中国城镇失业保险的供求矛盾及对策研究

失业保险是指个人在失去工作或等待就业期间能从政府或社会得到保证基本生活需要的物质帮助。我国的失业保险制度从无到有逐渐发展壮大到今天,虽然已初步形成体系,但伴随着我国失业人口的与日俱增,现行的失业保险供给远远满足不了实际需求,在政府资金缺口的约束下,这一供求矛盾还将继续存在甚至有扩大的趋势。将失业保险制度的创新与促进就业的政策措施相结合,对于解决城镇失业保险的供求矛盾,实现标本兼治有着重要的意义。     

The history of Western futures studies: An exploration of the intellectual traditions and three-phase periodization

The main purpose of this paper is to present a three-phase periodization of modern Western futures studies to construct historical classification. In order to reach this goal, the following intellectual traditions are introduced to review the philosophical and historical contexts that affect the very foundations of futures studies: (a) religions, (b) utopias, (c) historicism, (d) science fiction, and (e) systems thinking. The first phase (beginning in 1945 to the 1960s) was the era of scientific inquiry and rationalization of the futures characterized by the prevalence of technological forecasting, the rise of alternative futures in systematic ways, and the growth of professionalization of futures studies. In the first phase, futures had become objects of rationalization removed from the traditional approaches such as utopia, grandiose evolutionary ideas, naive prophecies, science fiction, religious attitudes, and mystical orientation. The second phase (the 1970s and the 1980s) saw the creation the global institution and industrialization of the futures. This era was marked by the rise of worldwide discourse on global futures, the development of normative futures, and the deep involvement of the business community in futures thinking. In the second phase, futures studies-industry ties were growing and the future-oriented thoughts extensively permeated the business decision-making process. The third phase (the 1990s – the present) reflects the current era of the neoliberal view and fragmentation of the futures. This phase is taking place in the time of neoliberal globalization and risk society discourses and is characterized by the dominance of foresight, the advance of critical futures studies, and the intensification of fragmentation. In the third phase, futures practice tends to be confined to the support of strategic planning, and hence is experiencing an identity crisis and loss of its earlier status of humanity-oriented futures.     

Alternative space futures: The next quarter-century

Space developments do not exist in a vacuum! The shape of future space activities will depend on a combination of social, economic and political forces, creating the determinants for different patterns of space utilization. Forecasts of alternative space futures can therefore be explored by integrating different scenarios of world development and space trends. Here, alternative world trends are related to the underlying dynamics of space development, in terms of the economic, military and scientific utilization of space. The importance of space as a political issue is thus emphasized, in that the outcomes of policy choices to be made both now and in the future will help shape the social and economic contexts in which space technology will be used in the decades ahead.     

东北老工业基地改造中的下岗失业问题

在改造和振兴东北老工业基地过程中，解决下岗失业问题是一个绕不开的难题，并且还和其他的问题交织在一起，相互影响，成为改造东北老工业基地的一个关键点。因此，把东北老工业基地的下岗失业问题作为一个重要课题加以研究，具有很强的现实性。     

从失业补偿到就业促进：发展型社会政策视角下中国失业保险制度的改革与发展

在发展型社会政策理论日益兴起的今天,社会保险政策的改革与发展应以该理论的精神内核为指导,重视被保险人人力资本积累和社会资本建设,更加注重社会保险的风险预防和就业促进功能。以此为指导,研究认为中国失业保险应当更加重视制度的发展性功能,通过调整相关制度改革和调整,构建起促进再就业、预防失业与失业救济＂三位一体＂复合功能体系,实现从单一的失业保险制到综合性就业保障机制的转变。     

