Rural Labor Absorption Efficiency in Urban Areas under Different Urbanization Patterns and Industrial Structures: The Case of China

In this paper, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate how well China’s urban areas absorb migrant workers under the interaction of urbanization and industrialization. We applied an output-oriented BCC model to evaluate provincial and regional rural labor absorption efficiency in mainland China. It appears that 4 out of 31 provinces and municipals are efficient, and 2 out of 8 economic regions are efficient in absorbing migrant workers. In the southern and eastern parts of China, urban labor absorption efficiency is higher compared with the western and northern parts of China. Different urbanization patterns and industrial development strategies should be adopted in different economic areas to enhance labor absorption ability in these areas. Urban areas in many parts of China still have potential to accommodate rural migrant workers. The inter-regional flow of production factors would affect urban labor absorption efficiency.rural labor absorption in urban areas, urbanization, industry structure, DEA

Country-level impact of global recession and China’s stimulus package

A dynamic computable general equilibrium model is developed to assess the impact of the recent global recession and the Chinese government’s stimulus package on China’s economic growth. The model is first used to capture the actual sector-level economic growth in 2008 and the possible economic performance in 2009 without the intervention of the Chinese government through its stimulus package. Under this global recession scenario, the GDP growth rate in 2009 falls to 2.9 percent mainly as a result of the sharp drop in exports of manufactured goods, while the agricultural sector is more crisis-resilient. Because export-oriented manufacturing sectors are often import-intensive, the weakened economy is accompanied by a reduction in Chinese firms’ import demand for materials, intermediates, and capital goods. The model also shows that without government intervention, the negative effect of a one-year shock on the Chinese economy would last for many years. Also, over the next five to six years, China is unlikely to replicate its strong economic performance of the past two decades. China’s stimulus package is modeled through increased investment financed by government resources. With additional demand on investment goods, growth in the investment-related production sector is stimulated. Through the cross-sector linkages in a general equilibrium model, the demand for other noncapital goods increases, thus stimulating growth in these sectors. As production of more industrialized sectors starts to grow, so will households’ income and consumption, providing market opportunities for those agricultural and service sectors that mainly produce for the domestic market. Under the stimulus scenario, the Chinese economy is expected to grow 8–10 percent in 2009 and the succeeding years. The growth engine in this case differs from that before 2008: growth is led by domestic demand, while trade still falls significantly in 2009 (instead of the double-digit growth before 2008). Domestic demand-driven stimulus growth creates jobs, and hence it increases income for both urban and rural households. The model is also used to measure the overall gains of the stimulus package by comparing GDP between the two scenarios. Without considering the productivity-enhancing role of public investment as part of the stimulus package (which is important for long-term growth but unlikely to happen in the short run), the cumulative difference of the GDP between the two scenarios over the next seven years is about RMB76 trillion, which is about three times more than the GDP in 2007.China stimulus package, Development strategies, general equilibrium modeling, global financial crisis,

Critical Success Factors on E-Government Application - From the View of Government Workers in Guangdong

This study used a sample of 293 government workers from Guangdong Province of Peoples Republic of China. Based on Delone and McLean\u27s IS success model, we constructed the measurement scale for evaluating E-Government Applications success. We also examined impacts of five critical success factors (i.e. internal organization and management, quality of product and technology of suppliers, external technical environment, the external policy environment, and coordination and supportive ability of information center) on E-Government Applications. Some government characteristics and personal backgrounds were also included and explored as control variables. It was found that these five critical success factors are significantly related among themselves. It was also found from the Pearson correlation coefficients that all but external policy environment were statistically related with E-Government Application. The level of government (the City government level) and personal role as a top leader were also found to be important government and personal factors associating with E-Government Application success. A multivariate regression analysis was conducted to test five factors and two control variables. It is found that the model was statistically significant. Since the correlation among independent variables, it was found that internal organization management, external policy environment, City level government (a dummy variable) and user as a top leader (a dummy variable) were final significant variables. This was a paper originated from a doctoral dissertation. Time and resources were limited. Some potential areas for improvements and suggestions for further study were also presented

Assortment Size and Performance of Online Sellers: An Inverted U-Shaped Relationship

This paper investigates the role of assortment size in sellers’ performance in the e-commerce context, which has been primarily associated with lowered search costs and switching costs. However, in contrast to the findings in the literature, our theoretical analysis postulates an inverted U-shaped association, showing that performance of online sellers increases and then decreases as the assortment size becomes larger. The nonlinear effect can be effectively explained by the interplay between the benefits derived from simultaneous consumer utility and the liabilities derived from the competition-intensifying effect. Additionally, the optimal level of assortment size is reduced when market density or product uncertainty is high. Using a data set of 10,000 online sellers from a large e-commerce platform, our hypotheses concerning the inverted U-shaped curve and moderation effects of market density and product uncertainty are statistically supported. Our research contributes to the assortment literature by revealing the special effects of assortment size in the online retailing context, and provides practical implications for online sellers’ assortment planning and optimization under both general settings and specific conditions

