MUSLIM WOMEN AND PROPERTY RIGHTS

This paper examines rights to property accorded to women in Islam under direct     injunctions and compares it with the state of these rights in present Muslim societies. It argues that the correct application of     law will not only materially improve the status of women in Muslim societies and guarantee them economic security, it will also bring economic prosperity to such societies directly.     

信息文明时代的网络清淤探究

21世纪将是信息文明的时代，网络技术发展，使信息的传递、开发、利用、更新变得更快、更科学，超过了人类社会文明进程的任何历史时期和阶段。但是，与生俱来的网络淤泥，即不良信息、电脑黑客、网络犯罪等，会妨碍有效信息传递的畅通无阻.因此，网络清淤的立法和工作，势必成为各国政府、企业、社会共同面对的一个崭新的课题。     

The effects of risk and time on entrepreneurship

The paper deals with the socioeconomic background of entrepreneurship. It is especially concerned with the actual relationship between entrepreneurship and risk and time perception (time preferences). It can be predicted that in societies characterized by risk aversion and a preference for short-term risk seeking, there will be optimum conditions for the development of entrepreneurship. The converse is true of societies characterized by short-run risk-averse behaviour or long-term risk seeking. Proxies are proposed for risk and time preference in OECD economies, and tests are developed. Empirical investigation verifies theoretical predictions. It is established that over the period examined (2000–2004), the economies in question have shifted to a non entrepreneurial territory where risk and time are combined. This change is capable of producing conditions which favour entrepreneurial development.     

Gray Matters on Screen: Intelligence Agencies,Secret Societies,and Hollywood Movies

We normally think of government agencies as acting in a purely rational and instrumental way. In the case of intelligence agencies, we presume they rely on reason and science to protect the national interest. By contrast, the general view of secret societies and occult groups is that they engage in rituals and practices that have little or nothing to do with normal social intercourse, or even with reality. This article shows that these common assumptions are false, and that secret societies and intelligence agencies share many important traits. Our understanding of the CIA's role in supporting the production of Hollywood movies will be enhanced by taking these similarities into account. Intelligence work and the operations of secret societies are shown to overlap in five categories: religious underpinnings, occult practices to control the mind, cryptography, violations of social convention, and cryptic transparency—the ability to carry out secret activities in plain sight. These affinities explain why the CIA can promote movies that are actually quite candid in their revelation of the dark underside of the Agency. In so doing, the CIA projects a subliminal message that whatever questionable actions it takes are justified by a higher good, which can only be known by insiders.     

The Nexus of Population,Energy, Innovation,and Complexity

For the past 200 years, humans have benefited from the abundant, inexpensive, and easily obtained energy of fossil fuels. Energy surpluses such as this are unusual in human history. In systems with little surplus energy, population growth is low and complexity emerges slowly due to the energetic costs it carries. On the rare occasions when energy is readily available, societies respond by growing rapidly. They must become more complex in response to the social, economic, and resource challenges of dense population. More complex societies are more expensive, requiring greater energy per capita. The process of increasing complexity necessitates greater energy production, creating a positive feedback cycle. Past societies have collapsed under such pressures. Population and complexity grew rapidly when the Industrial Revolution replaced economies based on annual solar radiation with economies fueled by fossil energy. The Green Revolution of the 20^th century is credited with preventing mass starvation, but it has made food production and sustaining population ever‐more dependent on high‐energy (low‐entropy) inputs. Some believe innovation will overcome the limitations of resources and permit unchecked growth. However, increases in complexity, innovation, and fossil energy are all subject to diminishing returns, and cannot continue to support population at current levels.     

Age diversity and firm performance in an emerging economy: Implications for cross‐cultural human resource management

This study tests the effect of age diversity on firm performance among international firms. Based on the resource‐based view of the firm, it argues that age diversity among employees will influence firm performance. Moreover, it argues that two contextual variables—a firm's level of market diversification and its country of origin—influence the relationship between age diversity and firm performance. By testing relevant hypotheses in a major emerging economy, that is, the People's Republic of China, this study finds a significant and positive effect of age diversity and a significant interactive effect between age diversity and firm strategy on profitability. We also find a significant relationship between age diversity and firm profitability for firms from Western societies, but not for firms from East Asian societies. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this study's findings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The relationship between economic freedom and peace

Classical liberals have long held that free markets foster peaceful societies. Many argue that free trade between nations will foster economic interdependence, and peace should ensue as a result. Nevertheless, there are many dissenters. While exploring the relationship between free trade and peace is important, it is only one part of ‘economic freedom.’ More research needs to be conducted to see how countries with high levels of entrepreneurship, low levels of corruption, independent judiciaries, and sound regulatory environments might be fostering peace.     

