A mark II survey and critique of future research teaching in North America

In 1970, an initial survey was carried out on teaching futurism at the undergraduate level based on forty courses that could be located in Canada and the United States (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, December 1970). During 1971 and 1972, information was collected, primarily by a replicated questionnaire, on approximately 200 courses in North America; this was reported on to the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest (September 1972) indicating major changes that had occured over the two-year period in the field. Six generalizations were made: (1) Futurism is becoming increasingly institutionalized as more and more courses are being “futurized” to a greater or lesser degree. (2) Learning/teaching interaction tends increasingly to employ innovative or “futuristic” techniques. (3) Much influential and seminal work in future research is not made by “futurists” per se, but enters the field from outside: technological forecasting and assessment, systems analysis, gaming, model building, etc. (4) Interdisciplinary future-oriented research on contemporary problems may be adding a new dimension to human capability. (5) There is still much froth and nonsense in “futuristics”, but can future research be truly innovative without such imaginative inputs? (6) Future research may turn out to be merely a subset in the policy sciences, i.e., delivery systems.     

“循序渐进”还是“平行推进”?——论体制转轨最优路径的理论与政策

本文认为目前在改革理论和政策研讨中颇为流行的“循序渐进”概念并不能确切地说明体制转轨过程中的各种问题 ,因为各种体制之间是相互依存、相互制约的 ,不可能改好了一个再改下一个 ,否则会出现体制“不协调成本”。文章提出了“平行推进”的概念 ,作为改革政策制定的基本思路 ,它可以说明为什么在体制转轨过程中 ,某些体制的改革“超前”和“滞后”(瓶颈 ) ,都是无效率的。在所有领域 (包括政治体制和社会政策 )都同时积极推进改革 ,同时考虑各种体制之间在转轨过程当中 (也就是在没有彻底完成改革之前 )的相互协调 ,应是体制改革的基本政策方法。     

Modelling economic hysteresis losses caused by sunk adjustment costs

Transition from one economic equilibrium to another as a consequence of shocks is often associated with sunk adjustment costs. Firm-specific sunk market entry investments (or sunk market exit costs) in case of a reaction to price shocks are an example. These adjustment costs lead to a dynamic supply pattern similar to hysteresis. In analogy to “hysteresis losses” in ferromagnetism, the authors explicitly model dynamic adjustment losses in the course of market entry and exit cycles. They start from the micro level of a single firm and use explicit aggregation tools from hysteresis theory in mathematics and physics to calculate dynamic losses. The authors show that strong market fluctuations generate disproportionately large hysteresis losses for producers. This could give a reason for the implementation of stabilizing measures and policies to prevent strong (price) variations or, alternatively, to reduce the sunk entry and exit costs.     

面向高质量发展的黄河流域科技创新空间极化效应演化研究

针对黄河流域科技创新发展中无序竞争、缺乏合作、强弱不均等现状，构建面向高质量发展的黄河流域科技创新集中度与极化度模型，分析其科技创新极化效应演化过程，并识别省际间“虹吸”效应与“涓滴”效应。结果表明，从流域整体层面看，黄河流域科技创新处于极低极化水平并呈持续下降趋势，强科技创新省区对弱科技创新省区形成弱“涓滴”效应；从上、中、下游分区域层面看，各区域科技创新均处于极低极化水平，并分别呈现持续上升、先升后降、持续下降趋势，强科技创新省区对弱科技创新省区依次表现为弱“虹吸”效应、先“虹吸”后“涓滴”、弱“涓滴”效应。最后，从提升科技创新资源配置质量、优化科技创新空间布局两方面提出政策建议。     

“Austerian” economics: Does the Vienna school favor fiscal deficit reduction even in a subpar economy?

Does the economic analysis associated with the modern Austrian school favor a policy of restraining the government’s fiscal deficit even in a subpar economy, as suggested by those who (pejoratively) label such a policy “austerian”? Because resources are not superabundant even in a subpar economy, the answer is yes, unless (implausibly) the return on the last (lowest-payoff) dollar of government expenditure exceeds the return on private investment.     

