Immigration: then,now, and in the future

The author examines recent changes in immigration flows to the United States. Consideration is given to the increase in Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim immigration, which he attributes to today's lower costs of air travel. The negative impact of the ability to return home easily and cheaply on migrants' desire to fully acculturate into U.S. society is noted. Mention is made of the need for new international migration policies to meet the needs of guest workers and consultants.     

Constitutionalism,prosperity, democracy: Transition in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is now undergoing three distinct transitions: to markets, to democracy, and to constitutionalism. Under current conditions, the transition to constitutionalism is a logical precondition for the transitions to markets and democracy. To protect both of these, it is especially necessary to develop an “economic bill of rights” for inclusion in the new constitutions. This bill of rights should include the rule of law, protection of private property, freedom of contract, occupational liberty, the right to travel within and without the nation, and a prohibition on government monopolies; other similar provisions should be considered as well. The new constitutions should not include general aspirations, duties, or positive rights. The eventual development of an economic bill of rights—a precommitment strategy designed to promote prosperity and democracy—could constitute a new and important contribution to the theory and practice of constitutionalism. In light of the rapid changes in Eastern European constitutional affairs it should be noted that the final draft of this paper dates from August 1991. Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago; Co-Director, Center on Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe, University of Chicago. I am grateful to Jon Elster and Stephen Holmes for valuable discussion, and to Richard A. Epstein and Stephen Holmes for helpful comments on a previous draft.     

Ecology,Sustainability, and Care: Developments in the Field

Over the past three decades, scholars and activists have been attempting to enrich the field of economics with both feminist and ecological perspectives. This essay reviews some highlights of such efforts, describes the current state of the field (particularly in regard to notions of “care”), and introduces a short symposium.     

Property Rights in Work: Capitalism,Industrialism, and Democracy

Insulating people from the effects of the crisis has left intact the habits of thought and the basic institutional structure. The continued reign of pecuniary values leaves intact the Goldman Rule: pursue profitable opportunities regardless the effects on others. Within a culture dominated by pecuniary values, profitable opportunities present a coercive force. Laissez-faire policies allow profitable pursuits without restraint. Subprime mortgages offered an opportunity to tap a new source of profits, namely, the increase in housing prices. Many financial institutions engaged in unscrupulous actions to convert household wealth into corporate profits. Efforts to reign in the industry remain wanting.     

低碳经济转型:政策、趋势与启示

在气候变化背景下,全球向低碳经济转型不仅是一个选择、一种必须,而且是要解决在怎样程度的速度和规模上促进其向低碳经济转型的问题。世界各国各级政府和商业部门在调整贸易、融资和生产计划方面的决策上,提出了无数的低碳政策措施,发起各种低碳倡议。为避免重蹈西方国家先污染、后治理的覆辙,中国向低碳经济转型必须借鉴国际经验教训,中国要以超前的眼光对低碳经济进行战略部署,尤其要避免在大规模基础设施建设中被高碳排放锁定。     

Rent, risk, and replication: Preference adaptation in winner-take-all markets

We study the evolution of an economy where agents who are heterogeneous with respect to risk attitudes can either earn a certain income or enter a risky rent-seeking contest. We assume that agents behave rationally given their preferences, but that the population distribution of preferences evolves over time in response to material payoffs. We show that, in particular, initial distributions with full support converge to stationary states where all types are still present. Although rents are perfectly dissipated in material terms at a steady state, efficiency is greater than if everybody had been risk neutral, since risk lovers specialize in rent seeking.     

Noncognitive skills in economics: Models,measurement, and empirical evidence

There is an increasing economic literature considering personality traits as a source of individual differences in labor market productivity and other outcomes. This paper provides an overview on the role of these skills with a particular focus on measurement and estimation. Based on the relevant literature from different disciplines, common psychometric measures used to assess personality are discussed and critical assumptions for their applications are highlighted. Moreover, we report and describe ideas of recent research that aims at incorporating personality traits into economic models of decision making. Based on these foundations, the main results of the empirical literature regarding noncognitive skills are summarized. Finally, we provide a brief guide to econometric analysis with consideration of common econometric pitfalls that evolve in empirical analysis of personality traits and review possible solutions.     

