流动人口社会融合现状与测度——基于大连市的调查数据

在快速城市化的背景下,流动人口的社会融合问题逐步成为影响城市管理的重要因素。利用对大连市1017名流动人口的调查数据,从公共服务、经济地位、社会保障、社区参与和身份认同5个方面对流动人口的社会融合状况进行了测量分析。研究结果表明,流动人口的总体社会融合程度偏低。从具体维度来看,流动人口的身份认同程度较好,而他们享受的公共服务有限,其经济地位、社会保障、社区参与的融合程度呈现出依次下降的趋势。户籍因素造成的"城乡差分"使得城—城流动人口的社会融合程度高于乡—城流动人口,而人力资本和社会资本也是影响流动人口社会融合程度的重要因素。     

The conflict mitigating effects of trade in the India-Pakistan case

We examine whether greater inter-state trade, democracy and reduced military spending lower belligerence between India and Pakistan, beginning with a theoretical model covering the opportunity costs of conflict in terms of trade losses and security spending, as well as the costs of making concessions to rivals. Conflict between the two nations is best understood in a multivariate framework where variables such as economic performance, integration with rest of the world, bilateral trade, military expenditure, democracy orientation and population are simultaneously considered. Our empirical investigation based on time series econometrics from 1950 to 2005 suggests that reduced bilateral trade, greater military expenditure, less development expenditure, lower levels of democracy, lower growth rates and less general trade openness are all conflict enhancing. Globalization, or a greater openness to international trade with the rest of the world, is the most significant driver of a liberal peace, rather than a common democratic orientation.     

“We do not hire smokers”: May employers discriminate against smokers?

Smoking employees are less healthy than nonsmokers, are absent more, make more and more expensive claims for health and disability benefits, and endanger co-workers who breathe smoky air. Employers may establish smoke-free workplaces, but—beyond that—employers may absolutely discriminate against smokers. Absent some common-law or statutory prohibition, employers are free to hire whomever they wish. The Americans with Disability Act prohibits discrimination against “disabled” applicants or employees, but smokers are not “disabled,” nor “regarded as” being disabled. Moreover, statutory construction does not lead to the conclusion that smokers are “disabled.” Since the policy of government is to discourage smoking, and discrimination against smokers promotes nonsmoking, such discrimination is not only not illegal, it is good social policy.     

当前我国农民工收入现状及提升路径

提高低收入群体的收入水平是近年来我国解决收入分配领域问题的思路之一。农民工作为我国改革开放和工业化、城镇化进程中涌现出的一支新型劳动大军,已成为我国促进经济社会发展的重要力量,对他们的收入状况进行研究意义重大。近年来,我国农民工收入得到一定幅度增长,但仍存在总体水平偏低、增长幅度与贡献不符合、稳定性不高、保障水平低下等问题,需从推进城市化进程、提高农民工自身素质、加强政府干预力度、完善社会保障制度、提高法律执行力、完善行业组织等方面作出努力。     

U.S. University Research Parks

University research parks are important as a mechanism for the transfer of academic research findings, as a source of knowledge spillovers, and as a catalyst for national and regional economic growth. We develop a model to describe the growth, or productivity, of research parks, and we test this model using the newly constructed National Science Foundation database on university research parks. We find that parks closer to the university, operated by a private organization, and with a specific technology focus—information technology in particular—grow faster than the average of 8.4% per year.     

Revolution, evolution, or status quo? Guidelines for efficiency measurement in health care

This paper discusses ways forward in terms of making efficiency measurement in the area of health care more useful. Options are discussed in terms of the potential introduction of guidelines for the undertaking of studies in this area, in order to make them more useful to policy makers and those involved in service delivery. The process of introducing such guidelines is discussed using the example of the development of guidelines in economic evaluation of health technologies. This presents two alternative ways forward—‘revolution’, the establishment of a panel to establish initial guidelines, or ‘evolution’—the more gradual development of such guidelines over time. The third alternative of ‘status quo’, representing the current state of play, is seen as the base case scenario. It is concluded that although we are quite a way on in terms of techniques and publications, perhaps revolution, followed by evolution is the way forward.     

