology is based on the outcomes of a literature review of PSM maturity models, development of an organisational change framework and the learning from three qualitative case studies. An alternative understanding of the development of the PSM organisation is offered through an organisational change framework, composing 1) movement transitions, 2) scalability of change, 3) acceptability of change, and 4) the substantive element of change. The research found that extant PSM maturity models are too rigid for PSM managers to apply, and although maturity models are commonly accepted in PSM literature, in practice, they may produce the opposite effect of what is promised. The PSM maturity models suggest that their application will lead to increased status and influence of PSM within the organisation; expectations that may not be met. PSM organisations’ change processes are subjected to a range of situational and contextual power relations which must be considered in order to advance the specific PSM organisation roles and responsibilities.     

Some issues in blockchain for accounting and the supply chain,with an application of distributed databases to virtual organizations

This paper reviews some recent blockchain‐based applications for information capture, distribution and preservation. As part of that review, this paper examines two key concerns with current blockchain designs for accounting and supply chain transactions: data independence and multiple semantic models for the same information distribution problem. Blockchain applications typically integrate database, application and presentation tiers all in the same ledger. This results in a general inability to query information in the ledger and other concerns. Further, since most applications appear to be private blockchain applications, there is a concern of agents needing to accommodate multiple blockchains depending on who their trading partners are and what they request. Finally, this paper uses a distributed database to design a ‘blockchain‐like’ system for virtual organizations.     

纤维蛋白胶粘合法联合神经生长因子治疗周围神经损伤的临床疗效

目的探讨纤维蛋白胶(FG)粘合法联合神经生长因子(NGF)治疗周围神经损伤的临床疗效。方法选取我院2006年8月至2013年10月就诊的124例腓总神经损伤患者,随机均分为两组,对照组患者单纯使用缝合法,试验组患者在缝合法的基础上配合使用FG粘合法联合NGF治疗,随访6个月以上,分析两组患者的运动功能和患肢感觉疗效。结果试验组患者总有效率明显优于对照组,差异有统计学异议(P<0.05)。结论周围神经损伤的修复与再生过程中使用FG粘合法联合NGF治疗,可有效改善患者症状,安全性高,不良反应较少。     

A play-the-winner-type urn design with reduced variability

We propose a new adaptive allocation rule, the drop-the-loser, that randomizes subjects in the course of a trial comparing treatments with dichotomous outcomes. The rule tends to assign more patients to better treatments with the same limiting proportion as the randomized play-the-winner rule. The new design has significantly less variable allocation proportion than the randomized play-the-winner rule. Decrease in variability translates into a gain in statistical power. For some values of success probabilities the drop-the-loser rule has a double advantage over conventional equal allocation in that it has better power and assigns more subjects to the better treatment. Acknowledgments. I thank Stephen Durham, the associate editor, and the referees for their helpful suggestions.