Correction to: Optimal and robust combination of forecasts via constrained optimization and shrinkage

We provide a correction to Proposition 1 in Optimal and robust combination of forecasts via constrained optimization and shrinkage, published in the International Journal of Forecasting 38(1):97-116 (2021). This correction has no impact on any other result (neither theoretical nor empirical) provided in the above paper.     

From equilibrium to autopoiesis: A Luhmannian reading of Veblenian evolutionary economics

The paper reconstructs the Veblenian critique of the pecuniary economy from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann's theory of autopoietic social systems. Luhmann argued that social systems relieve people from the overwhelming civilizational complexity, but develop autopoietic properties hindering rational solutions to human problems. This argument allows seeing the pecuniary economy as an important complexity-reducing device, which, however, develops excessive autonomy from the embedding societal and ecological environment. For this reason, like other autopoietic systems, the economy has a high chance of becoming societally and ecologically unsustainable. While Veblen criticized the obsession of classical economics with equilibrium and the natural order, Luhmann urged to replace the notion of equilibrium with that of autopoiesis, which focuses attention on the sustainability problem. Accentuating this problem is shown to be the main evolutionary economics implication of Luhmann's work.     

The economics of a good party: Social mechanics and the legitimization of art/culture

Putting value on cultural goods is a messy business. Cultural value is not just an economic act but instead part of an intense social process of valorization and legitimization. Art/culture is socially consumed and socially aware. Economic value is determined by intangible (and ephemeral) social value formed from and within specific contexts by particular people, the “scene”, so to speak. What are the mechanisms by which the social dynamics of art/culture impact its economic legitimacy? This article looks at how art/culture attains market value, focusing on the social contexts by which culture is produced, evaluated and distributed.     

From consensus to fragmentation: The dynamics of paradigm change in Israel

This paper reports on the evolution of spatial planning approaches in Israel with emphasis on the relationship between planning and ideology. The major characteristics of planning studied are: (1) the role of planning; (2) the planning process and methodology; (3) the problems and goals of planning; (4) planning concepts at the national and regional level. The main findings of the research identify four major periods which represent phases in the process of paradigm change: the phase of Grand-Ideas, the phase of Action, the phase of Professionalization, and finally the phase of Ad-hocism. The development of these phases is related to geopolitical changes, socio-economic conditions, the social climate, and the planners' background. These phases are examined in the light of the theoretical framework proposed by Kuhn concerning the development of scientific paradigms.     

Optimal and robust combination of forecasts via constrained optimization and shrinkage

We introduce various methods that combine forecasts using constrained optimization with penalty. A non-negativity constraint is imposed on the weights, and several penalties are considered, taking the form of a divergence from a reference combination scheme. In contrast with most of the existing approaches, our framework performs forecast selection and combination in one step, allowing for potentially sparse combining schemes. Moreover, by exploiting the analogy between forecasts combination and portfolio optimization, we provide the analytical expression of the optimal penalty strength when penalizing with the L2-divergence from the equally-weighted scheme. An extensive simulation study and two empirical applications allow us to investigate the impact of the divergence function, the reference scheme, and the non-negativity constraint on the predictive performance. Our results suggest that the proposed models outperform those considered in previous studies.     

房地产泡沫的形成机理——基于行为经济学视角的分析

运用行为经济学相关理论,通过分析房地产市场微观主体从泡沫形成至泡沫破裂各阶段的心理和行为过程,探究了房地产泡沫形成的内在机理,并揭示了泡沫非理性的本质.最后针对房地产市场存在的非理性行为,提出应通过制度设计及借助税收杠杆等政策工具来规范房产交易、抑制过度投机,从而有效地防范和控制房价过度增长.     

Some reflections on past and future of nonlinear dynamics in economics and finance

This paper offers an overview of the literature on the economic and financial applications of theory of nonlinear dynamics, especially bifurcation theory. After a short introductory discussion of the first nonlinear dynamic models in social sciences and the economic relevance of the zoo of bifurcations and complicated dynamics that such models can generate, we present an overview of the literature on nonlinear dynamic models in the areas of underdevelopment, environmental poverty traps, the management of common goods, industrial organization and financial markets. The review of the literature is enriched by reflections and ideas for future research.     

