再思社会科学方法论的形式主义与实质主义之争——以经济学的新进展为例

笔者从社会科学方法论中的形式主义与实质主义之争这一古老论题出发,阐明了经济学中的形式主义思想在最近半个世纪的发展是建立细节完全刻画的"全模型",并指出其背后的理念不在于建立普遍规律,而在于形成可以用以启发人们理解经验世界的辅助性认知手段。在澄清全模型方法认识论价值的同时,本文也指出其应用重点不在于形成理想化与意识形态化的叙事,而在于针对局域的经验事实,建立具有确定经验限定意涵的模型化推论,以阐明经验事实背后不易被单纯质性研究阐发的机制。当代经济学方法论显示的这一发展,可以被称为"形式主义经济学的实质主义化",对这一趋势的把握有助于揭示主流经济学独特的认识论价值。     

Growth Effects of Fiscal Decentralization: Empirical Evidence from China's Provinces

In this paper, we revisit the fiscal decentralization-economic growth nexus in the case of China's provinces using autoregressive distributed lag bounds tests and pooled mean group estimators with time series data from the period 1979-2009. Using principal component analysis, we build a novel composite fiscal decentralization indicator consisting of five different fiscal decentralization measures and use it in the models in addition to conventional fiscal decentralization variables. The results suggest that there is a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth in most provinces in China in both the short run and the long run.     

Doorsteps Toward Political and Economic Openness: Testing the North-Wallis-Weingast Transition Framework

In this paper, we test the theoretical framework developed by North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009), who posit that limited-access societies need to meet three doorstep conditions before they can transit into open-access societies: (1) establishment of rule of law among elites, (2) adoption of perpetually existing organizations, and (3) political control of the military. We identify indicators reflecting these doorsteps and econometrically test their relationships with specific political and economic variables. We broadly confirm the logic behind the doorsteps as necessary conditions in the transition to open-access societies. The doorsteps influence economic and political processes, as well as each other, with varying intensities.     

Broadband penetration,financial development,and economic growth nexus: evidence from the Arab League countries

This paper examines the mutual relationship between broadband penetration, financial development, and economic growth in the 22 Arab League countries for the period between 2001 and 2013. Financial development (represented by broad money supply, claims on the private sector, domestic credit to the private sector, domestic credit provided by the banking sector, market capitalization, turnover ratio, and traded stocks) is assessed both individually, and by a composite index. Our results reveal that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between broadband penetration, financial development, and economic growth. Additionally, we use a panel vector autoregression model to reveal the nature of Granger causality between the covariates. The most important insight of this study is the presence of bidirectional causality from economic growth to broadband penetration in the long run. In addition, we find that financial development together with broadband penetration Granger-cause economic growth in the long run.     

古代西南地区民族与外来人口的融合

我国是一个多民族国家,民族问题历来是我们生活中的大事.由于民族问题是一个复杂的问题,有其产生、发展和消亡的过程,因此,探讨民族融合问题便成为民族溯源的有机组成部分.我国历史上西南地区民族融合和具体实现的方式主要有:民族迁徙,相互聚集;经济文化的友好交流;某些少数民族统治者的改革;民族之间的战争等.     

河北省对外贸易与经济增长关系的实证分析

运用计量经济模型分析河北省对外贸易与经济增长之间的关系,结果表明:对外贸易对河北经济增长有很强的拉动作用,其中出口对经济增长的贡献要高于进口,而净出口对经济增长的作用不明显.     

湖北省碳排放与经济增长脱钩分析

以2000-2014年湖北省GDP、能源消费和碳排放为基础数据,从能源结构、能源消耗强度和碳排放强度方面分析在此期间湖北省能源利用现状以及变化趋势,并且利用Tapio脱钩模型,分析湖北省2001 -2014年间经济增长与碳排放之间脱钩关系,将能源消费作为中间变量说明脱钩状态变化的原因。结果表明湖北省在此期间经济增长与碳排放绝大多数处于弱脱钩状态,并有向强脱钩转变的趋势,并且分析原因主要是经其二者与能源消费结构的改善和能源能利用率的提高有密切关系。最后就区域层面、企业层面以及个人层面提出相关建议。     

Local Government Debt,Factor Misallocation and Regional Economic Performance in China

This paper examines total factor efficiency and productivity performance by taking into account local government debt (LGD) in 31 Chinese provincial regions for the period 2000–2013. The results show that neglecting LGD may overstate economic performance in Chinese provinces. The eastern region shows better performance in single factor efficiency and total factor efficiency than the non‐eastern regions. The western region shows the worst total factor performance. The north‐eastern region is the only region that has experienced a decline in total factor performance. The state‐dominated, investment‐driven development model may help technological progress across Chinese regions but could lead to significant factor misallocation. We argue that biases towards more state‐dominated investment and land supply in less productive western, central and north‐eastern regions, at the expense of investment and land supply in more productive eastern regions, have contributed to the recent slowdown in economic growth in China. Therefore, further market‐oriented reforms in factor markets should be considered in the future.     

Economic diversification of a single-asset tourism city: evidence from Antalya†

It is often argued that the growth of single-asset tourism places is fragile because it is vulnerable to economic fluctuations and is based on specialization and localization economies that lead to an ever stronger lock-in process of path-dependent urban economic development and, in the end, slow growth. In this paper, it is doubted whether a high urban tourism growth implies an ever stronger specialization and an ever stronger lock-in. This paper shows that the growth of tourism stimulates the growth of related and unrelated industries and generates a diversification of the economy, even though some other sectors are crowded out. Antalya (Turkey) is selected as a case-study area not only because its economy is dominated by tourism (it is a good example of a single-asset tourism city), but also because its economy shows a tendency to economic diversification at the sectoral level. This diversification tendency is shown by means of a shift-share analysis and Herfindahl indexes.