Births,debts and mirages: The impact of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and other factors on Australian fertility expectations

This paper uses survey data to examine the effect of the income-contingent charge mechanism, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), and other demographic and attitudinal variables on fertility expectations in Australia over the recent past. HECS requires former Australian students to fund some of the costs of higher education through the repayment of interest-free loans made by the Australian government. Its defining characteristic is that repayments only occur when and if students future incomes exceed a particular level. Since its introduction in 1989, media and other populist commentary has suggested that HECS has had unanticipated effects on behaviour. Most recently, attention has focused on the effects of HECS on fertility, with some arguing that university graduates are delaying births, and having fewer children, because of their HECS debts. This paper demonstrates that the introduction of HECS has had no discernible impact on Australian fertility rates, nor on the number of children that people expect to have. However, education, age and a number of attitudinal factors are associated with significant differences in fertility expectations.     

试论德国的医疗保险体制改革

德国是世界上最早实施社会医疗保障的国家。德国的医疗保险体系以社会医疗保险为主,商业医疗保险为辅。德国的医疗保险体系具有优质、高效、公平、覆盖面广等优点,但近年来也难以摆脱资源浪费,经费入不敷出等问题的困扰。德国于20世纪90年代和21世纪初持续进行医疗保险体制改革,采取了取消部分医疗补贴,提高某些医疗服务的自费比例,扩大有偿医疗服务范围,并组建了由政府机构,保险公司和医保医院共同构成的独立机构,对疾病认证,治疗程序和医疗服务质量进行统一规定和管理。本文对德国医疗保险体制改革进行了系统介绍和评估,对构建和完善具有中国特色的医疗保险体制具有参考借鉴价值。     

加拿大的卫生政策及其对中国卫生改革的借鉴

卫生政策在改善与增进人口健康中发挥了重要作用。文章通过对加拿大卫生系统相关立法进程的系统回顾与分析。发现加拿大医疗系统的特点是公共筹资而非私人运作,而全覆盖、可携带性、综合性、可及性以及公共管理等五项基础性原则保证了加拿大卫生系统的成功运行。文章着重回答了有哪些政策可以借鉴,如何借鉴。以及哪些政策的不良后果可以避免等。     

网络环境下消费者感知效用模型的构建与研究

商品效用的大小是消费者购买决策的出发点,论文以感知效用为视角,分析了网络消费者的非补偿性决策和补偿性决策,构建了网络消费者感知效用模型,并以此为基础,深入分析了信息收集成本、质量评估成本、商品价格以及购物风险等成本变量对网络购物环境下消费者感知效用的影响。研究结果表明,无论是风险规避型网络消费者,还是风险型网络消费者,商品质量的提高均可以增大消费者感知效用,而商品价格、购物风险的增大将导致消费者感知效用减小,但对于风险型网络消费者,由于承受风险能力强,商品价格的升高并没有增大消费者心理风险成本,而对于风险规避型网络消费者,随着商品价格的升高,消费者心理风险成本相应增大。     

克服蚕食CDM机制资源租的信息成本问题：碳权交易所的信息功能

在已有研究的基础上,引入信息成本变量,主要分析信息成本加剧CDM机制的失衡的各类市场形态,再提出以＂碳权＂交易所的信息功能克服由于信息成本问题所加剧的失衡问题,防止我国在参与CDM机制过程中,陷入仅被廉价地掠夺低成本减排能力,却忽视发展高可持续性项目的陷阱。     

唐朝均田制度实施成本剖析

唐初政府实行均田制缘于维持政权合法性、获取财政收入以及争夺劳动力的需要。均田制作为一种制度安排,在唐前期相对于其他可能的土地制度来讲是先进的,产生了较好的经济效益和社会效益。唐中叶后政府放弃对土地资源配置这一传统职能,不仅是社会、政治、经济发展的必然,更是唐政府在对收益与成本权衡的最终抉择。当均田制度下的交易费用逐渐增大而制度收益却逐渐减少且最终成本大于收益时,放弃旧制度无疑是一种明智的选择。     

Beyond the make-or-buy dichotomy: outsourcing creativity in the fashion sector

Both a resource-based view and transaction cost economics perspective point to firms deciding to either make-or-buy an input. In practice, this tends to result in low-skill functions being outsourced while those of higher value are retained. In this article, we explore a situation counter to the prevailing literature. We study a highly creative industry – fashion – and discover the relationship between core competence and outsourcing is not as simple as previously conceptualised. Creativity, fashion's assumed competency, rather than being guarded within a firm is instead often outsourced or borrowed. More mundane tasks such as marketing and logistics are what each firm rather develops. The effects of resulting co-dependencies are mapped and analysed in order to offer managerial insight as well as contribute to discussion within the outsourcing and resource based literatures.     

Universal equation for the relative change in profit of manufacturing company

In contemporary conditions of the company's business operations, where high dynamics of costs, sales volume and change of production programme is present, it is of crucial importance to investigate their effects on the change of profit. Starting from cost–volume–profit equation, the aim is to arrive at a universal equation that will simultaneously measure a relative change in profit for a number of products, not only under the influence of change in sales volume but also of other relevant variables, such as sales price, fixed and variable costs. The basic hypothesis is that it is possible to establish in a form of universal equation the dependence between the change in profit and change in influential variables. In this investigation, first it was observed the partial influence of some variables on the change in profit and their dependence was determined for a single product, and then for more than one product. Finally, by summing up all those effects, a universal equation of profit change was obtained. The derived universal equation for the relative change in profit along with simultaneous effects of several variables makes possible for the company management to more simply determine the profit for diverse conditions of business operations. The universal equation for the relative change in profit was applied in one company and the results obtained confirm its significance.     

中国劳动力成本合理转变分析

为探讨中国劳动力成本合理转变面临的问题,通过分析刘易斯转折点的到来、人口红利效应的递减、劳动权益保护的落实等因素,劳动成本上升趋势已然出现,认为劳动力成本优势转变存在经济发展水平、经济体制、教育体制、市场机制发展等障碍,提出优化劳动密集型企业、改善就业环境、合理规制市场、发展职业技术教育等政策建议。     

垃圾邮件侵权责任之法经济学思考——以公民隐私权保护为中心

本文以垃圾邮件内涵的界定为切人点,以法经济学的视角深刻剖析了产生垃圾邮件的根源主要来自于网络电子邮件的发送上,私人成本不等于社会成本,大量垃圾邮件的发送者,将外部性成本,不当地转嫁给相关ISP业者及个别收件人,最后在此分析基础上提出了若干规范完善垃圾邮件的法律措施。