The paper extends the Malmquist productivity index to establish a theoretical model to evaluate foreign direct investment (FDI) attractiveness. This model and its implementation mechanism consider cost efficiency and profit efficiency changes that represent the influence of price level on inputs and outputs respectively. Using data from China from 1997 to 2008, we assess the attractiveness of FDI in terms of human capital stock, material capital stock, energy consumption situation, and degrees of market openness. We use data envelopment analysis to find the bottleneck of FDI attractiveness and to identify the potential market of each province. This study contributes to the literature by providing sound investment advices to multinational corporations. It also offers policy advice and guidelines to developing nations for setting policies and programs to attract FDI. Specifically, our results provide useful inputs for policy makers to create a mechanism design to attract FDI in the host country.

While energy is a required factor in any kind of economic activity, most environmental problems, such as acid rain precipitation, greenhouse-gas emissions, and exhaustion of nonrenewable resources, seem to be related to overuse of primary energy. It is therefore important to consider energy within the framework of an integrated analysis of natural resources, economy, and the environment. In recent years, many scholars have studied this issue (see, for example, Balistreri & Rutherford, 2000; Jiang, 2002; Lin & Polenske, 1995; Xu et al.,2002; Zhang & Folmer, 1997) in the light of different but traditional input-output models. One kind of theoretical green input-output table, focused on energy, is designed on the basis of our Green Input-output Accounting Framework of Natural Resources-Economy- Environment. Scenario forecasting and analysis for China in 2020 are made. Coal used, without further transformation, mainly for power generation, is the major source of SO2 and CO2 emissions in China, and it will remain so without changes to the final and intermediate demand structures.

The study of joint advertising channels decision-making is a very difficult issue. It mainly focuses on ads investment game between a manufacturer and a retailer in a vertical supply chain. With the rise of the game theory, scholars have been starting to investigate this issue in the frame of game theory in recent years. The paper improves the existing mod-els and introduces single-period and multi-period modified models. The paper obtains the closed-form solutions to the single-period model and the simulation results of the multi-period model. We also examine the implications of these results and obtain some insights into the real practice.

In this paper, the traditional neo–classic method of measuring change rate of total factor productivity (TFP) is extended appropriately. We discover that the change of TFP can be decomposed into technical progress, changes in management efficiencies and the changes in alignment between the former two factors, on the basis of the generalized production function. The conclusion implies that management plays an important role in the process of production.