Smith on Ancient Egypt and the Arab Islamic World: A Tale of Two Statist Models

This paper endeavors to portray Egypt, the Arab, and Islamic worlds in the eyes of Adam Smith as implied in his work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations from the perspective of the extent and desirability of state intervention in the economy. In other words, the paper attempts to analyze why Smith's stance on ancient Egypt changed from an example of opulence to an eighteenth-century Egypt that—together with other Arab and Islamic countries—represents a model with many challengeable aspects, although the extent of the state action was remarkable in both models, the ancient and the contemporary. Our premise is that Smith did not defend or attack the models based on the extent of state intervention in the economy, but on whether its intervention was conducive to, first, raising the person's well-being and, second, promoting the morals of Smith's “commercial” society.     

The institutional legacy of the Ottoman Empire: Islamic rule and financial development in South Eastern Europe

This paper uses a historical experiment - the occupation of South Eastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire - to shed light on the persistence of financial development. Interest-lending prohibition persisted under Islamic rule much longer than in the rest of Europe. The unique history and political fragmentation of the region allows investigating within-country effects, in six countries that were formerly only partly occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Former Islamic rule is consistently associated with lower contemporaneous formal financial development, both across and within countries. It is associated with a decrease in bank penetration by 10% across countries and 4% within countries. However, within country, the effect of the Ottoman Empire is confined to financial development. There is no association between former Ottoman rule, income, small and medium sized enterprise development or entrepreneurship. The effect is robust to controlling for a wide number of observable characteristics. Moreover, localities with Armenian, Jewish or Greek minorities, who were allowed to practice interest lending under Ottoman rule, have higher levels of bank penetration. By contrast, Islamic religion and trust in the financial system play no role in explaining such long-term persistence.     

A sticky trait: Social trust among Swedish expatriates in countries with varying institutional quality

Social trust is linked to many desirable economic and social outcomes. Using new data from a representative sample of 2668 Swedish expatriates, we examine the robustness of high social trust in countries with different levels of institutional quality. The results suggest that individual trust decreases with length of stay in countries with high corruption and low rule of law. The effect is relatively small and driven by expatriates who were aged 30 years or below upon arrival to the new country. While other studies have found that trust among migrants adapts to destination country trust levels, we find that after the (approximate) age of 30, high trust is a sticky personality trait. The results are robust to controlling for a large array of individual characteristics (including age) and support the view that social trust is sensitive to events that occur early in life.     

Economic Reforms in Socialist Economics: A Comment on Petr

Abstract:

The pre-WWII approaches to trade unions were mainly based on the theoretical and methodological viewpoints of early institutional economics. Trade unions were conceived of as politico-economic organizations whose members were motivated by relative comparisons, and also were concerned with issues of equity and justice. In the post-war period, there was a major theoretical and methodological shift toward the idea of unions as optimizing economic units with well-defined objective functions, which are optimized subject to purely economic constraints. This conceptual transformation took place mainly through the Dunlop -Ross debate, in which John Dunlop conceived of unions as analogous to business firms, as opposed to Arthur Ross’s institutional and political approach. However, after decades of analytical developments, the current state of trade union theory has not produced very impressive theoretical results. We trace the historical development of the economic analysis of trade unions from a methodological perspective. We also examine the methodological reasons for the dominance of Dunlop’s approach, and the current state of – and the contemporary criticism toward – the established theory. Furthermore, we discuss the contemporary efforts to build a more comprehensive approach to trade union theory and trade union objectives, also incorporating Ross’s institutional and political insights.     

Economic Integration in the Caribbean Community: A Problem of Institutional Adjustment

Law and the economy co-evolve. John R. Commons demonstrated this co-evolution in the transformation of the legal definition of property from physical property to intangible property or the exchange-value of anything realized through transactions. Reasonable transactions required informed participation by parties. The "fetish of liquidity" in the secondary mortgage market fostered by federal laws, favoring mortgage-backed securities, converted the transaction into intangible property. The debtor was no longer the customer of the bank but an obligor to nameless investors uninterested in his/her community. The secondary mortgage market deviated from Commons's standard for reasonable transactions because investors and home buyers were ignorant of the rights, duties, liberties, and exposures of the transactions. We examine the economic outcomes produced by these legal changes in Nevada, and the endogenous forces ignited by these practices in terms of foreclosures and failing communities.     

