Lone Mothers: What is to be done?

This Dialogue presents the views of four authors, from the US, the UK, and Norway, on the best policies to help lone mothers. Lone mothers face an inevitable dilemma in allocating their time between earning income and caring for their children. The low-earning capacity of women in an unequal labor market exacerbates the problem, causing material hardship for many lone mothers and their families. The policy solutions proposed lie along a spectrum, ranging from those that seek to enable all lone mothers to take employment to those that aim to let mothers choose whether to take employment or care for their children themselves. Other policies discussed concern ways to value and support caregiving, improve the low-wage labor market for women, and provide a set of income supports that would both boost income and provide time to care for children.     

老龄化社会中高等职业教育功能的构建

随着现实社会中一孩化家庭逐渐增多,学生数量总体减少,将来必将影响到高等教育的生源。另一方面,我国人民平均寿命的延长,老龄化社会的到来,学习是老年人较好的渡过晚年生活的一种有效的方式。到老龄化社会时,教育对象复杂多样,高校应能及时应对这个转变。     

长沙市城管执法公众评价体系的构建与应用

城管执法作为公众关注的热点问题之一，对其进行综合评价具有非常重要的实践价值。基于长沙市城管部门定位不清、执法人员素质偏低的现状，从公众角度出发构建一套包括认知度、感知度和满意度三个维度15个具体指标的城管执法评价指标体系，利用综合评价方法进行问卷调查和实证测算，结果表明：长沙市城管执法总体评价偏低，公众对城管执法认识模糊，城管对与居民生活相关活动的执法效果较好，城管执法公众满意度低。应完善城管相关立法，使其执法有法可依；加强城管人员管理力度，督促城管文明执法。     

Profit reducing international outsourcing

Recent empirical evidence shows a negative relationship between international outsourcing and profitability. This paper provides a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon. We show that, in an oligopolistic market, firms earn lower profits in the outsourcing equilibrium compared to the situation where neither firm does outsourcing, and this holds irrespective of the intensity of competition. We show that whether international outsourcing is likely to reduce profit under more intense competition (measured by the degree of product differentiation, number of firms and the type of product market competition, namely, Cournot and Bertrand competition) is ambiguous. We further show that international outsourcing may be socially ‘excessive’ for the sourced country and for the world.     

构建和谐企业 促进科学发展

党的十六届六中全会作出《关于构建社会主义和谐社会若干重大问题的决定》以后,各行各业都掀起了建设和谐企业的热潮。文章结合南宁建宁水务投资集团有限责任公司创建和谐企业的经验和做法,就如何建设和谐企业谈几点看法。     

邓小平中国社会发展道路思想探析

邓小平从中国近代历史发展、现实国情、未来发展方向三个方面论证了社会主义是中国社会发展的必由之路，揭示了中国共产党领导人民走社会主义道路是符合中国社会发展规律的正确选择，因此，必须坚持中国的社会主义发展道路，并从中国近代历史、现实和未来的内在联系来理解中国走社会主义道路的必然性、合理性，对人民进行社会主义教育。邓小平的中国社会主义发展道路思想，为我们提供了社会主义教育的整体性原则，实质上也为我们指出了把“两课”实践教学和现实国情整体的教育有机结合的方向。     

Local impacts of a global crisis: Food price transmission,consumer welfare and poverty in Ghana

This paper takes a local perspective on global food price shocks by analyzing food price transmission between regional markets in Ghana. It also assesses the impacts of food price increases on various household groups. Taking the 2007–2008 global food crisis as an example, we show that prices for domestic grain products are highly correlated with world market prices. This is true both for products for which Ghana is highly import-dependent (e.g., rice) and the products for which Ghana is self-sufficient (e.g., maize). The econometric results also show that price transmission is high between regional producer markets and markets located in the country’s largest cities, and the distance between producer and consumer markets and the size of consumer markets matter in explaining the price transmission. The welfare analysis for households as consumers shows that the effect of world food prices appears relatively modest for the country as a whole due to relatively diverse consumption patterns within country. However, the national average hides important regional differences, both between regions and within different income groups. We find that the poorest of the poor—particularly those living in the urban areas—are hardest hit by high food prices. The negative effect of the food crisis is particularly strong in northern Ghana. The main explanations for this regional variation in the price effect is the different consumption patterns and much lower per capita income levels in the North of Ghana compared to other regions in the country.     

论和谐社会下社会体育的发展

和谐社会的构建和社会体育的发展是一脉相承的互动关系：和谐社会的构建将推动社会体育协调、快速的发展，社会体育的发展将加速和谐社会构建的进程。经济发展的非均衡，城乡二元结构凸显等是和谐社会构建过程中社会体育发展所面临的问题。坚持以人为本理念，促进经济协调发展，营造和谐社会体育环境，深化体育体制改革，提高群众健身意识，加强对群众体育的组织和指导等是和谐社会下促进社会体育发展的重要举措。     

Rising Food Prices and Household Welfare: Evidence from Brazil in 2008

Food price inflation in Brazil in the 12 months to June 2008 was 18%, whereas overall inflation was 7%. Using spatially disaggregated monthly data on consumer prices and two different household surveys, we estimate the welfare consequences of these food price increases, and their distribution across households. Because Brazil is a large food producer, with a predominantly wage‐earning agricultural labour force, our estimates include general equilibrium effects on market and transfer incomes, as well as the standard estimates of changes in consumer surplus. Although the expenditure (or consumer surplus) effects were large, negative and markedly regressive everywhere, estimates of the market‐income effect were positive and progressive, particularly in rural areas. Because of this effect on the rural poor, and of the partial protection afforded by increases in two large social assistance benefits, the overall impact of higher food prices in Brazil was U‐shaped, with middle‐income groups suffering larger proportional losses than the very poor. Nevertheless, as Brazil is 80% urban, higher food prices still led to a greater incidence and depth of poverty at the national level.