African American Women Voters: Review Article

This article reviews a book written by Lisa Nikol Nealy entitled: African American Women Voters: Racializing Religiosity, Political Consciousness and Progressive Political Action in U.S. Presidential Elections from 1964 Through 2008 (2009). I extracted the following themes from the book: (1) the importance and influence of the Black church or religious organizations and their leaders on the level of political participation of African Americans, especially Black women in the United States; (2) that Black and White gentile European Americans are experiencing two racial religiosities, which is reflected in the voting booth during national elections; (3) that relative to their Black male counterparts and members of other racial groups, Black women have made enormous contributions to U.S. politics especially in voting trends from the 1960s to present; and (4) there continues to be a serious division between Black and White American females, a division which is rooted in religious and racial histories of the two groups.     

A Review of Institutional Alternatives to Collateralized Lending

Abstract: Rural producers’ access to formal finance has often been limited by their inability to provide collaterals, particularly in the form of registered or certified land titles and tenancy contracts or assets which are auctionable as well as by laws that make foreclosure difficult. This paper reviews some of the alternative institutional arrangements (possibilities) for reducing and overcoming collateral requirements such as third party guarantees, ownership of tradeable assets, credit guarantee schemes, group lending, credit‐savings linkages, incremental and loan repayment‐dependent lending, portfolio diversification and an efficient legal system for contract enforcement. It also specifies the land policy and tenure reforms that are desirable, especially in the direction of formal land titling or legally specified rights to the use and ownership of lands, the consolidation of land holdings and the provision of proper cadastres for land and assuring that titles are secure.     

Institutional Adjustment and Transaction Costs: Product and Inputs Markets in the Tanzanian Coffee System

Commodity market liberalization can improve incentives for production of export crops by reducing the total costs of transforming products through space, form and time, or by reducing the costs of arranging and completing transactions. While liberalization often leads to reduced costs in output exchange, it can remove opportunities for linked input–output transactions that sometimes lowered the costs of providing finance in state-controlled markets. Assessments of liberalization that focus on output exchange alone obscure the impact of rising transaction costs in finance. This study of liberalization in the Tanzanian coffee market documents declining costs in output marketing, rising transaction costs for financing farm activities, and differential, but generally positive, net impacts on growers.     

Measuring and Managing the Costs of Red Tape: A Review of Recent Policy Developments

Over the last few years, red tape has come to be identifiedas an important policy area, and there has been rapid and relativelywidespread adoption—in one form or another—of aDutch-developed set of reforms aimed at significantly reducingthe costs of compliance with government-imposed obligationsto provide information (which have come to be referred to as‘administrative burdens’). This paper begins byexamining the characteristics of the policy problems that thesereforms are intended to address, and highlighting some of thechallenges that the reforms can be expected to face. The Dutch-developedapproach, and the UK adaptation of it, are then described, andspecific ways in which the reforms have sought to influenceinformation and incentive conditions—so as to generatereductions in administrative burdens—are assessed. Footnotes ¹ E-mail address: tim.keyworth{at}rpieurope.org     

新制度经济学的研究方法与交易成本范式

周业安（《经济研究》2001年第七期）把新制度经济学重视制度分析的“可检验的意蕴”，落实在“小样本个案”的研究方法，并认为这一方法应该成为国内新制度经济学研究的主流方向。在回顾制度研究的传统和描述新制度经济学内部充满纷争的现状的基础上，本文强调，新制度经济学最根本的理论特色在于交易成本的研究范式；与其说小样本个案研究是经济学研究的主要方法之一，不如说是社会科学研究的基本方法之一。对于一门正在形成的学科，更应该强调研究方法的多元主义，而不是简单地提出所谓的“主流研究方法”。     

中国股票市场上个人投资者与机构投资者的指令执行成本

本文不同于传统的用报价价差的方法度量执行成本,而是采用有效价差及其分解成分更为准确地度量执行成本和反映交易对价格形成的影响。本文利用上海证券交易所提供的特有的订单数据和交易数据,将中国股票市场的投资者区分为三种不同的类型,即个人投资者和两类机构投资者,分别研究其指令执行成本并加以比较,结果发现,个人投资者与两类机构投资者具有显著不同的执行成本,个人投资者具有更小的有效价差,原因在于个人投资者的交易具有更小的价格影响,而且价格影响的差别远大于已实现价差的差别。另外,财富水平不同的投资者其执行成本也不同。本文的研究结果对我们理解中国市场上不同类型投资者的执行成本提供了依据。