Rejoinder to Peltzman

Since 2008, the U.S. economy has been mired in the second worst economic crisis in its history. Conceivably, massive government spending could bring the economy out of this slump as massive war spending ultimately ended the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, a far superior strategy exists: guaranteeing employment accompanied by retraining to enable all unemployed workers to become absorbed into the regular work force. Beyond ending the crisis, the superiority of this strategy is that it would institutionalize a procedure for insuring that, in an increasingly technologically dynamic and open economy, workers would possess the necessary skills for available jobs. Guaranteeing employment would also eliminate the ecological costs associated with the need to seek growth to generate employment at practically any cost. Finally, it would establish a new moral social contract, whereby everyone is granted the dignity that accompanies being a productive member of society. Welfare for those able to work could disappear, along with the degradation and humiliation accompanying it.     

Socialism after Hayek: A Post Keynesian Contribution to Burczak's Theory of Social Justice

The paper presents a brief overview of the basic premise of the Burczak's Socialism after Hayek, and shows that Burczak's “applied epistemological postmodernism” presents a unique unifying ground for heterodox economics, breaking down traditional barriers between right and left. This new approach allows us to revisit the Marx-Keynes-Hayek debates in a more constructive way for a unified theory of social justice. However, we argue that Burczak's system does not automatically guarantee full employment, so it cannot be considered an ideal theory of social justice. A Post Keynesian contribution is presented in the form of the Employer of Last Resort (ELR) program which we argue is compatible and complementary to Burczak's theory of social justice. Finally, we argue that an adequate system design of the magnitude proposed here must be infomed by the principles of institutional adjustment as outlined by J. Fagg Foster.     

Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism: The Backward Art of Living

Western economies have undergone a significant transformation over the last half a century as they have moved away from a commitment to full employment, going from activist fiscal policy to its abandonment with the adoption of budgetary austerity. This is not because of any technical or physical incapacity to achieve full employment. Analyzing the broad macroeconomic experience of Canada and the United States in the post-WWII era, the article finds that this growing unemployment has essentially resulted from a deliberate policy choice not to stimulate sufficiently demand via fiscal measures. Learning from the experience of the Great Depression, Michal Kalecki had offered an explanation for this type of policy response in favor of rising long-term unemployment. This article recognizes the relevance and appropriateness of Kalecki's analysis and seeks to determine whether the Minskian institutional proposal for achieving effective full employment (via government as the employer of last resort) would withstand an original Kaleckian critique.     

关于信任的博弈分析——基于个体的自利理性和社会理性

信任的根本在于不完全信息和有限理性,信任是个体弥补自己理性不足的一种策略.所以,信任分析无法在个体的自利理性下完成,需要扩展个体理性的范畴.将个体理性扩展为自利理性和社会理性,利用理性的这种二元特性,重新解释了两个具有代表性的博弈模型--蜈蚣博弈和信任博弈.这不但对信任问题提出了一种新的分析框架,而且还解决了博弈分析的困境.这说明,对个体理性的扩展是合适的,个体的社会理性是经济学不可忽视的一部分.     

Employment and asset prices

A medium-term relationship exists between share prices, normalized by labour productivity, and the rate of unemployment in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. This helps explain decadal changes in mean unemployment, such as the shift to higher mean unemployment in the Continental European countries in the 1970s and 1980s that coincided with a fall in the level of share prices, as well as differences in mean unemployment between countries.     

我国海洋渔业资源利用中个体理性与集体理性的矛盾及其协调

本文论述了海洋渔业资源中个体理性与集体理性矛盾产生的根源，指出并分析了协调这些矛盾的措施：一是限制渔船的数量，二是采取各种措施恢复海洋渔业资源，三是实施配额捕捞制度。在前述分析的基础上作者提出了完善这些措施的对策和建议。     

理性的边界与个体主义方法论的局限性

本文致力于弄清三个方面的问题：（1）通过梳理在确定性和不确定性条件下理性偏好的最新研究成果,指出理性的边界,揭示主流经济学个体主义方法论的局限性。（2）通过考察阿罗不可能性定理的条件,提出阿罗不可能性定理的逆否命题,探索摆脱阿罗不可能性定理的途径和社会福利函数存在的条件。（3）根据阿罗不可能性定理,指出个体主义方法论在分析个人理性和集体理性、微观经济学和宏观经济学、个人效用和社会福利之间的关系时遭遇的困难,进而提出用整体主义方法论解决此类问题的思路。本文认为,制度和规则是社会的灵魂,在规则的语境下新古典经济学和制度经济学不是对立而是互补的。     

