Externalities, Indivisibility, Nonreplicability, and Agglomeration

In this paper we argue that the impact of external scale economies and diseconomies on city size is not nearly as clear-cut as it is tacitly believed in urban economics. Similarly, city-size distortions are not caused by externalities alone. Indivisibility and nonreplicability, which prevent establishing the “right” number of cities, may represent a source for city-size distortions which can be stronger than the standard resource misallocation resulting from external scale economies and diseconomies. It follows that a direct population dispersion policy is not just an inferior substitute to Pigouvian taxes and subsidies but rather a useful complement.     

Workfare,welfare, agency,and well-being

Workfare programs are state-instituted programs that require able-bodied persons with children of school age who wish to claim welfare payments to participate in job training programs, and, eventually, to enter the work force. The philosophy of workfare is based on the value of work and the goal of self-determination. However, as a mandatory program for welfare recipients, workfare requires of those recipients certain duties which, according to those who challenge workfare, interfere with the freedom to choose what one will do with one's life. Whether some form of workfare will be adopted as part of our national welfare system remains to be seen. What the debate about such a program suggests is that welfare, in itself, by ignoring the necessity of security and education for full human agency, neither satisfies basic needs nor prepares its recipients for any life other than that of dependency. With all its difficulties workfare nevertheless presents an alternative to welfare that, at least in theory, more closely identifies its purpose with the values of our society.     

诚信 奋斗 创新——贺上海立信会计学院成立暨学报更名

<正> 银杏飘香,金秋送爽。立信的发展进入了崭新阶段:上海立信会计学院成立暨学报更名为《上海立信会计学院学报》,这是立信教育发展史上的一个里程碑。我们谨代表学院党委和行政向全院教职员工表示热烈的祝贺!     

McJob, McCheque, McWonderful

'McJob' is sometimes used in a pejorative sense. But an examination of the job-creating ability of McDonald's, its policies towards its employees (including an emphasis on education and training) and its provision of the first rung on the employment ladder for many people suggests that this form of job should be regarded much more positively     

企业·产品·人

企业是人,产品也是人,把企业和产品当做人来看,办企业就简单了。人有成长过程,企业也有,产品也有。怎样定位一个企业是好企业产品是好产品,跟怎么定位一个人是好人是一样的。要有思想,有文化,有道德,符合社会进步的需求,企业产品也都是如此。     

Mean, median, mode

Summary This note is an attempt to avoid doing the same search for the third time. It happened twice in my life that I wished to prove that the median is located between mean and mode for certain B -distributions: first in 1953, next in 1976. For arbitrary distributions the result is sometimes referred to as F echner's theorem. Of course it does not hold in general. In order to prove the result for particular distributions one can often use an elegant theorem of T imerding . There is a nice relationship with the standardized third central moment.     

Returns to specialization,competition, population,and growth

Using an expanding-variety endogenous growth model with purposive human capital accumulation, this paper provides an alternative explanation of why we may observe an ambiguous correlation between product market competition (PMC) and economic growth, and between population and economic growth rates. Our explanation is based on the notion of ‘returns to specialization’. Under the model's assumptions, PMC and economic growth are ambiguously correlated when returns to specialization are decreasing, whereas population growth and productivity growth are ambiguously correlated when returns to specialization are increasing. From a theoretical point of view, these results are explained by the presence or absence of an ‘increasing production-complexity’ effect associated to the use of a larger number of intermediate-input varieties in the same production process.     

Entrepreneurial orientation,intermediation services,microfinance, and microenterprises

This study was conducted to examine the influence of intermediation services on microfinance‐supported microenterprises. Information was collected by using a structured pretested questionnaire from a random section of 366 respondents (from 366 enterprises) from 2 Indian states. Econometric models were used to test the hypotheses, and reliability and validity testing and data analysis were also performed. It was noticed that proactiveness and risk‐taking ability of microenterprises were enhanced when intermediaries emphasize more on the business development services, financial intermediation services, and social intermediation services. Intermediation services of intermediaries impacted on entrepreneurial orientation of microenterprises where networking of microentrepreneurs positively moderated the relationship.