Does local government competition aggravate haze pollution? A new perspective of factor market distortion

Haze pollution has become a new threat to China's sustainable development, but it may be that local government behaviour can play an important role in the prevention and control of pollutants. A dynamic spatial autoregressive (SAR) model is used to study the relationship between local government competition and haze pollution. To further explore the indirect impact of factor market distortion on haze pollution and control potential endogeneity problems, a newly developed intermediary effect model that incorporates the characteristics of the generalized method of moments (GMM) is utilized to explore how factor market distortion indirectly affects haze pollution. The research results show that regional haze pollution in China is characterized by significant spatial correlation, and local government competition has a positive impact on haze pollution; that is, local government competition exacerbates haze pollution. In general, local government competition not only directly leads to an increase in haze pollution but also further intensifies it by distorting the local factor market, and the intermediary role of factor market distortion is approximately 7.04%. The results of the regional inspection found that competition among local governments in the eastern region did not lead to haze pollution, and distortion of the factor market did not exist as an intermediary effect. However, both direct and intermediary effects are significant in the central and western regions. Therefore, an official performance appraisal system that includes ecological constraints should be established to guide the benign transformation of local government competition, and an environmental management mechanism must be developed for joint prevention and control to reduce haze pollution. In addition, the free flow of factors and marketization are equally important.     

Forecast quality improvement with Action Research: A success story at PharmaCo

There is a gap in the forecasting research surrounding the theory of integrating and improving forecasting in practice. The number of academically affiliated consultancies and knowledge transfer projects that there are around, due to a need for improvements in forecast quality, would suggest that many interventions and actions are taking place. However, the problems that surround practitioner understanding, learning and usage are rarely documented. This article takes the first step toward trying to rectify this situation by using the specific case study of a fully engaged company. A successful action research intervention in the Production Planning and Control work unit improved the use and understanding of the forecast function, contributing to substantial savings, enhanced communication and improved working practices.     

政策不确定性、财政扩张与区域商业银行风险——基于中国地方官员变更和银行业的证据

文章利用2007-2017年我国93家区域商业银行的面板数据，并结合省级宏观经济数据和地方官员变更数据，实证考察了中国地方官员变更引起的经济政策不确定性对区域商业银行风险的重要影响。研究结果表明：（1）地方官员变更引起的政策不确定性增大了区域商业银行风险；（2）地方官员变更引起的政策不确定性，通过提高银行的资产收益率降低了商业银行风险；而不确定性时期的财政扩张，通过降低银行资产收益率增大了商业银行风险；并且财政扩张的负面影响大于政策不确定性的正面影响；（3）各省的市委书记发生职位更替引起的政策不确定性对区域商业银行风险的影响更大。文章研究为新时代背景下的金融供给侧结构性改革、政府宏观经济政策的制定以及财政体制与金融体制之间的联系提供参考。     

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。     

银行保函在业主反索赔中重要作用的探讨

我国建筑业目前正处于加入WTO后的3～5年的过渡期，国内建筑市场国际化的趋势使工程索赔问题必须与国际惯例接轨，从国际工程惯例出发，详细论述了银行保函的种类及其在业主反索赔过程中的重要作用，为业主提供了一种可以借鉴的工程项目管理方式。     

广东本地服装品牌的市场培育

本地原创品牌的发展塑造需要坚持,也需要本地市场的支持。品牌经营者必须充分了解市场需求,有针对性地进行市场培育,同时结合自身条件进行品牌营销,才能在市场上取胜。文章基于服装品牌消费者层次分析,提出以差异性的品牌推广方式来培育忠诚顾客的若干策略,从而提升原创品牌的市场竞争力。     

Bureaucratic integration and regional specialization in China

Fiscal decentralization introduced as part of China's economic reform since 1979 has unleashed strong incentives for China's local governments to pursue economic development, but the same incentives have also led to local protectionist policies inhibiting the process of regional specialization. This paper focuses on the constraints or freedom with which local governments can implement their protectionist policies. Using a panel data of 29 China's regions over the time period of 1985–1997, we find that China's political system of bureaucratic integration (specifically, concurrent appointment of local government officials in the central government) imposes constraints on the local governments from practicing protectionism. We also find that the effectiveness of local protectionist policies is limited by market competition, specifically, competition from foreign-invested firms operating in China and foreign imports. Our results on the role of local protectionism remain robust to controls for the regional variations in the size of the economy and the stage of economic development.     

为什么国有企业越来越垄断?

近年来,我国的国有企业在产业政策的保护下表现出越来越垄断的趋势。本文运用共同代理模型解释了这种政策倾向的形成原因。代表各个产业部门的利益集团围绕政府的政策展开博弈,政策的形成是政府对各个产业利益集团进行平衡的结果。但是,政府对国有部门的重视程度超过非国有部门。随着国有企业逐渐从许多产业退出,余下的国有部门越来越缺乏其他利益集团的制约,政府因而就倾向于保护这些国有部门的垄断利益。     

Progressive stress accelerated life tests under finite mixture models

In this paper, progressive stress accelerated life tests are considered when the lifetime of a product under use condition follows a finite mixture of distributions. The experiment is performed when each of the components in the mixture follows a general class of distributions which includes, among others, the Weibull, compound Weibull, power function, Gompertz and compound Gompertz distributions. It is assumed that the scale parameter of each component satisfies the inverse power low, the progressive stress is directly proportional to time and the cumulative exposure model for the effect of changing stress holds. Based on type-I censoring, the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the parameters under consideration are obtained. A special attention is paid to a mixture of two Rayleigh components. Simulation results are carried out to study the precision of the MLEs and to obtain confidence intervals for the parameters involved.     

A semiparametric GARCH model for foreign exchange volatility

A semiparametric extension of the GJR model (Glosten et al., 1993. Journal of Finance 48, 1779–1801) is proposed for the volatility of foreign exchange returns. Under reasonable assumptions, asymptotic normal distributions are established for the estimators of the model, corroborated by simulation results. When applied to the Deutsche Mark/US Dollar and the Deutsche Mark/British Pound daily returns data, the semiparametric volatility model outperforms the GJR model as well as the more commonly used GARCH(1,1) model in terms of goodness-of-fit, and forecasting, by correcting overgrowth in volatility.