Understanding Service Contracting and Its Impact on NGO Development in China

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The Chinese government and human service NPOs are joining the bandwagon of service contracting with enthusiasm. Although...     

Competition and Coordination in Two‐Tier Public Service Systems under Government Fiscal Policy

As a result of government budgetary limits and rapid market growth, many public service systems—such as health care—are characterized by extensive customer wait times that have become a serious problem. This problem might be solved by allowing private firms to enter these markets, which would provide customers with a choice between a free (governmental) public service provider (SP) and a fee‐charging (or “toll”) private SP. In such a two‐tier service system, the two SPs are differentiated by service quality and cost efficiency. This study focuses on the competition and coordination issues for two‐tier service systems with customers who are sensitive to both service quality and delay. The free system attempts to maximize its expected total customer utility with limited capacity, whereas the toll system attempts to maximize its profit. Neither goal is aligned with the social welfare goal of the public service. To achieve the social welfare goal, the government plays a crucial role in coordinating the two‐tier service system via the budget, the tradeoff of social members' goals, and tax‐subsidy policies. Using a mixed duopoly game, we establish Nash equilibrium strategies and identify the conditions for the existence of the two‐tier service system. We employ several interesting and counter‐intuitive managerial insights generated by the model to show that the public service can be delivered more efficiently via customer choice and SP competition. In addition, we show that a relatively low tax‐subsidy rate can almost perfectly coordinate the two SPs to achieve most of the maximum possible benefit of the two‐tier service system.     

中国近代新式邮政兴办成功的原因探析

新式邮政是近代中国举办成功的洋务之一,其成功的主要原因有:该项事业利国便民,既是国家财政收入的一项来源,也有利于维护国家主权,因而政府积极创办;新式邮政办理得法,其在正式开办前曾进行过几十年的试验,积累了多年的办邮经验,开办后又能稳步推进,并妥善处理了与民信局及客邮的关系,对二者既联合又斗争,最终迫使民信局关闭,客邮裁撤,实现了邮政经营的统一;新式邮政为国家事业,又长期由洋员主持,得到了政府的支持与保护.近代新式邮政在中国的成功表明:外来的新事物只要适合中国社会发展的需要,并尽量按照中国自己的方式去办理,就有引入成功的可能.     

有缘无份湘夫人

《湘君》、《湘夫人》作为《九歌》中同一表演单元的两章,多认为讲的是湘君与湘夫人因约会误会而出现的一个爱情故事,本文则认为误会的出现是湘君有意为之,并尝试解释湘君这么做的原因。     

政府规模与公共服务支出:来自中国省级水平的经验证据

本文使用我国2000—2006年省级水平的面板数据,应用动态面板数据模型方法对我国政府规模与公共服务支出的关系进行了研究,并用政府消费支出比重和行政人员比重分别衡量政府规模,结果均表明,政府规模对公共服务支出存在显著的正的影响,从而引发了对现在政府机构改革的思考,并据此结论提出了相应的政策与建议。     

分段的延期支付条件下临时订货策略分析

商业活动中供应商时常会给采购商短期的价格折扣,目的是使采购商进行临时的大量采购;供应商为了鼓励采购商订货,会针对采购规模给予其不同的延期支付期限;而当价格恢复到定常时,延期支付的期限则为供求双方事先规定的常值,采购商按照允许延期支付的EOQ模型订货。将延期支付基本EOQ模型中存在的门槛式延期支付规则(只有当采购量大于特定值才可以延期支付货款)应用并推广到这种临时采购中:延期支付期限是临时采购量的分段函数。由于采购商可以采取按低价追加订货或者放弃这个机会,基于这2种策略年度成本差异最大化,分析了采购商最优的追加订货批量如何确定的问题,拓宽了允许延期支付的EOQ模型应用范围。     

Optimal Inventory Control with Dual‐Sourcing,Heterogeneous Ordering Costs and Order Size Constraints

We consider a dual‐sourcing inventory system, where procuring from one supplier involves a high variable cost but negligible fixed cost whereas procuring from the other supplier involves a low variable cost but high fixed cost, as well as an order size constraint. We show that the problem can be reduced to an equivalent single‐sourcing problem. However, the corresponding ordering cost is neither concave nor convex. Using the notion of quasi‐convexity, we partially characterize the structure of the optimal policy and show that it can be specified by multiple thresholds which determine when to order from each supplier and how much. In contrast to previous research, which does not consider order size constraints, we show that it is optimal to simultaneously source from both suppliers when the beginning inventory level is sufficiently low. We also show that the decision to source from the low‐cost supplier is not monotonic in the inventory level. Our results require that the variable costs satisfy a certain condition which guarantees quasi‐convexity. However, extensive numerical results suggest that our policy is almost always optimal when the condition is not satisfied. We also show how the results can be extended to systems with multiple capacitated suppliers.     

日本人口学科体系对中国的启发

文章概述了日本人口学科体系的发展历程,指出在这个发展历程中,日本人口学界涌现出经济人口学派、历史人口学派、社会人口学派、地域人口学派、生物人口学派、政治人口学派和数理人口学派等。文章认为,人口科学在国际上表现出国际化、数理化和多元化的特点。日本不仅形成了多种人口学派,而且还重视对国外人口问题的研究,至少有50%以上的日本学者研究的是国际人口问题。而中国的大部分学者则主要侧重于国内的人口问题研究,视野不够开阔,缺乏国际型的思维模式和研究理念。     

苔丝悲剧的重新解读

该文在指出以往对苔丝形象悲剧意义解读的偏颇的基础上 ,着重运用现代批评理论中的女性主义批评进行重新解读 ,认为苔丝形象的悲剧意义主要在于向自古以来、举世皆然的性别统治发出诘难 ,敦促人们去认真反思和努力根除这种弥漫于社会文明中积重难返的痼疾