Smith and Rousseau on envy in commercial societies

Abstract

Several works emphasise the similarities between Rousseau and Smith's analysis of self-interest. We will show, along the lines of Le Jalle, that these similarities end on a divergent appreciation of the importance of envy in commercial societies for, contrary to Rousseau, Smith did not consider envy to be a major threat in commercial societies. Part 1 presents their quite similar definitions of envy based on three characteristics: envy comes from a disadvantageous comparison with others; it is painful and malevolent. Part 2, then, studies their moral psychology, or the way they understand the relationship between sympathy and pity on the one hand, and comparison and envy on the other. Here, we identify significant differences between our two philosophers which might explain why they have opposing views on the predominance of envy in commercial societies and on the issue of inequalities of wealth as we show in Part 3. Rousseau thinks that envy increases with wealth and inequality and thus pervades commercial societies, while Smith sees envy as the exception rather than the rule, and, moreover, does not provide a historical genesis for envy. For Smith, it is emulation rather than envy which is the driving force of the progress of society.     

Co-monotonicity: Toward a utility function capturing envy

Envy affects economic decisions, and can lead to monotonicity violation. We introduce co-monotonicity—a generalization of monotonicity, expected to hold even in the presence of envy. Experimental results and implications for the form of possible utility functions are discussed.     

Optimal non-linear income taxation for reduction of envy

This paper examines the optimal non-linear income taxation problem based on λ-equitability. An allocation is λ-equitable if no agent envies a proportion λ of the bundle of any other agent. We examine the properties of Pareto undominated allocations for various λ-equitability requirements. When there is one output, the marginal income tax rate can increase only if leisure is a luxury. In a multi-commodity model with commodity taxes, the goods preferred by the low skilled agent and/or those with high Hicksian elasticities are taxed more heavily. When preferences exhibit quasi-linearity, we can show that the introduction of the λ-equitability constraint increases the marginal income tax rates of the entire population.     

家族性、创业导向与家族创业绩效

家族企业不仅仅是创业的一种组织形式,创业也不仅仅是家族企业生命周期中一个阶段或战略,相反,家族嵌入式创业是关于家族对创业全面综合影响的恰当描述。因此,家族涉入创业活动产生了与创业理论和家族企业研究既有联系又有区别的独特的理论问题,正发展成一个新兴的研究领域。本文通过阐明家族涉入创业活动的家族性因素和创业导向,构建了一个基于资源视角的家族创业研究框架,并指出了未来的研究方向。     

Entrepreneurship and Transition

While output andemployment in the overextended and overmannedstate sector decrease, it is crucial for thesuccess of transition that privateentrepreneurship builds up, increasingproduction and employment, in a processsomewhat paralleling the dual developmentHarris-Lewis-Todaro model, where the statesector plays the role of the traditional sectorendowed with an almost unlimited reserve oflabour. The way this takes place depends to agreat extent not only on the specific featuresof the privatisation processes pursued, butalso on the overall institutional and socialconditions affecting the development, and thenature, of private entrepreneurship. Inparticular, under conditions of insufficientconstruction of the institutional framework ofthe market, and lack of prevention andpunishment of fraudulent behaviour andself-dealing, the development ofentrepreneurship can be derailed intounproductive and destructive forms, accordingto Baumol's distinction, with dire economic andsocial consequences. The different outcomes ofthe transition process may also be explainedthrough the different preconditions affectingthe severity of the specific impedimentsencountered in development of entrepreneurship.Some policy suggestions for speeding up thisdevelopment, both in quantitative andqualitative terms, conclude the paper.     

Entrepreneurship and organization design

We model entrepreneurship and the emergence of firms as an outcome of simultaneous bidding for labor services among heterogeneous agents. What distinguishes our approach from prior work is that occupational choice and job matching are determined simultaneously, so that the opportunity costs of entrepreneurs are accounted for. Those who are relatively unmanageable, while possibly excellent managers themselves, become entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs compete and create value by building efficient organizations and offering potentially well-paid jobs to others. While the entry of an additional entrepreneur typically reduces some individual wages, we show that it always raises the average wage and depresses the average income of incumbent entrepreneurs. This result may help explain the empirically low returns to entrepreneurship.     

公司治理与企业家精神

传统公司治理理论强调对于企业控制权的控制,而淡化了企业作为企业家精神租金创造的意义。本文通过对公司治理与企业家精神的内在逻辑分析,提出公司治理实质上包含着朝向企业家精神的保健机制与激励机制,其共同作用影响企业家精神的发挥从而决定了公司治理的绩效。在理论分析的基础上,本文利用上市家族、国有企业的数据对理论假设进行了实证检验。结果证明,就家族企业而言,激励机制对企业家精神具有显著的正向促进作用,保健机制则表现为不作为或失灵;就国有企业而言,激励机制对企业家精神无显著影响,保健机制则对企业家精神具有较为显著的“倒U型”作用。     

Entrepreneurship and institutional change

Entrepreneurs do more than just buy low and sell high; they sometimes also change our institutions, including our categories of thought. New institutional economics has been examining incentives that drive individuals to bring about market-supporting institutional arrangements. There is, however, an aspect of entrepreneurship conducive to institutional changes that has been neglected by contemporary institutionalist theories and that remains underdeveloped in entrepreneurship research. When and how does entrepreneurship bring about institutional change? I suggest that entrepreneurs are agents of institutional change when cultural categorization is ambiguous with regard to the proper and permissible applications of novel artifacts. Motherhood, for example, used to be a simple category, but surrogacy changed that radically. Examining newspaper evidence, social surveys, statutory law, and judicial cases, I show how entrepreneurs, by provoking a change in interpretation and judgment, challenged the existing institutional legal ordering of procreation turning a technically feasible method of surrogacy into current practice.     

