Technology, the Technology Complex and the Paradox of Technological Determinism

This paper examines the working definitions of the term 'technology' across a range of disciplines such as industrial relations, organizational behaviour, operations management and development economics. The precise 'subdefinition' of technology in use depends on the disciplinary problematic. We develop a conceptual device called the technology complex to reveal the pattern that is observable when a large number of subdefinitions are compared. The technology complex is a list of the distinctive 'elements' that comprise the disciplinary subdefinitions of technology and it orders this list of elements from the 'physical' to the 'cultural'. The technology complex captures the idea that a working definition of technology will be some selection from the elements of the complex. The technology complex also captures the idea that in its most general sense 'technology' is 'knowledge related to artefacts'. We apply the technology complex to the issue of determinism in technological and social change using the examples of aircraft design and robotics. We argue that there is not an 'either—or' issue between the social and the technological influences on change since the terms are not distinct: 'technology' always includes some aspect of the social. We show how what appears to be 'technological determinism' in the examples of aircraft design and robotics use can be understood through the technology complex.     

Gift Exchange and the Business Cycle: The Fair Wage Strikes Back

We extend the benchmark real business cycle model amending technology for fair wage considerations. Effort depends on current, alternative, and past wages. Past wages are treated as the worker's past wages (personal norm) or as the past wages of the society (social norm). This last model reproduces the high variability of employment, the low variability of wages, and the low wage–employment correlation without requiring a second source of impulsions. Wages and employment dynamics are adequately captured when norms adjust slowly to the environment. Fair wages are thus useful to solve the business cycle puzzle when we allow for intertemporal wage comparisons. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: E24     

The Executive Veto: Purpose, Procedure, and Paradox

American governments, federal and state, leave a gap in legislative representation: global majorities are practically silent compared with local ones. An executive veto can right the balance. But prevailing procedural designs are fraught with paradox. I offer a simple new design that avoids paradox, can be instituted without constitutional amendment, and enhances both legislative and executive responsibility.     

中国式自杀：悖谬与出路——读《浮生取义——对华北某县自杀现象的文化解读》

本文是对吴飞先生近著《浮生取义——对华北某县自杀现象的文化解读》的梳理。中国的自杀现象呈现出与西方自杀极为不同的特点,根据西方理论衍出的各种解释和干预由此失去效力。该书在这一基本背景之下,基于田野研究建立了一套独特的理论框架,揭示出自杀现象背后深层的中国文化逻辑,以及西方观念对传统逻辑的冲击力量。在这一解读之下,中国自杀问题的解决并非一孤立的课题,而须进一步探求现代中国文化中家庭新伦理的积极建成。     

Stress that Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox*

People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to standard economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals' utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium with panel data, we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well‐being. This result is robust with regard to a number of alternative explanations. We mention several possibilities of an extended model of human behavior able to explain this “commuting paradox”.     

Deterritorialisation and the Transformation of Statehood: The Paradox of Globalisation

Since the end of the Cold War, states and civil societies face a radically different security situation. In addition to state-to-state threats, transnational security issues have risen to previously unknown relevance. I will argue that – in order to create effective counter-policies against transnational threats – states must transform fundamental principles of traditional statehood according to the logic of global deterritorialisation. To develop this argument, the nature of changed security will be analysed which itself can be found in de-territorialisation: transnational actors withdraw from the territorial principles of traditional security, as best epitomised by transnational terrorism. Consequently, ‘national security’, developed according to the territorial ‘inside’-‘outside’-logic of the state, no longer counters those actors. States must elaborate deterritorial strategies. This development causes a transformation of the state since territoriality is the basic principle of modern statehood. Thus, the reassertion of the state in global security unveils a paradox: to react to deterritorialised security and to reassure their power in global politics, states must overcome their traditional principles of territorial politics and further the development of deterritorialisation.     

专题：纪念加尔布雷斯——权力和良知：加尔布雷斯的政治

作为经济学家,加尔布雷斯给二十世纪后半叶的美国政治史和思想史留下了深刻印记。本文首先试图揭示内在于加尔布雷斯经济学中的道德和社会关怀之特性,指出其本身就是一种旨在和政治达成相容和互动关系的经济学。文章着重考察1950年代初至1970年代中期加尔布雷斯的政治活动,从中凸现如下主旨:加尔布雷斯之于政治权力,无论是襄助和介入,还是离弃和批判,都始终致力于把良知注入其中,也始终保持了知识分子的独立性和批判精神。加尔布雷斯不仅以学术和思想,而且以政治行动塑造了一个卓越的知识分子典范。     

企业创新“悖论”及其解决之策

新产品开发,是企业知识探索与知识利用有机结合的过程。本文在对二者的悖论关系进行辨析的基础上,借鉴矛盾管理的思想,对创新过程悖论问题处理的4种方略做了归纳和比较,评析了依靠高层管理的协调作用及员工角色可变换的结构来实现二者对立统一而存在的空间上或时间上的分割问题,由此提出在较低的组织层次上构建具有两栖能力的组织的主张。两栖不是一个连续统的两极,而是同一事物的两个构面,是可以且应该得到统一的。     

