Mental Accounting,Access Motives,and Overinsurance*

The access motive for insurance posits that insurance derives its value from providing access to a loss remedy that is unaffordable without insurance. I explore the potential of this alternative insurance motive to explain attitudes towards modest risks, and I argue that mental accounting makes the access motive relevant for understanding both the popularity of warranties and the avoidance of deductibles. The value of partial insurance is shown to critically depend on the way in which the insurer pays benefits. This can explain several empirical regularities that are difficult to reconcile within existing models.     

心理会计、公共福利保障与居民消费

消费需求不足是我国经济快速增长过程中的一个突出问题。考虑到经典理论的局限性,我们提出了基于心理会计的消费行为假说,并对假说的真实性进行了验证。研究发现,居民心理会计账户结构的变化是当前制约我国消费需求增长的根本原因,而改革进程中出现的一些制度结构的失衡是问题的根源。据此我们指出,通过提高公共福利和社会保障水平,降低经济发展过程中的不确定性进而调整居民心理会计账户的结构,与单纯增加居民收入相比能够更加有效地促进消费的增长。     

Gender,Work Burden,and Mental Health in Post-Reform China

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how total work burden, including paid work and unpaid care work, affects the mental health of prime-age, employed women and men in urban China. Based on the 2010 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), regression results indicate that total work burden is negatively related to the mental health of both men and women, consistent with the idea that additional work hours reduce time available for rest and leisure. Women have longer working hours and are more likely to be time poor than men, and this gender inequality in total work burden contributes to the gender gap in mental health. The relationships between the components of total work burden – paid and unpaid work – and mental health shed further light on the strength of gender norms and the barriers to redistribution of unpaid work from women to men necessary to reduce the gender gap in mental health.     

Population aging,the costs of health care for the elderly and growth

Employing an overlapping-generations model with endogenous growth in which altruistic young agents take care of the health level of their aged parents at risk of illness, this paper examines how population aging influences the long-run growth rate of the economy. We show that life expectancy, when relatively low (high), positively (negatively) affects economic growth. This paper also investigates public policy on long-term care and demonstrates the existence of an intergenerational conflict between current and future generations. We also point out that population aging may mitigate the extent of this conflict.     

Labor supply of elderly people,fertility, and economic development

Increases in life expectancy and the fertility rate have been observed as per-capita income increases in economically developed countries with high per-capita income. We explain these observations using a synthetic economic model with endogenous lifetime, retirement, and human capital accumulation. In contrast to the result obtained by assuming an institutionally fixed and compulsory retirement, a longer life expectancy attributable to rises in per-capita income can induce elderly people to leave the labor market later, thereby enabling them to increase consumption of goods as well as “children” when young. Consequently, higher per-capita income can be associated with higher fertility.     

Looking for the workforce: the elderly,discouraged workers,minorities, and students in the Baltic labour markets

This paper looks at the evolution of the labour markets in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania since the beginning of transition until 2003, with a particular focus on labour force participation. How did labour supply in the Baltic countries respond to changes in minimum wages, unemployment benefits and retirement regulation? Do the marked differences in labour market policies between the countries result in different patterns of participation? What are the obstacles to and driving forces of participation? We find that relative contribution of participation and demographic trends to the dynamics of the labour force varied substantially both over the years and across the three countries. Participation, in turn, has been shaped by sometimes complicated interactions between schooling decisions of the youth, retirement, policy changes, and external shocks. Resulting differences in trends and patterns are quite substantial, indicating that there is a room for increasing participation in each of the countries. Panel data analysis of determinants of participation and discouragement based on labour force survey data suggests that increasing after-tax real minimum wage has significant positive effects on participation and reduces discouragement in Lithuania. In Estonia, by contrast, a positive effect of minimum wage on participation is found only for teenagers of both genders and for young males. We do not find any evidence that partner’s wage has a negative effect on participation. Ethnic minorities, especially females, in all three Baltic countries are less likely to be in the labour force, other things equal.     

