中原经济区经济发展水平综合评价及时空格局演变

通过构建区域发展水平评价指标体系,引入熵权TOPSIS法对中原经济区2000、2005和2009年各地经济发展水平评价与比较;进而采用马尔可夫链和ESDA法对中原经济区经济发展水平空间格局及演变特征进行探讨。研究表明：中原经济区经济发展水平存在显著的“俱乐部趋同”现象,区域差异不断拉大,两极分化趋势增强;经济发展水平呈现出较为显著的空间自相关,发展水平相似的地区呈集聚分布;从热点区分布看中原经济区区域差异主要表现为东西差异,从热点区演变看中原经济区尚未形成稳定的空间发展格局;给力培育地区经济增长极和主导发展轴、优化空间开发格局,深化区域分工与合作,着力提升对外开放水平是实现中原经济区协调发展的有效途径。     

中原经济区县域交通优势度与区域经济空间耦合

从路网密度、可达性和区位优势度三方面构建交通优势度评价指标体系对中原经济区2008年县域交通优势度进行评价与比较;并在中原经济区县域经济发展水平评价的基础上,对交通优势度与县域经济的耦合及协调度进行测度,并进行耦合—协调类型区划分。中原经济区交通优势度区域差异突出,呈现出以郑州为中心向外围递减的圈层状空间格局;县域经济水平西北部高于东南部,山区资源县高于平原农业县;虽然各县市交通优势度与经济发展水平耦合度均较高,但大多数县市处于中度协调或勉强协调状态;绝大多数县市交通超前发展,仅西北部边缘县市交通对区域发展的支撑能力不足;中原经济区应充分依托现有的交通支撑优势,加快推进县域经济发展,实现经济与交通的协调发展。     

中原经济区物流业发展水平评价研究

区域物流业发展水平是地区发展水平的重要衡量指标,中原经济区自2011年上升为国家战略,已发展成为中国重要的经济增长极,对其物流业发展水平评价具有重要的战略意义.本文运用熵权法对中原经济区物流业发展水平进行测算,利用Arcgis软件,根据自然间断点分级法,将中原经济区物流业发展水平划分为5个层次,最后从数量角度和空间维度进行分析,得出两个结论:一是中原经济区物流业发展水平多数地区处于中等发水平;二是中原经济区物流业发展呈现出"中间极、南北强、中间弱"的空间格局.     

工业化与生态环境耦合协调度及时空差异研究——以山东省为例

文章以山东省17个地级市为研究对象,构建工业化与生态环境系统评价指标体系,运用熵值法和耦合协调度模型测度各地级市工业化与生态环境系统的综合得分及分析二者的耦合协调关系演变,最后采用空间自相关模型分析各地级市间的空间联系。结果表明:(1)研究期内山东省各地级市工业化与生态环境的耦合协调度均呈增强趋势,由过渡型向耦合协调型转变;(2)各地级市工业化与生态环境耦合协调具有显著的地域空间分异,鲁东地区整体高于鲁中和鲁西地区;(3)两系统在空间上存在空间正相关性,烟台等市主要表现为"高—高"集聚,济南主要表现为"低—低"集聚,部分地级市在空间效应上随机分布。最后据此提出促进山东省各地级市两系统协同发展的对策建议。     

中原经济区新型工业化、新型城镇化、农业现代化协调发展评价

针对中原经济区发展的核心问题——新型工业化、新型城镇化、农业现代化(简称为"三化")的协调发展,建立了相应的"三化"协调发展评价指标体系,对中原经济区18个主要城市的"三化"协调发展水平进行了评价。结果表明:18个城市整体的"三化"发展程度较低;省会郑州与其他城市的差距不明显,其核心城市地位不突出。     

中原经济区城市发展效率及其时空分异特征研究

中原经济区是实施区域协调发展国家战略的重要组成部分,基于5省30个地级市的面板数据,构建考虑非期望产出的SBM-DEA超效率模型,测算了中原经济区城市发展效率,探讨了中原经济区城市发展效率的Malmquist-Luenberger指数及其分解特征,研究了总体空间分异状态。结果表明:各个城市发展效率存在明显的异质性,Malmquist-Luenberger指数及其分解值整体不高,发展方式仍未发生根本性转变,资源环境压力过大。中原经济区城市发展效率只在个别年份显现非常弱的集聚分布空间格局,郑州和洛阳等中心城市功能不强,难以通过“涓滴效应”成为带动中原经济区发展的动力源。     