制度变迁中土地产权的性质与合约选择:一个有关合作经济的案例分析

This paper discusses an evolutionary process of rural collective property rights or agricultural cooperation economy in detail. We convince that both the evolution of the household contract system and the rural cooperation economy in the market elaborate the key position of property rights’ multi-attribute in the formation of contract structure and organization shape. If there were strong externality between several elements of household, the collective property rights should be chosen. __________ Translated from Guanli Shijie 管理世界 (Management World), 2008, (6): 61–67, 94     

The emergence of property rights enforcement in early trade: A behavioral model without reputational effects

The present article focuses on the conditions that allow governments to increase property rights protection because they expect enough income from such action. We develop a behavioral explanation, according to which the answer lies in the growth in the importance, size and wealth of merchant guilds in the medieval era in Western Europe as well as a somewhat surprising effect of volatile price structures. We add to prior research by showing that even uncoordinated embargo pressures among multiple guilds could get medieval rulers to offer high levels of property rights protection.     

Lawyers and politicians: the impact of organized legal professions on institutional reforms

Organized legal professions often play a central role in successful institutional development. The paper’s model examines how legal professions affect institutional reform. Professional review of reform proposals solves a politician’s informational problem in a way that makes democracy, political stability, and professional power substitutes. The model’s applicability is examined by showing that its predictions track the fortunes of lawyers in the USSR and early transition and are consistent with events in 1688 in England and 1789 in France, indicating why these two revolutions had different consequences. The model suggests why and when civil law and common law systems differ.

Poor Kids: A Report on Children in Poverty

Media coverage of income inequality and the economic plight of the middle class fails to analyze the long-term effects of growing inequality and to consider possible solutions. The article examines the literature on media coverage of income inequality and the middle class, and then examines how three competing models, the neoclassical economic model, the propaganda model, and the institutionalist model, explain the inadequate coverage of the effects and solutions.     

基于服务贸易拓展的服务型企业国际化战略研究

自20世纪80年代以来,随着全球经济和产业革命的发展,世界服务贸易得到了迅速发展,同时服务贸易主体逐渐由劳动密集型行业向技术和知识密集型行业转变。许多国家普遍认为,扩大国际服务贸易越来越成为发展中国家改善国际贸易地位,提高经济效率及国际竞争力,乃至增加外汇收入、扩大社会就业的重要途径。本文在探讨我国加入WTO后服务贸易发展与服务市场进一步开放的基础上,就中国服务贸易拓展的战略思路及服务型企业国际化战略进行了深入研究,并提出相应的对策建议。     

法经济学视角下的环境规制问题研究

环境规制是一个已经讨论了很长时间的问题,其主要规制手段——行政手段和市场手段早已为人们所熟知。近年来,相对于坚持两种规制手段均为主的美、日、德等环境规制效果较好的国家,我国越来越倾重于以市场手段为主来进行环境规制,但规制效果相对以上国家却仍然存在较大差距。找到环境规制效果差别巨大的原因对于构建和谐社会,促进人与自然协调发展具有极为重要的关键性作用。以法经济学作为切入点来考察坚持两种环境规制手段均为主的原因以及这样做的意义和影响,从而指出我国环境规制政策中的不足和效果不佳的原因,并为我国进一步完善环境规制政策和改善环境规制效果提出意见建议。     

储蓄不足与供给约束型经济态势——近代中国经济运行的基本前提研究

多角度的考察表明,近代中国的总需求拉升价格的力度远大于总供给下压价格的力度,产出增长能力较弱;本币升值可以改善贸易收支,贸易条件成立;出口和进口的汇率弹性绝对值之和远小于1,马歇尔—勒纳条件不成立。因此,近代中国经济呈现供给约束型经济态势,总供给曲线的斜度应该是陡峭的。于是,在使用经济学理论框架分析近代中国经济时,应首先考虑所运用的理论之前提假设是否与近代中国的经济态势一致,从而避免产生南辕北辙的结论。     

我国三十年来农村地区金融改革的逻辑轨迹——基于新比较经济学分析框架的研究

文章基于新比较经济学的分析框架,从正规金融和非正规金融两个方面来论述三十年来中国农村地区金融改革的基本逻辑。研究认为,农村金融发展滞后于农村经济发展的原因是政府对农村金融的控制方式不尽合理。文章充分肯定了国家2005年至今的改革措施,认为新型金融机构的引进将成为建立完善的农村金融体系的契机。     