中国企业竞争力的悖论及其求解

中国经济的高速增长与民族企业竞争力不强之间存在着悖论,悖论产生的原因即民族企业对国际产业链、传统关系网的依赖,使其通过各种公共资源的不计入企业成本的消耗,形成了不可持续的虚假竞争力。     

“中国式”维稳的悖论及其消解

“中国式”维稳虽然局部上、暂时达到了目的,但从整体上看,却产生了越来越多的“闹事者”,“呈现出越维越不稳的趋势”。造成这种局面的原因是多方面的,其中一个重要原因恰恰在于“中国式”维稳的模式和方法本身就会批量产生“闹事者”。法治是消解“闹事者”的唯一出路。     

金融危机的根源:贷款悖论——从货币流通视角剖析金融危机形成的机理

金融机构回收贷款本金货币的同时,还要回收贷款利息货币,因借贷者不能创造货币,由此导致贷款悖论。该文通过构建模型阐明贷款悖论是爆发金融危机的内在机理。同时提出利用利息平衡机制,解决利息货币来源,可破解贷款悖论,消除由此引发的金融危机。     

畸弱的公司债券:资本结构理论的现实悖论

我国公司债券融资发展速度缓慢,企业对股票融资和银行贷款更加偏重.造成这一状况的主要原因之一是我国现有公司治理结构的不完善,需要从优化股权结构、增强银行的相机控制机制等方面消除公司债券融资障碍.     

The Environmental Paradox of the Welfare State: The Dynamics of Sustainability

Thus far, there has been a reluctance to instigate a dialogue and engage with the tensions between two literatures with significant insights for each other. The first is the literature on the fiscal sustainability of welfare states, which is invariably predicated upon future growth primarily to manage demographic changes. The second is the post-growth literature, which has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years due to an environmental critique of economic growth. Both literatures contain implications for the analysis of welfare state sustainability. The primary contribution of this paper will be to explore the intractability of the tensions between these discourses and the difficulty of mapping out a progressive policy direction in the twenty-first century which meets both our environmental and social sensibilities. It is claimed that in the post-industrial world the fiscal sustainability of welfare capitalism is dependent upon public expenditure financed indirectly an environmentally unsustainable growth dynamic, but that ironically any conflagration of public welfare programmes is likely to be counter-productive as the welfare state is able to promote de-carbonisation strategies and notions of the public good as well as promoting monetarily and ecologically efficient public welfare services.     

“诺思第二悖论”及其新破解

在新制度经济学家看来,制度的一个重要作用是降低作为经济运行的"摩擦力"的交易费用。理论上,交易费用会随着一国制度的进步和完善而降低。但是,据瓦利斯和诺思测算,美国自1 870年到1 970年的1 00年间总量交易费用占GNP的比例不仅没有降低,反而越来越高了。这种理论(随着制度的进步交易费用应该越来越低)与实际(测量到总量交易费用越来越高)的矛盾被称之为"诺思第二悖论"。瓦利斯和诺思测量到的总量交易费用并非交易费用的全部,表面上测量到的总量交易费用上升了,但"理论上"的总量交易费用是下降的,即是说,随着制度的进步,不仅每笔交易的交易费用下降了,理论上的总量交易费用也是下降的,所谓"诺思第二悖论"是不存在的。     

资产定价理论:逻辑悖论与展望

资产定价理论是现代金融经济学的核心内容,但由于资产定价理论存在的局限性,所以它们在不断接受着各种实践检验的挑战.这些问题的根源在于没有认识到经典资产定价理论存在着认识论和方法论上的悖论,这些悖论突显了资产定价基本思想在未来资产定价理论发展上的重要意义.     

The Dowry Gift in South Asia: An Institution on the Intersection of Market and Patriarchy

Abstract

Dowry refers to marriage gifts that are instrumental to the negotiation of the marriage contract. Historically, the dowry gift was constituted by law across the Roman empire. While dowry has become largely irrelevant in Europe in contemporary times, it is still pervasive across the Brahmanical Hindu societies of South Asia. Moreover, what was traditionally token gifts from friends and well-wishers has taken on the form of “new dowry” since the colonial period. “New dowry” is heavily composed of cash and market goods, including land and is frequently accompanied by violence against new brides when their families fail to make larger dowry gifts with higher market value. This article examines the evolution of “new dowry” through a Polanyian lens. Unlike the neoclassical Beckerian approach which takes an ahistorical outlook to marriage as a “market” for matching partners and dowry as a market price, the substantivist lens à la Polanyi investigates the historical evolution of “new dowry” through the advent of market processes in the colonial period and the countermovement of legal reform in the post-colonial period.     

Gift giving and worker productivity: Evidence from a firm-level experiment

We present results from a field experiment, designed to measure worker response to a monetary gift from their employer. The experiment took place inside a tree-planting firm paying its workforce incentive contracts. Firm managers told a crew of tree planters they would receive a pay raise for one day as a result of a surplus not attributable to past planting productivity. We compare planter productivity—the number of trees planted per day—on the day the gift was handed out with productivity on previous and subsequent days of planting on the same block, and thus under similar planting conditions. We find direct evidence that the gift had a significant and positive effect on daily planter productivity, controlling for planter-fixed effects, weather conditions and other random daily shocks.