Corporate social responsibility committees and the use of corporate social responsibility assurance services

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees associate with the external assurance of CSR reports. Specifically, we consider the presence and effectiveness of CSR committees. Using a sample of Australian firms over the period 2004–2016, we show the mere presence of a CSR committee is not related to the external assurance of CSR. However, CSR committee effectiveness is positively related. In addition, firms with higher CSR committee effectiveness are more likely to seek external assurance provided by the Big4 accountancy firms and acquire financial audit and CSR assurance services from the same provider. Taken together, CSR committee effectiveness plays an active role in CSR assurance services. Our results are particularly relevant to those with interests in understanding the demand and choice of external CSR assurance services, as well as the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on these services.     

Mongolian nomadic culture and ecological culture: On the ecological reconstruction in the agro-pastoral mosaic zone in Northern China

After analyzing the grassland environmental characteristics and nomads vs. agrarian land use styles and their ecological and environmental influences in the arid and semiarid agro-pastoral mosaic zone in northern China, it was concluded that Mongolian nomadic culture is more close to the basic principles of the ecological culture in the modern sense. Mongolian nomadic culture has advantages over agrarian culture in ecology and environmental care, sustainable utilization of grasslands, and in sustainable human social economic development in the region. Generally speaking nomadic culture prevents desertification; whereas, agrarian culture facilitates desertification. Confliction between nomadic protection and agrarian destruction of grassland ecosystem is essentially focused on the problem of regional and even global ecological safety. Obviously, protection of ecological safety should be given priority because human social and economic existence, as well as development depend on and are decided by the vulnerable ecological safety in the arid and semiarid areas. Therefore expansion of cropping into the fragile ecosystem of arid lands was unfortunate. The long term sustainable management of these grassland ecosystems could benefit from reversal of policies that are exacerbating the problems of land degradation, and from the adoption of land use practices that have been successfully applied for centuries by Mongolian herders. Protection of grasslands and nomadic culture is far more important or even vital to the subsistence and sustainability of human and all other beings, compared to the protection of agrarian lifestyle and land cultivation. Protection of ecologic safety is protecting the premise and fundamental bases of economic and social development in the area. It is important to derive the rational elements of nomadic culture in construction of ecological culture, and in the ecological reconstruction in northern China. Based on analyzing and reasoning in line with the quintessence of nomadic culture summarized, some proposals on ecological reconstruction in the area are presented.     

Evaluating Projects and Assessing Sustainable Development in Imperfect Economies

We are interested in three related questions:(1) How should accounting prices be estimated?(2) How should we evaluate policy change in animperfect economy? (3) How can we check whetherintergenerational well-being will be sustainedalong a projected economic programme? We do notpresume that the economy is convex, nor do weassume that the government optimizes on behalfof its citizens. We show that the same set ofaccounting prices should be used both forpolicy evaluation and for assessing whether ornot intergenerational welfare along a giveneconomic path will be sustained. We also showthat a comprehensive measure of wealth,computed in terms of the accounting prices, canbe used as an index for problems (2) and (3)above. The remainder of the paper is concernedwith rules for estimating the accounting pricesof several specific environmental naturalresources, transacted in a few well knowneconomic institutions.     

解决好农民工问题的经济学思考

由于长期受二元经济结构的束缚,农民工这一社会群体一直处在产业的边缘、城乡的边缘、体制的边缘。因此,要解决好农民工问题,就必须打破二元经济结构,在深化户籍制度改革、建立城乡统一劳动力市场、建立健全农民工社会保障体系等方面加大力度。     

农村流动人口研究的社会网络视角

对社会网络理论的发展和应用进行了回顾,重点评述国内外关于流动人口的社会网络研究。国外利用社会网络视角系统研究流动人口的成果相对较少,而国内的流动人口研究主要集中于农村流动人口的网络结构分析和求职网络研究。多数研究只是对个体网络的基本特性作描述性分析,将社会网络作为研究对象而不是研究方法。对未来利用社会网络分析方法进行农村流动人口的研究提出了展望。     

集群治理:社会资本价值量提升的手段

社会资本是产业集群中一种重要的经济资源。在现有的社会资本价值模型基础上,从集群治理的角度对社会资本价值量的提升进行了研究,得出集群治理是社会资本价值量得以提升的重要手段的结论。     

整合与超越:新全球化时代经济学范式探微

世界正发生着从"旧全球化时代"向"新全球化时代"的重大转变.伴随这一时代转折,建立在传统工业文明基础上的经济学正面临着研究范式的挑战,因为它已经不能适应以高科技为先导,以科技成果的商品化、产业化、国际化为特征的新时代所遇到的各种复杂问题.其研究范式急需进行整合与超越,交往实践观为其提供了新的视域和新的理论范式.     

关于我国财政政策导向调整的研究

近年来我国实施的积极财政政策确实在很大程度上促进了经济和社会的发展。但是随着经济市场化程度的不断提高和经济环境的变化，这种积极财政政策也表现出诸多的不适应性。因此应适时调整财政政策导向以适应经济和社会发展的新要求。拟从我国近年来实施的积极财政政策的成效分析出发，阐述了当前调整财政政策导向的必然性，并提出了今后我国财政政策的调整方向。     

进城农民工社会保障的影响因素研究

缺乏明确的法律规定、不同制度模式之间难以互通互联及其自身的缺陷,是制约进城农民工参加社会保障的重要制度性因素;性别、城市工作年限、是否签订劳动合同、工资收入、所在城市等则是影响进城农民工参加社会保障的非制度性因素。从制度创新和强化执法等方面提出了政策建议。     

社会保障的新理念与中国农民扶持性社会保障体制

中国的市场化改革使广大的中国农民直接暴露在现代市场经济风险下,而家庭联产承包制的实施又使改革开放前与计划经济体制相适应的保障体制无法运转,这样,中国广大农民成为了现代市场经济中最没有保障的弱势群体。因此,建立农民社会保障体系的意义重大。中国农民社会保障体制迟迟没有建立的原因有二:其一,传统社会保障理念仅考虑到其工具价值,忽视了其目的价值;其二,农民的组织化程度低,导致他们在社会利益分割过程中没有谈判地位。从建立农民社会保障体制的双重价值出发,建立保障农民生存权和基本发展权的农民扶持性社会保障体制具有重要意义。