社会资本对大学生就业的差序性影响

在中国传统社会的大背景下,充分继承马克·格兰诺维特＂弱连带＂理论和费孝通＂差序格局＂理论的基础上,将弱关系理论、社会资本理论以及＂差序格局＂理论相比照,分析中国大学生无论在职业选择还是就业倾向上都受家庭社会关系网所拥有的社会资本量的多少的影响,从而进一步分析社会资本（家庭背景）对大学生就业的差序性影响。     

最后贷款人(LLR)制度:香港经验及其启示

本文在对香港金融管理局履行最后贷款人角色和国内近几年地方政府动用公共资源对地方法人类金融机构进行资本救助、财务重组情况进行总结的基础上,研究认为:处置地方法人类金融机构的风险,必须发挥地方政府的积极作用;建立我国基于市场机制作用的真正的LLR制度;更严格地限制异地非金融机构类股东入股地方法人类金融机构;适当扩大外汇储备的运用范围.     

就业风险与失业安全

随着从计划向市场的经济与社会全面转型,不同形式的就业风险在不断增大。政府和社会都在为变风险失业为安全失业做出种种努力。如何通过强调政府责任、规范失业保险、加快立法进程等途径以促进就业、缓解就业风险,是我国经济与社会发展过程中迫切需要解决的重大问题。     

Imagining the European Economy: 'Competitiveness' and the Social Construction of 'Europe' as an Economic Space

This article analyses the political and ideological agency of an emergent European transnational capitalist class in the socioeconomic governance of the European Union (EU) by examining the case of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). It seeks to show that the ERT‐as an elite forum mediating the interests and power of the most transnationalise d segments of European capital‐has played a significant role in shaping European governance in as much as it has successfully articulated and promoted ideas and concepts thathave at critical times set the political agenda and, beyond, have helped to shape the discourse within which European policy making is embedded. Here, the increasingly neoliberal orientation of the ERT reflects, and at the same time is a constitutive element within, the construction of a new European order in which governance is geared to serve the interests of a globalising transnational capitalist elite, and hence the exigencies of global 'competitiveness'. Although in recent years some detailed work has been done on the role of the ERT in the internal market programme, there has as yet been little attention paid to (and thus interpretation of) the content of the ideas promoted by the ERT and hence to the ideological power that this forum of transnational capitalists exercises. The article is divided into four main parts. The first briefly elaborates the theoretical framework that informs my analysis. Drawing upon what has come to be labelled the 'neo-Gramscian school' in International Relations (IR), I willadvance a historical materialist understanding of the dynamics of European integration, emphasising in particular the role of transnational social forces‐as engendered by the capitalist production process‐in the political and ideological struggles over European order. The second part introduces the case of the European Round Table. I will claim that the ERT is neither a simple business lobby nor a corporatist interest association, but must rather be interpreted as having developed into an elite platform for an emergent European transnational capitalist class from which it can formulate a common strategy and‐on the basis of that strategy‐seek to shape European socioeconomic governance through its privileged access to the European institutions. It is this latter role of the ERT that will be the focus of the final two parts. As such, the third presents an analysis of the evolution of ERT's strategic project and the initiating role the Round Table played in the relaunching of the integration process from Europe 1992 to Maastricht. Following this, the fourth part will analyse the ideological orientation and strategic outlook of today's Round Table and its current role in shaping what I will call the neoliberal discourse of competitiveness which, I argue, increasingly underpins European governance.     

Financial Structure Changes and the Central Bank Policy

In a response to the financial collapse of 2007–2009, central banks overstepped their narrow role of lender of last resort (LLR) and acted as dealers or market-makers of last resort (MMLR). Such an evolution of the central bank policy stems from the endogenous process of growing securities markets, financial innovations, and market-based credit intermediation. This article examines how changes in the structure of the banking and financial system transforms the central bank policy in financial stability. It considers the separation or integration of the LLR and MMLR functions, revisits the debate opposing lend-to-market and lend-to-institution theses, and discusses the LLR standard rule and its transposition to the MMLR rule. Inasmuch as private securities markets and financial innovations determine the structure of the credit system, central banks endogenously adopt the integrated approach, so that the extensive LLR policy prevails.     

