Jailer of freedom and enemy of growth?* The role of personal and social identities in educational choices

This paper develops a theoretical and empirical model on the influence of identity on educational choices which extends the existing literature in several directions. The theoretical model proposed here allows schooling choices to be independently influenced by both personal and social identities and, in contrast to previous work, the proposed empirical counterpart is derived directly from the theoretical model. The use of UK’s British Cohort Study on individuals born in 1970 allows us to identify with precision the relevant explanatory factors and to appropriately control for potentially confounding factors. Both social and personal identities are found to have substantial and statistically significant effects on educational participation decisions and these impacts are robust to a variety of specifications. The key implication is that socio-psychological factors play an important role in children’s school performance through their direct influence on the utility derived from studying.     

The Organizational Embeddedness of Social Capital: A Comparative Case Study of Two Voluntary Organizations

Social capital is a popular, but contested concept. It draws attention to the way in which social relations and constructed forms of social organization can produce outcomes on individual and collective levels. However, it is often founded on individualistic, rational-choice models of human behavior that neglect its embeddedness. I explore the embeddedness of social capital through a comparative case study of two voluntary sport organizations in the UK. Through close analysis of in-depth interviews and longitudinal observation, I look at the processes of social capital development and the way socio-organizational context and identity shape these processes.     

Justifying Human Rights: Economics and the Individual

This paper examines the relationship between the individual conception in economics and the justification of economic rights as human rights. It briefly describes the nature of economic rights, and argues that the Homo economicus conception constitutes a barrier to justifying them. The paper then offers an alternative conception of the individual as socially embedded, and argues that it offers an adequate basis for the justification of economic rights. On this alternative conception individuals are enduring beings who have personal identities.     

社会变迁视角下流动人口身份认同的实证研究——基于全国流动人口动态监测调查数据

流动人口的身份认同是其融入城市的关键所在。基于社会变迁的视角对我国流动人口的身份认同进行研究。由于资源具有稀缺性,且在地域和空间上的分布不均,导致了流动人口出现身份认同的困境。利用全国流动人口动态监测数据并结合访谈资料对相关理论作了实证研究。是否就业对流动人口身份认同的影响不大,相对收入和社会地位则是其实现身份认同的重要因素,技术变迁和文化嬗变则将流动人口推进传统文化和现代文化的冲突和对立之中,并常常造成自我身份的迷失,而正式制度和非正式制度一起共同塑造了流动人口的认知和体验,决定其身份认同的轨迹和进程。     

中外养老保险运营效率的比较与启示

完善养老保险制度,提高制度的可转移性,降低制度的管理成本,是提高养老保险运营效率的核心问题。本文从比较中外养老保险的运营效率出发,探讨了我国城镇企业职工基本养老保险制度改革的缺陷和不足,提出了简化养老保险制度、提高制度运营效率的构想,并对构想的可行性进行了分析。本文研究的目的是提醒政府有关管理部门简化制度设计,提高养老保险的运营效率,切实保障退休人员的基本生活。     

Institutions and Values: A Methodological Inquiry

Economics entails a study of institutions regardless of the school of thought, and it is inherently an analysis of institutional transformation with a vision toward creating positive social change through economic arrangements. However, the conceptions of institutions, identity of individuals, human nature as it pertains to economics, identification of the economic sphere, its concerns, and studying its evolution, all vary substantively across schools of thought. We examine the following issues: (i) the differences in the ontological identity of the individual between heterodox approaches, new institutional economics (NIE), and the neoclassical school; (ii) the central point of divergence between original institutional economics (OIE) and NIE, despite both schools being committed to the project of an “institutionally” centered approach to economics; and (iii) the absence of a cohesive project to explore foundational theoretical congruencies among those heterodox approaches that have a shared vision, values, and a common ontological identity of socially embedded people.     

