Moving on from ramps? The utility of the social model of disability for facilitating experiences of nature for disabled children

Experiences of nature have been shown to be beneficial for disabled children; however, opportunities for disabled children to experience nature are often limited. The social model of disability may provide a theoretical base for increasing access to nature for pupils at Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools. Using results from interviews conducted with teachers from seven SEN schools, considered alongside responses from interviews with staff from six environmental centres, this paper seeks to identify the specific constraints that may act upon the opportunities for disabled pupils to visit environmental centres. The research finds that a ‘medicalised’ approach to access may impede upon environmental centres’ ability to cater effectively to the needs of SEN school groups. Dialogue between environmental centres and SEN school teachers is recommended as a means of facilitating SEN school group access.     

银行股权关联、银行业竞争与民营企业融资约束

本文以公司参股银行为视角,在行为金融理论、企业组织理论与信贷融资理论相融合的分析框架下,构建基于异质预期的信贷配置模型,探讨了银行股权关联和银行业竞争影响民营企业融资约束的传导机理。以A股民营企业2006~2013年的数据为例,运用Heckman两阶段回归等方法,我们发现:参股银行和提高银行业竞争性均能显著缓解民营企业的融资约束,参股比例越高该效应越强,且两者在缓解融资约束方面存在替代关系。但进一步的分析显示,银行股权关联对资本配置的影响具有两面性:即银行股权关联所带来的融资优势能够减少因资金短缺导致的投资不足,但代理问题的存在也可能导致银行股权关联被部分异化,使其对于资本配置的正向作用减弱甚至被异化为利益寻租的工具。上述结论既丰富了委托代理理论与公司财务理论的相关研究成果,也有助于我们深入理解银行股权关联的"正面效果"和"负面效果"。     

通胀周期、金融抑制与企业存货的动态调整

企业存货调整策略的准确识别是有效管理通胀预期的必要条件。本文基于非线性交互效应面板误差纠正模型、从微观层面研究在通胀周期不同阶段,企业存货调整的具体特征。实证结果与反事实对比仿真实验均表明:主导企业存货策略性调整的是通胀预期而不是实际通胀水平。与社会的经验判定不同,企业存货调整对通胀表现出逆周期特征。对大部分行业而言,低通胀阶段,通胀预期的收益效应强于存货调整的成本效应,货币调控无效;高通胀阶段,通胀预期弱化,成本效应凸显,货币调控才有效。两种机制的阈值通胀率约为3.4%,所以,将通胀调控上限定为3.5%符合企业市场行为的特征。各行业存货策略对货币调控、通胀预期的灵敏度有显著差异,房地产、批发零售、机械设备较为敏感,最不敏感的是食品行业。     

Inventory Systems with Unreliable Suppliers

The aim of this article is to establish the optimal control of a periodic-review inventory system with two suppliers. One of them delivers orders immediately, the other one is unreliable delivering the orders immediately only with probability p ∈ (0, 1). Two cases are considered. In the first case, it is possible to order any inventory amount from each of suppliers. In the second case, the system budget is restricted.     

Linear regression analysis with inequality constraints on the regression parameters via empirical likelihood

An empirical likelihood ratio test is developed for testing for or against inequality constraints on regression parameters in linear regression analysis. The proposed approach imposes no parametric model nor identically distributing assumption on the random errors. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic under null hypothesis is shown to be of chi-bar-squared type. The asymptotic power under contiguous alternatives is also briefly discussed. Moreover, an adjusted empirical likelihood method is adopted to improve the small sample size behaviour of the proposed test. Several simulation studies are carried out to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed tests. The results reveal that the proposed tests could be valuable for improving inference efficiency. A real-life example is discussed to illustrate the theoretical results.     

大系统观下降解率与均衡价格的联络——资源有界引致的市场逻辑

资源稀缺下的市场定价,由于要素循环是必需的,故市场价格在受上变量和侧变量影响的同时,还受下变量的影响。通过构造劳动力—功能空间图,把表征为下变量的未来因子引入对均衡价格的决定中,并认为当期均衡价格由"未来商品供给和当前商品供给生成的总供给"与"未来商品需求和当前商品需求生成的总需求"联合决定,由此引入影响未来供给的降解率因子。因此,资源稀缺社会里,社会机制的设计和社会法则的提取应放在更大系统内探究。     

怒江大峡谷区域旅游业发展问题诊断

作者探讨了怒江大峡谷旅游开发现状中所呈现的问题,认为旅游资源在质和空间分布上所存在的局限性是制约怒江大峡谷旅游业发展最根本的问题。在此立论基础上,针对怒江大峡谷旅游业发展的问题现状,提出相应的解决措施。     

The Higher Education White Paper: The Good,the Bad,the Unspeakable – and the Next White Paper1

This article argues that reforms of higher education finance for undergraduates in England introduced by the Blair government in 2006 provided a progressive strategy for achieving the central objectives of higher education of quality (better), access (wider) and size (larger). Reforms in 2012 are a not a strategy but a collection of ad hoc arrangements. They include the good (a higher fees cap, a higher interest rate on student loans, better information and improved support for part‐time study), the bad (abolishing most taxpayer support for teaching in the arts and humanities and the social sciences, and raising excessively the threshold at which loan repayments start) and the unspeakable (abolishing Education Maintenance Allowances and AimHigher). The reforms are fiscally costly and hence perpetuate the central problem of capped student numbers, and will not stand the test of time. The concluding section outlines the next White Paper.     

Optimal consumption and portfolio selection with negative wealth constraints,subsistence consumption constraints,and CARA utility

We consider the optimal consumption and portfolio selection problem with constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) utility. The economic agent in this model receives constant labor income, and her economic behavior is restricted on consumption and wealth, which are called the subsistence consumption constraint and the negative wealth constraint. We use the convex duality method to derive the value function and the optimal policies in closed-form solutions. Also we illustrate some numerical examples.     

Nonparametric estimation of multivariate extreme-value copulas

Extreme-value copulas arise in the asymptotic theory for componentwise maxima of independent random samples. An extreme-value copula is determined by its Pickands dependence function, which is a function on the unit simplex subject to certain shape constraints that arise from an integral transform of an underlying measure called spectral measure. Multivariate extensions are provided of certain rank-based nonparametric estimators of the Pickands dependence function. The shape constraint that the estimator should itself be a Pickands dependence function is enforced by replacing an initial estimator by its best least-squares approximation in the set of Pickands dependence functions having a discrete spectral measure supported on a sufficiently fine grid. Weak convergence of the standardized estimators is demonstrated and the finite-sample performance of the estimators is investigated by means of a simulation experiment.