Weber and Baqir as‐Sadr: The Paradox of Economic Development in Islamic Societies

This article attempts to reconsider the controversial relationship between Islam and economic development. It does so by deeply engaging the views of Weber and Baqir as‐Sadr. According to Sadr, the development of capitalism in Europe is a consequence of the moral practice of Western societies, which is fundamentally different from that of Islamic societies. This divergence in moral practices translates into a divergence in economic doctrine, resulting in an incompatibility between the capitalist method and the moral practice of Islamic societies.     

Epistemic democracy with correlated voters

We develop a general theory of epistemic democracy in large societies, which subsumes the classical Condorcet Jury Theorem, the Wisdom of Crowds, and other similar results. We show that a suitably chosen voting rule will converge to the correct answer in the large-population limit, even if there is significant correlation amongst voters, as long as the average covariance between voters becomes small as the population becomes large. Finally, we show that these hypotheses are consistent with models where voters are correlated via a social network, or through the DeGroot model of deliberation.     

浅论两型高职院校建设要处理好的几种关系

"两型高职院校"建设是"两型社会"建设不可缺少的组成部分,也是高职院校参与"两型社会"建设伟大实践的必然选择,建设两型高职院校我们要以务实的精神,扎实的作风,踏实的态度,全方位多视角的展开工作:理论上明确内涵,弄清关系;组织上领导重视,制度保证;群众中加强宣传,深入人心;校园内营造氛围,真抓实干。     

Evaluating intergenerational risks

Climate policies have stochastic consequences that involve a great number of generations. This calls for evaluating social risk (what kind of societies will future people be born into) rather than individual risk (what will happen to people during their own lifetimes). We respond to this call by proposing and axiomatizing probability adjusted rank-discounted critical-level generalized utilitarianism (PARDCLU) through a key axiom ensuring that the social welfare order both is ethical and satisfies first-order stochastic dominance. PARDCLU yields a new useful perspective on intergenerational risks, is ethical in contrast to discounted utilitarianism, and avoids objections that have been raised against other ethical criteria. We show that PARDCLU handles situations with positive probability of human extinction and is linked to decision theory by yielding rank-dependent expected utilitarianism—but with additional structure—in a special case.     

Influences on the rise of new organizations: the formation of women's medical societies.

This study examined the organizational context in which medical societies composed of women physicians were formed in the last decade of the nineteenth century in America. The inquiry was centered on the relationship between the number of existing organizations and the formation of a particular category of association. Two explanations for a relationship between the number of organizations and the establishment of women's medical societies were investigated: (1) the opportunities existing organizations allow for individuals to acquire skills they can use to start other organizations; and (2) the importance of social networks built within existing organizations. The results showed more medical societies in the cities where women's medical societies emerged than in a matched set of cities. The results would seem to imply that it is the presence of organizations similar to the focal one that is related to the formation of a particular kind of organization not the overall level of organizational activity.     

上海市外语类社团调查与分析

外语类社团的成立及发展对于中国外语水平的提高，对外语人才的培养，对外语教育的延展以及外语第二课堂的开展都做出了重要贡献。但是多年来国内对外语类社团的发展及运营状况的研究极为缺乏。上海是大陆地区对外开放最为活跃的地区之一，外语类社团的成立及发展也处于各省市的领先水平。为了研究上海市外语类社团的发展现状与趋势，我们对上海市外语类社团进行了调研，并对调查结果进行了相关的统计分析，提出了自己的看法和建议。     

Insights to compulsory arbitration: the Jamaican experience1

Jamaica is no stranger to compulsory arbitration. Its Public Utility Undertakings and Public Services Arbitration Law (popularly known as the Essential Services Law) has been on the statute book since 1952, providing for compulsory arbitration in essential industries. During the period under review in this paper (1952–69) some 79 cases were heard. Additionally, a number of cases involved court litigation and/or illegal direct action by groups of employees or employers. The Jamaican experience has been full. This paper will seek to present and analyse what has happened in the field of compulsory arbitration in Jamaica and draw appropriate conclusions as to the relevance of the findings for other societies.     

