Factors of trade in Europe

We analyze how a set of determinants affect trade among European countries over the period 1992–2008. The factors encompass variables from the areas of geography, culture, institutions, infrastructure, and trade direction. Trade is analyzed for four types of goods: primary goods, parts and components, capital goods, and consumer goods. For each type of good we also distinguish its definition in terms of flows, intensive margin, and extensive margin. Methodologically, we first derive country-pair fixed effects over all possible pairs of export–import partners, and in the second stage we relate fixed effects with a set of influential factors. We show (i) the intuitive and varying effects of geographical, cultural, and institutional factors; (ii) the beneficial effects of soft and hard infrastructure; and (iii) the key importance of trade between old and new EU members.     

Remittance,Institutions and Investment Volatility Interactions: An Intercontinental Analysis

Generating massive investment for growth and development has been one of the main policy goals of most economies around the globe. Countries, most especially developing ones, are highly susceptible to investment volatility owing largely to the fragile nature of their economies as well as weaknesses in terms of dysfunctional institutions. Therefore, sound economic management suggests the need to better understand possible sources for mitigating the adverse effects of investment volatility. Remittances have been identified as important capital flows which do a good job of dousing macroeconomic volatilities. It is on this basis that the study sought to uncover the causal relationship between remittances and investment volatility via the intermediating role of institutions. Using a panel of 70 countries and the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, three insightful outcomes come to the fore. First, remittances played countercyclical roles across the estimated regressions. Second, institutional quality had no significant role in mitigating investment volatility and lastly, the interactive terms of both remittances and institutions significantly mitigated the negative impacts of investment volatility with the exception of the political component of the institutional architecture. Policy suggestions are drawn based on our results.     

From a System of National Accounts to a Process of National Wellbeing Accounting

There are repeated calls to go ‘Beyond GDP’, for measures of wellbeing and progress in addition to those that the System of National Accounts (SNA) is designed to provide. We identify key issues that can help build on the rigour of SNA whilst fitting the measurement of economic performance within a broader assessment of national wellbeing and progress. Such drivers are already leading to a proliferation of indicators and accounts, for example in the development of non‐monetary measures of natural resources, but there are significant measurement challenges, not least the question of whether a single, overall measure or index of wellbeing is valid. But the challenge of measurement, per se, is one thing: in our view, a more critical issue is whether the measures will actually be used. We propose a dynamic and multi‐staged approach for developing SNA, embracing the production and use of measures. This would start by identifying user requirements for wider measures, to provide the basis for national and cross‐national developments in well‐being accounting. We envisage greater branding and marketing of national well‐being concepts to promote measures and support their use. We call for outreach by producers, so that there is dialogue about the development and use of measures.     

西方“前近代经济-社会史”的理论范式及其“中国化”：一个历史与逻辑的述评框架

关于“前近代经济-社会史”的研究，西方学界首开其端，形成若干种流派。进入中国以后，与本土问题相结合，表现更加多样。本文根据语义分析学中“同一‘能指’背后的‘所指转换’无限可能，以及在‘能指冲突’中理解‘所指’”的方法，一方面将各流派对前近代经济社会结构的理解作为一个维度，形成“共同体本位”与“个体本位”之事实差异；另一方面，将各流派对自由的态度作为一个维度，形成“对自由的认同”与“对反自由的认同”之价值差异。两维交叉，构成一个历史与逻辑的述评框架，从中或许可以窥见各派之间的共同点与分歧所在。     

简论司法舆情和司法独立的平衡--药家鑫案的制度反思

社会舆论对司法活动给予了充分关注。在监督司法活动的同时，社会舆论也对司法独立产生了严重的冲击。在借鉴美国谢泼德案件意义的基础上，着力探讨缓解社会舆论对审判活动造成冲击的途径和方法。     

Employment and absenteeism in working-age persons with multiple sclerosis

Aims: To better understand the impact of the clinical course of multiple sclerosis (MS) and disability on employment, absenteeism, and related factors.

