德、日与中国循环经济促进法的比较研究

德国、日本与中国相比,在循环经济促进法规制的制度类型、物质种类及法律体系方面均存在差异,这与三国的法律形成机制、相关法环境及法律观念有关。其实,德国、日本与中国的循环经济促进法律制度的安排各有优劣。在未来的法律制度调整中,中国应合理界定循环经济促进法的调整范围,正确处理循环经济促进法与相关法的关系,适当调整中国的立法模式。     

对我国循环经济立法的思考

发展循环经济是实施可持续发展战略的重要途径。发达国家已经建立了比较完善的循环经济法律体系并收到了良好的社会效果，然而我国目前相关立法却还存在诸多不足。我国应借鉴发达国家的成功经验，分阶段、分层次地构建循环经济法律体系并确立合理的基本法律制度。     

资源型城市地方性循环经济立法探究

中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会明确提出生态环境建设与经济、政治、社会、文化建设一起,做到五位一体。粗放式的经济发展模式显然已不符合循环经济的要求,也不利于落实科学发展观。当前在我国《循环经济促进法》的指导下,同时借鉴国外循环经济先进立法经验,资源型城市发展要在地方性循环经济立法基础上,全面协调,做到可持续发展,完善环境税收法律,加强环境监管行政执法力度,构建地方性循环经济法律体系。     

质疑“3R”、“4R”与循环经济促进法的关系

中国学界普遍把"3R"、"4R"与循环经济促进法对应起来,这导致中国循环经济促进法的许多制度安排与"循环"不相干,甚至超越了德国、日本把循环经济法限定于"废弃物"领域的做法。这不仅弱化了"循环"的制度功能,也不利于法律的协调与稳定。因此,应准确把握"3R"、"4R"与循环经济促进法及其相关法律的关系,以合理定位循环经济促进法。     

关于建立和完善我国循环经济法律的思考

循环经济是符合可持续发展要求的先进发展模式；循环经济法律是循环经济发展的保障；当前我国循环经济立法的必要性与指导原则；我国应借鉴日本、欧美等国的先进立法经验，建立和完善具有中国特色的循环经济法律体系。     

发达国家发展循环经济的政策及启示

本文揭示了循环经济的内涵和特征,通过对日本、德国等发达国家发展循环经济的政策体系和手段的总结,分析并指出了我国发展循环经济的不足之处。我国要发展循环经济,必须借鉴发达国家的成功经验,从法律体系、经济政策、价格机制等方面完善制度建设,这是我国成功实施循环经济的关键性条件。     

论我国循环经济立法的构建模式

一、循环经济立法的国际国内实践 1．西方发达国家循环经济立法的经验。目前世界上循环经济立法最为完善的国家当数日本。日本促进循环经济发展的法律法规体系分为三个层次：第一层次是一部基本法，即《促进建立循环社会基本法》，以基本法形式出现，为世界循环经济立法之首创。第二层次是两部综合法律，即《废弃物处理及清洁法》和《资源有效利用促进法》。第三层是循环经济专项法，即《容器包装物的分类收集与循环法》、《建筑材料循环法》、《可循环性食品资源循环法》、《绿色采购法》、《化学物质排出管理促进法》和《特种家用机器循环法》等。     

鄱阳湖生态经济区法制保障的问题及对策

发展循环经济是建设生态经济区的必由之路。发展循环经济需要法制的保障和推动。生态经济区的立法类型只能是促进法。法律、行政法规和规章难以满足鄱阳湖生态经济区促进循环经济发展的需要。地方立法机关可以根据鄱阳湖生态经济区发展循环经济的需要,制定地方性法规,以推动鄱阳湖生态经济区发展循环经济,保护生态环境。     

我国循环经济立法研究

"循环经济"其思想源于美国,行动始于德国而兴于日本.循环经济的发展必须是一个有序化、制度化过程,这一过程正是通过一系列具体的法律制度来实现的.<循环经济促进法>的颁行是我国循环经济发展过程中具有里程碑意义的事件,但只靠一部法律的出台就能实现循环经济的发展是不太现实的;与较早开始探索循环经济立法的发达国家相比,我国循环经济立法还有待完善.     

关于建立和完善我国循环经济法律的思考

循环经济是符合可持续发展要求的先进发展模式;循环经济法律是循环经济发展的保障;当前我国循环经济立法的必要性与指导原则;我国应借鉴日本、欧美等国的先进立法经验,建立和完善具有中国特色的循环经济法律体系.     

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.     