日本商品期货市场近年衰落的原因和思考

进入21世纪以来,曾引领亚洲期货市场发展的日本商品期货市场明显衰落。在最初的要素条件、需求状况等外生比较优势逐步削弱的同时,规模经济、技术进步、产品差别等内生比较优势发展的滞后及市场分割、产业需求不足等固有矛盾的暴露,决定了日本商品期货市场发展的下行态势,日本监管当局规范和发展期货市场脱离实际的改革措施尤其加速了市场衰落的进程。本文从日本商品期货市场的现状入手,通过比较优势理论分析衰落的原因,并从大国商品期货市场的竞争和发展中探寻教训与经验,为我国商品期货市场发展提供借鉴。     

Paradigms lost?: Reflections on the coming organizational ‘revolution’

The question of optimal organizational change for the future is attracting growing interest. The authors examine the literature to date and find that its basic tenets are too simplistic and over-optimistic to provide a methodological base for evaluation of change in the future.     

Japan as number one?: Social problems of the next decades

Japan's post-war economic success should be seen as situationally as well as culturally determined. As the conditions that prompted the ‘Japanese miracle’ change, a number of problems will emerge in Japanese society; the ageing of the population and the effects of modernization on the attitudes of workers towards their corporate employers will inhibit further economic growth. Western management, searching for the key to the miracle, should take note.     

Designing a foresight exercise for the future of rural communities in Romania

The paper aims to offer a good guideline for anyone who intends to do a futures or a foresight exercise for rural communities. The case presented is the one of the future of rural communities in Romania. The article begins with a brief presentation of the prevailing rural situation in Romania followed by a dialogue regarding suggestions for the possible objectives of a foresight exercise and the methods used (e.g. visioning, alternative futures, scenarios).     

Preparing for the professional futures field:: Observations from the UHCLC futures program

The futures field is an arena of increasing interest and activity. This article seeks to: (1) provide general information about key information sources for directed inquiry into futures studies; (2) sketch the origins and current status of the graduate program in Studies of the Future offered by the University of Houston at Clear Lake City—currently the largest and most comprehensive program of its kind; (3) Describe the methodology used in a recent strategic planning and program development project to update the UHCLC program; and (4) convey some guiding observations on teaching and research in futures studies, and on helping students find appropriate employment.     

The politics of anticipation: On knowing and governing environmental futures

In this article we describe how the historical emergence and rise of future studies, since the founding issue of Futures in 1968, has been intricately connected to the emergence and development of environmental anticipation as discourse and practice. We trace a dialectical and inter-twined relationship between technologies of environmental anticipation and forecasting, and technologies of anti-environmentalist anticipation and counter-intervention, one which we argue shapes not only the contemporary politics of anticipation, but in a very material sense, the future conditions of biological and social life on Earth. In so doing we want to address the possible contributions that the field of futures studies can make to reimagining collective agency and ways of being on Earth, whilst reflecting critically upon its genealogical relations to the political reason and strategic horizons of powerful fossil fuel interests, from the crisis of the 1970s to the present. The article also offers a more in-depth contextualization to the other articles in this special issue of Futures on “The Politics of Environmental Anticipation”. The aim is to bring to the fore the role that social scientists play in environmental anticipation − i.e. drawing attention to the fact that the future could always have been otherwise.     

Migration and Social Replacement Incomes: How to Protect Low-Income Workers in the Industrialized Countries Against the Forces of Globalization and Market Integration

This paper discusses how an industrialized country could defend the living standard of its unskilled workers against the wage competition from immigrants. It shows that fixing social replacement incomes implies migration into unemployment. Defending wages with replacement incomes brings about first order efficiency losses that approximate the budget cost of the government. By contrast, wage subsidies involve much smaller welfare losses. While the exclusion of migrants from a national wage replacement program does not avoid the distortions in labor migration, the (temporary) exclusion of migrants from a national wage subsidy program makes it possible to reach the first best migration pattern despite the preservation of the welfare state.JEL Code: F15, F22, I38, H5, J61     

Investment in Commodities Futures: The Accounting Implications

There are no rules within existing Generally Accepted Accounting Principles that apply to investment in commodities futures. In this paper, the accounting implications of investing in futures are explored. The accounting problems relate to the first record of the contract and to the subsequent recognition of gains and losses. There is no unequivocal answer under GAAP as to how futures contracts should be recorded. As with many other items in conventional accounting practice, the method of recording depends upon managers'intentions. This has obvious, and serious, implications for auditors.     

