Making green discourses matter in policy-making: Learning from discursive power struggles within the policy area of car taxation

This paper is about stability and change in the policy-making discourse of a traditional neoclassical policy area, the area of car taxation. Stability is here related to the unquestioned continuation of a traditional neoclassical economics perspective in policy-making, whereas change is related to the introduction and impact of environmental concerns. The aim of the paper is to investigate, what makes green discourses matter in traditional policy-making. It is based on an in-depth study of policy-making processes related to car taxation in two environmental front-runner countries, Sweden and Denmark.Making green discourses matter in policy-making is an important contemporary environmental challenge. Therefore, as Tian Shi argues, we need more research into the institutional setting of the policy-making process. Ecological economics as a policy science has to have a broad understanding of the political economic nature of the policy process. Taking this standpoint as the point of departure, the paper seeks to uncover questions such as, what is the policy-making reality in which Swedish and Danish green discourses have to make a difference? How do existing neoclassical regimes react, when green actors attempt to influence policy-making from an environmental point of view? And to what extent can green discourses actually have an impact on the policy world within the area of car taxation?The paper concludes that the traditional neoclassical economic discourse is particularly robust and resistant against alternative green discourses. Stability rather than change is the dominating picture. This does not imply that environmental concerns will not be taken into account in the future. Rather it implies that only the changes, which keep up the existing order, or enhance the narrow power-related interests of the dominating actors, will materialise more or less easily. The rest is a power struggle in which timing, coalition-building, persistence and thorough knowledge about the field in question is of importance. In this struggle change agents will also benefit from the ability to rethink dominating ways of thinking and doing in an environmentally benign way. A rethinking that is based on environmental values while at the same time holding positive visions that are ‘compatible’ with the existing dominating discourse.     

城镇居民教育收益率的地区差异及其解释

利用中国社会科学院经济研究所"中国城乡居民收入分配"课题组1995年和2002年的家庭抽样调查数据,本文使用分层线性模型重新估计了1995年、2002年我国居民的教育收益率,得到了不同于OLS估计的结果:(1)我国城镇居民教育收益率的地区差异很大,差异主要来源于省内各城市之间,来源于省间的差别并不显著;(2)计算了省内城市劳动力市场化程度对当地教育收益率的边际影响,发现劳动力市场的发育确实有利于提高教育收益率,而且劳动力市场化程度的差异在一定程度上为各地教育收益率的差异提供了解释。     

外商投资与中国经济发展──产业和区域分析证据

本文将有关外商直接投资影响的分析 ,与中国经济的特定发展模式联系起来 ,从中得出两项分析结果。一是在产业发展层面 ,外商投资确实有助于改进资源配置效率 ,然而这种贡献却是以妨碍生产效率改进为代价的 ;二是在区域发展层面 ,以进口替代加资本深化为特征的“上海模式” ,在促进地区和全国经济发展方面 ,确实优于以出口导向加劳动密集为特征的“广东模式” ,只是前一模式本身存在着严重的可持续性问题     

基于主成分分析法的人类发展指数替代技术

在本文中,我们采用基于协方差的主成分分析法来分析1990年以来UNDP发布的中国人类发展数据,然后采用Spearman秩相关系数来分析获得的主成分与HDI之间的关系。研究表明,主成分分析法不仅能够有效地替代传统的人类发展指数编制方法,其形成的动态权重结构还可以有效地透视人类发展差距模式的历史演进过程,以及人类发展的各个方面(如预期寿命、知识教育和体面的生活等)在整体发展进程中的角色变化。对中国人类发展数据的分析结果也表明,尽管1990年以来中国各地区在经济、教育和健康方面均取得了重大进步,但三项发展之间存在着严重的不协调,地区发展差距也越来越多地体现为经济发展差距,这些反映了改革开放以来中国各级政府过分强调经济增长而带来的片面、不协调的人类发展。实现经济社会的协调发展,是时代的要求,也是当前我国各级政府面临的主要任务。而强调公共服务职能、推动地方政府的服务型转型,是消除不平衡发展的关键。     

一种非市场因素导致的铁矿石价格上涨——基于博弈的分析

通过一个可重复博弈模型,揭示了中国在国际铁矿石贸易中面临由非市场因素造成的价格上涨问题,认为,造成这种现象的根本原因是中国在铁矿石贸易中的市场地位并没有随着进口量的提高而提高,并从资源安全角度提出了应对策略。     

油井采出液处理效果分析及改进措施研究

通过对油站和污水站的化学成分分析，找出了电脱水器跳闸的原因：由于污水中的一些成分导致腐蚀，腐蚀产生的硫化铁和铁颗粒，随着油水混合液在管线中运移，在电脱水器上越积越厚，致使电脱水器上导电率增高，电脱水器跳闸。提出了改善注入水水质，减缓腐蚀的有利措施。     

跨国公司对我国汽车合资企业控制分析

跨国汽车公司以国际直接投资(FDI)方式建立合资企业是我国汽车产业利用外资的主要形式.在实际运行中,股权比例的安排并不等于实际控制权的分配,合资企业对合资双方相关资源依赖性的强弱决定了合资双方的实际控制权.跨国汽车公司借助技术垄断优势,通过双方合资时的约定或日后实际运作中的设计安排,以非股权约束的方式来实现对合资企业的实际控制.     

个人理财市场细分及客户群差异性分析

目前我国商业银行个人理财业务尚处于初级阶段,个人理财市场的细分还很简单,尚没有进行更深入的、多层次的分析。针对这一情况,本文借鉴“家庭生命周期”的分析思路,选取人口统计变量和家庭生命周期变量等综合指标作为客户细分变量,对给定的调查样本实施市场细分。为此,本文利用方差分析探讨了一般客户、重要客户、未来潜力客户和战略客户4组客户理财个性的差异性以及对银行理财服务质量期望的差异性。同时,还分析这组客户对主要理财工具、理财产品的需求特点,并在市场细分的基础上制定出4差异化的、有针对性的营销策略。     

资本结构行业差异及其影响因素的实证分析--来自我国上市公司的经验数据

通过对我国上市公司资本结构行业差异及其影响因素进行的实证分析发现,我国上市公司不同行业门类之间的资本结构具有显著性差异;同一行业的资本结构具有稳定性,资本结构行业间的差异具有稳定性;不同行业资本结构的影响因素是有差异的,同一因素对各行业的影响力度也不一样;从各假设条件的检验结果来看,有些假设在多数行业得到了证实,但也有一些假设被一定的经验数据所证伪或没有得到支持.     

Efficiency in the provision of social care for older people. A three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis using self-reported quality of life

Using a three-stage data envelopment analysis approach, this paper explores efficiency in the provision of social care for older people in 148 English Councils in 2009/10. Departing from D'Amico and Fernández (2012) [31] our measure of efficiency is inscribed within the production of welfare framework and based on self-reported quality of life of recipients of the services. Our results indicate a high level of efficiency, but once we control for the effects of a number of environmental variables, we found that more stringent eligibility criteria and higher assessment costs are negatively associated with the efficiency in the provision of social services.