集群式供应链视角下的技术创新网络构建

构建集群式创新网络是实现以企业为主体的技术创新的重要方式,而基于供应链来构建创新网络可以形成有效的集群内技术创新体系.文章在探讨了集群式供应链的含义的基础上,概括了基于供应链的创新网络的内涵及其运行模式,分析了构建基于供应链的技术创新网络的六大优势,最后提出了构建基于供应链的技术创新网络的若干措施.     

供应链视角下集群式创新网络的构建

技术创新网络的构建是产业集群实现升级的重要基础,而利用供应链的思想来构建创新网络是形成集群内技术创新体系的有效途径。在探讨了供应链和集群式供应链含义的基础上,概述了供应链环境下创新网络的内涵及其运行模式,分析了在供应链环境下构建技术创新网络的优势,提出了基于供应链的创新网络的构建对策。     

集群式供应链:产业集群和供应链的耦合

集群式供应链是在产业集群和供应链相互耦合的基础上提出的一种新型的供应链。该文从集群式供应链产生的背景和意义出发,分析了产业集群理论、供应链理论发展与集群式供应链之间的关系,并在此基础上阐明了产业集群和供应链耦合为集群式供应链的概念,为集群式供应链管理提供了理论依据。     

生态工业园共生网络及其治理研究

生态工业园共生网络是健全的构造和良好的运作机理成为影响生态工业园稳定性的关键环节。文章确立了关于生态工业园共生网络及其治理的概念模型,在遵循标本兼治的共生网络治理目标下,着重对生态工业园企业的共生本质和共生网络运作机制进行了数学分析,对国内当前共生网络运作中普遍存在的问题进行了分析,且以此为切入点创新了生态工业园共生网络治理路径和完善了共生网络治理的对策建议。     

生态工业园共生网络的关联度分析

从生态工业园共生网络的生态内涵出发,借鉴生物群落关联度这一生态学概念,提出园区企业间生态关联度、总关联度生态率两个指标,并将其用于国内外生态工业园共生网络实例的比较分析,最后根据分析结果对我国生态工业园共生网络建设提出了建议。     

生态工业园竞争力研究综述

从本质上讲生态工业园是一个基于循环经济范式下建立的特殊的共生产业集群网络。生态工业园竞争力就是指其在实现环境影响最小化的前提下拥有比其他竞争对手更高的综合素质,进而在市场上获得竞争优势。研究生态工业园竞争力的目的就是要在循环经济范式这一约束条件下寻求生态工业园持久竞争优势的实现途径和方法。     

产业集中、集群式供应链组织衍续和技术创新——以"武汉·中国光谷"光电子产业为例

集群式供应链组织衍续(即产业集群在同一地域形成完整或近乎完整的供应链)不仅是产业集群升级的主要途径,也是产业集群及其企业技术创新的潜在机理。文章根据产业集群所表现出来的供应链组织衍续特点,来分析产业集中度(MAR外部性)、集群式供应链组织衍续(Jacobs外部性)与集群技术创新之间的内在联系,在此基础上提出相关的假设,并以“武汉.中国光谷”光电子产业为例,来实证产业集中度、集群式供应链组织续衍对产业集群及其企业创新行为的影响。     

基于集群式供应链的关中-天水经济区特色农业产业优化研究

产业集群和供应链耦合所形成的集群式供应链是解决目前困扰特色农业产业附加值提升问题的有效模式。分析了关中-天水经济区特色农业产业集群发展现状及存在的问题,阐明了集群式供应链对关中-天水经济区特色农业产业发展的意义,探讨了关中-天水经济区特色农业产业发展的策略性问题。     

集群式供应链的竞争力及培育分析

集群式供应链是产业集群和供应链之间的藕合组织形式。本文对集群式供应链这种新型的组织形式和集群式供应链的概念进行了阐述,并对其竞争力及其培育进行分析,为集群式供应链这种新型组织方式的构建研究奠定了基础。     

集群式产业链升级路径比较研究

作为国内外主流的集群升级模式,全球价值链分析范式存在一定的局限性,面对垄断企业把持的全球性价值链,作为经集群与产业链的两种中间组织有机耦合而成的复合组织,集群式产业链具有＂内外兼顾＂＂攻守兼备＂的组织优势。集群式产业链是研究产业集群升级的一个很好的研究视角。根据要素来源,可以将集群式产业链分为内生型与外生型集群式产业链。不同类型的集群式产业链,其演进与升级的路径是有差异的。文章综合运用产业经济学、经济地理学、产业链理论、产业集群等多学科理论交叉研究方法,以集群式产业链为研究对象,从产品链、知识链、价值链、产业势力与治理模式等方面在对内生型与外生型集群式产业链特征进行对比分析,在此基础上对两种集群产业链高级化及其升级路径进行研究。其研究结论有助于增强群链政策的针对性和有效性,促进集群式产业链的健康发展。     

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.