Biomass-derived three-dimensional porous N-doped carbonaceous aerogel for efficient supercapacitor electrodes

Functionalized carbonaceous materials with hierarchical structure and developed porosity are highly desired in energy storage and conversion fields. In this work, a facile and scalable hydrothermal methodology was established to synthesise three-dimensional (3D) N-doped carbonaceous aerogels using biomass-based starting materials and polypyrrole as N-source. The effect of different calcination temperatures on the structural properties, type and content of N-species and electrochemical performance of the 3D N-doped carbonaceous aerogels were uncovered. Thanks to the combinatorial effect of the appropriate N content and porous structure, the obtained samples exhibited excellent electrochemical performance, in particular, an outstanding specific capacitance of 281.0 F g-1 achieved on the sample calcined at 600 °C. This methodology offers a new fabrication strategy to prepare nanoscale carbonaceous materials with desirable morphology and hierarchical architecture of great potentials for the applications in energy fields

Junction Temperature Consistency Analysis of MMC Submodule

Although modular multilevel converter（MMC）is currently widely used in the field of DC power transmission due to its excellent topology performance, the natural DC bias characteristics inevitably cause thermal imbalance of internal devices. Too high temperature at the junction of power devices is one of the major causes of damage. Therefore, it is necessary to further investigate the factors that affect the device junction temperature. This paper calculated the power loss and junction temperature by combined the thermal impedance model and compared junction temperature under two typical modulation strategies

How Academic Achievement Moderates the Relationship Between Self-Stigma and Depression Among College Students

Due to the prevalence and seriously negative consequences associated with mental illness stigma, a number of interventions have been developed to ameliorate the situation. Theatric performance and contact-based approaches represent promising modes of stigma-reduction intervention. One potential intervention that combines the contact and the artistic aspect is administering videos of people narrating about their experience of stigma, but no empirical evaluations have been published. This study examined the efficacy of a video of an individual diagnosed with bipolar disorder describing some general stereotypes and daily labeling experiences. Participants (N=38) were students from the USA, Taiwan, and India recruited by snowball sampling. They completed a pretest with a stigma and depression measure, along with questions about demographics and their GPA, then were randomly assigned to one of two video conditions: (1) the intervention video described above, or (2) an informational video with some facts about mood disorder. All then completed a depression and stigma measure post-test. Self-stigma scores increased in both conditions. Academic ability did not moderate the relationship between pretest and posttest scores in both conditions, although academic ability itself and the pretest stigma scores correlated positively and significantly with posttest scores. Brief video exposure requires additional careful evaluation of its efficacy before implementing widely.Bachelor of Art

Intergenerational transmission of education in China: New evidence from the Chinese Cultural Revolution

This paper estimates the effect of parental education on children’s education by using instruments generated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and further explores the mechanisms of this causal relationship. Several important findings stand out from our empirical analyses. We find a larger intergenerational persistence in education for higher level in urban areas but for a lower level of education in rural areas. The main results from instrumental variable estimation show that the nurture effect is larger and more significant for fathers than for mothers. A deeper investigation of the mechanism behind this nurture effect informs us that a father’s education passes on to his children’s education partly through the income channel. Another notable finding is that even after controlling for fathers’ income, parental education still has a significantly positive effect on children’s education through the nurture effect. This indicates that beyond the income channel, there may exist other channels such as better home environment, which deserve to be explored in future research.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147763/1/rode12558_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147763/2/rode12558.pd

“GROWTH OF THE FITTER”: EVOLUTIONARY GROWTH PATHS AND FIRM SIZE OF START-UPS IN E-MARKETS

Existing research related to firm growth has not paid sufficient attention to the growth paths of online stores in e-markets. The linkage between growth path and firm size has not been built up. This paper aims to investigate evolutionary trajectories and their effects on firm size. Theoretically, conceptually define three types of distinguishable paths, namely the convergent, tepid, and sustained paths. We then propose related theoretical hypotheses that reflect the impacts of different types of growth paths on the resulting firm size. To empirically validate the proposed hypotheses, we applied the trajectory analysis method with a novel indicator, the relative expansion rate, based on a data set that consists of 5,582 online stores on Taobao.com, the largest e-commerce platform in the world. Testing results largely support our hypotheses and suggest that the sustained growth path is the ideal mode nascent online sellers should struggle for, since it is significantly positively related to the firm size that the sellers can achieve. To achieve their goal of firm expansion, new online sellers should aggressively pursue opportunities in the short term, which is a reflection of the “the growth of the fitter” principle. Our findings also suggest that E-commerce platforms may attempt to facilitate the sustained growth path of sellers through including growth path analysis in the evaluation system of online stores