The Correspondence Principle: A Superfluous Tool of Economic Analysis

I analyze the evolution of trout recreational fisheries with the objective of identifying possible factors that might be driving current controversies in biodiversity policy reforms on the governance of alien and invasive species. Findings suggest that trout species have attained a cultural status, which makes it difficult to have them eradicated without facing stiff resistance from the trout-dependent sector. Results suggested that a process of leisure augmentation through environmental greed underpinned the introduction and continuance of spreading trout. With this process came also the development of a complex set of institutions that protected trout since they served an honorific role. My findings also suggest that the Ayresian thesis that all ceremonial systems are past-binding could be relaxed because ceremonial interests also envision alternative futures that can entrench and further protect ceremonial systems. To that end, these ceremonial interests facilitate path-breaking, but harmful institutional change. I extend Paul Dale Bush's concept of institutional spaces by assigning faces to the concept, resulting in expansion of possible institutional adjustment configurations. I find that this reorganization of Bush's concept tells the historical evolution of institutions of the leisure class in South Africa in a more dynamic way.     

The self-organisation of strategic alliances

This paper is based upon an analysis of various experiences of electronic commerce. It analyzes the role of private institutions in the organization of systems of transactions. Private institutions take place between public institutions (that are insufficiently specialized) and inter-individual governance structures (that do not benefit from scale and cognitive economies). These private institutions are very diverse and the paper points out the various types of services provided by diverse institutions depending on their constitutional mode.

While various possible institutional frameworks have very different features in terms of coordination, there is no most efficient institutional environment. Moreover, the emergence process of these institutional framework strongly influences their ability to survive. Very different institutional frameworks can therefore organize electronic trade quite differently in the various industries     

基于整合理论的城市休闲发展研究

对城市休闲发展的研究是基于我国国情发展的需要而提出的,其重要性在即将到来的体验经济时代越来越得以体现,所以关注和研究城市休闲发展就成了一个现阶段在理论、实践层面都必须高度重视的课题。     

Developmental Rent Management Analysis: Learning,Upgrading, and Innovation

In this article, I construct an original analytical framework, called the developmental rent management analysis (DRMA), for the analysis of rents and rent management. This framework is based on the premise that successful rent management depends on political and institutional arrangements to produce incentives and pressures for technical upgrading and innovation. This is because, while rents are created for a variety of purposes, rent outcomes — whether growth-enhancing or growth-reducing — depend on a set of political, institutional, and market conditions that take place formally and informally. Therefore, the key objective of the DRMA framework is to understand how a country’s politics, institutions, and industries are configured to incentivize and compel industrial upgrading. Thus, DRMA enables a broader and more complex understanding of the various factors at play in the process of development. I provide an illustrative application of the DRMA framework using the Vietnamese experience of adopting third-generation technology in the telecommunications industry.     

Biosimilars in Germany: the emergence of a new industry in the light of the varieties of capitalism approach

ABSTRACT

Although lagging behind the USA in biologics, German firms are forging ahead in the emerging field of biosimilars. This development confirms earlier explanations of the differences in these industries given by the Varieties of Capitalism approach. With the recent differentiation in biopharmaceuticals, again, the differences in the institutional environment on both sides of the Atlantic are responsible for different dynamics. However, this time German companies are in the better position: the industry refers to a tradition of engineering capabilities in chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Additionally, European regulation introduced the world’s first regulatory framework, which moreover is designed in a progressive way concerning market admission.     

Do institutions for collective action evolve?

In this paper I will provide an overview of our findings from studying irrigation systems in the field so that readers who are not familiar with our prior research gain at least an initial sense of these findings. I will provide a second short overview —this time of the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework offering a general method for doing institutional analysis. I will then introduce the possibility of looking at the change of rules as an evolutionary process. The method for studying the evolution of rules will be based on the IAD framework and on our long-term study of rules related to irrigation systems. In the conclusion, I return to the question as to why it is important to authorize resource users’ relative autonomy in the development of their own rules and to learn from the resulting institutional diversity.     

Institutions and industrial policy in Brazil after two decades: have we built the needed institutions?

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to examine the design and implementation of industrial policy in Brazil based on their capacity to affect the prevailing institutions. We argue that the main reason for the failure of policies in Brazil, and in Latin America, is their inability to induce persistent changes in firms’ innovative behavior. Based on the analysis of national innovation indicators, and on previous empirical studies, we demonstrate that the Brazilian industrial policy was not able to change the prevailing conventions. The main problems related to this fragility are: institutional problems and related to industrial policy development conventions; serious coordination problems; maintaining a macroeconomic policy that is not convergent toward industrial policy efforts; policy instruments that were not able to change prevailing conventions, such as low R&D and innovative expenditures; a set of strategic choices that are inconsistent with innovation, technological catch-up and structural change.     

