Economic Sociology in Retrospect and Prospect

A bstract Theory and research in the field of economic sociology have seen steady advancements in recent years. Economic sociology has become a legitimate branch of sociology as well as of economics. Nonetheless, the treatment of economic sociology in both modern economics and sociology leaves much to be desired. Various formal-terminological confusions and theoretical-substantive misconceptions are still present in the field. The present article advances some proposals for remedying this situation. In particular, it provides clarifications of and amendments to the current treatment of issues, such as the relationship between economics and sociology, the character of economic sociology, its links to economic theory, socio-economics, and rational choice theory, as well as the question of the old versus the new economic sociology. Special emphasis is placed on the relationships between economic sociology and rational choice theory, given the latter's claims to universality. It is hoped that the article will thereby redress certain inconsistencies found in some previous treatments of economic sociology as well as stimulate further refinements.     

长江经济带物流业对区域经济发展影响的实证分析

文章以货运量和地区生产总值为衡量物流和经济发展的指标,运用Logistic模型分析长江经济带上、中、下游物流业与区域经济发展之间的定量关系,采用边际分析和弹性分析的方法计算出长江经济带物流业对经济发展的贡献.结果表明：（1）长江经济带物流已经经历规模快速扩张的阶段,粗放的增长对经济发展的贡献有限,应该将重点放在提高信息系统保障能力、经营管理运作能力、发展环境支持能力等“软件”建设方面; （2）长江经济带下游物流与经济处于良性循环状态,应尽快构建区域物流信息网络系统,整合区域物流资源,发展与IT产业和高技术产业相适应的快速物流业,探索第四方物流的实现形式; （3）长江经济带中上游地区,在推进基础物流建设的同时,抓住新一代信息技术普及的机遇,发展现代物流产业.     

基于实验方法的经济行为特征研究--当代经济学发展新特点

行为经济学基于心理学原理和实验方法，开辟了当代经济学发展的新途径，是活跃在前沿领域、备受关注的一个新的理论分支。行为经济学的形成发展，对理性人假设的检验、研究方法和研究对象的扩展等对现代经济学构成了挑战，以及近年来在宏观经济、劳动经济、金融和消费行为选择等领域取得的应用成就，启发我们重新审视中国环境中经济行为的基本特征，促进经济理论建设和解决改革深层次问题。     

Against the New Economic Imperialism: Some Reflections

Classical political economy recognised that what needed analysing, explaining, and acting on was an economic system inextricably linked to the wider political and social systems. Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, saw class and the distribution of income as key. Neoclassical economics replaced these social and collective categories with the individual consumer and the marginal product of labour as the fundamental analytical categories—the "political" having been discarded. Yet even one of the founders of neoclassical economics, Alfred Marshall, would barely recognise nor accept what is today presented as economic analysis, ignoring as it does the key industrial and organisational detail underlying production. The "new political economy" claims to incorporate insights from other disciplines. But far from enriching economic analysis, these new strands of theory simply impose the assumptions and methods of neoclassical economics. We argue that this new economic imperialism needs to be replaced with a genuinely multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to analysing economic issues.     

山东区域经济趋同性实证分析

山东省在“十五”期间,实施了一系列区域经济协调发展政策,使得各地区经济差异缩小,形成区域经济发展的新格局。本文运用区域趋同理论,对山东区域经济发展态势进行了实证分析。     

中国区域经济一体化研究

在经济全球化的浪潮下,区域经济一体化已经成为各国经济发展的趋势。本文从区域经济一体化的发展历史入手,结合中国经济发展的实际状况,分析在这发展过程中出现的现象与问题,提出了今后区域经济一体化发展的措施。     

以新范式思维认识和应对经济全球化格局的新变化

面对当前复杂多变的经济全球化格局,在学术范式上,以新范式思维认识和应对出现的新问题、新变化、新情况,不仅具有紧迫的现实意义,而且具有深刻的学术价值,甚至关系到人类发展的前途。在现代主流经济学的微观—宏观范式中,引入包含经济理性、价值文化和制度形态三个维度的域观范式,可以从多维度观察和认识现实,这也是经济学发展的必然方向。因此,要构建中国特色经济学体系,增加理论上的指导力和理论对实践的阐释力,应遵循微观—宏观—域观范式思维来进行研究,通过实践提炼理论,在马克思主义指引下发展中国经济学,探索进行经济学范式的重大创新。     

城市经济带的理论问题

"城市经济带"是本文基于城市经济学、区域经济学、空间经济学与产业经济学理论的交叉融合,针对国内外城市经济发展中的现实问题提出来的概念.作为城市经济未来发展的一种趋势,"城市经济带"对于促进中国转轨经济中区域经济快速健康发展的实践具有重要的指导意义.鉴于当前学术界尚未对"城市经济带"给出明确的阐释,本文对"城市经济带"的相关理论问题进行了初步探讨,如理论溯源、内涵阐释等方面,以期达成对"城市经济带"相关实践领域的理论自觉.     