Neurally reconstructing expected utility

While the concept of “expected utility” informs many theories of decision making, little is known about whether and how the human brain might compute this quantity. This article reviews a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) experiments designed to localize brain regions that respond in anticipation of increasing amounts of monetary incentives. These studies collectively suggest that anticipation of increasing monetary gains activates a subcortical region of the ventral striatum in a magnitude-proportional manner. This ventral striatal activation is not evident during anticipation of losses. Actual gain outcomes instead activate a region of the mesial prefrontal cortex. During anticipation of gain, ventral striatal activation is accompanied by feelings characterized by increasing arousal and positive valence. These findings affirm the role of emotion in the anticipation of incentives, and may provide an initial step towards a neural reconstruction of expected utility.     

Duplication, Growth and ‘Total Return Economics’

Maintenance consumption is an expense recovered in product prices, yet also a source of taste satisfaction which must be exhausted, rather than reinvested, from the capital affording it. This riddle is solved in the duplication rules: the cost of maintenance consumption is recovered in pay and prices, but an equal flow is exhausted from the human capital of the worker earning the pay. The rules impact tradition in several ways. If output is defined in principle as value added, then it cannot also be described as consumption plus net investment without double-counting the maintenance consumption recovered in prices. Also rate of return in the stationary state is not zero, but is the rate sufficient to offset the exhaustion of individual human capital. The rules lead to new insights into economic return, and support an argument that all growth at the scale of closure is due to productivity gain rather than to thrift.     

John Stuart Mill's Theories of Wealth and Income Distribution

Although he was much influenced by David Ricardo when he wrote the classical part of his Principles , John Stuart Mill was not a Ricardian when he penned his theories of wealth and distribution. They are based on a triple foundation. First, a belief that economics is a moral discipline. Second a theory of custom-driven human behavior. Third, an empirically formed conviction that the institutions of state, education and business cooperate to structure the distribution of income. On the basis of these presuppositions, Mill formulated 1) an institutional theory of the formation of human and non-human wealth and 2) an even more institutional theory of distribution demonstrating how the aforementioned institutions malignantly skew the distribution of income to the advantage of the propertied classes and to the extreme disadvantage of the working class. As a social economist, Mill recommended institutional reforms designed to eradicate the poverty of the working class.     

Forecasting the price of gold

This article seeks to evaluate the appropriateness of a variety of existing forecasting techniques (17 methods) at providing accurate and statistically significant forecasts for gold price. We report the results from the nine most competitive techniques. Special consideration is given to the ability of these techniques to provide forecasts which outperforms the random walk (RW) as we noticed that certain multivariate models (which included prices of silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium, besides gold) were also unable to outperform the RW in this case. Interestingly, the results show that none of the forecasting techniques are able to outperform the RW at horizons of 1 and 9 steps ahead, and on average, the exponential smoothing model is seen providing the best forecasts in terms of the lowest root mean squared error over the 24-month forecasting horizons. Moreover, we find that the univariate models used in this article are able to outperform the Bayesian autoregression and Bayesian vector autoregressive models, with exponential smoothing reporting statistically significant results in comparison with the former models, and classical autoregressive and the vector autoregressive models in most cases.     

Simulating the Effect of Regulatory Systems in a Fishery, An Application to the French Driftnet Albacore Fleet

With a thin economic component, most bio-economic models of fisheries failto assess the effects of the regulation systems on firms. In order to analysethe short term consequences of different management schemes, a simulationmodel is applied to the French driftnet albacore fleet: licence allocation withdriftnet regulation, individual quotas, and individual transferable quotaswithout any input control. Vessel technology is estimated by using the datacollected, and groups of vessels are distinguished according to criteria ofperformance. We present the adjustment within firms and between groupsunder different scenarios (limited entry with and without driftnetregulation, individual quotas and individual transferable quotas allocation),and we compare their results in terms of quasi-rent value and otherindicators such as hake harvests or dolphin by-catches.     

Knowledge as a Path-Dependence Process

By following a new approach proposed by Cognitive and Neuroeconomics, this paper presents and extends that part of Hayek's theory concerning knowledge in path-dependent terms, and shows that this is a fertile theory, opening new lines of inquiry for contemporary economics. In his theory of knowledge Hayek shows that the dynamics of economic change is path-dependent, in a different and more profound way than in the rest of the path-dependent literature. This literature deals with an important controversy, which will be also discussed and its specific and original meaning will be highlighted. As it will emerge, knowledge as a path-dependent process is consistent with cognitive theories of perception and learning and it plays a more important role than is traditionally assumed. Path-dependence is in fact always present in the cognitive dimension of perception and in individual decision-making processes, as well as in the processes of organizational innovation, and even in the macro-dimension of institutional change. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.