George on Land Speculation and the Winner's Curse

A bstract .   Henry George anticipated the winner's curse phenomenon and suggested an antidote to prevent wasteful land speculation. In these ways his economic ideas still resonate today as part of modern finance theory.     

Market-hampering Land Speculation: Fiscal and Monetary Origins and Remedies

A bstract Market-hampering land speculation destabilizes and distorts development, and shifts income unjustly to landowners. Its fiscal origin is the lack of public collection of the site rent. The monetary origin is a centrally controlled money supply that injects excessive credit, fueling malinvestments in real estate. The remedies are both the public collection of land rent and a free market in money and banking, hence a money supply that responds flexibly to market demand while maintaining a stable unit of account. Rent collection option contracts could increase the scope of market-enhancing land speculation that spreads and reduces risk.     

Land Speculation in Southern California: Energy Monopoly, Fiscal Crisis and the Future

A bstract . Increasing automobile traffic congestion and longer trip times on interurban trolley lines in southern California after the second world war led to the contruction of freeways. The trolleys were denied access and the efficient electric railway system was sold to bus lines , partly as a result of a conspiracy between bus manufacturers, tiremakers , and oil companies. This producecl "the golden age of land speculation" in the region. Floodplains, earthquake zones, blowsand areas and the tops and sides of crumbling cliffs were dotted with sprawled residential developments. The energy crisis of 1973, produced by the oil companies and the Arab oil cartel , turned boom into bust. As inflation and rising taxes produced by soaring property values put intolerable pressure on urban homeowners , they forced legislators to limit increases in assessed values and to restrict government spending. Now the public is challenged to produce order out of fiscal chaos and speculative ruin.     

农户对农村宅基地流转中投机的态度及其影响因素分析——基于238户农户的调研

推动和规范农村宅基地流转是盘活农村闲置土地的必然要求,而因流转可能导致的投机行为是一个焦点问题。农户是流转的决策主体,充分了解他们对投机的态度,有利于为防范土地投机的产生、完善农村宅基地流转提供依据。本文以238户农户问卷调查为基础,分析了现阶段农户对宅基地投机的态度,并运用二元Logistic回归模型,对影响因素进行了分析。结果表明:农户对投机持普遍担忧的态度,但对投机行为的辨别能力不强;受教育程度、年龄以及宅基地占地面积是影响农户对投机态度的主要因素。     

Land Reform in Kiaochow, China: From 1898 to 1914 the Menace of Disastrous Land Speculation was Averted by Taxation

A bstract . Mistaken land policies in overseas possessions of the German Empire resulted in disastrous land peculation. The small German Land Reform League vainly petitioned the Chancellor for a rational colonial land policy. Von Wissman, East African Governor, stopped the selling of crown lands, ordering their leasing. The speculators and the press denounced him. But the League supported him and the Colonial Office distributed its periodical to leading officials. The articles reached the Navy Department and high officers were won to the cause of land reform. When Admiral von Diederichs occupied Kiaochow in 1898, he was determined, as was his superior. Admiral von Tirpitz , to prevent land speculation. The Kiaochow Land and Tax Statute , in force from 1898 to 1914, achieved their goal. Inspired by Henry George , it was written by Wilhelm Schrameier , a young colonial officer who became Imperial Commissioner.     

生态平衡的哲学思考

维护生态平衡,保护自然环境关系到我们人类自身的生存和发展的根本利益。长期以来,人类以自我为中心,将自然界当作可以所以索取的宝库和任意排放的回收站,伴随着人口膨胀,生态平衡已经面临着严峻的挑战。本文对在人类错误自然观指导下导致的生态危机进行了分析,提出了一些关于维护生态平衡的思考和想法。     

Speculation in the Oil Market

The run‐up in oil prices since 2004 coincided with growing investment in commodity markets and increased price co‐movement among different commodities. We assess whether speculation in the oil market played a role in driving this salient empirical pattern. We identify oil shocks from a large dataset using a dynamic factor model. This method is motivated by the fact that a small‐scale vector autoregression is not informationally sufficient to identify the shocks. The main results are as follows. (i) While global demand shocks account for the largest share of oil price fluctuations, speculative shocks are the second most important driver. (ii) The increase in oil prices over the last decade is mainly driven by the strength of global demand. However, speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008 and its subsequent collapse. (iii) The co‐movement between oil prices and the prices of other commodities is mainly explained by global demand shocks. Our results support the view that the recent oil price increase is mainly driven by the strength of global demand but that the financialization process of commodity markets also played a role. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Land Speculation in Southern California: The Roles of Railroads, Trolley Lines and Autos

A bstract . Southern California's transporation system was subjected to speculative manipulation from the time of the railroads , through the period of the electric interurban trolleys and the rise of the automobile up until the energy crisis of the 1970s. The dominant underlying force in each period is shown to have been combinations of developer-speculators and local politicians. These groups, motivated by a desire for rapid development for speculative reasons, were able to exercise effective control over the provision of major infrastructural improimnents The argument is made that such control, and the developmental pattern resulting from it, can never be in the public interest.     

