The political economy of public research investment and commodity policies in agriculture: an empirical study

The paper tests a political economy theory of simultaneous government decision‐making on income redistribution through commodity policies and on public research investment in agriculture. We use data from 37 countries on agricultural protection and public agricultural research expenditures (PARI). The empirical results are consistent with the political economy hypotheses. The analysis suggest that structural changes in the economy have important effects on the political incentives for governments not only to subsidize or tax farmers, but also to invest in public agricultural research. Furthermore, the analysis supports the hypotheses that the impact of such structural changes on government decision‐making on PARI is non‐linear and conditional on other factors. Regarding the impact of political institutions, the results suggest that more democracy neither leads to more distortionary transfers (agricultural protection), nor to lower investment in public goods (PARI). ©2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.     

Some Insights on Religion from Public Goods Economics

This paper provides a theoretical discussion on what analytical insight is gained by viewing religion as both a pure and impure public good. It suggests that organized religion converts a public good into an excludable club good and can be viewed as providing both an access regime for this club good as well as acting as an intermediary. Interestingly, this drives a wedge between the ardent and moderate adherents of a religion. It also presents an analysis of trust in social relationships when organized religion works to provide a credible signal of trustworthiness.     

公司法定代表人竞合的影响及对策简析

我国《公司法》经过修订之后,在法定代表人制度的规定中仍存在一些不足之处,比如本文即将论述的法定代表人竞合问题,对这些问题的思考及解决对我国经济将有深远的意义。     

Modeling public transport corridors with aggregate and disaggregate demand

Microeconomic public transport models aimed at maximizing social benefits usually consider demand in an aggregate manner. In this paper we examine the effect of this approach on the optimal values of frequency and vehicle size by comparison with models where demand is described in detail as a matrix of flows between every station in a single line service. The theoretical analysis and the numerical examples suggest that the spatially aggregated model underestimates optimal frequency and overestimates vehicle size.     

我国公共领域投资体制改革的基本思路

本文通过对公共领域投资体制中的两个核心问题:中央和地方关系问题以及政府与社会组织关系问题的分析,指出,中央和地方政府在公共投资中的责任与财力不协调,以及政府过多进行公共领域直接投资是目前我国社会体制建设、社会转型的最大难题,并提出必须通过改革,来建立中央和地方政府在公共领域的责任与财力匹配机制,建立合作伙伴关系,逐步把社会组织培育成公共服务的重要提供者之一。     

金融危机下政府干预经济之经济法视野分析

金融危机下,各国经济出现全面下滑,政府积极采取措施干预经济,努力摆脱金融危机的笼罩。经济法是调整政府在干预本国经济活动中所形成的经济关系的法律规范的总称。政府干预经济应遵循经济法律规范的规定,依法干预本国经济。政府应从宏观和微观两个方面,主要运用财政、税收、金融和价格等间接手段干预经济。政府干预经济应控制在合理限度内,遵循社会公共利益原则、经济安全原则和适度干预原则,依据一定的标准实施干预。     

劳动合同法的新制度经济学思考

《劳动合同法》是一种共享品,弥补了《劳动法》的制度漏洞,它以优化配置资源和增进社会福利为目的,符合李特尔"三重标准",体现了效率与公平分配合作收益的统一。该法促使就业情况反映真实的经济绩效,为守法企业创造了公平竞争环境,为劳务派遣提供了制度规范。一部分人对《劳动合同法》的误解、规避和抵制,不少都是利益作怪。实施中要注意防范逆向选择和道德风险,建立信誉档案,发挥工会作用。     

Does Gibrat’s Law Hold? Evidence from Canadian Retail and Manufacturing Firms

This paper investigates the validity of Gibrat’s Law holding for firms in manufacturing and retail trade sectors. The object is to expand our knowledge of Gibrat’s Law to include non-manufacturing firms. A unique longitudinal firm-level database, which contains information on Canadian incorporated establishments, enables the inter-industry comparison. The findings of the analysis are that Gibrat’s Law is violated in both manufacturing and retail sectors. Violations of Gibrat’s Law for both sectors include (i) growth rates that depend on firm size (ii) growth variability that depends on firm size and (iii) a negative persistence of firm growth. Finally, age effects or selection effects are not the causes of these violations.      

国家财政资助民办高校的政策选择

国家财政资助民办高校发展,最终打破公办高校的垄断地位,形成公办与民办高校公平竞争、共同发展的格局,是全球化时代提高我国高等教育水平、增强竞争力的根本出路。本文着重分析了当前国家制定对民办高校的财政资助政策的现实依据,认为目前国家的财政资助应首先选择其中的非营利性部分。     

Towards a common understanding of the differences between purchasing, procurement and commissioning in the UK public sector

This paper recognises that commissioning has now become an important term in the lexicon of UK public policy but the term ‘commissioning’ is taking on a different meaning than that traditionally used within the purchasing and supply management community. The frequent inter-changeability of the terms ‘commissioning’, ‘procurement’ and ‘purchasing’ is now causing confusion and means different things to different people. Therefore the academic community needs to help practitioners understand the differences and implications. A document analysis of various UK Central Government departments’ commissioning frameworks was used to establish the key themes and compare commissioning, procurement and purchasing. This paper discusses the similarities and differences, and argues that commissioning is different from procurement, but that commissioning offers major opportunities for Procurement practitioners to make a strategic contribution.