Economic Sociology Reformulated

A bstract Previous theoretical and empirical research on economic sociology leaves much to be desired in terms of consistently defining the agenda and objectives of the discipline As a result, economic sociology often appears to lack a clearly defined mission and purpose This is epitomized by various failures to establish adequate epistemological relations of the proper realm of economic sociology with those of economics and sociology, and especially with the domain of rational choice theory This failure is compounded by a misplaced distinction between the subject matter of economic sociology and that of sociological economics, or socioeconomics And some recent works in the discipline (including the ambitious Handbook of Economic Sociology ) have not helped to remedy this situation In this paper, we try to address this situation by suggesting some reformulations of the subject matter of economic sociology in relation to those of related disciplines In addition, we attempt to redefine the field of the sociology of the market which is seen as the focal specialty of economic sociology     

浅析产业集群对县域经济发展的推动作用——关于江苏高淳县域经济发展的思考

产业集群作为产业发展的一种内在规律,也是市场资源优化配置及产业要素合理运用的客观要求。提升区域经济综合竞争力同时推动区域经济发展的有效途径之一就是提升区域产业集群的持续竞争力。县域经济作为县级行政区划的地域内统筹安排和优化经济社会资源而形成的开放的、功能完备并具有地域特色的区域经济,它的发展同样需要利用区域经济的许多发展理论。文章通过对产业集群对县域经济发展的推动作用进行浅析,提出关于江苏高淳如何利用自身优势而建立产业集群从而加快县域经济发展的建议。     

Parsonian Economic Sociology

A bstract .   This article focuses on Parsonian economic sociology and its actual or potential bridges and contributions to contemporary economics. These bridges are methodological or epistemological and theoretical or substantive ones. A relevant instance of the methodological bridges is socioeconomic holism, epitomized in the systems approach to economy and society. An important case of the theoretical bridges is sociological institutionalism. The holistic systems approach is a pertinent methodological bridge in that it treats the economy as an integral element of society as a larger system, and consequently treats economics as part of the complex of social sciences. Sociological institutionalism is an important theoretical bridge to (especially institutional) economics by virtue of its emphasis on social institutions and their economic significance. Some other methodological and theoretical bridges of Parsonian economic sociology to contemporary economics are also identified and discussed.     

Economic Viewpoint: Economic Models and Economic Forecasting: Ptolemaic or Copernican?

Economic forecasters have come in for a lot of criticism in recent months. But this is not new. The failure to predict the boom in 1988 and ensuing inflation and balance of payments problems led to some serious re-examination of the structure of the main macroeconometric models in the UK. The speed with which the UK economy moved into sharp recession in the second half of 1990- also appeared to catch most forecasters on the hop. This Briefing Paper is not directly about forecasting; it is about macroeconometric models. However, forecasting provides by far the most extensive use of these models. Not all macroeconomic forecasters use a formal econometric model - some City economists find a spreadsheet more than adequate - but those that do find that they are an invaluable aid to clear thinking and provide an effective way of filtering all of the information that is available, in one form or another, about the economy. This paper was originally intended to provide a retrospective review of the development of UK macro-models since the late 1970s, coinciding broadly with my period at London Business School. However, it became clear that there was a need to argue more generally in favour of macro-modelling, given the numerous assaults that this activity has sustained over the last 15 years. I want to demonstrate that the conduct of research in this area - at the very least in the UK - has been, and continues to be, a progressive research strategy in the sense in which philosophers of science use this term. I believe that macro-modellers, because they have an obligation to forecast and to make the forecast public, are closer to how theoretical constructs in economics conflict with the observation of economic events, and provide a more robust testing ground for economic theories than the relatively narrow - though very important - confines of single equation statistical testing, that dominate academic journals. This should not mean that every new theoretical idea should be expected to be able to survive immediately the rigours of testing within an existing macro-model. One of the attractions of recent developments in macroeconomic theory has been an explicit attempt to seek to try to reconcile macroeconomics with micro-economic reasoning and to derive macroeconomic principles from how rational, maximizing individuals can be expected to behave in a market economy. There is always a need periodically to re-examine the basic postulates of any area of economics, especially one such as macroeconomics, which provides the basis for the conduct of national and international economic policy, and for providing explanations for economic cycles. Macro-econometric model building is a worthwhile exercise because it confronts theoretical models of how the macro-economy is supposed to work with the hard lessons of experience. The use of these models for forecasting is therefore crucial to their continued growth and development.     