Productivity,efficiency and technical change: measuring the performance of China’s transforming agriculture

As China enters the twenty-first century the health of the agricultural economy will increasingly rely, not on the growth of inputs, but on the growth of total factor productivity (TFP). However, the tremendous changes in the sector—sometimes back and sometimes forwards—as well as evolving institutions make it difficult to gauge from casual observation if the sector is healthy or not. Research spending has waxed and waned. Policies to encourage the import of foreign technologies have been applied unevenly. Structural adjustment policies also triggered wrenching changes in the sector. Horticulture and livestock production has boomed; while the output of other crops, such as rice, wheat and soybeans, has stagnated or fallen. At a time when China’s millions of producers are faced with complex decisions, the extension system is crumbling and farmer professional associations remain in their infancy. In short, there are just as many reasons to be optimistic about the productivity trends in agriculture as to be pessimistic. In this paper, we pursue one overall goal: to better understand the productivity trends in China’s agricultural sector during the reform era—with an emphasis on the 1990–2004 period. To do so, we pursue three specific objectives. First, relying on the National Cost of Production Data Set—China’s most complete set of farm input and output data—we chart the input and output trends for 23 of China’s main farm commodities. Second, using a stochastic production frontier function approach we estimate the rate of change in TFP for each commodity. Finally, we decompose the changes in TFP into two components: changes in efficiency and changes in technical change. Our findings—especially after the early 1990s are remarkably consistent. China’s agricultural TFP has grown at a healthy rate for all 23 commodities. TFP growth for the staple commodities generally rose around 2% annually; TFP growth for most horticulture and livestock commodities was even higher (between 3 and 5%). Equally consistent, we find that most of the change is accounted for by technical change. The analysis is consistent with the conclusion that new technologies have pushed out the production functions, since technical change accounts for most of the rise in TFP. In the case of many of the commodities, however, the efficiency of producers—that is, the average distance of producers from the production frontier—has fallen. In other words, China’s TFP growth would have been even higher had the efficiency of production not eroded the gains of technical change. Although we do not pinpoint the source of rising inefficiency, the results are consistent with a story that there is considerable disequilibrium in the farm economy during this period of rapid structural change and farmers are getting little help in making these adjustments from the extension system.     

The Herning-Ikast textile industry: an industrial district in West Jutland

Notions of social inclusion and the need to combat social exclusion have become popular areas of attention in academic and policy circles. The importance of small firms and entrepreneurship as a means to raising inclusion has been emphasized in these new agendas. A priori, there are a number of reasons why small businesses may be regarded as providing opportunities for social inclusion. However, in this paper we argue that the recent expectations of the role of small firms and entrepreneurship in combating social exclusion are over optimistic. Some of the assumptions on which these expectations are based are questioned. Instead, we suggest that attention should start by a clearer understanding of the concept of social exclusion. Individual economic strategies, in the form of small business activity, can make some contribution but because of the complex multidimensional nature of social exclusion, over-inflated claims should be avoided. When these claims are not achieved there may be a danger of a policy backlash against the promotion of business ownership and disaffection amongst those who fail to realize their goals. This paper draws on secondary evidence and concludes with implications for policy and suggestions for further research.     

On the relationship between economic development and political democracy

A politico-economic model is defined, in which consumers, at date 0, decide how much to invest in a firm (and how much of its stock to purchase), whose production possibilities are determined by the outcome of an election, to be held at date 1. At date 1, consumers vote on the level of pollution the firm shall be allowed to emit. There are incomplete markets; the states of the world are the two possible electoral outcomes at date 1, each associated with the victory of a particular party. In turn, the parties represent poor and rich voters; voters’ interests at date 1 are determined by the investments they have made at date 0. Because parties are uncertain about a parameter of voter preferences, the electoral (Nash) equilibrium at date 1 is not median-voter: there are two possible policies (pollution levels), occurring with probabilities that can be calculated. A full equilibrium of the model is an economic equilibrium with incomplete markets at date 0 and a political equilibrium at date 1, each of which induces the other. In a fictional ‘benevolent dictatorship,’ elections are called off, and the dictator announces a pollution policy which is the expected outcome of the would-be elections. By substituting the expected value of a lottery for a lottery, the utilities of citizens, who are risk-averse, increase. There are, however, costs to dictatorship, in the form of the absence of civil liberties. For any economic environment, it is possible to compute the equilibria under democracy and benevolent dictatorship, and to evaluate what coalition of the population prefers one to the other. In this way, the benevolent dictatorship is a benchmark against which to measure the costs of democracy. We examine to what extent the support for democracy, contrasted with benevolent dictatorship, grows among the population as economic development occurs. Development is simulated in five different ways, and it is not unambiguously the case that it induces a growing social preference for democracy. I have benefitted from discussions with A. Alesina and M. Quinzii, from the comments of S. Barbera at the International Economic Association conference on democracy and development (1992), from the comments of Michael Winston at the NBER political economy conference (1992), and from comments by participants at these conferences and at several university seminars.     

