Can China’s Growth be Sustained? A Productivity Perspective

China’s gradual approach to economic transition has resulted in sustained high growth. However, in recent years Chinese economists have increasingly referred to the growth pattern as “extensive,” generated mainly through the expansion of inputs. Our investigation of the Chinese economy during the reform period finds that reform measures often resulted in one-time level effects on total factor productivity (TFP). China now needs to adjust its reform program toward sustained increases in productivity. Market and ownership reforms, and open door policies have improved the conditions under which Chinese firms operate, but further institutional reforms are required to consolidate China’s move to a full-fledged market economy.

Technological regimes, Schumpeterian patterns of innovation and firm-level productivity growth

The article investigates the relationships between technological regimes and firm-level productivity performance, and it explores how such a relationship differs in different Schumpeterian patterns of innovation. The analysis makes use of a rich dataset containing data on innovation and other economic characteristics of a large representative sample of Norwegian firms in manufacturing and service industries for the period 1998–2004. First, we decompose TFP growth into technical progress and efficiency changes by means of data envelopment analysis. We then estimate an empirical model that relates these two productivity components to the characteristics of technological regimes and a set of other firm-specific factors. The results indicate that: (i) TFP growth has mainly been achieved through technical progress, while technical efficiency has on average decreased; (ii) the characteristics of technological regimes are important determinants of firm-level productivity growth, but their impacts on technical progress are different from the effects on efficiency change; (iii) the estimated model works differently in the two Schumpeterian regimes. Technical progress has been more dynamic in Schumpeter Mark II industries, while efficiency change has been more important in Schumpeter Mark I markets.

Dinoflagellate cyst-based reconstructions of mid to late Holocene winter sea-surface temperature and productivity from an anoxic fjord in the NE Pacific Ocean

Published contemporary dinoflagellate distributional data from the NE Pacific margin and estuarine environments (n = 136) were re-analyzed using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) and partial Canonical Correspondence Analysis (pCCA). These analyses illustrated the dominant controls of winter temperature and productivity on the distribution of dinoflagellate cysts in this region. Dinoflagellate cyst-based predictive models for winter temperature and productivity were developed from the contemporary distributional data using the modern analogue technique and applied to subfossil data from two mid to late Holocene (~5500 calendar years before present–present) cores; TUL99B03 and TUL99B11, collected from Effingham Inlet, a 15 km long anoxic fjord located on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island that directly opens to the Pacific Ocean through Barkley Sound. Sedimentation within these basins largely comprises annually deposited laminated couplets, each made up of a winter deposited terrigenous layer and spring to fall deposited diatomaceous layer. The Effingham Inlet dinoflagellate cyst record provides evidence of a mid-Holocene gradual decline in winter SST, ending with the initiation of neoglacial advances in the region by ~3500 cal BP. A reconstructed Late Holocene increase in winter SST was initiated by a weakening of the California Current, which would have resulted in a warmer central gyre and more El Niño-like conditions.

Convergence of bimodules over maximal abelian selfadjoint algebras

We prove a continuity result for the map sending a masa-bimodule to its support. We characterise the convergence of a net of weakly closed convex hulls of bilattices in terms of the convergence of the corresponding supports, and establish a lower-semicontinuity result for the map sending a support to the corresponding masa-bimodule.

Convergence of the iterative algorithm for a general Hammerstein system identification

The convergence of the iterative identification algorithm for a general Hammerstein system has been an open problem for a long time. In this paper, it is shown that the convergence can be achieved by incorporating a regularization procedure on the nonlinearity in addition to a normalization step on the parameters.

Convergence/Divergence: Party political discourse in Northern Ireland's transition from conflict

This paper illuminates the role of political language in a peace process through analysing the discourse used by political parties in Northern Ireland. What matters, it seems, is not whether party discourses converge or diverge but rather how, and in what ways, they do so. In the case of Northern Ireland, there remains strong divergence between discourses regarding the ethos of unionist and nationalist parties. As a consequence, core definitions of identity, culture, norms and principle remain common grounds for competition within nationalism and unionism. There has, however, been a significant shift towards convergence between unionist and nationalist parties in their discourses on power and governance, specifically among the now predominant (hardline) and the smaller (moderate) parties. The argument thus elaborated is that political transition from conflict need not necessarily entail the creation of a “shared discourse” between all parties. Indeed, points of divergence between parties’ discourses of power and ethos are as important for a healthy post-conflict democratic environment as the elements of convergence between them.