Social and strategic innovation: extending the varieties of capitalism to asian countries

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - This article empirically analyzes how institutional context affects the nature of firms´ innovation—social and/or...     

从线性到非线性——建构人与自然和谐关系的科学方法

20世纪以来,人们按照线性的思维认识,建立起了线性的社会进步观和文明发展观,使人与自然关系陷入危机。人与自然是非线性关系。为了建构人与自然的和谐关系就需要从线性的思维方法走向非线性的思维方法。     

Ecometrics: An ideal for economics and ecology

3. Conclusion The idea of ecometrics, which it has been the purpose here to begin to explain, has its primary basis in pure science’s sublime insights into nature. That is its main strength at this point. It has to do largely with what happens and has happened, in terms of DNA’s energy transformations and information gathering. But where it applies to problems which call for decision and action, it has also to do with what should happen, in connection with which the timeless aim of pursuit of the sublime offers an important adjunct. In small compass little more can be done than to present the vision of a quantitative discipline which can be used to serve this end; even the main outlines suggested for its development may be subject to much revision. However, the discipline envisaged has great flexibility and scope, and therewith significance and interest. On the practical side, enlightened control of affairs large and small inheres in its embrace of biological and economic knowledge, making it of concern alike to the educated private citizen and to responsible managers of the planet. On the theoretical side, illumination of the mind inheres in such potential understanding of the biosphere, in the perspective of geological time as well as of day to day living, as the idea may suggest. This paper contributed while serving as Fullright Lecturer, Institute for Statistics, University of Vienna, 1967–68.     

Problem-based learning: merging of economics and mathematics

We present problem-based learning as a strategy to assist students to integrate both mathematics and economics knowledge as well as develop other skills. We present basic information about problem-based learning, provide an example of an economics problem that could be used in an early undergraduate mathematics course, and provide sources for additional economics problems and information about problem-based learning. While faculty will seldom have a class composed entirely of economics students, the examples that we provide do not require in-depth knowledge of economics but will help undergraduates develop some understanding of the economic world they live in.     

就业与居住的空间匹配——基于城市经济学角度的思考

城市发展中就业与居住的空间匹配问题是国际上城市空间结构研究的前沿课题.综述了就业与居住空间关系的城市经济学基本理论,并对国际学术界有关本问题的研究思路和成果进行了系统的归纳总结,从中提炼关键的科学问题,并结合目前我国城市中就业和居住空间分布演变的现状,提出进一步研究的前景和方向.     

Modeling society with statistical mechanics: an application to cultural contact and immigration

We introduce a general modeling framework to predict the outcomes, at the population level, of individual psychology and behavior. The framework prescribes that researchers build a cost function that embodies knowledge of what trait values (opinions, behaviors, etc.) are favored by individual interactions under given social conditions. Predictions at the population level are then drawn using methods from statistical mechanics, a branch of theoretical physics born to link the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of physical systems. We demonstrate our approach building a model of cultural contact between two cultures (e.g., immigration), showing that it is possible to make predictions about how contact changes the two cultures.     

Reform economics and western economic theory: Unexploited opportunities

The theory of economic reforms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not follow the development of western economic theory. Although the fundamental economic issues are different in the West and in the East (employment and inflation versus shortages and lack of technological progress) the reform economics is concerned with the optimal mix of centralisation and decentralisation, of market and hierarchy, of autonomy and control, and-more recently-of public and private. All these issues have been extensively treated in western economic literature.This paper overviews those fields in contemporary economics which could offer the East European reformers an enlightening perspective and useful tools in their search for a new institutional solution. Four such fields are presented: comparative economic systems, theory of incentives, literature stressing relative costs and benefits of different institutional solutions and comparing market and nonmarket failures, and the theory of property rights.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference Plan and/or Market. A Comparative Study of Reform Economics in Soviet-Type Societies, organized by the Institut für die Wissenschaften von Menschen in Vienna in December 1988. Useful comments by Pierre-André Chiappori, Ellen Comisso, Roger Guesnerie, Pavel Pelikan, Richard Portes, Kazimierz Poznanski and Gérard Roland are gratefully acknowledged.