省思与规制:我国跨境期货交易法律困境及应对

我国推进期货市场走出去及国际化战略须以跨境期货交易法律机制构建为前提。文章通过厘定跨境期货交易内涵边界及监管正当性,省思主要法律困境及应对思路,提出应致力于跨境期货交易立法监管理念创新,确立跨境交易监管认同机制,提升跨境期货衍生品交易经纪能力,适度扩大衍生品跨境投资参与主体范围,逐步取消QDII投资品种限制,并从跨境期货交易运行保障、立法监管、风险控制以及解纷机制等方面建构系统法律保护体系,切实保障跨境交易整体性金融安全。     

我国失地农民社会保障问题研究综述

当前,失地农民问题已成为社会各界关注的热点问题。如何妥善地安置失地农民,为其提供有说服力的社会保障,不仅事关失地农民自身的利益,也关系到整个社会的和谐稳定。本文对国内学者关于失地农民社会保障体系的内容、基金及各地实践方面的研究进行了归纳、梳理,并在此基础上作了简要评述,认为学界应在失地农民社会保障制度一体化、土地征用和相关法律的完善等方面进行深入研究。     

Valuation of a spark spread: an LM6000 power plant

This paper analyzes a power plant powered by two General Electric LM6000 gas turbines combined with a steam generator that allows combined cycle operations. We consider four distinct operating modes for the plant. Such a plant can be characterized as a real option on a spark spread: optimally converting natural gas to electricity. We use a Margrabe approach by using the market heat rate (the ratio of the electricity price to the natural gas price) as our underlying stochastic variable. We estimate a stochastic model for market heat rates that incorporates time of day, day of week, month, and the incidence or otherwise of a spike in heat rates. We use the model and its residuals in a bootstrap process simulating future market heat rates, and use a least-squares Monte Carlo approach to determine the optimal operating policy. We find that the annual average market heat rate is a good explanatory variable for the time integral of the plant operating margin, denominated in the natural gas numeraire. This allows us to express plant values in terms of the numeraire and convert to dollars by multiplying this by the natural gas forward curve and a forward curve of riskless discount rates. We also provide information about the optimal operating modes selected, the number of transitions between modes and how they relate to transition costs and the average heat rate for the year.     

Dynamic Hedging Effectiveness in South Korean Index Futures and the Impact of the Asian Financial Crisis

This paper focuses on the impact of the 1997 Asian financial market crisis upon hedging effectiveness within the KOSPI 200 stock index and index futures markets. The paper utilizes the inter-temporal relationship between the two markets to examine the characteristics of several minimum variance hedge ratios. It also examines the performances of alternative hedging strategies for dynamic portfolio management in the presence of cointegrated time-varying risks. The results show a decline in the persistence of conditional volatility within market prices after the crisis. This decline leads to the relative performance of utilizing constant hedge ratios to increase, though not significantly so to guarantee a superior performance over more sophisticated time-varying hedge ratio strategies.     

The effectiveness of incorporating higher moments in portfolio strategies: evidence from the Chinese commodity futures markets

This paper examines portfolio strategies that incorporate individual and systematic higher-order moments, within a stochastic optimization framework with uncertain mean and covariance. Using weekly, daily, and 30-minute interval data on Chinese commodity futures, we show that incorporating higher moments into portfolio strategies generally leads to better performance. The systematic fourth-order moment, among all systematic moments considered, can lead to the most robust, and a relatively large, improvement in investment performance, while the contribution of individual moments to the improved performance depends on the data horizon. We also find that adding higher moments brings superior performance in more cases for 30-minute-interval data than for other low-frequency data, suggesting that our strategy most likely performs best in 30-minute-rebalancing investments.