Unemployment Benefits and Entrepreneurship

Several recent empirical papers show that unemployment benefits crowd out nascent entrepreneurs. In the present paper provide theoretical support in favour of this interesting result. Over fairly general preference patterns we obtain a measure of the opportunity cost of entrepreneurs in the presence of unemployment benefits and derive conditions under which potential entrepreneurs suffer as unemployment benefits rise. We formulate a clear transmission mechanism in the labour market that links unemployment benefits to occupational choice for a group of risk‐averse individuals.     

Rousseau's notion of envy: A comparison with modern economic theory

Abstract

The concept of envy is present both in Rousseau's economic philosophy and in modern economic theory. This paper compares these different uses of the concept and studies the relevance of the definition of envy adopted on each side, taking into account what is at stake when a notion of envy is introduced. It will be shown that Rousseau's envy cannot be expressed by modern conceptions of envy. Nevertheless, it enlightens the debate between the two competing notions of envy present in modern economic theory, revealing that the existence of envy questions the notion of self-interest.     

Entrepreneurship,trust and corruption

I propose a theoretical model where trust towards strangers is a channel through which institutions determine economic outcomes, in particular, entrepreneurship and corruption. More importantly, I show that the role of trust has been overlooked since high levels of trust do not always enhance desirable economic outcomes. Trust helps individuals to participate in economic exchanges aligned with social welfare, but it also facilitates individuals to cooperate for the achievement of corrupt deals. Under this more general view of trust, the model generates a non-trivial new prediction at the individual level. Specifically, the individual-level relationship between honesty and trust changes depending on the institutional quality of a country. Dishonest individuals are the more trusting individuals in countries with poor institutions, and the less trusting in countries with good institutions. Using individual-level data of 80 countries from the World Value Survey and the European Values Study, I present empirical evidence in support of this prediction.     

里程碑事件与区域创业环境

主要探讨了新创企业发展过程中的里程碑事件,认为创意产生、初始资金获取、市场的扩展及技术的改进完善、规范的管理是发展中的里程碑事件,区域创业环境建设的原则及重点应是增强相应资源的供给或为资源供给开辟制度渠道,使区域环境能够补足企业资源,缩短阶段跨越中里程碑事件的发生时间。     

创业型大学的创业能力评价指标体系构建

归纳了创业型大学创业能力的定义和构成要素,从创业文化、创业资源、创业人才培养、知识成果转化4个方面,构建了创业型大学创业能力评价指标体系,在评价方法上采用了模糊综合评价法。该评价体系能对我国高校的进一步发展提供理论指导。     

Entrepreneurship education and the business school

This paper examines entrepreneurship education in the light of debates about the future of the business school, the nature of the MBA, with which management education is generally synonymous, and the links that need to be created between teaching and research. There is increasing focus on the general utility of entrepreneurial skills and aptitudes (i.e. creativity, independent thinking, opportunity recognition and exploitation, etc.), and it is our contention that entrepreneurship education offers an innovative new paradigm for business school education that answers some of the challenges that are currently levelled against the MBA. Given the breadth of relevance in terms of the issues around Entrepreneurship Education and future pedagogical development in Business Schools, this paper is also well placed as a vehicle to introduce the rest of the coverage in this special issue of TASM. This paper therefore also summarises the papers presented in terms of their contribution to our understanding of the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in higher education. All suggest the need for the broadening of human and social capital, while some propose a fundamental shift in the delivery of professional education.     

创新与企业家精神研究文献综述

当前,已有越来越多的人认识到,创新与企业家精神是推动社会进步的巨大驱动力,有关这一课题的研究日益引起各方关注。通过梳理目前有影响力的研究文献,重点讨论了创新与企业家精神的作用、定义、内容、特征、影响因素以及相关概念等,以期对创新研究者和立志成为企业家的管理者以启示。     

Entrepreneurship and the taste for discrimination

This paper analyzes the connection between discrimination and entrepreneurship. We contend that the entrepreneur is the central mechanism through which inefficiencies associated with discrimination are competed away. In addition to illuminating the mechanism through which existing discrimination tends to be eliminated, we also consider the more difficult case of consumer discrimination. The standard assumption is that consumer discrimination will not be competed away through market forces. In contrast, we find that entrepreneurs can correct the inefficiencies associated with this form of discrimination by influencing the costs and benefits associated with consumer discrimination. We empirically analyze the integration of black players in Major League Baseball to illustrate our theoretical arguments regarding entrepreneurship and consumer discrimination.     

Entrepreneurship and Unemployment in the UK

The influence of industrial structure, more specifically of entrepreneurship, is investigated on the level of unemployment in the UK. The question is to what extent entrepreneurship, i.e., business ownership can reduce the level of unemployment. The alleged differences between the managed and the entrepreneurial economy will be discussed as well as the links between entrepreneurship and unemployment. It will be concluded that the UK is a relative outlier when using a simple model of the relationship between unemployment and the rate of business ownership. The model is calibrated using recent data of some 23 OECD countries. It underestimates the decrease in unemployment in the UK in the period 1982–1990. Some arguments are brought forward why this might be the case.     

知识创业:创业新发展领域述评

创新创业的理论与实践在全球呈交织发展之势,其中知识创业尤其受到关注。与农业时代倚重土地要素、工业时代倚重资本要素不同,知识创业是知识经济时代倚重知识要素的一种新兴创业行为。国内外学者从概念、内涵、特点、影响等方面对此作了初步研究。总结、梳理并借鉴这些研究成果,对于深化、优化知识创业研究和创新创业实践大有裨益。