Wild Dragons in the City: Urban Political Economy,Affordable Housing Development and the Performative World‐making of Economic Models

This article explores the potential to mobilize in an urban context the key insights of the burgeoning literature on the performativity of economics. It argues that our understanding of contemporary urban political‐economic transformation needs to explicitly recognize the active role of economics in making and remaking the urban world, as opposed to merely describing and analysing it in some kind of passive, detached fashion. It develops this argument through the elaboration of a case study of just such world‐making in action: the growing use in the United Kingdom, since the early 2000s, of economic models for assessing the viability of affordable housing provision in new residential developments. The world of urban redevelopment that such models attempt to describe formulaically has, the article submits, increasingly come to act according to the model and the assumptions it contains; the model, in this sense, has been progressively actualized in the urban landscape. The article conceptualizes such performative economic models as examples of what Michel Callon calls economics ‘in the wild’, and it focuses on the work of the leading commercial developer and marketer of such models in the affordable housing planning environment over the last decade — a consulting company called Three Dragons.     

The Changing Relationship Between Economic Sociology and Institutional Economics

A bstract In his early work. Talcott Parsons severely criticized Old Institutional Economists like Thorstein Veblen and Clarence Ayres. Parsons'main objection was that institutional economics had a misconceived view on the scope of economics: institutions, being the embodiment of values, were the proper subject of sociology rather than economics. By arguing for a clear-cut division of labor between economics and sociology. Parsons legitimated the divide between the two disciplines that came into being in the years to follow. Recently however, the relationship between economic-sociology and institutional economics has changed dramatically. New Economic Sociology (advocated by scholars like Mark Granovetter and Richard Swedberig) rejects the division of labor proposed by Parsons. By-providing substitutes rather than just complements to economics, it tries to counter economic imperialism. This creates significant similarities between New Economic Sociology, Old Institutional Economics and the recent return of institutionalism in economic theory. However, the quest for a division of labor between economics and sociology remains unfinished.     

中国区域经济差距的变迁及政策调整建议

改革开放以来,中国区域经济差距经历了高—低—高—低的演变过程,区域差距明显缩小。东西差距虽呈现明显的下降趋势,但发展差距依然较大,且出现了区域分化等新问题。南北差距虽呈现扩大趋势,但仍低于东西差距。中国区域经济发展不平衡仍将长期表现为东西差距问题。因此,要全面落实区域协调发展战略,促进区域协调发展向更高水平和更高质量迈进,必须对现有区域政策进行合理调整。     

重庆市区域物流与区域经济互动机理研究

中央直辖市的设立,开辟了重庆发展的新天地。区域物流在促进地区经济发展的过程中起着举足轻重的作用。为了验证重庆区域物流与区域经济增长的互动关系,作者以统计分析为基础,建立数量模型来分析重庆区域物流与区域经济的内在联系,最后证实重庆区域物流可以促进该区域经济的发展;另一方面随着经济不断增长和对物流固定资产投资的不断增加,也可以加快区域物流产值的迅速提升。     

基于城市联系的甘肃省区域发展战略

首先从城市经济联系的首位度出发,通过分析甘肃省14个地级市(州)的中心职能强度,将14个城市划分为四类;其次进行了兰州和甘肃省毗邻的省会城市与省内部分城市间的经济联系强度、经济之间的经济隶属度和可达性的比较、分析;最后指出,甘肃省要实现跨越式发展的目标,除了以区域经济发展新战略为指导外,还应该加强与毗邻省份省会城市的经济联系,特别是与西安、西宁等省会城市的联系。     

Economic Sociology

A bstract . Economic sociology covers the gray area between the disciplines of economics and sociology brings scholars from both disciplines together to communicate over topics of interest. This communication provides debate that stimulates and strengthens social theory , which in turn, allows for better policy recommendations. A major area for concern in the development of economic sociology has been the presence of economic imperialism combined with economic bubris , the effects of which could suffocate economic sociology. These phenomena arc examined along with the trends over the past twenty years in the development of economic sociology and the relative impact that "economic sociologists" from both disciplines are having on their respective fields. Observing these trends will allow for an analysis of the developments in economic sociology and a assessment of where It is going in the future.     

中国省际区域经济差距演进及协调发展

实现区域协调发展是新时代中国区域高质量发展的必然要求。改革开放以来,中国省际区域经济差距经历了差距拉大—逐渐缩小—缓慢增大—逐渐缩小—维持不变的过程,逐步趋于收敛,其深层原因在于经济发展基础、资本投入、区域要素配置、区域要素使用和制度因素的地区异质性。推进区域经济协调发展,要不断加强对中西部地区的资本投入,优化资源配置,提高全要素生产率,提升开放水平,推进贸易高质量发展,完善与区域协调发展总体战略要求相适应的宏观区域政策和区域管理体制。     

Towards Economic Literacy

Following Fred Hankins's initial article on the approach to economics teaching in schools, two educational specialists involved in the 14—16 Project for school economics curricula, outline their approach to the fostering of economic literacy.