Economic designs of two-sided single and double screening procedures

Economic designs of single and double screening procedures for improving outgoing product quality based on two screening variables are presented for the case of two-sided specification limits. Two screening variables are observed simultaneously in the single screening procedure. In the double screening procedure, one variable is used first to make one of three decisions — accept, reject, or undecided — and after the first screening, the second variable is employed to screen the undecided items. It is assumed that the performance and the two screening variables are jointly normally distributed, and the deviation of the performance variable from the ‘ideal’ value causes dissatisfication to the consumers. Two quality cost functions — constant and quadratic — are considered. Cost models are constructed which involve screening inspection cost, and costs of accepted and rejected item. Methods of finding the optimal cutoff values are presented and a numerical example is given.     

National self-insurance and self-protection against adversity: bureaucratic management of security and moral hazard

This paper extends existing analyses of self-insurance and self-protection—distinctions first made by Ehrlich and Becker (J Polit Econ 80:623–648, 1972)—that countries may implement at a national level in pursuit of their security. We show that, when no market insurance is available, self-insurance alone raises important new issues as to the definition of “fair pricing” and as to the relations between pricing, optimization, risk aversion, and inferiority that are significantly different from standard, conventional market analysis. We also discover a hitherto unrecognized tendency for misallocation between self-protection and self-insurance when both are available and considered together. Because of external effects running from self-protection to self-insurance, governments ruled by myopic bureaucracies and trying to find the right balance face incentives that encourage extreme, self-inflicted moral hazard, to the detriment of self-protection.     

The effect of transparency on output volatility

Previous research has shown that democracies, on average, produce more stable output than non-democracies. In this paper, I argue that it is the political and economic transparency that arises out of democracies that leads to this relative stability in output growth, because the ability of a country to adjust and adapt to shocks, be they internal or external, is more pronounced in countries where the flows of information are better. Using data from 1980–2009, I show that once transparency is incorporated into the analysis democracy actually appears to increase volatility, whilst transparency is seen to have a significant dampening effect on volatility. This result is remarkably robust to the inclusion of many additional variables, alternative definitions of democracy and model specifications.     

Politico-economic transition

Political and economic transitions of non-market economies often go hand in hand. We propose an economic theory of this transition process, which highlights how the success of such a transition depends upon the policies chosen in the new democratic environment. In this paper, economic success is characterized by the continual adoption of new technology (and economic growth), which requires costly human capital investment. The political choice is whether to allow the adoption of new technology. As a non-market economy begins its transition, agents with human capital specific to a particular technology find it in their interest to vote against continued innovation. As such, the transition to a market economy can be choked off. Our theory has the following features: (i) an economic transition is associated with a substantial drop in output; (ii) it is in the interest of large groups in the population to resist laissez–faire, as factor payments equal marginal products in the post–reform economy; (iii) although the joint move to democracy and a market economy does make people better off, it is insufficient for the transition to be successful, as the number of agents with a vested interest against continued innovation grows; and (iv) a temporary\/ restriction on voting rights which ensures a laissez-faire regime is sufficient to produce long-run\/ prosperity. This restriction may not be only one capable of overcoming the anti–innovation interests. Other mechanisms such as supermajority rules on policy changes may also guarantee laissez–faire.     

Effects of rent dependency on quality of government

This paper introduces quality of government rather than regime type as dependent variable in studies of political effects of natural resources. It consists of two parts. First, it argues for an effect of fiscal dependency of oil and gas rents on quality of government. Second, it finds significant, negative effects of oil and gas rent dependency on three empirical indicators of quality of government—low corruption, bureaucratic quality and legal impartiality—in a sample of 139 states in the period 1984–2006. The results hold for inclusion of control variables such as regime type, income, region and religion.     

