生产力的新质态:信息生产力

不同阶段的社会生产力呈现出不同的质态,信息生产力是当今社会发展产生的新质态生产力。文章着重分析了这种新质态生产力的含义、系统构成、特征及动态发展过程中所具有的特性;并在一般生产力普遍性探讨的基础上,分析了作为信息生产力突出表现的电子商务生产力。     

试析生产力与先进生产力

本文结合马克思主义生产力理论的经典内容和当今理论观点,提出了一些关于深化生产力理论认识的新概念。     

Relationships and Hybrid Contracts: An Analysis of Contract Choice in Information Technology

Selecting the type of contract is an important aspect of governinginterfirm transactions. The purpose of this article is to examinethe use of fixed-fee and time-and-materials (T&M, or cost-plus)contracts and a hybrid contract that consists of a T&M contractwith a cap. In addition to uncertainty and measurement factors,we also address a relatively unexplored aspect of contracting—howthe prior relationship between the firms influences the typeof contract the firms select. Using data on 394 contracts fromthe information technology (IT) services industry, we show thatT&M contracts are preferred when the cost of measuring qualityex post is high and when it is difficult to estimate costs exante. We also find site-specific measures of relationship leadto a preference for low-powered T&M contracts.     

Conventional Contracts

A conventional contract is a contract that each side of a bargain expects the other side to insist on, because it is standard and customary under the circumstances. We consider a process of convention formation in which agents' expectations evolve through repeated interactions in a large-population setting. Agents choose best replies given their knowledge of the precedents, subject to some inertia and random error in their choice behaviour. Over the long run, this adaptive learning process tends to select contracts that are efficient , and egalitarian in the sense that the payoffs are centrally located on the efficiency frontier of the payoff possibility set. When the payoffs form a convex, comprehensive bargaining set, the process selects the Kalai–Smorodinsky solution.     

生产力的质与量和先进生产力

生产力是质与量的统一体。生产力的量指的是生产效率的高低。生产力的质指的是生产力的发展是否有利于人的解放、自由和全面发展,是否符合人类社会发展方向。长期以来人们认为高效率的生产力就是先进生产力。这是对生产力的经济学意义上的理解,它不是生产力的全部内涵。这个认识有深远的理论根源和实践根源,它的正式形成以及对社会生产产生巨大作用,是在资本主义生产方式出现之后。高效率生产力只是先进生产力的必要条件而不是充分条件。先进生产力是高效率生产力和高质量生产力的统一。     

Consumption Commitments and Employment Contracts

We examine an economy in which the cost of consuming some goods can be reduced by making commitments that reduce flexibility. We show that such consumption commitments can induce consumers with risk-neutral underlying utility functions to be risk averse over small variations in income, but sometimes to seek risk over large variations. As a result, optimal employment contracts will smooth wages conditional on being employed, but may incorporate a possibility of unemployment.     

道德、信誉与合约

市场经济之初,人们体会最深,感叹最多的是道德问题和信誉问题。市场经济离不开道德和信誉,缺乏道德和信誉支持的市场经济只能是灾难经济。然而,信誉和道德有着本质区别,但日常生活中人们将它们混在一起来谈论,有时甚至是不分的,本文力图从合约的角度辨清二者之间的关系。     

先进生产力和发展先进生产力的现实选择

工业化和工业化道路是中国共产党对先进生产力的现实选择;新型工业化道路是党在领导中国发展经济的历史进程中,顺应世界经济从传统的工业化向新型工业化发展的要求,对社会生产力发展所选择的正确途径和所设计的与时俱进的方案,是党发展先进生产力的现实选择。     

生态生产力与我国现阶段的生产力发展

生态生产力作为一种先进的生产力形态,代表了当代生产力发展的基本方向。我国发展生态生产力既是落实科学发展观的现实要求,也是积极应对经济全球化的必然选择。我国发展生态生产力的目标指向是社会主义和谐社会的构建并最终实现自然(社会)与人的和谐发展。生态理念是发展生态生产力的理论先导,生态科技是发展生态生产力的物质基础,生态经济是发展生态生产力的具体模式,生态制度是发展生态生产力的现实保障。     

环境与生产力

文章首先评述了学术界对“环境”内涵的不同论述 ,分析了环境的非独占性、外部性和稀缺性特点。在此基础上 ,提出了环境也是生产力的观点 ,并系统地论述了环境与现代化两者之间的内在联系。     