Complementarity of Labor Market Institutions, Equilibrium Unemployment and the Propagation of Business Cycles

This paper evaluates complementarities of labor market institutions and the business cycle in the context of a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model economy. Matching between workers and vacancies with endogenous time spent in search, Nash-bargained wages, payroll taxation, and differential support for unemployed labor in search and leisure are central aspects of the model. For plausible regions of the policy and institutional parameter space, the model exhibits more persistence than standard real business cycle models and can exhibit indeterminacy of rational expectations paths without increasing returns in production. Furthermore, labor market institutions act in a complementary fashion in generating these effects.     

试析新农村建设背景下的农村居民休闲行为——以浙江为例

＂三农＂问题一直令人关注,在当前新农村建设和浙江省＂千村示范万村整治＂的大背景下,笔者通过在浙江不同地市随机抽样发放问卷,调查了315名农村居民的休闲行为和休闲方式。结果发现：农村居民的休闲行为特征较以往发生了较大变化,但他们的休闲观与休闲行为现状仍旧不容乐观。文章认为,进一步改善农村居民休闲行为是建设社会主义新农村,促进和谐的重要动力,有利于农村居民的全面发展和农村经济的繁荣。     

Narrating Crisis,Constructing Policy: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in Syria

During crises, ideas play a decisive role in shaping radical paradigm shifts in economic governance. However, not all crises immediately produce such ‘great transformations’. Why do some ideas result in incremental rather than abrupt change after crisis? To identify mechanisms potentially explaining this variation, I conduct an exploratory process tracing of an understudied case of incremental institutional change: post-independence Syria. Competing political actors in Syria converged on identical policy responses to crisis despite their very different interpretations of its causes. Although power oscillated between these increasingly bitter rivals in the early 1950s, their ideational consensus on economic issues nevertheless led to a decade of steady institutional change that transformed previously fragile government institutions into powerful vehicles of statism. I derive from this analysis the potential causal significance of two new variables – crisis narrative and crisis response – and hypothesise that their configuration can explain variation in post-crisis patterns of institutional change. Ideas can explain not only the new direction of economic governance after crisis, but also the speed and scale of its movement.     

基于人—时—空视角下的中国休闲活动演变探析

在中国悠久历史进程中,休闲受社会制度、生产力发展、科技水平、文化宗教等影响下,休闲活动在不断发生变化。以“人－时－空”这一三维变化为视角,以时间发展为轴线,分析了我国休闲活动群体变化和空间演变规律。究其原因,主要是因为各时期各阶层身份、经济、文化、政策等不同,其中,人是主要的演变因素,而时间是客观存在的参照物,空间则是由人和时间的变化而引起的休闲空间变化以至于内容的变化。最后从休闲群体、休闲空间和休闲内容总结了演变特点。     

制度变迁:一个拟生物演化模型

本文构建了一个基于微观契约结构的,以制度基因及其组合、创新与记忆、多样性与效率为核心机制的拟生物演化制度变迁模型。模型显示,在不确定的环境中,经济体的制度多样性水平决定了其适应环境变化的能力,从而在长期中决定了经济体的制度效率水平;文化、习俗、正式制度、次级制度安排等不同层面制度的本质区别在于其创新概率的不同,这种不同进而决定了各层面制度多样性水平的不同。     

宜居城市居民休闲生活的代际比较研究

宜居城市中,多数居民都认识到了休闲的重要性,把休闲看成生活不可或缺的一部分。老年居民的空闲时间比较多,休闲活动却很单一;青壮年居民为工作而放弃了更多的休闲,尽管他们非常渴望获得休闲的自由。老年人对休闲生活的总体满意度高于中青年群体。不同年龄段的居民的休闲偏好各异,他们对于公共休闲资源的使用存在明显的差异性,年轻居民获取休闲资源的能力高于中老年人。     

How far does evolution take us? Comment on Elinor Ostrom’s: do institutions for collective action evolve?

