Quantifying uncertainty in the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales

Summary.  A crucial issue in the current global warming debate is the effect of vegetation and soils on carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere. Vegetation can extract CO₂ through photosynthesis, but respiration, decay of soil organic matter and disturbance effects such as fire return it to the atmosphere. The balance of these processes is the net carbon flux. To estimate the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales, we address the statistical problem of inference for the sum of multiple outputs from a complex deterministic computer code whose input parameters are uncertain. The code is a process model which simulates the carbon dynamics of vegetation and soils, including the amount of carbon that is stored as a result of photosynthesis and the amount that is returned to the atmosphere through respiration. The aggregation of outputs corresponding to multiple sites and types of vegetation in a region gives an estimate of the total carbon flux for that region over a period of time. Expert prior opinions are elicited for marginal uncertainty about the relevant input parameters and for correlations of inputs between sites. A Gaussian process model is used to build emulators of the multiple code outputs and Bayesian uncertainty analysis is then used to propagate uncertainty in the input parameters through to uncertainty on the aggregated output. Numerical results are presented for England and Wales in the year 2000. It is estimated that vegetation and soils in England and Wales constituted a net sink of 7.55 Mt C (1 Mt C = 10¹² g of carbon) in 2000, with standard deviation 0.56 Mt C resulting from the sources of uncertainty that are considered.     

论我国金融资产管理公司的现状与发展

成立金融资产管理公司是我国政府深化金融改革 ,防范和化解金融风险的一项重大决策。我国四大金融资产管理公司为处置国有商业银行的不良资产 ,推进国有企业的改革做出了较大贡献。但我国金融资产管理公司的发展还远远跟不上我国市场经济发展的需要 ,今后要不断借鉴国外的成功经验 ,建立全新的金融资产管理公司运作机制。     

公司财务理论的企业基础

本文以公司财务理论的企业基础为切入点,从理论上分析了不同企业界定对公司财务理论(主要涉及到资本结构理论、公司治理理论、定价理论等层面)的影响效应。在此基础上,基于当代企业特征的现实性变迁,本文认为传统的公司财务理论正面临严重挑战。     

Social network and content analysis of the North American Carbon Program as a scientific community of practice

The North American Carbon Program (NACP) was formed to further the scientific understanding of sources, sinks, and stocks of carbon in Earth's environment. Carbon cycle science integrates multidisciplinary research, providing decision-support information for managing climate and carbon-related change across multiple sectors of society. This investigation uses the conceptual framework of communities of practice (CoP) to explore the role that the NACP has played in connecting researchers into a carbon cycle knowledge network, and in enabling them to conduct physical science that includes ideas from social science. A CoP describes the communities formed when people consistently engage in shared communication and activities toward a common passion or learning goal. We apply the CoP model by using keyword analysis of abstracts from scientific publications to analyze the research outputs of the NACP in terms of its knowledge domain. We also construct a co-authorship network from the publications of core NACP members, describe the structure and social pathways within the community. Results of the content analysis indicate that the NACP community of practice has substantially expanded its research on human and social impacts on the carbon cycle, contributing to a better understanding of how human and physical processes interact with one another. Results of the co-authorship social network analysis demonstrate that the NACP has formed a tightly connected community with many social pathways through which knowledge may flow, and that it has also expanded its network of institutions involved in carbon cycle research over the past seven years.     

我国中期财政问题浅析

本文对我国的中期财政问题进行了简要分析。     

A NOTE ON THE USE OF SELECTED NONFINANCIAL RATIO VARIABLES TO PREDICT SMALL-BUSINESS LOAN PERFORMANCE*

Small business loan applications have not been evaluated successfully by traditional methods. This paper explores the possibility of using three types of nonfinancial ratio variables (owner, firm, and loan characteristics) to predict whether a small business will pay off or default its loan. The owner and loan variables were better predictors of loan success than the firm variables.     

英国地方政府绩效管理制度运作的经验与启示

基于公共资源的有限性、政府支出与有效率公共政策间的低相关性及民主赤字的风险性三大前提,要求地方政府必须按照绩效标准或结果导向标准进行政府治理已成为人们的共识,而为了实现这种有效的政府运营机制,则还需依赖建立并推行一套行之有效的地方政府绩效评估制度。为此,首先探讨当前各国地方政府治理活动中出现的问题,了解问题产生的原因,阐释对地方政府建构绩效评价制度的必要性。然后,分析英国政府绩效管理制度中最佳价值体制的内涵及运作方式,总结其有益的经验。在此基础上,针对我国在进行地方政府绩效评价时应注意的问题提出相关的对策建议。     

农地金融制度:国别比较与借鉴

作为以农地产权为抵押来获得贷款的农地金融,在诸多发达和发展中国家都有实践,是解决农业发展资金的一个重要制度。我国2014年的中央一号文件提出农地承包经营权可以抵押,这一制度突破为盘活农村资源,解决农村资金困难打开了空间。详细梳理了德国、美国和日本这些国家农地金融制度的组织架构、发展进程以及成功的经验,通过对这些国家农地金融制度的比较研究,提出了我国农地金融制度构建的一些设想。     

土地出让金改革的财政学解析

土地出让金改革的建议中,一些观点是要将土地出让金统一或部分收至中央财政,出于现实障碍也不将其纳入物业税。本文立足公共财政的视角,认为土地出让金作为公共收入,为地方政府经济建设提供了重要的财力支持,虽然存在收支隐秘、分配不公、管理混乱等问题,但是这些问题大多是由于现行财政体制的非平等性、财政分权制度的非兼容性、基层财政体制的非正义性所导致。消除这些原因、改革土地出让金,标本兼治的路径：一是要配合财政扁平化改革,土地出让金依旧归宿地方财政;二是要克服技术性、制度性难题,提高财产税替代土地出让金的可行性;三是要明确土地出让金的公共支出方向,实现“取之于民,用之于民”的宗旨。     

中国城乡发展动力结构调整的思考——收入分配视角的分析

近三十年来,中国经济实现了持续高速增长,但增长动力结构失衡。在投资、消费、净出口三大需求对国民经济发展的拉动中,消费率偏低是一个不争的事实。消费率,即消费需求在支出法国内生产总值中所占的比重,反映的是从长期考察的一个国家在其发展过程中所处的历史阶段,而不是短期内国家宏观和微观的经济运行情况。它的高低适中不能用宏观和微观经济运行情况来判定,而是要看其是否与国家或地方的经济发展方式和路径相适应。中国经济发展正处于消费率由低转高的历史阶段,中国消费率的上升是一个渐进的过程,需要从宏观上实现一系列的国民收入分配机理运行工程,即劳动收入的国家干预工程、要素收入的二次分配工程、扩大公共消费工程和加大财政转移支付工程。