创业失败修复、共享心智模式与团队创业激情

创业激情是创业活动的关键驱动力,失败情境下如何激发创业激情成为学者关注焦点。现有研究主要探讨创业激情的影响,缺少对创业激情激发机制的研究,针对创业失败团队创业激情激发机制的研究更少。从失败修复视角探讨团队创业激情激发路径,构建创业失败修复与团队创业激情关系概念模型,以核心团队成员作为研究样本进行实证检验。结果发现,创业失败修复过程的有效推进是激发团队创业激情的先决条件;创业失败修复通过影响团队成员共享心智模式而影响团队创业激情,将创业失败修复产生的学习成果聚合为团队共享认知模式,从而加速创业知识向创业能力转化,是重燃创业激情的关键。据此,提出团队创业激情激发策略,为创业团队重燃创业激情、重启创业行动提供理论指引。     

Wealth Effects,Local Area Attributes,and Economic Prospects: On the Relationship between House Prices and Mental Wellbeing

This research exploits large variations in local house prices to investigate whether house prices correlate with mental wellbeing, and uses contrasting implications for the effect of house prices on the mental wellbeing of homeowners and renters to shed light on why this correlation might arise. I document a positive correlation between house prices and the mental wellbeing of both homeowners and non‐homeowners, which is inconsistent with a pure wealth effect. Instead this finding suggests that local house prices provide a reflection of available amenities and economic opportunities in the area.     

办公环境与心理健康

本文从办公室的空气环境、视觉环境、声音环境、电磁辐射、空间布局等几方面出发,分别阐述了这些物理因素对员工心理健康的影响,并提出为员工提供一个舒适的工作空间,有利于员工提高工作满意度与工作效率,以及有助于员工的心理健康。     

Mental Health and Wellbeing and Unemployment

This article examines the relationship between mental health and wellbeing and unemployment utilising the 1995 National Health Survey (1995 NHS) and the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing of Adults (1997 SMHWB) data sets. Three indicators of mental health and wellbeing are adopted. The first is a psychological wellbeing measure derived from responses to questions included in the 1995 NHS on time felt down, happy, peaceful, and nervous (the SF-36 mental health scale). The second indicator relates to diagnoses of mental disorders including substance use disorders, affective disorders and anxiety disorders. Our final indicator relates to suicidal thoughts and plans and (unsuccessful) suicide attempts. On the basis of these measures, unemployed persons exhibit poorer mental health and wellbeing outcomes than the full-time employed.     

The Organization of Production and its Publics: Mental Proximity,Market and Hierarchies

The paper introduces mental proximity as an ideal-type criterion for assessing the organization of production, and positions it as a benchmark alongside markets and hierarchies in a three-dimensional space. Following a Deweyan approach, the criterion is focused on democratic deliberation espoused by necessary values: the rejection of controlling influences, positive freedom, inclusion on equal terms, informed participation, the desire to reach a consensus, sympathy, mutual respect, reciprocity, and continuous learning. We also identify a community network as a complex of people who seek to relate to each other in accord with mental proximity, and discuss influences on their search.     

论个私业主心理需求与制度环境优化

目前我国个私经济已成为支撑国民经济高速增长的重要力量,但由于制度安排上的种种歧视和偏见,导致个私业主心理失衡,抑制其潜能最大化释放,掣肘着个私经济的健康发展。文章认为必须根据个私业主心理特征矫治制度歧视,弱化意识形态刚性,优化制度大环境,并提出了个私制度变迁的基本路向。     

社区心理健康普及教育课程建设的实践和探索——以上海市闵行区古美路街道为例

在城市社区文明建设中,社区居民的心理健康问题日益凸显,人们渴望社区普及心理健康教育,得到学习支持,以此来舒缓情绪,缓解压力,提高生活品质。文章就上海市闵行区古美路街道开展心理健康普及教育课程建设的实践进行探讨,从课程目标、课程内容、课程实施、队伍建设等方面展开阐述,以期为城市健康社区建设工作提供参考。     

论股票的心理价位

股市和股票价格在依托上市公司生产经营状况和国民经济总体运行态势的基础上 ,有着自己的运行规律。心理价位作为一种虚拟的价位 ,其形成的基础是客观的 ,它的运动具有相对独立性 ,这种相对独立的运动对股票市场和股市操作有着重要的作用和影响     

The Welfare state and the elderly in Europe

The recent Enron-type scandals have reinvigorated the corporate governance debate. The purpose of this paper is to situate that debate in a much older and more fundamental debate about the organization of production. This paper presents a modern reconstruction of a property rights argument for the democratic firm (a firm whose legal members are the people working in it). The old “fruits of their labor” argument is reformulated using the ordinary responsibility principle that legal responsibility is to be imputed to whoever is in fact responsible. Far from conflicting with private property, the responsibility principle provides grounds for the just appropriation of private property. However, there is a conflict with the legal contract for the renting of human beings, the employment contract, in view of thede facto nontransferability of responsibility. This recognition of the invalidity of the employment contract can be independently arrived at using a modern reconstruction of an inalienable rights argument from the Reformation and Enlightenment. Finally these arguments are applied to the corporate governance debate to suggest a rechartering of corporations so that shareholders become debt-holders and the people working in a corporation become its legal members.