Modern Money Theory and Distributive Justice

Modern money theory is a conjecture concerning fiscal spending and the nature of money. I show that modern money theory provides two interesting insights into distributive justice that have not been addressed in the recent Anglo-American distributive justice literature: (i) that the nature of a sovereign fiat currency allows for some distributive conflicts to be avoided; and (ii) that recent Anglo-American distributive justice theories assume that the economy is at capacity. Based on this, I consider whether the policy results of modern money theory can help foster a sense of justice.     

Is late really better than never? The farmer welfare effects of pineapple adoption in Ghana

Export agriculture offers potentially high returns to smallholder farmers in developing countries, but also carries substantial market risk. In this article we examine the intertemporal welfare impact of the timing of a farmer's entry into the export pineapple market in southern Ghana. We examine whether farmers who never cultivated pineapple are better or worse off than farmers who decided to adopt pineapple earlier or later relative to their peers and experienced a significant adverse market shock several years prior to our endline survey. We use a two‐stage least squares model to estimate the causal effect of duration of pineapple farming on farmer welfare. Consistent with economic theory, we find that earlier adoption of the new crop brings greater welfare gains than does later uptake. But we find that the gains to later uptake of pineapple—just before the market shock—are small in magnitude, just 0.1 standard deviations of a comprehensive asset index, indicating that the gains to adoption may be precarious and depend on the context, in particular on the severity of prospective market shocks.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

城郊农村可持续发展指标体系构建及发展策略研究——以新乡市城郊农村为例

城乡一体化是解决我国经济转型困难以及缩小城乡差距的重要途径,然而在实际推进过程中受到诸多因素的影响。文章通过实地调研及层次分析法,对河南省新乡市城郊农村地区经济发展现状进行研究,初步构建了城郊农村可持续发展指标体系,评价结果显示,目前影响河南省城郊农村地区可持续发展的主要因素为环境可持续发展及资源可持续利用。并针对指标评价结果从加强政府引导,强化政府监管;改善经济发展模式,提高资源利用率;加强培训力度,注重人才引进;转变农业生产方式,提高农业产业化水平;提高环保意识,注重生态效益等方面提出促进城郊农村可持续发展对策。     

建设和谐企业是构建和谐社会的基础

企业是社会的有机组成部分,是物质资料生产和现代生产力发展的载体,也是社会物质文明、精神文明和政治文明建设的基础。本文作者结合自己多年参与党建工作及企业文化建设实施的经验,就建设和谐企业构建和谐社会的关系谈一些个人的思考。     

Food fraud: economic insights into the dark side of incentives

In this review, we contextualise the articles in this special issue, relating them to existing food fraud research, and identify food fraud research trends, challenges and priorities for the near term. We accomplish these aims through a comprehensive review of research by food scientists, economists, other social scientists, legal experts, government research groups and international trade organisations. Existing food fraud research is heavily weighted towards food science, packaging and labelling, and legal areas of knowledge discovery. Moving forward, research is needed pertaining to general economic welfare outcomes from food fraud incidences, economic incentives to deter frauds, economic spillovers from fraud incidences to other food products and markets (domestic and international) and further delineation of the effect of different types of food fraud on consumer and producer welfare. The articles in this special issue make significant contributions to understanding of the role of food fraud in consumer decisions, measuring consumer welfare losses from fraud, food fraud spillover effects to other markets and new frameworks for fraud analysis.     

区块链技术在信用经济建设中的运用研究

2008年全球金融危机后,出口和固定资产投资增速逐渐放缓,消费成为了拉动经济增长的关键点,信用经济是各行各业的连接器,也是拉动内需的“法宝”和撬动经济增长的“利器”。当前,我国信用经济发展面临数据“孤岛”、个人信用信息保护不足、“羊群效应”明显等问题,随着区块链发展上升到国家战略层面,区块链与社会经济发展融合成为趋势,区块链和信用经济十分契合,可以解决信用经济发展过程中遇到的问题。为推动“区块链+信用经济”创新发展,必须加强顶层设计,完善信用法律体系;保护用户信息安全,完善风险管理体系;强化信用监管,营造良好发展环境;推广智能合约,拓展业务场景;搭建人才支撑发展体系,提供智力保障。     

发达国家住房福利政策的演变及启示——我国公租房领域供给侧结构性改革探析

我国公租房领域存在投资主体单一、政府财政压力大、市场参与度不够、配置低效、供需失衡及错配、贫富分区程度加大等问题，需通过推进供给侧结构性改革来予以解决。发达国家住房福利政策的演变表明，住房政策应与住房市场供需状况相适应，政府所扮演的角色须从“公共住房的直接供给者”走向“市场化供给的环境营造者”，即从“补砖头”到“补人头”是住房福利政策演进的必然趋势。我国公租房领域供给侧结构性改革应与住房供求情况相匹配。一方面，要转变政府职能，从政府实物配给逐步过渡到市场化供给；另一方面，要积极打造健康的住宅租赁投资市场以促进公租房供给市场化，并通过开发配建和货币化补贴等措施促成公租房“隐形化”混合居住模式。     

普惠型社会福利的中国理解

普惠型社会福利来自于对社会福利模式的最初划分。在社会福利由"补缺型"到"普惠型"转变的过程中,在学界和各级政府层面,无论是顶层设计还是政策实践,我们都在探索有中国特色的普惠型社会福利模式。普惠型社会福利从提出、引入到本土化经历了一个漫长的时期,在我国经济高速发展但人均经济发展水平还很低的情况下,构建怎样的社会福利发展模式并有效地付诸实践成为我国社会福利发展的突出问题。在建立覆盖城乡和全民共享的社会福利体系的背景下,适度普惠型社会福利模式在中国应运而生。     

廉政文化建设与和谐社会建构互涵互动的内在逻辑：“同频共振”机理

廉政文化建设与和谐社会建构的关系并非单方向的，而是双向作用的机制。一方面，廉政文化建设有利于促进社会更好地走向和谐；另一方面，和谐的社会氛围反过来又为廉政文化建设的开展创造了良好的社会环境，和谐社会的构建对廉政文化建设起着逆向加强的作用。二者互涵互动、相得益彰，二者的关系可以形象地称为“共振”效应。“共振”之为“共振”，从根本上讲，乃在于二者是“同频”的，“同频”方能“共振”。正是因为二者的基本理念、价值取向、精神内核、追求目标是根本一致的，二者才能朝一个方向使劲，相互促进、相互加强，产生巨大的“合力”，这才是二者互涵互动的内在机理。