农民工社会认同的形成——基于建筑业农民工的考察

农民工的社会认同关系到这个群体城市融入的问题。依据对建筑业农民工群体实地考察和问卷调查,探讨社会结构和制度安排如何建构了农民工群体的归属感问题。对社会认同的研究不仅要关注宏观制度结构因素对群体的身份地位的作用和影响,还应从微观的角度,分析制度设置是如何建构成员对群体的依附、归属并建构出群体边界的问题。只有改善农民工的劳动条件,提高他们的保障水平,这个群体才有可能融入城市。     

供应链复杂系统企业社会责任的自组织演化

基于供应链复杂系统的自组织特征,运用系统动力学模型,对供应链复杂系统在履行社会责任时的自组织演化进行了分析。研究发现,供应链复杂系统履行社会责任的自组织演化与系统的流量、上下游企业的相互依赖程度以及外部环境因素相关。研究结果表明,供应链复杂系统的各子系统通过协作,产生协同效应,可以更好地履行社会责任。     

动态能力、微观能动主体与组织能力提升

在动荡变化的环境中,企业仅仅拥有"VRIN"属性的资源与能力将难以维持竞争优势,只有不断提升组织能力才是企业基业长青的惟一出路。动态能力在组织能力提升中起重要作用,但动态能力的定义自提出至今仍然模糊不清。本文澄清了动态能力的概念内涵,深入分析了企业高层管理者作为动态能力微观能动主体的角色,并在动态能力及其微观能动主体的基础上构建了一个颇具解释力的组织能力提升框架。     

皮格马利翁模型:研究个体创造性的新视角——一个扩展模型的提出

皮格马利翁模型(Pygmalion model)是解释环境中他人期望对个体绩效表现影响机制的模型。皮格马利模型将上级行为视为与上级期望最为接近且最为基础的关系。将创造性角色认同这一个体自我意识变量加入到模型进行分析,以期为角色认同与自我效能间关系研究提供借鉴。     

阿马蒂亚•森的\" 能力方法\" 在发展经济学中的应用

1998年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者阿马蒂亚•森首先创立了\" 能力方法\" 的分析框架,并把发展定义为人类能力的扩展和自由的增进。森的\" 能力方法\" 对联合国的人类发展报告产生了重大影响。在森的基础上,\" 能力方法\" 得到了一定程度的拓展。森的\" 能力方法\" 对我国发展计划和政策的制定具有一定的借鉴意义。     

The Social Ontology of Fear and Neoliberalism

Fear is a primal instinct; it is a survival mechanism the evolution of which allowed the early humans, indeed all species to adapt, evolve, and survive. When humans moved into settled communities with more advanced means of production, the nature of fear—much like the nature of social relationships—changed. Once the means of social reproduction were secured, fear became less necessary as a survival instinct and more useful as a heuristic device. Fear evolved. Fear cannot be characterized solely as a socially constructed phenomenon, nor as the instinctual response to personally felt traumas. The growth and nature of fear must be studied as a process that develops under its own inertia, feeding off its antecedent past, and as a phenomenon that is shaped by and in turn shapes its institutional setting. Fear should be understood as both structurally determined and socially transformative. This research seeks to examine the ontology of fear, specifically as it relates to neoliberalism.     

对外来常住人口社会融合条件与机制的思考

通过对社会融合概念表征及内涵的再认识,研究适宜于外来常住人口社会融合的制度环境、外来人口自身素质等宏观静态条件和微观动态条件。需要通过公共机制、私人机制和社会机制等三方面的途径和平台来实现外来常人口与本地的社会融合。     

Social responsibility for living standards: Presidential address,association for social economics, 2007

This address presents a vision of economics—drawing upon social, institutional, and feminist economics—that supports the assertion that there should be social responsibility for living standards. Alternative definitions of what an economy is and what economics should study are related to three definitions of living standards presented in Amartya Sen's 1985 Tanner Lectures on the topic. A social provisioning approach to economic life emphasizes that provisioning needs to be organized to promote human flourishing. One contemporary challenge is to do this in a manner that sustains caring and promotes gender equity. 1 1 Following my Presidential Address and prior to publication, I have benefited from comments by Wilfred Dolfsma, Laurie Nisonoff, Nancy Folbre, Ellen Mutari, Martha Starr, and an anonymous reviewer.      

人口老龄化、社会保障与人力资本投资

本文以我国养老保险的\"统账结合\"模式为例,探讨了社会保障制度对人口老龄化和人力资本投资的影响。根据本文的推导和验证,增加\"统账结合\"模式中个人账户的比例,将会对居民的人力资本投资产生一定的激励作用,并延缓其退出劳动力市场的时间,从而缓解人口老龄化对经济和社会发展带来的压力。另外,本文还在\"统账结合\"模型下,分析了人力资本投资与退休的关系,结果发现,增加人力资本投资,可以延长居民的劳动参与时间。由此,我国的社会保障制度应该在以下两个方面进行改革:适当增加\"统账结合\"模式中个人承担的比例;加快农村的社会保障体系建设,促进覆盖全国的社会保障体系的形成。