浅谈高校科技创新型社团发展中存在问题及其解决对策

高校科技创新社团是学生社团中的一支为数不多但又不可或缺的力量,是由一群有志于某一学科或某一方向研究的学生自愿组织而成的群众性团体。高校科技创新型社团对培养大学生科技创新能力具有积极意义,在高校学风建设中的也有不可替代的地位与作用。     

A NEW VISION OF THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Abstract.  To date, more than half of the output in the major OECD countries has been knowledge based. This paper argues, however, that the current growth-oriented exposition of the knowledge economy rooted in the conventional concept of free competition is insufficient for promoting the long-term development of human societies. Although we now live in a knowledge economy, most countries have been concurrently characterized by serious phenomena such as environmental degradation and growing economic inequality. The prospect of meeting global commitments, for instance, to reducing inequality, as outlined in the 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen and endorsed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, is bleak and the global society as a whole has become less and less sustainable. Indeed, the world is better seen as composed of numerous (but finite) knowledge economies. To take up the challenge of sustainable development of human societies, we have to develop a pluralistic perspective of the knowledge economy and fully acknowledge the characteristics of each unique knowledge system (such as indigenous knowledge possessed by a small tribe). Once we can help each individual knowledge system develop into a specific set of economic institutions that freely exchange concepts and beliefs with each other in a global environment, we will be able to develop a global economy that embodies a value-committed basis that assures a sustainable path of development on earth.     

Ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars

In this paper we analyze the relationship between ethnic polarization and the duration of civil wars. Several recent papers have argued that the uncertainty about the relative power of the contenders in a war will tend to increase its duration. In these models, uncertainty is directly related to the relative size of the contenders. We argue that the duration of civil wars increases the more polarized a society is. Uncertainty is not necessarily linked to the structure of the population but it could be traced back to the measurement of the size of the different groups in the society. Given a specific level of measurement error or uncertainty, more polarization implies lengthier wars. Our empirical results show that ethnically polarized countries have to endure longer civil wars than ethnically less polarized societies.     

Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: Biodiversity conservation and confinement policies

This paper presents a first model integrating the relation between biodiversity loss and zoonotic pandemic risks in a general equilibrium dynamic economic set-up. The occurrence of pandemics is modeled as Poissonian leaps in economic variables. The planner can intervene in the economic and epidemiological dynamics in two ways: first (prevention), by deciding to conserve a greater quantity of biodiversity to decrease the probability of a pandemic occurring, and second (mitigation), by reducing the death toll through a lockdown policy, with the collateral effect of affecting negatively labor productivity. The policy is evaluated using a social welfare function embodying society’s risk aversion, aversion to fluctuations, degree of impatience and altruism towards future generations. The model is explicitly solved and the optimal policy described. The dependence of the optimal policy on natural, productivity and preference parameters is discussed. In particular the optimal lockdown is more severe in societies valuing more human life, and the optimal biodiversity conservation is larger for more “forward looking” societies, with a small discount rate and a high degree of altruism towards future generations. Moreover, societies accepting a large welfare loss to mitigate the pandemics are also societies doing a lot of prevention. After calibrating the model with COVID-19 pandemic data we compare the mitigation efforts predicted by the model with those of the recent literature and we study the optimal prevention–mitigation policy mix.     

THE PROS AND CONS OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Regulation of human behaviour and human social interaction is a universal feature of both traditional and modern societies. In the latter, on account of their complex structure, regulation inevitably takes place at different levels, albeit within a framework set by government. Consequently, these societies are characterised by a web of formal as well as informal regulation and self-regulation, in other words by a plurality of regulatory systems. And this plurality of regulatory systems is an important source of tensions and conflicts in society.     

The Academic Mind and the Rise of U.S. Imperialism: Historians and Economists as Publicists for Ideas of Colonial Expansion

A bstract . The role of American learned societies in developing support for an American colonial foreign policy has been neglected. Evidence indicates that American learned societies, in the period following the Spanish-American War from 1898 to 1901, were intellectually predisposed toward an imperial policy. The debates within the American Historical Association , the American Economic Association , and the American Academy of Political and Social Science are described and analyzed. Each learned society abandoned the ivory tower" and mixed in impassioned politics. The "imperial" interpretation led historians to endorse empire as salutary; economists endorsed the role of the State in building markets for domestic production; and prevailing Social Darwinistic views of political economy led the Academy of Political and Social Science to support an activist, acquisitive foreign policy as necessary to the national interest. Dissident, anti imperialist scholars as well as skeptical scholars could not turn the imperial mood of these societies.