An innovation to improve health outcomes in Amajuba district,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Systems’ thinking places high value on understanding the context. This study focused on the collection of disaggregated data in order to understand the context, to facilitate improvement of health outcomes. The aim of this article was to assess the implementation of municipal ward-based health data collection (disaggregated data) and health care workers’ perceptions of this data collection process. This cross-sectional study used mixed methods in Amajuba district. The participants were professional nurses at the Primary Health Care level. Of the 131 respondents, 123 (93.9%) collected municipal ward-based health data, and found it useful. Opportunities for improving data collection were identified. Disaggregation of the data at ward level contributes to a better understanding of the target population’s health, assists planning for health needs and enables provision of targeted interventions in order to improve health outcomes, to prevent financial regression and waste of health resources.     

信贷管制、隐性契约与贷款利率变相市场化——现象与解释

本文将视角聚焦于利率市场化改革之前,重点研究金融抑制对银企信贷契约的异化。研究发现,在金融抑制背景下银企之间存在以留存贷款为表现的隐性契约,用以帮助银行在满足管制要求的同时追求利润最大化。本文对这一现象进行了理论分析与实证检验,发现隐性契约的发生与否会随着货币政策、企业特征等因素的改变而有所差异,这在一定程度上起到了利率变相市场化的作用。进一步研究则发现,这一隐性契约对企业价值产生了负向影响。     

Intergovernmental transfers and fiscal behavior insurance versus aggregate discipline

This paper evaluates the trade-off between the advantages of risk sharing and the perils of common pool problems in federal fiscal arrangements. Under the assumption of asymmetric information we evaluate two alternative regimes of intergovernmental transfers. In one regime, the central government pre-commits to a certain level of transfers that compensate vertical fiscal imbalances and provide some limited ex-ante insurance. In the other regime, it accommodates ex-post the fiscal needs of the different provinces. In this second case, full-insurance results, but the economy is subject to a tragedy of the fiscal commons, with excessive subnational spending, insufficient local taxation, and reduced production of federal public goods. We find the range of parameters for which one or the other institutional regime will be preferable. The result is a fiscal-federalism version of the usual trade-off between rules and discretion.     

论养老保险制度中政府与市场的关系

从经济学视角考察了一般意义上政府和市场关系的发展脉络。以此作为理论依据，对养老保险制度中政府与市场的职能定位做出了具体划分，进而得出了充分发挥政府和市场的共同作用，完善中国当前养老保险制度的相关启示。     

北京市基本养老保险基金现状与对策研究

基本养老保险基金是国家为保障法定范围内的退休人员的基本生活所筹集的资金，充足的基本养老保险基金是确保基本养老保险制度顺利运行的物质基础，加强基本养老保险基金在征缴、营运和给付方面的管理具有重要意义。由于北京市基本养老基金不够充足，使基本养老保险制度存在一定风险，亟待采取措施加以解决。     

Is capital a collusion device?

Summary. We examine how irreversible capital reduces the possibility of a duopoly to sustain implicit collusion by grim strategies, when the product is homogenous and firms compete in quantities. Compared with the case of reversible capital, there are two countervailing effects: Deviation from an existing collusion is less attractive, because capital once installed causes costs forever. But the punishment will also be less severe due to the high capacity the deviating firm can build before punishment starts. The last effect dominates, meaning that the commitment value of capital is negative for all firms. If capital is irreversible, collusion breaks down for realistic magnitudes of interest rates. Received: April 30, 1999; revised version: November 30, 2001     

论我国金融生态圈优化与金融创新的功效

金融生态圈与金融生态环境不应被混淆,前者能更深刻地揭示和刻画金融体系中各构成部分之间彼此依存、互为前提的关系.发达国家的金融生态圈因其良好的系统循环关系值得我们思考和借鉴.如果人为地限制某些金融品种的发展,就会使金融"食物链"发生脱节.我国目前的金融生态圈存在系统性缺陷,金融种类不符合现代金融良性循环的要求.应通过金融创新补足缺失的金融种类,并通过制度创新构建良好的创新响应机制.     

论保单持有人最后一道安全屏障:保险保障基金

保险公司退出市场的形式一般分为解散、撤消、破产等。从经济角度来看，保险公司退出的核心问题是保险公司的破产。出于保险公司的经营涉及到多方面的利益，如果简单允许保险公司破产，必然影响整个金融体系的稳定和社会经济的正常发展。因而，在引入竞争机制的同时，还必须建立科学的保险保障基金制度。     

Explicit filters and supply chain design

Due to the complexity of present day supply chains it is important to select the simplest supply chain scheduling decision support system (DSS) which will determine and place orders satisfactorily. We propose to use a generic design framework, termed the explicit filter methodology, to achieve this objective. In doing so we compare the explicit filter approach to the implicit filter approach utilised in previous OR research the latter focusing on minimising a cost function. Although the eventual results may well be similar with both approaches it is much clearer to the designer, both why and how, an ordering system will reduce the Bullwhip effect via the explicit filter approach. The “explicit filter” approach produces a range of DSS designs corresponding to best practice. These may be “mixed and matched” to generate a number of competitive delivery pipelines to suit the specific business scenario.     

Deposit insurance and bank regulation in a monetary economy: a general equilibrium exposition

Summary. It is commonly argued that poorly designed banking system safety nets are largely to blame for the frequency and severity of modern banking crises. For example, underpriced deposit insurance and/or low reserve requirements are often viewed as factors that encourage risk-taking by banks. In this paper, we study the effects of three policy variables: deposit insurance premia, reserve requirements and the way in which the costs of bank bailouts are financed. We show that when deposit insurance premia are low, the monetization of bank bailout costs may not be more inflationary than financing these costs out of general revenue. This is because, while monetizing the costs increases the inflation tax rate, higher levels of general taxation reduce savings, deposits, bank reserves, and the inflation tax base. Increasing the inflation tax rate obviously raises inflation, but so does an erosion of the inflation tax base. We also find that low deposit insurance premia or low reserve requirements may not be associated with a high rate of bank failure.Received: 2 January 2002, Revised: 1 March 2003JEL Classification Numbers: D5, E5, G1.B. D. Smith: Sadly, our co-author, colleague and dear friend, Bruce D. Smith, died on July 9, 2002.