Elinor Ostrom’s article in this issue suggests that institutions for collective action evolve, highlights parallels between biological and institutional evolution, and describes an hypothetical example of institutional evolution related to an irrigation system. The article is provocative but not definitive in that it does not demonstrate that evolution is more than a metaphor for institutional change and that institutions actually evolve. This commentary unpacks the concept of evolutionary change and evaluates how well various aspects of institutional change fit within this model of change. The analysis supports Ostrom’s contention that evolution is not just a metaphor for institutional change, but also suggests that not all institutional change can be classified as evolutionary. The commentary highlights the need for further conceptual and theoretical development to delineate various forms and processes of institutional change, distinguish between evolutionary and non-evolutionary change, and draw out the consequences of various forms of change.     

国内对城市老年人利用城市景区进行休闲的研究进展综述

自中国1999年进入老龄社会,老年人的生活质量问题受到普遍关注。老年人的休闲生活在很大程度上影响着其生活质量,因此,老年人的休闲生活受到更多的关注,老年人的休闲方式也越来越多样化。其中,城市旅游景区在老年人的休闲生活中起到了一定的作用。因此,在综合检索城市旅游景区和老年休闲文献的基础上,总结了城市休闲的类型和城市休闲的空间分布,以及目前老年人的主要休闲方式和在休闲中对城市景区的利用情况。     

打造湖泊休闲品牌,促进千岛湖旅游可持续发展

湖泊是发展旅游的重要资源,湖泊旅游是旅游业的重要组成部分①。近年来,千岛湖旅游实现了观光游与休闲游的有机结合,重点培育休闲度假游,提升景区的品位。根据淳安县政府提出的打造“休闲度假胜地”、“世界湖泊休闲品牌”的重大决策,结合世界湖泊旅游的未来发展趋势开展调研,提出了世界湖泊休闲品牌打造对促进千岛湖旅游可持续发展有着重大的现实意义。     

Do island states have better institutions?

Since the end of World War II, the number of countries in the world has increased dramatically. Many of these newly independent countries are small both in terms of population and geography, and several are islands. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of island status and country size on institutional quality, and to determine if these institutional effects can explain the relatively strong economic performance of islands and small countries. I distinguish between political institutions (Democracy) and economic institutions (Rule of Law). One of the main findings of this paper is that the relationship between island status and institutional quality is significantly positive, and that these results are robust to the inclusion of a number of control variables. Further, I find that country size is negatively related to institutional quality, which is in keeping with previous results. These results provide further support for the hypothesis that institutions account for these countries’ relatively better economic performance.     

The institutional change under lobbying and the distribution of power

In this paper, we develop a model of institutional change of land property right in China, which include the influences of lobbying and the political power division in 1978. The model illustrates how extra gains are produced under different institutions and how lobbying and political power division can affect the change. It is clear that the institutional innovation has something to do with the leaders’ legal income, the cost of institutional change and the conversion rate. Given the pattern of leader’s power division, it is the best way for the people in rural areas to change their institutional framework, and it is efficient to mix local and central governmental policies. And lobbying and leading power division can affect the direction and the course of institutional changes that would lead different result among different areas. __________ Translated from Nankai jingji yanjiu 南开经济研究 (Nankai Economic Research), 2007, (6): 17–32     

US Policy and the Geopolitics of Insecurity in the Arab World

In the wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush downplayed traditional ‘realist’ security concerns by defining America's goal as countering threats generated by the internal characteristics of Arab societies. Bush advanced a strategy of regional transformation based on regime change in Iraq and economic, social, and political reform across the Arab world. This strategy, however, failed to address the security interests of regional governments while generating insecurity for Arab societies. To explain these results, the article develops a framework for understanding the Middle East regional system that recognises the role of societal discourses of insecurity and the system's multipolar structure. The framework is used to suggest an alternative strategy for US Middle East policy. Rejecting both a renewed project of regional transformation and a return to neorealism, the paper outlines a strategy based on managing a multipolar, pluralist system.     

Alienation and the Soviet Economy,toward a General Theory of Marxian Alienation,Organizational Principles,and the Soviet Economy

The work of the French economist François Perroux has not given rise to a strong consensus in the academic world of economists. Thus, to appreciate the scope of Perrouxian thought, it is necessary to defuse the intellectual debate by exploring the ideas that are part of the current institutional issues. I seek to demonstrate the theoretical interest of the conceptualizations proposed by Perroux in terms of power analysis to understand the political, human, and social dimensions of the institutions of capitalism. In this view, I endeavor to shed light on the Perrouxian institutional legacy regarding the social cooperation/resistance issue, the institutional structure of production, firm theory, agonism theory, economic pluralism, and modern formalization techniques.