陕西省农业科技进步贡献率的测算与分析——基于C-D生产函数

利用陕西省农业物资消耗、耕地面积以及农业劳动力投入三个指标,运用C-D生产函数模型对2001-2007年陕西省的农业科技进步率和农业科技进步贡献率进行了测算,得出此时间段陕西省的农业科技进步贡献率为49.6%。在此基础上,根据陕西省现代农业发展的趋势性规律,进一步预测出2011年陕西省农业科技贡献率有望达到55%。陕西省农业物资消耗、耕地面积以及农业劳动力投入等要素的平均增长率和贡献份额的测算结果显示,陕西省农业尚处于传统农业向现代农业过渡的阶段,低水平的农业科技成为制约陕西省现代农业发展的瓶颈。     

中国近代研究经济思想史的方法论特点:以梁启超为例

梁启超是中国近代最早较为系统地研究中国古代经济思想的人。他的相关论著以西方经济理论为参照,为中国经济思想史学科的建立创造了条件。他的研究存在着观点跳跃和逻辑矛盾的现象,这种现象在此后中国经济思想的发展过程中仍然延续。文章在方法论的层面,从传统文化的角度对此进行了新的解析。     

S-S定理在中国的适用性检验——贸易对地区和城乡收入差别的影响

1941年根据发达国家情况提出的S-S定理在中国是不是适用,需要检验.根据中国这个发展中大国各地经济贸易发展程度不同和城乡差别巨大这样两个事实,对贸易与反映中国整体收入分配情况的基尼系敖、贸易与中国地区收入差距、贸易与中国城乡收入差别之间的关系,分别进行实证检验后发现,被解释的三大收入分配关系的确发生了如S-S定理所说的变化.因此.这个定理在中国是适用的.     

基于退耕还林工程下的农业产业-资源耦合响应——以吴起县为例

针对退耕还林工程对农业生态经济系统耦合作用方向及程度研究滞后的现实,选择吴起县为研究对象,运用1997～2008年统计年鉴数据和2010年8月的农户调研数据,探讨吴起县农业产业-资源耦合对退耕还林工程的响应过程。结果表明:"工程"的实施促使吴起县农业资源结构发生了较大变化,资源量有所增加,但与之相对应的产业并未得到相应的发展。林草资源及农村劳动力资源的大量闲置,林草产业及相关产业、果业与加工业的发展迟缓表明吴起县农业产业-资源之间没有形成合理配置,协调发展的态势,即"工程"在一定程度上改变了农业产业-资源耦合方向,但对其有效耦合作用的程度并不够。为此提出今后促进吴起县农业产业-资源有效耦合的建议。     

基于农业产业集群的农业创新体系结构分析——以河南省鄢陵县花木产业集群为例

基于创新体系理论构建了农业创新体系的结构分析框架,通过对河南省鄢陵县花木产业集群91家农户和46家农业企业的实地调查,借助社会网络分析法对农业创新体系的结构进行了实证分析。研究发现:农业创新体系可以看做是由创新主体、创新网络以及创新内容三个部分组成。外地同行企业对农业集群创新起主导作用,而传统农户仅仅是用祖传技术或模仿;本地企业中创新地位异质性较高;政府在农业集群创新中的直接作用较小,但紧密的产学研结合,能显著提高企业的创新能力。相对于合作网络来说,知识网络呈多核心结构,网络集中度和密度均较高。与农区制造业集群相比,农业创新更加依赖外地同行企业和市场需求,更重视与大学、科研机构的联系。     

中国区域经济收敛的空间计量分析——基于长三角1993-2006年132个县市区的实证研究

文章运用空间统计与空间计量的分析方法,根据长三角132个县市区的统计数据,进行了区域经济增长收敛性的实证研究,结果发现长三角132个县市区经济增长存在着显著的空间依赖性或空间自相关特征,因而若采用标准的β收敛方程会使得估计结果出现有偏与不一致;而若采用考虑了空间依赖性或空间自相关因素的模型进行估计,则其结果显示,虽然长三角县市区经济增长的收敛方向并没有改变,但是其经济收敛的速度却明显下降,且在统计上显著.这一发现不仅证实了新古典增长模型所反映的增长机制仍然决定着长三角经济增长的基本面,新经济增长因素只是减弱了长三角地区经济收敛的趋势,并没有从根本上改变经济增长收敛的方向;而且从更小空间单元测度的层面刻画了长三角经济增长的空间依赖性特征.