金融系统气候风险的评估、定价与政策应对:基于文献的评述

减缓和适应气候变化是人类社会21世纪面临的最重要议题。气候变化不仅对人身和社会财富安全构成威胁,而且影响金融系统的稳定性。气候变化通过物理风险和转型风险渠道影响金融部门,前者主要表现为直接物理损失,后者则与高碳行业的资产搁浅有关。通过金融市场的传染,转型风险有可能引发新一轮的金融系统性风险。气候金融风险具有高度不确定性以及厚尾分布的特点,对现有建模和评估方法提出挑战。央行以及金融监管机构作为维护价格和金融稳定的执行机构,应考虑将气候金融风险纳入监管之中,推动各方金融参与者披露相关气候风险,完善数据平台建设,并应进一步采取适当的货币政策和宏观审慎政策,激励资金向低碳部门流动。     

Changes in Development Finance in Asia: Trends,Challenges, and Policy Implications

There have been shifts in the composition and nature of development finance in Asia, such as the mainstreaming of private sources of finance and the emergence of domestic resources potentially available for development purposes. In parallel, new trends and challenges are identified in such areas as the transformation of development aid, public–private partnerships, and green finance. A common challenge is how to strengthen financial intermediaries for longer term sustainable financing from domestic and external sources for investment serving development purposes. To address this, policymakers should bear in mind policy coherence and consistency from macro, sector, and micro perspectives. For various financial resources to bring about tangible benefits, policymakers should take account of complementarities and synergies among the full range of available financial resources. The effective utilization of private sources of finance depends on commercial viability. The key to success is incentive design and risk mitigation measures.     

Trust in triads: effects of exit, control, and learning

This paper provides theoretical background for some effects of social networks on trust. We study the implications of a model with rational actors in two settings with three actors. In the first setting, there are two trustees who are involved in transactions with one truster implying that the truster has an exit option. In the second setting, two trusters play with one trustee, which gives the trusters options for voice, i.e., complaining and informing each other about the trustee's behavior. We compare these models with a baseline model in which there is only one truster and one trustee. It turns out that the opportunities for placing and honoring trust do not change for the exit model compared to the baseline model. The opportunities for trust in the voice model differ from the baseline model only if both trusters inform each other at a rate that is high enough. Only if the possibilities for receiving information and transmitting information are large enough for both trusters, trust will increase due to the information exchange possibilities in the voice model.     

Stationary equilibria in stochastic games: structure, selection, and computation

This paper introduces an algorithm to compute stationary equilibria in stochastic games that is guaranteed to converge for almost all such games. Since in general the number of stationary equilibria is overwhelming, we pay attention to the issue of equilibrium selection. We do this by extending the linear tracing procedure to the class of stochastic games, called the stochastic tracing procedure. As a by-product of our results, we extend a recent result on the generic finiteness of stationary equilibria in stochastic games to oddness of equilibria.     

政体周期：前苏联地区各国的民主、专制与颜色革命

对前苏联地区各国的政体变更的研究,常常陷于追逐该地区发生的各种政治事件中。这些研究经常假定政体变更,如果不是简单的不稳定,则意味要么是朝向民主体制要么是朝向专制制度变化。本文提出政体“周期”的理论（类似于经济周期）,认为政体变更可能是循环性的,而不是简单的用进步、倒退或毫无规则等概念来定义。事实上,前苏联地区各国中,政体周期的现象非常常见。一些国家已经从专制制度向更加民主的制度转变,然后又回到更加专制的制度。随着最近发生的“颜色革命”,这些国家又向更加民主的方向转变。本文提出一个政治精英集体行动的制度主义逻辑,集中关注“大佬总统制”在其中的作用,十分有助于我们理解这种政体周期的规律。这一概念也有助于解释为什么2003年到2005年之间,乌克兰、格鲁吉亚、吉尔吉斯斯坦等国发生了“颜色革命”,而俄罗斯、阿塞拜疆和乌兹别克斯坦等国则未发生。     

Castle,Jennifer, Clements,Mike and Hendry,David: Forecasting: an essential introduction

Journal of Economics -