Breaking the taboo: a history of monetary financing in Canada, 1930–1975

Monetary financing – the funding of state expenditure via the creation of new money rather than through taxation or borrowing – has become a taboo policy instrument in advanced economies. It is generally associated with dangerously high inflation and/or war. Relatedly, a key institutional feature of modern independent central banks is that they are not obligated to support government expenditure via money creation. Since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, however, unorthodox monetary policies, in particular quantitative easing, coupled with stagnant growth and high levels of public and private debt have led to questions over the monetary financing taboo. Debates on the topic have so far been mainly theoretical with little attention to the social and political dynamics of historical instances of monetary financing. This paper analyses one of the most significant twentieth‐century cases: Canada from the period after the Great Depression up until the monetarist revolution of the 1970s. The period was a successful one for the Canadian economy, with high growth and employment and manageable inflation. It offers some interesting insights into the relationship between states and central banks and present‐day discussions around the governance of money creation.     

Asymptotic behaviour of proportions of observations in random regions determined by central order statistics from stationary processes

In this paper, we show that proportions of observations that fall into a random region determined by a given Borel set and a central order statistic converge almost surely, provided that the corresponding population quantile is unique. We also describe three types of possible asymptotic behaviour of these proportions in the case of non-unique population quantile. As an application of our findings we establish limiting properties of numbers of ties with a central order statistics in a discrete sample. Our results are derived not only for independent and identically distributed observations but more generally for strictly stationary and ergodic sequences of random variables.     

Estimation and Inference Procedures for Semiparametric Distribution Models with Varying Linear‐Index

More flexible semiparametric linear‐index regression models are proposed to describe the conditional distribution. Such a model formulation captures varying effects of covariates over the support of a response variable in distribution, offers an alternative perspective on dimension reduction and covers a lot of widely used parametric and semiparameteric regression models. A feasible pseudo likelihood approach, accompanied with a simple and easily implemented algorithm, is further developed for the mixed case with both varying and invariant coefficients. By justifying some theoretical properties on Banach spaces, the uniform consistency and asymptotic Gaussian process of the proposed estimator are also established in this article. In addition, under the monotonicity of distribution in linear‐index, we develop an alternative approach based on maximizing a varying accuracy measure. By virtue of the asymptotic recursion relation for the estimators, some of the achievements in this direction include showing the convergence of the iterative computation procedure and establishing the large sample properties of the resulting estimator. It is noticeable that our theoretical framework is very helpful in constructing confidence bands for the parameters of interest and tests for the hypotheses of various qualitative structures in distribution. Generally, the developed estimation and inference procedures perform quite satisfactorily in the conducted simulations and are demonstrated to be useful in reanalysing data from the Boston house price study and the World Values Survey.     

Extended scaled prediction variance optimality for modified central composite design

Robust parameter designs (RPDs) enable the experimenter to discover how to modify the design of the product to minimize the effect due to variation from noise sources. The aim of this article is to show how this amount of work can be reduced under modified central composite design (MCCD). We propose a measure of extended scaled prediction variance (ESPV) for evaluation of RPDs on MCCD. Using these measures, we show that we can check the error or bias associated with estimating the model parameters and suggest the values of α recommended for MCCS under minimum ESPV.     

基于DEA的地区科技活动效率研究

依据2000—2007年省级面板数据,用DEA方法和Malmquist指数测度30个省科技活动效率及其变动趋势的结果表明,技术进步仍是效率提高的主导因素。科技活动效率的地区比较显示,中部地区虽是我国重要的科研教育中心,但其科技效率不但低于东部、西部地区,增长情况也不理想。必须注重提高中部科技效率,增强科技实力,为实现中原崛起提供支撑。     

中原经济区框架内政府合作机制之拓新——法治的视角

在区域经济一体化的大背景下,地方政府之间的固有合作机制日益显示出其局限性。通过法治视角的重新审视,不难发现政府合作机制拓新的必要性。合作形式的立法拓展、合作机制的契约化以及合作争端的司法解决将会最终促成政府合作机制的法治化建构。     

媒介使用与政府环境治理绩效的公众满意度——基于全国代表性数据的实证研究

媒介使用在环境治理中所发挥的作用正日益受到学界的关注。基于中国综合社会调查2013年（CGSS2013）的数据,使用Ordered Probit回归建立模型,分析不同类型的媒介使用对于政府环境治理绩效的公众满意度的影响。研究结果表明,在控制其他变量的影响后,在中央政府和地方政府两个层面,传统媒介（报纸、杂志、广播、电视）使用对政府环境治理绩效的公众满意度均具有显著的正向效应,新媒介（互联网和手机）使用对政府环境治理绩效的公众满意度均具有显著的负向效应。在中央政府层面,新媒介对于政府环境治理绩效的公众满意度的影响要显著高于传统媒介。基于对研究发现的讨论,建议政府在传统媒介平台上满足公众多元化的环境信息需求,着手从新媒介平台搜集公众建议以改进环境治理,重点针对新媒介平台上的环境热点事件制定解决方案。     

唐代的民族交融与政治发展

唐朝前期民族融合与发展 ,体现出唐朝前期的强盛局面 ;但是“安史之乱”以后 ,地方分离与民族分化则成为另一种现象 ,并最终导致五代十国的分立局面。其原因表现在多方面 ,但王朝集权的削弱 ,无疑是最关键的因素。     

论建设国家中心城市——从国家战略层面全面提升广州科学发展实力的研究

国务院批准实施的《珠江三角洲地区改革发展规划纲要（2008—2020）》,从国家战略层面明确了广州作为国家中心城市的战略定位。如何建设国家中心城市、全面提升科学发展实力,成为广州在新的历史条件下的重大使命。本文从广州实际出发,就建设国家中心城市、全面提升科学发展实力进行了理论探讨和实证分析,并提出了相应的对策措施。