Good global citizen? ASEAN’s image building in the United Nations

ABSTRACT

Based on role theory, the article examines the images that ASEAN member governments project of their organization. It rests on a discourse analysis of 198 speeches in the United Nations General Assembly between 1998 and 2017. Findings suggest that ASEAN does not figure as a top priority for delegates and that an overarching ASEAN role conception is missing. However, their addresses reveal parameters on which a collective role conception can be built. Individual ASEAN countries undertake great efforts to project themselves as ‘good global citizens,’ a role conception that could also be applied to ASEAN.     

Neighbors' Income,Public Goods,and Well‐Being

How does neighbors' income affect individual well‐being? Our analysis is based on rich U.S. local data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which contains information on where respondents live and their self‐reported well‐being. We find that the effect of neighbors' income on individuals' self‐reported well‐being varies with the size of the neighborhood included. In smaller areas such as ZIP codes, we find a positive relationship between median income and individuals' life satisfaction, whereas it is the opposite at the county, MSA, and state levels. We provide evidence that local public goods and local area characteristics such as unemployment, criminality, and poverty rates drive the association between satisfaction and neighbors' income at the ZIP code level. The neighbors' income effects are mainly concentrated among poorer individuals and are as large as one quarter of the effect of own income on self‐reported well‐being.     

Income comparison and happiness: The role of fair income distribution

Relative income gap is one of the most popular approaches for explaining the income–happiness relationship. We argue in this article that when people compare their incomes, they care about distributional fairness more than relative income disparity. It is difficult for us to explain China's income–happiness paradox if we simply compare the income gap and do not explore the income‐generation process leading to income inequality. We therefore employ an approach based on a responsibility‐sensitive theory of justice that decomposes individual income into fair and unfair components. As a proxy for distributional unfairness, unfair income is considered the main source of unhappiness. Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project survey, we find strong support for the negative relationship between income unfairness and happiness. We also find a significantly positive relationship between the relative income gap and income unfairness, which leads us to consider the income comparison hypothesis as the explanation for the income–happiness paradox in a new light. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of our results.     

Pure rent taxation and allocation of capital in a two-sector open economy: A long-run analysis

In this paper, the long-run incidence of a tax on pure rent is analyzed in an OLG two-sector small open economy, in which one sector produces a capital good and one sector a consumer good. Contrary to what is obtained in a one-sector closed economy, a land rent tax does not necessarily foster nonhumam wealth accumulation and capital formation. The accommodating scheme for the government budget plays a crucial role for the effects of pure rent taxation. A rent tax stimulates nonhuman wealth if distortionary taxes on wealth or on income from nonland inputs are alleviated. The mechanism spurring capital formation is brought into action, instead, only when the rent tax is matched by a fall in capital taxation or, if the capital sector is capital intensive, by an increase in government spending on the capital good.     

从公共财政视角浅析国家治理的实现路径

改革开放35年来,市场经济的发展不仅改变了中国的经济结构,而且也深刻影响着中国的社会结构.社会利益的多元化对人们生活方式、思想观念、价值取向等方面产生了深远影响,也对国家的治理理念和治理模式提出了新的挑战.现代化的国家治理不应仅单纯强调政府与市场的协调与合作,更重要的是要通过调动各种力量和资源实现政府、市场与公民社会三者之间的多重稳定均衡,从而实现善治的治理目标.文章以国家治理的概念为切入点,通过分析国家治理的逻辑和模式论证了现阶段我国构建国家治理体系的必要性和重要性,并从财政学的视角提出了我国实现有效国家治理的路径.     

先秦儒家人性论演变的理论渊源和现实依据

先秦儒家的人性论，经历了从孔子的“性近”说，至孟子的“性善”说，再至荀子的“性恶”说的演变过程。其演变的原因，既是儒家仁学和礼学的发展的理论需要，也是缘于先秦特定历史时期社会现实的变化和发展。这样的演变，实际上是儒家思想的扩充和发展。     

关于合同责任系统的探讨

合同过程分为成立、生效、履行和履行完毕四个阶段。与此相对应 ,合同责任分别有三种样态 :先合同责任 ,即合同生效前之订立阶段的缔约过失责任和成立后至生效前的效力过失责任 ;合同中责任 ,即合同生效后至履行完毕前之违约责任 ;合同履行完毕后之后合同责任。这三种合同责任样态以诚实信用原则为理论基础。共同构建合同责任系统。     

Globalization and the Good Corporation: A Need for Proactive Co-existence

Large corporations are coming under intense pressure to act in a socially responsible manner. Corporations have accepted this notion provided that it is exercised voluntarily. It has also been argued that corporations can do well by doing good, and that good ethics is good business. This paper presents an alternative viewpoint by demonstrating that while voluntary socially responsible conduct is desirable, it plays a rather small role in inspiring good corporate conduct. Instead, (a) it is the external economic-competitive conditions that define the parameters and opportunities for good corporate conduct; and (b) the values and traditions of the corporations, and their perceived risk in exploiting those opportunities, that influence the extent of a corporation's socially responsible conduct. The framework presented here analyzes certain market-competitive conditions, which determine the scope and direction of socially responsible corporate conduct, and the instruments available to society to enhance ethical corporate conduct. It suggests that from society's perspective, we should move away from the notion of corporate social responsibility and toward corporate social accountability. Most modern economies operate under conditions of imperfect competition where corporations gain above-normal profits, i.e., market rent, from market imperfections. Therefore, corporations should be held accountable for a more equitable distribution of these above-normal profits with other groups, e.g., customers, employees, etc., who were deprived of their market-based gains because of market imperfections and corporate power. Three approaches are suggested for measuring corporate accountability through corrections. These are: information imbalance, bargaining power imbalance, and, adjudication, remedy and relief imbalance.     

Fits,misfits and interactions: learning at work,job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being

The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has focused attention on the importance of aligning employees' needs with the requirements of the jobs they do. This article focuses on how these needs and requirements interact in terms of learning. It does so in two ways. First, it develops new survey instruments to capture the learning demands of jobs and the learning dispositions of workers and uses them for the first time in a survey of 2,810 employees. Second, it examines how these person and job characteristics correlate with specific aspects of job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being. The results show that although learning alignment is associated with high levels of satisfaction and well‐being, not all learning misalignments are associated with the reverse.