Solving the U.S. Trade Deficit and Competitiveness Problem

We compare the analytical approach of John R. Common and Ronald H. Coase to institutional analysis and social provisioning. In particular, we examine their similarities in (i) the definition and role of institutions in the economy, (ii) the allocative (social provisioning) role of institutions in the economy, and (iii) the inescapable and unchanging role of institutions in shaping the social provisioning process. We contend that Commons and Coase had more in common than did Coase and many of his followers in the “new institutional economics.” In particular, the two had strong similarities in both (a) their insights into the nature of institutions in the legal-economic nexus that is the foundation of the economy and (b) their methods for conducting economics research. Because this role of institutional evolution is, as Warren Samuels noted, an inescapable and unchanging part of an economy’s social provisioning process, it will remain an integral part of any such work in the future, regardless of the “school of analysis” or methodological approach.     

加强高等职业院校校园文化建设增进大学生心理健康

良好的大学校园文化对大学生的世界观、人生观和价值观的形成、人格的塑造、理想信念与目标追求的导向及意志品质的磨练等都有着重要影响.高职院校校园文化建设存在着一系列亟待解决的问题,需要从多方面加强校园文化建设,进而促进大学生的心理健康.     

The New Comparative Political Economy

With the collapse of communism in the late 1980s the field of comparative political economy has undergone major revision. Socialism is no longer considered the viable alternative to capitalism it once was. We now recognize that the choice is between alternative institutional arrangements of capitalism. Progress in the field of comparative political economy is achieved by examining how different legal, political and social institutions shape economic behavior and impact economic performance. In this paper we survey the new learning in comparative political economy and suggest how this learning should redirect our attention in economic development.JEL classification: B53, O10, O20, P0     

The impact of cross-border acquisitions on target banks’ performance in an institutionally poor environment: Ukraine’s takeover wave

We investigate the impact of the 2005–2007 cross-border bank takeovers in Ukraine – a country with poor institutional quality – on the performance of the target banks. Because acquirers targeted mainly larger, less-capitalised banks, we control for selection bias by combining propensity score matching and a difference-in-difference methodology. We find that the cost efficiency of the acquired banks improved after takeover (because of a decreased reliance on deposits), but that neither their profitability nor their loan market shares increased. Overall, our findings tally only piecemeal with the existing multi-country studies for transition economies. This argues in favour of additional single-country research.     

Information and the persistence of private-order contract enforcement institutions: An experimental analysis

We study an experimental market in which some sellers are prone to moral hazard, and in which a private-order contract enforcement institution exists that can mediate trade and prevent sellers from reneging on their contractual obligations. Using the institution to resolve the moral-hazard problem is costly. We demonstrate that in this market, the utilization of the private-order contract enforcement institution may make public and private market signals uninformative and inhibit learning. We study whether this potential information externality can limit adaptation away from the private-order institution when it is efficient to do so. Consistent with theory, we find inefficient persistence when the institution is used, but by contrast, efficient adaptation in other situations. Providing information to individuals who are using the private-order institution allows them to partially adapt.     

Foreign direct investment: the role of institutional and cultural determinants

Using panel data for 29 source and 65 host countries in the period 1995–2009, we examine the determinants of bilateral FDI stocks, focusing on institutional and cultural factors. The results reveal that institutional and cultural distance is important and that FDI has a predominantly regional aspect. FDI to developing countries is positively affected by better institutions in the host country, while foreign investors prefer to invest in developed countries that are more corrupt and politically unstable compared to home. The results indicate that foreign investors prefer to invest in countries with less diverse societies than their own.     

The Endless Day: The Political Economy of Women and Work

Few critics will question that the high tide of the influence of American institutional economics was reached during the New Deal. John R. Commons, Thorstein Veblen and their disciples reached the apex of their impact on public policy as sources of doctrine, policy-making and advising. Commons remains an influential figure in the history of institutional economics and progressive social thought. And he resides in the American tradition of empirical collectivism as articulated by Currin V. Shields in 1952. The tradition as understood by Commons finds the ultimate locus of power in democratic majorities, not in hegemonic classes or corporate networks, and it is only by its refinement and replenishment that it can meet the demands thrust upon it. His mature theoretical work, published between 1924 and 1950, is the main source of his empirical collectivism as shown through textual exegesis and biographical extrapolation.     

The commons,common property,and environmental policy

The conceptual confusion among property, common property, open access resources, and the tragedy of the commons is identified and rectified. Property rights are defined and clarified. From that it is possible to understand the traditional confusion between open access resources and common property resources. It is urged that common property regimes be used in place of common property resources. This will emphasize that institutional arrangements are human creations and that natural resources can be managed as private property, as common property, or as state property. It is the property regime — an authority system — that indicates the rules of use of a variety of natural resources.     

