Economics: Unfit for Purpose

This paper is a shortened and revised version of the Closing Plenary given to the World Congress of the Association of Social Economics, and Cairncross Lecture, University of Glasgow, June 2012. Mainstream economics is seen as unfit for purpose because of deficiencies that have long been criticised by a marginalised heterodoxy. These include the taking out of the historical and social even if bringing them back in on the basis of a technical apparatus and architecture that is sorely inappropriate. These observations are illustrated in passing reference to social capital but are particularly appropriate for understanding the weakness of ethics within mainstream economics. An alternative is offered through taking various “entanglements” (such as facts and values) as critical point of departure, leading to the suggestion that ethical systems are subject to the 10 Cs—Constructed, Construed, Conforming, Commodified, Contextual, Contradictory, Closed, Contested, Collective and Chaotic.     

转型期我国中小企业与研究机构合作的信任基础

中国社会转型期间的信任结构极大地影响着研究机构与中小企业的合作方式和效率。本文认为．信任机制是决定研究机构与中小企业合作是否成功的基础,并从理论上剖析了转型期信任机制的转变规律。     

Social Capital: A Roadmap of Theoretical and Empirical Contributions and Limitations

The general idea of social capital is that relationships matter. In this sense, the trust, cooperation and reciprocity involved in these relationships can have a positive impact on the wealth of society by reducing transaction costs, facilitating collective actions, and lowering opportunistic behavior. This work sheds light on the different theoretical and empirical problems that a scholar is likely to face in dealing with social capital research and analysis. We propose a critical roadmap of the social capital theories and applications for a general audience, nonusers included, with particular attention to the works of political and social economists. We provide a critical debate on the different definitions and measures produced, the theoretical frameworks developed, and the empirical techniques adopted so far in the analysis of the impact of social capital on socio-economic outcomes. We turn to the limitations of these techniques and suggest some basic strategies to reduce the magnitude of these limitations.     

Socio-economic Research in Personnel versus Personnel Economics

This paper argues that personnel economics is still dominated by the assumptions of orthodox microeconomics, and also that newer fields such as transaction cost theory are far removed from socio-economics. Personnel economics is characterised by assumptions of unbounded rationality, stable preferences and functioning markets; power differences are seen as unimportant for explanations. By contrast, a socio-economic perspective works with the assumption of bounded rationality; it takes preferences into account, assumes that markets are characterised by ‘non-equilibrium’ states and power differences. The paper outlines a socio-economic mode of explanation and suggests that any explanation should include assumptions about three theoretical mechanisms: pursuit of utility, power and sense-making.     

国外关于信任研究的多学科视野

自20世纪50年代以来,对信任的研究引起了西方社会科学研究者的广泛关注,但是国外的学者基于不同学科背景,对信任的理解存在差异性。社会心理学把信任理解为个体特质和对情景的反应;社会学把信任看作是社会关系的一个重要维度,使社会信任和制度信任的研究变得异常重要;经济学认为信任是人们有限理性选择的结果,但是,后来的经济学融合了社会文化因素,开创了信任的经济—文化研究的新路径。多学科视野的交融与不断突破将成为信任研究的一个必然趋势。     

社会资本与经济发展:理论及展望

随着社会资本理论的发展，发展经济学演进到新的发展阶段———“社会关系至关重要”。社会资本理论的引入丰富了经济发展理论研究思路：发展中国家需要构造以社会资本为纽带的综合经济发展体系；在全球化背景下，协调社会资本与现代经济发展是经济学面临的课题。     

社会资本影响企业绩效的机制研究

社会资本是企业资本的重要组成部分之一,它主要是由企业内部和企业之间的信任、互惠和合作有关的一系列态度和价值观所构成的。社会资本对提高企业的绩效具有不可替代的作用。本文通过对资源配置、知识共享与信息传播、技术创新和交易费用等因素的作用来实现社会资本对企业绩效影响的机制。     

Infinite desires in a finite world: Scarcity and its socio-economic implications

Natural resource scarcity has been making a resurgence as a dominant theme in recent economic writings. Most of the papers on this subject, however, have been narrow in their scope— discussing the issue mainly from a specific viewpoint or ideological stand. This paper attempts to give a balanced treatment to three economic positions (the traditionalist, the revisionist, and the unorthodox economist) taken toward natural resource scarcity. As such, the main objective of the paper is to present and analyze the basic arguments that have been advanced by the proponents of these three positions. It is the author's intent that this approach will help clarify the main factors that have been the source of disagreements among economists over the probable causes and ramifications of societal problems emanating from scarcity and in so doing provide a clearer perspective for prudent action.     