长江经济带城乡协调发展评价及其时空格局

构建城乡协调发展评价指标体系,对2003、2008和2013年长江经济带131地市的城市发展水平和乡村发展水平进行时空定量分析,然后运用耦合协调模型探索城乡协调发展耦合协调度的时空演变规律,最后借助探索性空间数据分析和冷热点分析对城乡协调发展水平差异进行时空分布格局研究。结果显示:城市发展水平和乡村发展水平均呈现上升趋势;城乡协调发展耦合度先下降后上升,协调度先缓慢上升后加速上升。城乡协调发展高值集聚区和热点区域主要分布在下游地区,逐渐向中游地区扩展;低值集聚区和冷点区域主要分布于中上游地区,逐渐向上游地区收缩。     

中原经济区经济空间格局演化分析

以中原经济区30个地级市为基本分析单元,以2000-2010年人均GDP为基础数据,结合传统区域差异统计方法与ESDA空间分析技术,对中原经济区经济空间格局演化进行定量分析.结果表明:中原经济区整体经济趋同趋势不明显,经济发展的二元结构突出且空间惯性很强,形成了以郑州、洛阳等城市为核心的发达地区和京广线以东尤其是豫皖交界区等广大落后地区,核心区的经济极化作用仍占主导,扩散作用微弱.据此提出了缩小地区差异、优化经济空间格局的建议.     

中国广西北部湾经济区的城镇化质量与规模评价——基于熵权法

构建了地区城镇化质量和规模评价指标,并利用熵权法确定指标权重,测度了2011—2015年广西北部湾经济区六个地级市的城镇化规模与质量。结果显示:广西北部湾经济区的城镇化水平总体上呈上升趋势,但地区差异仍然存在;经济区的城镇化质量滞后问题已明显改善,但是经济区内各地级市仍存在城镇化质量与城镇化规模发展不协调的问题。对此,应从适当扩大城镇规模、促进城镇品质提升、构筑区域一体格局入手,显著提升经济区在全国城镇化战略格局中的地位和作用。     

人口城镇化与土地城镇化的耦合协调关系——以中原经济区为例

以中原经济区为研究对象,基于人口结构、发展能力、生活水平、土地利用投入、土地利用产出等构建了人口城镇化与土地城镇化耦合协调的测度指标体系,以耦合协调模型为研究方法,对中原经济区2003—2013年人口与土地间的耦合协调关系进行分析。结果表明:(1)中原经济区人口城镇化与土地城镇化呈不协调趋势。除周口市人口城镇化指数(0.113)与土地城镇化指数(0.094)差距较小外,其余城市均有一定程度的差距,其中郑州市、信阳市、宿州市、泰安市二者的指数值差距较大;(2)人口与土地城镇化之间的发展与耦合度由轻度不协调类土地滞后型向勉强调和协调类土地滞后型阶段转变;(3)人口城镇化与土地城镇化的对比类型始终表现为土地滞后型。     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.     

Globalization,Neoliberalism and the attack on social security

Neoliberal political movements advocate privatization of public pension systems. Globalization imposes pressure on nations to conform to neoliberal policy views with respect to the design and structure of social insurance, including public pension systems. The paper begins with an investigation of the economic, ethical and ideological dimensions of the privatization debates in the U.S.; it argues that privatization advocates may be largely moved by ideology, since the other reasons advanced appear weak or unfounded. The second part discusses the history of Social Security, the purposes for its creation, and some of its economic effects. Differences between public and private pension systems are considered. A brief international comparison of some aspects of public pension system finance and benefit structures is presented. The final section considers the ethical, macroeconomic and distributional implications of privatization, prefunding and payroll tax funding, and argues for a pay as you go system financed with income taxes. In order to promote equity, economic security, community, and social cohesion, public pension systems should be universal in coverage. In order to reduce the inequality, income insecurity, and aged poverty generated by market economies, public pension systems ought to be progressive: benefit/contribution ratios should be inversely proportional to income, and progressive income taxes should finance the system. To promote economic growth, the systems should be financed on a pay-as-you-go basis, and should not be prefunded except for an emergency reserve. The fiscal policy recommendations partially depend upon the theory developed by Abba Lerner in the 1940s, and recently advanced by Wynne Godley and Randy Wray: Lerner's “principle of functional finance.”     