Aggregation of heterogenous beliefs,asset pricing,and risk sharing in complete financial markets

Given a competitive equilibrium in complete asset markets, we propose a method that aggregates heterogeneous individual beliefs into a single “market probability,” which, if commonly shared by investors, generates the same marginal valuation of assets by the market as well as by each individual investor. As a result of the aggregation process, the market portfolio may have to be scalarly adjusted, upward or downward, a reflection of an aggregation bias due to the diversity of beliefs. From a dual viewpoint, the standard construction of an expected utility-maximizing aggregate investor designed to represent the economy in equilibrium, is shown to be also valid in the case of heterogeneous beliefs, modulo the above scalar adjustment of the market portfolio, thereby generating an Adjusted version of the Consumption based Capital Asset Pricing Model (ACCAPM). We analyze how the allocation of aggregate and individual risks relates to deviations of individual beliefs from the aggregate market probability. Finally, we identify the channels through which the distribution of beliefs and other microeconomic characteristics (incomes, attitudes toward risk) across investors impact the pricing of risky assets an may contribute to explaining the equity premium puzzle.     

Price Index Convergence Among United States Cities*

We study the dynamics of price indices for major U.S. cities using panel econometric methods and find that relative price levels among cities mean revert at an exceptionally slow rate. In a panel of 19 cities from 1918 to 1995, we estimate the half‐life of convergence to be approximately nine years. The surprisingly slow rate of convergence can be explained by a combination of the presence of transportation costs, differential speeds of adjustment to small and large shocks, and the inclusion of nontraded goods prices in the overall price index.     

基于民工异质的刘易斯模型改造

刘易斯模型能够很好地解释我国长期低工资水平下的“民工潮”现象,但因其剩余劳动力完全同质的假设而无法解释我国当前发生的“民工荒”现象。本文依据“保留工资”高低将民工分成若干个类别,从而构建了一个基于民工异质的民工市场模型：经此改造的刘易斯模型分析的意义在于,它提供了一个能够同时解释“民工潮”与“民工荒”的统一的理论框架,揭示了“民工潮”与“民工荒”有可能交替发生,显示了破解当前“民工荒”问题的根本之策是提高民工工资,表明了“刘易斯拐点”在我国还远未出现：     

An Alternative Post-Keynesian Framework for Understanding Capital Flows to Emerging Markets

This article contributes to the establishment of a framework for the analysis of international capital flows, with a specific focus on emerging markets. It is based on a “monetary” analysis of the economy, as well as on the works of Hyman Minsky and Jan Toporowski in particular. The key aspects of such an approach are the following. First, in a monetary economy, capital flows need to be understood as “flows of funds” that pertain to the realm of financial choices, as opposed to the traditional understanding of capital flows as based on “real” variables, such as saving and investment. A consequence of this is the need to focus on gross flows rather than capital flows. Second, liquidity preference considerations also apply at the international level, particularly in relation to the liquidity of emerging-market currencies that, in turn, depends on context-specific “Keynesian fundamentals.” Third, the rise of institutional investors is the key historical development in the financial system, shaping the current reality of cross-border capital flows, including to emerging markets. I argue that institutional investors’ liabilities, in light of the theories of Minsky and Toporowski, are one of the most important variables in determining these investors’ portfolio choices. I synthesize these elements by defining capital flows to emerging markets as the demand for emerging-market assets by institutional investors. I propose a framework to categorize the various channels that guide this demand.     

Increasing returns and unsynchronized wage adjustment in sunspot models of the business cycle

A challenge to models of equilibrium indeterminacy based on increasing returns is that required increasing returns for generating indeterminacy can be implausibly large and rise quickly with the relative risk aversion in labor. We show that unsynchronized wage adjustment via a relative wage effect can both lower the required degree of increasing returns for indeterminacy to a plausible level and make it invariant to the relative risk aversion in labor. Consequently, indeterminacy and sunspot-driven fluctuations can emerge for plausible increasing returns regardless of the relative risk aversion in labor. Our model generates reasonable dynamics in terms of matching the business cycle, and sunspot shocks become more important with labor market friction.     