Materials and methods: This study included respondents to the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis Registry spring 2015 update survey who were US or Canadian residents, aged 18–65 years and reported having relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), secondary progressive MS (SPMS), or primary progressive MS (PPMS). The RRMS and SPMS participants were combined to form the relapsing-onset MS (RMS) group and compared with the PPMS group regarding employment status, absenteeism, and disability. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between employment-related outcomes and factors that may affect these relationships.

Results: Of the 8004 survey respondents, 5887 (73.6%) were 18–65 years of age. The PPMS group (n?=?344) had a higher proportion of males and older mean age at the time of the survey and at time of diagnosis than the RMS group (n?=?4829). Female sex, age, age at diagnosis, cognitive and hand function impairment, fatigue, higher disability levels, ≥3 comorbidities, and a diagnosis of PPMS were associated with not working. After adjustment for disability, the employed PPMS sub-group reported similar levels of absenteeism to the employed RMS sub-group.

Limitations: Limitations of the study include self-report of information and the possibility that participants may not fully represent the working-age MS population.

Conclusions: In MS, employment status and absenteeism are negatively affected by disability, cognitive impairment, and fatigue. These findings underscore the need for therapies that prevent disability progression and other symptoms that negatively affect productivity in persons with MS to enable them to persist in the workforce.     

Unraveling public support for casino gaming: The case of a casino referendum in Penghu

By integrating the social exchange theory (SET) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study unravels the factors associated with residents’ intention to support casino gaming development in Penghu in future referenda. Residents’ attitudes toward casino gaming development in their community were examined in the SET framework while their intention to support such development was investigated in the TPB framework. Despite that partisan difference did not have a significant interaction with TPB variables, past behavior exerted moderating effects determining residents’ intention to support casino gaming development through two TPB variables: subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Implications are provided.

Abbreviations: ATTU: attitude; DPP: Democratic Progress Party; ECOI: perceived economic impact; ENVI: perceived environmental impact; INT: intention to support casino gaming development in future referenda; KMT: Kuomingtang; PBC: perceived behavioral control; PPB: perceived personal benefit; SET: social exchange theory; SN: subjective norms; SOCI: perceived social impact; TPB: theory of planned behavior     

孔子人性论浅探

孔子虽然没有像孟子和苟子等人一样明确地提出人性论，但是却有许多直接和间接关于人性的论述。孔子的人性论从人情出发，对人性的弱点有着独到的观察，注重人性的经验论考察，充满人性关怀。孔子的人性论对当今社会治理仍有积极的借鉴意义。     

论民法中诉讼时效制度适用范围

在日常生活中,任何人都无法离开法律而生活,因为法律是与生活息息相关的。正如西方法律谚语所说:立法者不是创设法律,而是发现法律。生活离不开法律,法律来自于生活。生活里人们无时不刻地在为自己和他人创设权利与设置义务,从而生成各种民事法律关系。但是,权利与义务不会无休无止地存在,当一方信守承诺积极履行自己的义务时,另一方亦不能"躺在权利的床上酣眠"。不论是权利还是义务,都会有消亡的时刻,即一个时间限制,法律中叫做时效。为此,对中国公民哪些权利会受到时效的限制及该受多长时间的限制进行了论述。     

ALTERNATIVE WEIGHTING APPROACHES TO COMPUTING INDEXES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

This paper compares the weighting schemes in the traditional, principal component and dynamic factor approaches to summarizing information from a number of component variables. To facilitate the comparison, we propose a framework to discuss the approaches with respect to their implied loadings in a latent variable model. We also propose a way to transform the dynamic factor index into an analogous index which is a weighted average of the components. The framework shows the strengths and weakness of the alternative weighting schemes and the sense in which the dynamic factor approach has the advantage of capturing both the significance and the variability of the components.