统一战线为和谐校园建设服务的思考

和谐校园文化是大学发展的灵魂,它对于构建和谐社会、大学的改革和发展以及培养高素质人才具有重要意义。统战工作的本质和工作主题就是大团结大联合,和谐是统战的基本之道。统战工作与和谐校园的内在一致性体现在＂以人为本＂、＂统筹兼顾＂、＂科学发展＂思想上。在校园文化建设中,高校统一战线怎样在协调关系、理顺情绪、化解矛盾、维护团结等方面发挥独特功能与优势,将直接关系到和谐校园的最终实现。     

康芒斯的法经济学思想及其贡献

作为现代西方法经济学的伟大先驱,康芒斯非常重视法律制度在经济发展中的作用。他批评传统经济学把法律制度排除在研究之外的做法。在其著作中,康芒斯通过“交易”这一基本单位把法律、经济学和伦理学联结在一起。康芒斯的法经济学思想主要体现在他的集体行动理论、利益和谐理论和“法制决定论”之中。他对“财产”与“财产权利”的区分及对“交易”概念的一般化都深深影响到法经济学的奠基者——罗纳德·哈里·科斯。而康芒斯将法律制度看成是协调冲突的规则体系的观点,也对现代法经济学中的制度学派产生了深刻的影响。     

煤炭城市创新文化发展的路径选择

创新文化是能够激发和促进组织内创新思想、创新行为和创新活动产生的组织文化,是基于知识进行创新的本质。煤炭城市实现可持续发展的核心就是进行创新,而创新的持久动力则来源于创新文化的培养和建设。受煤炭城市形成原因及传统发展模式的影响,其创新文化发展还处于初级阶段。煤炭城市创新文化建设可从价值观念、制度行为和环境条件3个维度,分别在个人创新文化、组织创新文化和社会创新文化3个层次上构造创新文化体系。     

Evolution of the Corporation in the United States: Stabilized Scarcity and Vested Interests

The widening of markets beginning in the late nineteenth century in the United States involved changes in the financial and legal institutions supporting production for large-scale markets. The evolution of the corporation under these circumstances reflects the role of the legal system in formulation of formal rules which favor vested interests. As Thorstein Veblen said, “A constitutional government is a business government.”

This article examines the co-evolution of the legal system and the economic system as they relate to the merger movement at the turn of the twentieth century, the increased use of the corporate form, and the emphasis on pecuniary values over production to secure stabilized scarcity in the midst of cutthroat competition and deflation. The resultant financialization of the economy which continues today was reinforced by such legal rules as the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of property, including intangible property, and the Rule of Reason accommodating some instances of monopolization. These stabilization policies have secured the rentiers’ return at the cost of the long term health of the national economy. John R. Commons’ observations on artificial selection and the use of law to make capitalism better offer a solution through laws regulating the detrimental aspects of financialization.     

Commons,Collective Action,and Corruption

John R. Commons tried to save capitalism by making it good. His career was characterized by a sustained attempt to reduce social inequality by promoting collective action. Thanks to his proximity to the terrain, Commons often found himself close to authentic examples of corruption. Indeed, in his published works, corruption was treated exclusively from this perspective. His analysis reveals that collective action is not only the cause, but also the consequence of corruption, and that, in addition, the struggle against corruption is dependent on collective action for its success. I argue that Commons’s position is diametrically opposed to the theses developed later by Nathaniel Leff and Samuel Huntington. For Commons, the main issue is not that there is too much control over individual actions, but that there is too little.     

The Commons with Capital Markets

We explore a dynamic commons problem and assess the welfare consequences of access to capital markets. The commons has a high intrinsic rate of return but its fruits cannot be secured by individual agents. Capital market access allows resources to be held securely and intertemporally transferred, but at a lower rate of return. In a two period model, we completely characterise symmetric consumption and extraction behaviour in four environments: under a strategic and a competitive equilibrium concept, and with and without market access. Strategic equilibria dominate competitive ones: while agents disagree over how to divide the resource, all would prefer it to be larger; the strategic concept allows them to anticipate returns to their conservation. As the number of agents becomes infinite, the strategic outcome converges to the competitive; as the number of agents falls to one, it converges to the planner’s. Market access has a positive effect on welfare owing to its consumption and extraction smoothing properties and a negative effect owing to its creation of an outside option to the commons, encouraging its depletion. A sufficient condition for autarky to dominate market access for some levels of communal endowment is that the world market discount factor exceed the subjective discount factor. Multiple equilibria may arise: these result from market access, not the equilibrium concept. The authors thank Ralph Bailey, Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, Matthew Cole, Carl Devore, Felix Kubler, Chirantan Ganguly, Martin Jensen, Indrajit Ray, Celine Rochon, Dave Rusin, participants at the Royal Economic Society 2005 and an anonymous referee for valuable comments. They are grateful for funding under the ESRC’s World Economy and Finance programme (RES-156-25-0022).