Working hard in the wrong place: A mismatch-based explanation to the UK productivity puzzle

The UK experienced an unusually prolonged stagnation in labor productivity in the aftermath of the Great Recession. This paper analyzes the role of sectoral labor misallocation in accounting for this “productivity puzzle”. If jobseekers disproportionately search for jobs in sectors where productivity is relatively low, hires are concentrated in the wrong sectors, and the post-recession recovery in aggregate productivity can be slow. Our calculations suggest that, quantified at the level of three-digit occupations, this mechanism can explain up to two thirds of the deviations from trend-growth in UK labor productivity since 2007.     

对农民收入增长问题的一些思考

受我国农户所拥有资源的特征和农业比较效益长期下降特性的局限,农民收入问题很难从农业生产和农业政策中找到大幅度增长的出路和突破口。解决农民收入增长问题,必须跳出“农”字,扭转思维,到“非”农更广阔的领域里去寻找答案。     

An empirical investigation of customer market analysis–a microfoundation for macroeconomics

The slow adjustment and stickiness of output prices is widely regarded as an important determinant of macroeconomic behaviour. Recently, a number of writers have argued that customer market analysis can provide a microfoundation for price stickiness. This paper develops the theory of a firm selling in a customer market and investigates the empirical implications of the theory. The model is shown to imply a particular pattern of behaviour between retail prices and wholesale prices. Data on retail and wholesale prices for the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia at various levels of aggregation is investigated and found to support the predictions of the customer market model. In the conclusion the macroeconomic implications of the empirical conslusions are drawn out.     

The aggregate neoclassical theory of distribution and the concept of a given value of capital: a reply

In this reply to Paola Potestio, it is argued that there are cases in which both the “supply” of and the “demand” for “capital” can be conceptualised in an economically meaningful way and used in the conventional long-period neoclassical manner to determine an equilibrium or to investigate the adjustment process towards it. This conceptualisation is based on strict assumptions. If, for the sake of the argument, we concede these assumptions, the critique of the theory that tries to generalise the determination of distribution in a simple one-good model, or “corn-economy”, to multi-good models can be safely founded on the possibility of reswitching and capital reversing, contrary to Potestio's critique.     

Beach ‘lovers’ and ‘greens’: A worldwide empirical analysis of coastal tourism

This paper examines worldwide tourist coastal destination choice using a comprehensive global dataset at the country level, for both domestic and international tourists. This data includes a systematic profile of the countries' coastline with respect to economic and natural environments, such as marine biodiversity related indicators. Tourist demand is modelled using a system of simultaneous structural equations estimated by a 3SLS routine. We identify two tourist demand segments, denoting different preferences for the worldwide coastal destinations. International tourists choose their coastal destination because they have a strong preference for the cultural and natural environments. This, in turn, depends on the destination of country's coastal habitat abundance and marine biodiversity. We label this segment of coastal tourism, as “greens”. Alternatively, domestic tourists have a preference for beach characteristics, in particular beach length. This in turn depends on anthropogenic pressure, the built environment and climatic variables. For this reason we interpret this tourism segment as “beach lovers”. This information is, in turn, of high significance for stimulating coastal tourism demand as well as for identifying market based policy instruments with the objective to finance the conservation of environmental and cultural capital hosted at the coastal communities.     

On innovation,social change,and reality

Innovation in social affairs is a far more complex and demanding process than one might believe. Not only are there many excellent general reasons why an apparently “rational” or absolutely “necessary” innovation either fails to be realized or is incorporated in totally unforeseen ways, there are also important specific reasons, associated with individual contexts where innovation is undertaken, that must be taken into account. Ignoring the important idea of the quid pro quo, making facile assumptions about the clarity and importance of the proposed changes, and failing to account for a range of reactions and distortions of implementation may spell disaster to a would-be innovator and his ideas, regardless of the merits of either. To illuminate the concept of innovation is useful. Think of it as a four-step process that includes initiation, reaction or rejection, partial incorporation, and diffusion phases. Each phase presents different problems and opportunities, and each must be considered seriously and explicitly if an innovation is to turn out even remotely as its proponents intended.     