Examining Turkey and member states of European Union in terms of health perspectives of millennium development goals

Development is related not only to production and increase in per capita income but also to social, cultural and political improvements. The purpose of development is that individuals would live long, healthy and happy lives thanks to economic development of society. From this perspective, it is obvious that the human factor is fundamental to the concept of development. This study examines the most important element in human development—health. As health indicators, it uses the health perspectives in the United Nations millennium development goals that are “reduce child mortality”, “improve maternal health” and “combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases”. In the study, European Union (EU) member states and candidate country Turkey are compared in terms of health related goals among millennium development goals by using Multidimensional scaling and Cluster analysis. Initially, countries with similar and dissimilar health indicators are mapped in multidimensional space by multidimensional scaling analysis. Further, the same method is used to reveal similar and dissimilar health indicators among countries. Then, the findings are compared using Cluster analysis and are identified to be similar.     

Does Trade Liberalization Cause a Long Run Economic Growth in Turkey

Based on ‘endogenous’ growth theory, the paper examines the effect of trade liberalization on long-run income per capita and economic growth in Turkey. Although the presumption must be that free trade has a beneficial effect on long run growth, counter examples can also be found. This controversy increases the importance of empirical work in this area. Using the most recent data we employ multivariate cointegration analysis to test the long run relationship among the variables in hand. In a multivariate context, the effect of determinants such as increasing returns to scale, investment in human and physical capital are also included in both theoretical and empirical works. Our causality evidence between the long run growth and a number of indicators of trade liberalizations confirms the predictions of the ‘new growth theory’. However, the overall effect of the possible breaks and/or policy change and unsustainability in the 1990s looks contradictory and deserves further investigation.     

江苏省农村社会保障体系构建探析——基于SWOT分析框架

中国正处于市场化、工业化、城镇化的社会转型时期,农村社会保障体系的构建是一个迫切的现实问题。江苏省农村社会保障体系构建的优势有经济持续高速增长、政府高度重视、财政支出结构不断优化等,劣势有存在制度性障碍、社会保障支出水平较低、老龄化趋势明显等。江苏省农村社会保障体系需要在法律制度、政策体系和筹资方式上做出相应的调整。     

低碳经济背景下的中国能源结构优化

伴随世界各国强化节能减排、走低碳经济之路,新的大规模的能源革命必然到来。随着经济持续快速发展,我国面临着能源结构不尽合理,能源利用效率低下,能源与资源、环境和社会发展的矛盾日益突出,能源问题已经成为制约经济与社会发展的"瓶颈"之一。因此,能源结构的优化是社会经济发展的必然趋势。中国必须从国情和能源实际出发,切实转变经济增长方式,优化调整经济结构和产业结构,推动能源多元化发展;建立合理的消费模式,大力推动节能减排、提高能源利用效率;大力推进科技进步,为建立高效、清洁、低碳型能源工业体系提供技术支持。     

Legal and Ethical Implications of Corporate Social Networks

Corporate social networking sites provide employees and employers with considerable opportunity to share information and become friends. Unfortunately, American and international laws do not directly address social networking site usage. The National Labor Relations Act, civil rights laws, and various common law doctrines such as employment at-will and defamation provide the pattern for future social networking laws. Ethical considerations such as productivity, security, goodwill, privacy, accuracy, and discipline fairness also affect future laws. Corporate policies on corporate social networking should balance the employer’s and employee’s interests. Existing laws and ethical issues associated with social networking should impact social networking policies related to configuration, communication, discipline, and evaluation of policies. Corporate social networking policies should be business-related, ensure user notification of monitoring, maintain adequate records, and provide for reliable, consistent, and impersonal evaluation of monitoring effectiveness.     

Economic Democracy: The Role of Privilege in Advancing Civilization

What characterizes the progress of civilization? We propose that it can be understood as expanding democratic principles in governance and economic affairs. In both cases, progress involves advance followed by retreat. Advances come from democratizing and de‐concentrating privileges. This counterbalances the opposing tendency towards monopolization. A two‐by‐two typology of privilege identifies four distinct categories: formal (state sanctioned) vs. informal (culture‐based) privileges on one axis, and efficient vs. inefficient privileges on the other. This matrix leads to a set of propositions that, taken together, should aid in understanding how to advance economic democracy and hinder concentration of economic power: 1) remove inefficient, formal privileges, 2) collect economic rents from efficient, formal privileges, and 3) recognize sovereign rights of individuals in economic activity (which leads to removing taxes on labor and savings). We define our core terms, provide examples to illustrate meaning, provide historic examples to illustrate the feasibility of our analysis, and analyze the dynamic implications of putting our propositions into action.