Employment and Environmental Protection

One of the most pressing problems in an economy intransition is that of unemployment. Hitherto the`costs' of this unemployment have either focused onthe value of the lost production, or on the costs tothe government of supporting the unemployed. From asocial viewpoint this is inappropriate. In this paper,we discuss the costs of unemployment in terms of theirimpacts on human welfare, particularly the healtheffects. On the positive side, as inefficient industries areshut down and as production responds to marketpressures, wasteful government subsidies are reduced,as is the level of environmental pollution. Clearly,therefore, there is a trade-off between theenvironmental and economic benefits on the one handand the welfare costs of unemployment on the other.In this paper, a simple model is developed to analyzethis trade-off. A single firm has a short-runproduction function in which output is dependent onthe level of employment. The present position ischaracterized by `inefficiency' in that the firm ismaking a loss and overproduction is taking place.Environmental damage is a function of the level ofoutput. The efficient production point is known, asare the efficiency prices.The problem to be solved is to minimize the costs ofmoving to the efficient point. The papercharacterizes the efficient dynamic path and givessome illustrations of such a path for the coal sectorin Russia, for given values of the efficiency losses,the environmental costs of using coal and the costs ofunemployment.     

论制度演化视阈中的认知与理性

制度既不是纯粹理性设计的产物,也不是纯粹自发演化的无意识的产物,而是两者综合作用的产物。人类具有高度认知的能力,可以在经由认知积累的心智结构的基础上展开推理和思索,这样的推理和思索为制度的理性设计准备了心理冲动和智力支持。制度正是在这样的认知和理性的作用下,在群体中扩散着,并且动态地演化着。     

解析存款保险与中央银行LLR的关系

我国将建立存款保险制度已是不争的事实,但国内学术界对有关存款保险制度组织形式问题的研究还不够深入,绝大多数仅局限于对国外现有的存款保险制度的优缺点加以比较分析,或是对相关文献做一些整理综述的工作,即使有个人观点,也是描述性地加以阐述.本文借鉴不完全契约理论,从微观经济学角度出发,分析了在不同条件下,存款保险与中央银行LLR之间的关系,得到了比较有意义的结果.从方法论上讲,这与前人的工作有很大的不同.最后,根据本文模型,作者提出了对我国存款保险制度组织形式选择的个人观点,并指出模型有待进一步改进的地方.     

系统重要性金融机构危机监管制度：历史与未来方向

系统重要性金融机构危机监管制度是后金融危机时代国际金融监管领域的重要理论和实践问题。探讨了系统重要性金融机构危机监管制度的重要性,在此基础上,梳理了系统重要性金融机构危机监管制度路径的历史演变,主要包括存款保险制度与最后贷款人机制。最后,讨论了“太大而不能倒”危机管理理念的缺陷,指出完善系统重要性金融机构危机监管制度的紧迫性及其最新发展趋势。     

Procedural Rationality and Institutions: The Production of Norms by Means of Norms

This paper deals with a cognitivist approach to the problem of how social and economic institutions are formed. The economic framework I use is Simon's model of procedural rationality, integrating a cognitivist approach into a game structure. In game theory norms are seen as conventions, but not all institutions can be explained by game theory models. In cognition-based approaches, the creation and maintenance of institutions is the outcome of a search for satisficing norms. According to Simon and Newell (1972), agents faced with problems to solve visualise a problem as an area of potential situations to examine in order to establish analogical problem structures. In my approach, a norm can be defined within a system of norms that form in a historical-evolutionary dimension, suggesting a path in norm-forming processes.     

社会资本及其本地化程度对农村非农就业的影响——中国西部沿边地区的实证分析

考察了西部边疆地区社会资本及其结构对农村劳动力非农就业的影响,以及社会资本本地化的程度。我们认为,作为就业信息传递的重要方式之一,社会资本有利于促进农村劳动力非农就业,但是西部边疆农村地区可用社会资本的限制、家庭劳动力在农业生产与非农之间合理配置的需求及社会资本本地化的程度抑制了社会资本对非农就业的促进作用;此外,社会资本结构中存在相反作用的两种力量使其对非农就业的影响不确定。     

Efficiency First or Equity First? Two Principles and Rationality of Social Choice

This paper formalizes two different principles to socially rank allocations under efficiency-equity trade off. The efficiency-first social preference relation ranks an allocation x higher than an allocation y if and only if (i) x is Pareto-superior to y or (ii) x and y are Pareto-noncomparable and x is equity-superior to y. The equity-first social preference relation reverses the order of application of the two criteria. We show that the efficiency-first relation may have a cycle, whereas the equity-first relation is transitive. We also characterize and compare the sets of maximal elements for these social preference relations in the Edgeworth box and examine the nonemptiness of the sets. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D71, D63, D61.     

中国社会医疗保险道德风险刍议

中国社会医疗保险是由国家立法实行的一种非盈利性社会事业,关系到人们的生活健康、人力资源的保护增值与社会经济的有序发展,其要义不言而喻。然而,由于现行的医疗保险体制运行中的种种缺陷而引致的医保欺诈现象愈演愈烈,不仅给国家财政带来巨大负担,还给整个社会带来严重的信用危机。因此,医保道德风险的防范与控制已经刻不容缓。