What Austrian Economics Can Teach Historians

Austrian economics is a valuable resource for historians. Scholars informed by Austrian insights can make better sense of historical phenomena, and can provide far better insight into economic history, than those who lack this background. It is impossible to understand events such as the Great Depression with the assistance of no theory at all, so it is essential that the historian adopt the correct one. Sound theory also prevents the historian from falling into a wide array of fallacies—about the stimulative effects of public works projects or the economic benefits of war, for instance—that have insinuated their way into so much scholarly and popular writing.     

建设节约型社会的金融视角

转变经济增长方式,提高经济增长的质量,重在提高资源配置效率。金融资源配置是经济资源配置的关键,金融效率的高低在很大程度上决定着整个经济效率的高低。金融业:一方面,面临着如何抓住机遇、提高自身金融资源运用效率的问题;另一方面,金融的一项重要职能就是通过对资金资源的配置,引导其他生产要素的合理配置和优化。从这个意义上来讲,金融又是建立资源节约型经济的一个主要切入点。本文通过重新审视节约型社会的涵义,深入剖析了金融在促进经济社会发展、支持节约型社会建设中的作用,并对如何实现金融资源最优配置以支持建立节约型社会问题进行了探讨。     

利益冲突与制度扭曲——论政府在经济发展和转型中的作用

本文在McGuire和Olson(1996)的基础上进一步讨论了政府在经济活动中的地位和作用.我们发现,即使是具有共容利益的政府,其与社会之间依然存在着利益冲突.因此,政府的存在总会造成一定的制度扭曲,使经济处于非最优效率状态.本文还研究了政府与社会之间的利益冲突在转型经济中的表现.研究表明,政府与社会之间的利益冲突会随着经济体制的改进而得到强化,从而使新制度受到更大的扭曲.另外,政府与社会之间的利益冲突会对经济体制的优化产生不同的影响,但最终都会妨碍制度变迁达至最优状态.本文的研究实际上指出了政治体制改革对经济发展和转型的重要意义.我们也指出,在转型经济中,政治体制改革的时机选择不当可能会导致结果事与愿违     

事业单位养老金改革对社会人力资源配置的影响

中国现行的"二元"养老金制度,不仅加重了国家财政负担,而且导致整个社会的人力资源配置失衡。一方面,大量人才流入事业单位,引起其人才过剩;另一方面,企业亟须的人才却由于供给不足,阻碍了企业的发展。改革事业单位养老金制度,有助于消除事业、企业单位之间人才流动的障碍,对实现整个社会人力资源的合理配置,具有深远和重大的意义。     

External assistance and the peace process in El Salvador

The recent experience of El Salvador offers valuable lessons for economic policy in post-conflictual transitions. In the wake of a negotiated settlement to a civil war, economic policy must support the adjustment toward peace. In the short run, policy must promote not only macroeconomic stabilization but also political stabilization. This requires the mobilization of resources and the maintenance of political will for implementation of immediate peace-related needs such as the reintegration of excombatants into civil society and the strengthening of democratic institutions. Long-run policy objectives must encompass not only the attainment of macroeconomic balances, but also equity, that is, balance in the distribution of income and wealth; balanced investment in human, natural, and physical capital; and democratization in the broad sense of a more balanced distribution of power. In the end, policies which fail to build on the crucial complementarities between peace and development are unlikely to achieve either goal.     

Growing apart in early modern Europe? A comparison of inequality trends in Italy and the Low Countries, 1500–1800

This article provides a comparison of long-term changes in inequality in two key areas of preindustrial Europe: Central-Northern Italy and the Low Countries. Based on new archival material, we reconstruct regional estimates of economic inequality during 1500–1800 and use them to assess the role of economic growth, social-demographic variables, proletarianization, and institutions. We argue that different explanations should be invoked to understand the early modern growth of inequality throughout Europe since several factors conspired to make for a society in which it was much easier for inequality to rise than to fall. Although long-term trends in economic inequality were apparently similar across the continent, divergence occurred in terms of inequality extraction ratios.     