西方现代契约正义理论产生的理论基础

西方现代契约正义理论的产生受到当时相关社会科学理论的支持,而提供理论支持力度相对较大的是法哲学、经济学、社会哲学和社会伦理学理论.新自然法哲学和社会法哲学为西方现代契约正义理论产生提供了法哲学基础;凯恩斯的国家干预理论为西方现代契约正义理论产生提供了经济学基础;马克思主义的科学社会主义理论为西方现代契约正义理论产生提供了社会哲学基础;社会正义理论为西方现代契约正义理论产生提供了社会伦理学基础.     

高科技企业战略联盟间信任关系的建立

信任关系作为企业间的社会资本有利于战略联盟的维持和运转。建立高科技企业联盟间信任关系提升信任水平,需建立成员企业间学习的正式与非正式机制,组建广泛的商业关系网络,设计联盟内部信任的评审规范,培育共同的价值观。     

To Trust or to Control: Informal Value Transfer Systems and Computational Analysis in Institutional Economics

This article illustrates the usefulness of computational methods for the investigation of institutions. As an example, we use a computational agent-based model to study the role of general trust and social control in informal value transfer systems (IVTS). We find that the terms of interaction between general trust and social control have an impact on how IVTS work, become stable, and prove highly effective. The case shows how computational models may help (i) to operationalize institutional theory and to clarify the functioning of institutions; (ii) to test the logical consistency of alternative hypotheses about institutions; and (iii) to relate institutionalist theory with other paradigms and to practice an interested pluralism.     

社会资本在农村集体经济改革中的演变与构建

狭义上的社会资本指网络关系、社会规范以及信任程度,中国农村集体经济在这些方面具有不同于西方国家的特点。论文分析了在中国改革开放这一制度变迁的过程中社会资本发生变化的机理及其对农村集体经济的影响。根据理论研究提出应重构农村集体经济社会资本,这对于建设和谐社会、实现经济转型和提高农民收入等具有重意义。政策含义是：培育农村经济中介和社会中介组织,建立发挥合作经济的作用,明确供销社和信用社合作性质,同时,基层政府和社区的互动应该有边界。     

Financial development,financial liberalization and social capital

The relationship between financial liberalization policies and financial development is controversial. The impact of these policies differs greatly across countries. In the literature, the quality of formal institutions has been identified as an important source of this heterogeneity, as countries with a weak institutional environment generally fail to benefit from financial liberalization. Using panel data covering 82 countries for the period 1973–2008, we find evidence that social capital may substitute for formal institutions as a prerequisite for effective financial liberalization policies. In particular, we find that during the post Washington-consensus period countries with a high prevailing level of social capital can ensure that financial liberalization positively influences financial development, despite the poor quality of their formal institutions.     

The Three Faces of Labor: Sustainability and the Next Wave of Automation

This article develops a model of three faces of labor from Figart, Mutari, and Power’s three faces of wages. This is integrated with sustainability models to locate the process of human and social capital formation and explore issues arising from technological change. The latest wave of automation, involving robotics and artificial intelligence, is expected to be an even greater challenge for worker well-being than globalization and immigration. The model supports a new narrative around labor that incorporates the caring economy as well as a framework for thinking about labor issues and long-term well-being.     

社会资本概念的学科异同与维度划分

在Bourdieu对社会资本进行系统分析以后,不同领域的研究者开始从不同学科角度对社会资本概念进行解释。社会学、经济学和政治学学科对社会资本及其内涵的理解有差异也有联系,社会资本概念可以从二维、三维、四维等角度进行维度划分,并以此为基础进一步明确社会资本概念。     

Does peer group size influence social preferences and risk taking?

This paper examines whether the ex post relative payoffs of peers as well as the size of the peer group impact an agent's willingness to take risks. For example, persons in a flood plain may be less likely to purchase flood insurance if their neighbors also refrain from purchasing. We generalize the Fehr‐Schmidt (1999) model to allow the intensity of the social preferences to vary with the size of the peer group. Our experiment tests whether subjects are more or less likely to choose a lottery over a fixed payment when others have been assigned either the same lottery or the fixed payment. Using both between and within subject designs, we find risk‐taking behaviour is not responsive to the risks faced by others regardless of the size of peer group.     

经济学研究的两大基本内容及其对知识结构的要求——对日益狭隘化的现代主流经济学之反思

经济学的根本目的是提高国民和社会的福利,这不仅关涉到自然资源的利用问题,而且关涉到人与人之间的社会关系。相应地,经济学的研究内容包含了伦理学和工程学两个方面:它们是相辅相成的,共同构建了整个经济学的理论大厦。事实上,不仅经济学与伦理学之间的关系源远流长,而且即使是专注于研究自然资源配置问题的主流经济学,也根本无法脱离具体的社会关系。正因如此,经济学的研究需要非常广泛的知识;否则,根本无法理解具体的经济现象,也无法提供合理的政策建议。然而,现代主流经济学日益局限于工程学一个方面,并极端地采取抽象化的分析路线,偏重于数理的训练而疏忽其他社会科学领域知识的吸收,从而造成了理论与现实的脱节。