Interest on reserves and inflation

The payment of interest on reserves has been a common practice in inflationary economies. This policy may seem paradoxical since it involves returning part of the seigniorage, generated by the inflation process, with the intention to finance the fiscal deficit. This paper argues that the motivation for this policy can be captured by the discretionary regime, where the policymaker pays interest on reserves because he is concerned with the erosion of real liquidity by inflation, which is in part beyond his control. However, this policy is an unlikely outcome in the commitment regime, where the policymaker is in full control of inflation.     

Bayesian estimation of duration models: An application of the multiperiod probit model

The multiperiod probit model is presented and Bayesian estimation using the Gibbs sampler with data augmentation is described. As an empirical illustration, the multiperiod probit model is then used to estimate a duration model using employment duration data for the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Bayesian estimation with unobserved heterogeneity is shown to be a simple extension of estimation of a duration model with no unobserved heterogeneity. More importantly, perhaps, some numerical problems encountered by other authors using Maximum Likelihood are avoided.I would like to thank M. Baker, G. Koop, A. Melino and D. Poirier for helpful comments and discussions. I would also like to thank M. Baker for providing his data.     

Scenarios and creativity: Thinking in new boxes

To be creative and make change happen, leaders must do more than simply ‘think outside the box’, as the traditional business manuals suggest, using the popular American expression. After all, the space outside the box is infinitely expansive. Moreover, there can be no guarantee that a solution to the problem will be found. The answer: ‘Think in new boxes.’ This requires developing the right new box; in other words, useful new models, a helpful new approach to a problem. That is the real art of practical creativity. This short article outlines the approach (Thinking in New Boxes) and its application to classic scenario planning with a few examples. The authors also present the ‘Expressway to Scenarios’, an approach that wins in impact and practicality what it loses in deep analysis, by having top executives involved in key steps.     

On the Role of Paradigms in Understanding Economic Globalization

Any adequate analysis of economic globalization necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization. This paper is based on the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It argues that any view expressed with respect to economic globalization is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views with respect to the nature and role of economic globalization which correspond to the four broad worldviews. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of economic globalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of economic globalization, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for each paradigm to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms.     

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739?–?40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.     

The concept of freedom and its relation to economic development--a critical appreciation of the work of Amartya Sen

Following a brief review of the conception of freedom as employedin economic discourse, this paper focuses on the evolution ofthe concept of freedom in the work of Amartya Sen. It tracesthe development of Sen's thought from the capability analysisof the late 1970s to his more recent separation of freedom intoits opportunity and process aspects. While broadly appreciativeof Sen's development of the concept of positive freedom, thepaper identifies some difficulties arising from his definitionof capability as a set of options as well as from his separationof the opportunity and process aspects of freedom. Aspects ofthe relationship between Sen's conception of freedom and thatof Marx are discussed briefly in the context of Sen's recentdiscussion of the market as a source of freedom.     

How chaebol restructuring after the 1997 crisis has affected corporate decision and performance in Korea: debt financing,ownership structure,and investment

ABSTRACT

Korean chaebol firms, characterized by excessive debt financing and overinvestment, experienced restructuring after the 1997 crisis. By reducing debt financing and thus overinvestment, they tried to reorganize financing structure and ownership structure. Chaebols’ debt reduction turns out to have improved performance. However, polarization between chaebol and non-chaebol firms has become more significant. Even after the crisis, firms that give higher cash flows to a controlling shareholder take more capital investment, indicating that agency problems still exist within chaebols. Chaebol-affiliated firms continue to be more active in R&D than non-chaebol firms. However, the pattern is limited to the group of top 10 chaebols after the crisis.

Abbreviations: KFTC: Korea Fair Trade Commission     

Types of technology

Technology is a concept rife with confusion. Here, I argue that technologies can be distinguished as a combination of type of producer and an idealized artefact life history. Using this definition, a number of technologies are identified. The first technology historically, in the Protostomes, was the production of individual or family dwellings. Next came objects such as spider webs for trapping prey. Stigmergy followed, with the social insects, as a collective endeavour to construct a mega-structure using simple rules of accretion. Some birds and primates began to make tools, or simple technological objects whose function is closely related to their form. Humans are distinguished by their ability to make machines. Traditional technology took place once people voluntarily organised into groups with specialised knowledge to produce more complex objects and structures. Monumental objects like ceremonial pyramids came with the command economies of the early agrarian societies, which also resulted in a new category of artefact, the network. Finally, with modern civilizations came ad hoc accretion, or population-level adding-on, to make truly complex technological systems. Developing a theoretical framework within which artefacts, production processes and ways of interacting with them are identified should help the study of technology to become more scientific.