关于中国城市化问题的一些经济学思考

城市化问题为多学科所关注，本文从对城市化的概念进行剖析入手，就中国城市化发展过程，应注意的一些问题进行初步的探讨。     

PROPERTY-LED INFORMALITY: Shifting Informal Land Development from Popular Housing to Middle-Class and Elite Speculation in Belo Horizonte

Recent decades have seen a rising interest in the peripheral nature of urbanization processes. While research has put the spotlight on large-scale, transnational and financialized real estate actors, less attention has been paid to informal land developers. Addressing that knowledge gap, this article underscores the key role of land developers in informal urbanization through a case study of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. A mixed-methods approach provides new evidence of the widespread, variegated and spatially uneven development of irregular and clandestine subdivisions over the last two decades, revealing a heterogeneous landscape of informal developers. The study shows that informal development has been shifting from the typical popular and peripheral subdivision, which provided precarious yet affordable housing for working-class families, to new forms of speculative investment for the middle and upper classes, such as country homes and gated communities in peri-urban and rural areas. I argue that this shift is explained by both national and local changing regulatory frameworks and processes of economic restructuring, urban neoliberalism and housing financialization in the periphery. In light of this, I propose the notion of ‘property-led informality’ to refer to a regime of informal urbanization increasingly dominated by commodified, rentiership and speculative land dynamics in the sprawling metropolises of the global South.     

Riches,Real Estate,and Resistance: How Land Speculation,Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the American Revolution

Why did the colonies of North America rebel against England in 1775? More than ideas of political freedom were at stake. It is unlikely that the colonists would have demanded independence if powerful land speculators, merchants, and urban artisans had not joined forces to protect their economic interests. England had levied taxes on the colonies, and the colonists had successfully overturned those measures. Taxation was a superficial problem. But in 1773, when England imposed a commercial monopoly on tea sales, and in 1774, when it cut off settlement in western lands, the colonists saw no choice but to rebel and create their own nation. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, and other wealthy Virginians who led the American Revolution stood to lose their huge investment in potential land sales if England maintained control of the colonies.     

对铁路运输与现代物流的分析和思考

简述了铁路运输与现代物流的关系以及传统铁路运输业发展现代物流的社会环境条件．对铁路运输企业和物流服务企业的主要区别以及铁路运输业发展现代物流的优势进行了简要分析，最后给出铁路运输业融入现代物流的几点思考。     

信息不对称下金融衍生品市场过度投机成因分析

金融衍生品市场应规避由过度投机导致的风险。从信息不对称角度,分析金融衍生品市场中过度投机的成因;并运用加入可选择风险因素的委托-代理简化模型分析指出在信息不对称下,由于缺少代理人约束机制,导致代理人风险成本不变,最终产生过度投机现象。最后,尝试性地提出我国金融衍生品市场风险防范的具体建议。     

Development Rights and the Differential Assessment of Agricultural Land: Fractional Valuation of Farmland is Ineffective for Preserving Open Space and Subsidizes Speculation

Abstract . The relative fiscal efficacy of using differential assessment as a means of preserving agricultural land is examined. A simple model of land use and land rent determination is developed and tested. An implication is that differential assessment merely delays or retards, but does not prevent, the conversion of land to developed uses. Differential assessment is viewed as a tax expenditure, or special tax reduction, that in essence leases development rights, Landowners are also shown to be overcompensated for the development rights implicitly acquired by the public sector. The fee simple purchase of development rights or regulatory control over the use of development rights can be employed to preserve farm land at a lower fiscal cost.     

对提高我国软件企业技术创新能力的思考

通过技术创新提高软件产业竞争力，是当前和今后一个时期我国软件产业发展的一项重要任务。本文就如何提高我国软件企业技术创新能力作一探讨。     

中国房价持续"走高"的原因分析

中国很多城市的住房价格在过去的几年里持续飙升,引起诸多方面的关注,存在许多不同的解释.文章分析影响住房价格的种种原因和可能,认为中国城市住房价格上升的主要原因是房地产开发的资金运作模式.由于绝大多数开发商的资金运作是滚动式开发,预售制是其保障.金融上,房地产资金的滚动式开发需要不断上升的房价作为其资金保证.也就是说,开发商一定要让房价不断上涨,才能极大地促使广大消费者"争先恐后"地"先付款,后提货"式地购房,以保持其资金流的顺畅.由于预售制在过去近十年来为中国城市发展和房地产业经济做出了巨大的贡献,如经济增长、就业、投资等,这极大地增加了中央在房地产市场宏观调控方面的难度.总之,解铃还需系铃人,预售制既推动了房地产的发展,也是城市房价上升的根源,解决城市房价上升还需从房地产开发的融资机制入手.