The Emergency Land Fund: Robert S. Browne, the Idea and the Man

This article offers a snap shot of one of the several black institutions founded in 1972, by the late Robert S. Browne—the Emergency Land Fund (ELF). The idea of ELF—land ownership by blacks as an asset to build upon for economic well being, a cultural and social glue to ground a sense of family, place and community—was but another strategic and timely insight on the part of Robert S. Browne. The article is the story about the journey of ELF, a southern black-belt African American led institution, lead by Robert S. Browne it’s Chair, and it’s political, economic and policy impact on both public and private institutions, which for the most part, restricted and undermined the aspirations of black’s to own and benefit from landownership. It is also about the positive impact ELF had on rural black landowners, taking the form of organized networks challenging the discriminatory and land grabbing practices of both public and private sector actors. Robert S. Browne was a Man ahead of his time and a giant in the eyes of many who have follow his example today with asset development strategies that benefit communities of color.     

网络环境下经济行为边界的确定

现代社会是信息社会,互联网和计算机应用是最明显的特征。人们基于网络参与经济决策与市场交易活动,道德理念、行为准则和行为安排发生了较大的变化。网络技术:一方面,极大地降低了交易费用;另一方面,由于经济行为的隐蔽性,追求经济利益的行为缺乏有效监督,人的趋利避害和机会主义倾向更容易诱发蓄意性诱导行为。在网络环境下,如何界定“经济人”的行为模式,怎样减少经济行为负的外部效应成为经济学理论研究的问题。本文主要讨论网络环境中“经济人”经济行为边界的确定。     

城市土地资源利用效益的综合评价——以武汉市为例

城市土地资源的有效利用是经济社会发展过程中的一个非常重要的问题,而城市土地资源的利用效益需要进行科学评价与分析。本文以武汉市为案例,首先建立了城市土地资源利用效益的经济、社会和生态三维评价指标体系并进行了量化,其次对城市土地资源利用效益的经济、生态和社会协调度进行了测算,并分析了影响城市土地资源利用效益的障碍因素,最后提出了提高城市土地资源利用效益的对策。     

‘Whatever is,is right’? Economic institutions in pre-industrial Europe1

Institutions—the structures of rules and norms governing economic transactions—are widely assigned a central role in economic development. Yet economic history is still dominated by the belief that institutions arise and survive because they are economically efficient. This article shows that alternative explanations of institutions, particularly those incorporating distributional effects, are consistent with economic theory and supported by empirical findings. Distributional conflicts provide a better explanation than efficiency for the core economic institutions of pre-industrial Europe: serfdom, the community, the craft guild, and the merchant guild. The article concludes by proposing four desiderata for any economic theory of institutions.     

我国劳动力流动的动态和预期经济效应分析

劳动力流动是市场机制发挥配置资源作用的表现。从静态分析看,劳动力流动调剂了供需双方缺口,提高了整个社会福利水平。从动态角度看,我国的中心城市和经济先发展地区具有吸引资金、技术和知识资本的优越条件,决定着劳动力流动方向,而且因累积循环作用,引起回波效应大于扩散效     

抗战时期中华全国美术会活动情况透视

中华全国美术会在配合抗战的同时以建设、发展常规的美术教育和美术活动为立足点,在战时中国美坛发挥了重要影响.虽然中华全国美术会在以自身力量影响社会,支援抗战方面,做得并不尽人意,但正是作为官方美术机构表现出的这种艺术包容性,使得当时的很多艺术家可以相对从容地进行艺术探索,没有使中国绘画的现代化进程因为要服从于抗战的时代任务而完全中断.     

China's economic system reform: Underlying factors and prospects

Three important determinants of economic growth in the Chinese context are: the motivation of economic units, the absorption of foreign technology and its diffusion and agricultural productivity. The Stalin model of the 1950s served China well, especially when sustained by ‘Chinese sub-models’ such as ties of trust with rural brigades, workers' innovation etc. After that investment effectiveness declined, and today the structural changes necessary point to the need to alter existing institutions which have become obsolete. In agriculture, the use of cash inputs is more common now and a sense of economic efficiency is increasingly required. Care should be taken in comparing China with East European countries given that China's per capita gross domestic product is much lower as is the percentage of agricultural output reaching the market. The comprehensiveness of the economic reform likely in China means that it will only be possible to judge it over a time horizon longer than five years. For such economic reforms to be wholly successful, they need to continue to incorporate Chinese ‘sub-models’ mentioned in the paper and must develop a network of supplying industries and inter-dependent factories.     