Unforeseen Contingencies and Incomplete Contracts

We scrutinize the conceptual framework commonly used in the incomplete contract literature. This literature usually assumes that contractual incompleteness is due to the transaction costs of describing—or of even foreseeing—the possible states of nature in advance. We argue, however, that such transaction costs need not interfere with optimal contracting ( i.e. transaction costs need not be relevant ), provided that agents can probabilistically forecast their possible future payoffs (even if other aspects of the state of the nature cannot be forecast). In other words, all that is required for optimality is that agents be able to perform dynamic programming, an assumption always invoked by the incomplete contract literature. The foregoing optimality result holds very generally provided that parties can commit themselves not to renegotiate. Moreover, we point out that renegotiation may be hard to reconcile with a framework that otherwise presumes perfect rationality. However, even if renegotiation is allowed, the result still remains valid provided that parties are risk averse.     

产业聚集与区域经济发展

经济增长来源于劳动力、物质资本、人力资本、科学技术以及社会资本的综合作用 ,但是这些因素对经济增长的作用不是独立进行的 ,而是密切结合的。而这种结合的力量是什么呢 ,产业聚集就是将这些生产要素结合到一起的一种重要力量 ,它对区域经济的发展具有重要的指导意义 ,但是学界对产业聚集的研究还没有引起足够的重视。文章就产业聚集的基本内涵、形成机制以及对区域经济发展的重要作用进行了探讨。     

Contracts and competition: an introduction

Changes in public policy and corporate strategy have enhancedthe role of contracts as mechanisms of economic governance.The understanding that norms, standards and other forms of regulatorymechanism can affect the structure of incentives and the qualityof contractual outcomes has helped to stimulate a wider debateconcerning institutions and economic performance. Among thethemes explored in this Special Issue, which draws on the UKESRC's Contracts and Competition Programme, are the need forinterdisciplinary analysis of economic organisation; the linkbetween contracts and trust; and the complex relationship betweeninstitutional forms and economic outcomes.     

Incentive Contracts and Environmental Performance Indicators

A principal-agent (P-A) model is used to analyse the effect of environmentaldiligence, the principal (top management), having to use imperfectperformance indicators and fearing penalties for environmental damages,wants to avoid environmental harm and induce the agent (employeemanipulating hazardous materials) to take appropriate action. To motivatethe agent, the principal offers an incentive contract based onenvironmental stewardship performance (as measured by EPI).Environmental stewardship being difficult to measure, due to high levelsof uncertainty surrounding, EPI, creates impediments to the establishmentof an efficient P-A contract.     

Self-Enforcing Labour Contracts and Macroeconomic Dynamics

To properly account for the dynamics of the key macroeconomic variables, researchers incorporate various internal propagation mechanisms in their models. In general, these mechanisms implicitly rely on the assumption of a perfect equality between the real wage and the marginal product of labour. This paper features a micro-founded model of a limited-commitment firm, and derive endogenous dynamic labour contracts that produce a different linkage between the real wage and the marginal product of labour. The risk-sharing between the entrepreneur and the worker, both faced with enforcement problems, provides a different type of propagation mechanism. I investigate the dynamic properties of this endogenous rigidity in relation to the initial bargaining power of each agent.      

Foundations of Incomplete Contracts

In the last few years, a new area has emerged in economic theory, which goes under the heading of "incomplete contracting". However, almost since its inception, the theory has been under attack for its lack of rigorous foundations. In this paper, we evaluate some of the criticisms that have been made of the theory, in particular, those in Maskin and Tirole (1999 a ). In doing so, we develop a model that provides a rigorous foundation for the idea that contracts are incomplete.     

Contracts with endogenous information

I study covert information acquisition and reporting in a principal agent problem allowing for general technologies of information acquisition. When posteriors satisfy two dimensional versions of the standard First Order Stochastic Dominance and Concavity/Convexity of the Distribution Function conditions, a first-order approach is justified. Under the same conditions, informativeness and riskiness of reports are equivalent. High powered contracts, that make the agent's informational rents more risky, are used to increase incentives for information acquisition, insensitive contracts are used to reduce incentives for information gathering. The value of information to the agent is always positive. The value of information to the principal is ambiguous.