Economic growth,corruption and tax evasion

In this paper, we explore tax revenues in a regime of widespread corruption in a growth model. We develop a Ramsey model of economic growth with a rival but non-excludable public good which is financed by taxes which can be evaded via corrupt tax inspectors. We prove that the relationship between the tax rate and tax collection, in a dynamic framework, is not unique, but is different depending on the relevance of the “shame effect”. We show that in all three cases — “low, middle and high shame” countries, the growth rate increases as the tax rate increases up to a threshold value, after which the growth rate begins to decrease as the tax rate increases. But, for intermediate tax rates, the rate of growth for “low shame” countries is lower than that of “uniform shame” countries which is, in turn, lower than that of “high shame” countries. This happens because the growth rate is more sensitive to variations of t in an honest country rather than in a corrupt country.     

Some comments on the Sraffian Supermultiplier approach to growth and distribution

Abstract

The article discusses the Sraffian Supermultiplier (SSM) approach to growth and distribution. It makes 5 points. First, in the short run, the role of autonomous expenditure can be appreciated within a standard post Keynesian framework (Kaleckian, Kaldorian, Robinsonian, etc.). Second, and related to the first, the SSM model is a model of the long run and has to be evaluated as such. Third, in the long run, one way that capacity adjusts to demand is through an endogenous adjustment of the rate of utilization. Fourth, the SSM model is a peculiar way to reach what Garegnani called the “second Keynesian position.” Although, it respects the letter of the “Keynesian hypothesis,” it makes investment quasi-endogenous and subjects it to the growth of autonomous expenditure. Fifth, in the long run it is unlikely that “autonomous expenditure” is really autonomous. From a stock-flow consistent point of view this implies unrealistic adjustments after periods of changes in stock-flow ratios. Moreover, if we were to take this kind of adjustment at face value, there would be no space for Minskyan financial cycles. This also creates serious problems for the empirical validation of the model.     

Industrial concentration and competition in Malaysian manufacturing

Industrial concentration is the most widely studied area among various elements of market structure in the industrial organization literature. This paper is a first attempt to analyse the determinants of changes in industry concentration over time in the case of Malaysia. Using a partial adjustment model, a cross-sectional analysis is carried out against a sample of manufacturing industries between 1986 and 1996. Domestic factors in influencing competition e.g. capital intensity, advertising intensity and market size are found to be significant in most cases to explain the level of concentration. Considering variable rate of adjustment of concentration, an increase in labour productivity of large firms and high entry rates are found to be significant for faster adjustment towards equilibrium level. Compared with other developed countries, the annual rate of structural adjustment is found to be slow in the case of Malaysian manufacturing.     

University education in future studies— a Mark III critique: Part I

In 1970 an initial survey was made of futures courses at university level based on forty courses that could be located in the United States and Canada (Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, 2: 133–148 [1970]. This was replicated during 1970–1972 on approximately 200 North American courses and reported changes in the field at the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest, September 1972 (Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, 4:387–407 [1973]). A third iteration was funded by the World Institute Council and published in abstracted form with their permission here. The conclusions to be drawn from some six years of analysis of such courses, and drawn especially from the specifics of the 300 courses in the third iteration, can be lumped under five main headings: (1) All disciplines are to some degree finally alerted to the future implications of both their research and their teaching. (2) There remains still much “froth and nonsense” in futures courses. How to control this and encourage lively creativity is a complex problem–especially since the intellectual image of futurism today is not that high! (3) There appears to be no reliable sociocultural change theory backing future studies and there is precious little solid theory in the field itself–offset by some progress in methodology. (4) Despite these strictures, if all future-oriented courses in American/Canadian universities were lumped together (future studies per se; technology forecasting/assessment; policy sciences; peace studies; demography; environmental/ecology courses; general systems theory/system analysis/ system dynamics; mathematical modelling and game theory; eschatology; utopian literature and science fiction; even black studies and women's courses) the total might approach 5000 and it is still growing, as is popular and academic understanding of the necessity “to plan ahead” in this period of human malaise. (5) Informal education of varied worth, from free swinging communes to middle management cram courses conducted by think-tanks, may turn out to be more useful in future- oriented advanced education than that which takes place in formal “walled” traditional institutions.