我国事业单位养老保险改革现状及对策研究

养老保险是社会保障体系中最基本的组成部分,是构成社会主义市场经济体制基本框架的重要环节。目前,养老保险的热点和难点是事业单位养老保险制度改革的问题。事业单位养老保险改革的滞后,不仅影响了整个社会保障制度的发展与完善,制约统一的劳动力市场的形成,而且加重了国家财政负担,阻碍了社会主义和谐社会的建设。本文基于以上背景,首先介绍了我国事业单位养老保险的改革发展历程,回顾了建国以来我国的事业单位养老保险所经历的三个阶段;其次着重分析当前事业单位养老保险制度改革进程中所存在的主要问题,最终提出完善我国事业单位养老保险制度的对策。     

民营经济与河南和谐社会

在构建社会主义和谐社会的实践中，民营经济有着举足轻重的作用。特别是河南这样一个人口大省、农业大省和内陆大省，省情决定了河南只能走内源型发展的道路，而机制灵活、发展迅速的民营经济注定将在河南省和谐社会构建中具有不可替代的基础性地位。文章将从推动经济增长、吸纳社会就业等方面对其重要作用进行评价。     

效率与公平之我见

现阶段我国贫富差距、收入不平衡有加大、加重的趋势,本文从科学理解效率与公平的含义,及相互的关系出发,探究产生这一现象的主要原因——实现公平的机制滞后于效率的发展。因此,要建立起社会主义效率公平的框架,在制度、体制上建立效率与公平的长效机制,使我们的经济社会更稳步、高效地发展,使社会更加和谐。     

和谐社会促进市场经济运行效率

本文主要分析和谐社会与经济制度的关系,论证了任何一种经济制度都是一种平衡,一种和谐的论点,探讨和谐社会促进市场经济运行效率,表明了社会主义市场经济必须在和谐社会基础上才能有效运行。同时还提出了,市场、政府、文化共同构成了社会主义市场经济的特殊内涵,构成了社会主义市场经济资源配置的有效手段。     

China's challenge to economic orthodoxy: Asian reform as an evolutionary, self-organizing process

This paper argues that the success China's economic reform, contrasted with the difficulties of Eastern Europe and Russia, stems mainly from China's willingness to tolerate decentralized experimentation and a gradual evolution of new institutions, whereas in Eastern Europe and Russia a sense of urgency led to wholesale importation of foreign institutions. This contrast in turn has implications for the usefulness of nonlinear, dynamic analysis over the traditional neoclassical paradigm.     

古巴经济模式更新的历史路径与现实挑战

2011年,伴随古共六大的召开,古巴进入了社会主义模式更新的历史新阶段。古巴社会主义模式更新既是半个世纪以来古巴社会主义建设内在逻辑的历史延续,也是古巴社会主义为应对经济全球化挑战作出的时代选择。尽管古巴经济模式更新的未来仍存在诸多不确定性,但古巴高层锐意更新的决心和古巴社会必然经历的转型阵痛却是清晰可见的。进入2013年以来,古巴经济模式更新的步伐依然不减速,高层人事接连调整,经济举措密集出台,多元外交纵深发展,普通民众的工作与生活也随之发生着巨大的起伏与变化。面对经济模式更新大刀阔斧的调整和改革,古巴社会在渴求重生的同时,更承受着巨大的张力和考验。能否在理想与现实之间求得公平与效率的统一,将成为决定古巴经济模式更新成败的重要标尺。无论前景如何,坚持古巴道路的古巴经济模式更新都将是人类历史上一次对社会主义建设规律的有益探索和大胆尝试。     

论乡村社会林业的内涵实质与基本特征

本文通过深入分析和研究,界定和归纳了乡村社会林业这一概念,进一步分析了乡村社会林业发展的基本特点和管理要求,揭示了乡村社会林业的内涵实质与基本特征,认为乡村社会林业本身就是适应乡村综合发展的一种可持续林业,乡村社会林业发展能够为山区社会经济发展提供稳定、高质量的生态环境,并促进农村社会的综合协调与持续发展。