Selectivity and Transparency in Social Banking: Evidence from Europe

How do social banks signal their social commitment to motivated funders? We hypothesize that two main channels are used: selectivity and transparency. We test these predictions using a rich dataset comprising balancesheet information on 5,000 European banks over the period from 1998 to 2013. The results suggest that social screening leads social banks to higher project selectivity compared to mainstream banks. Social banks also tend to be more transparent than other banks. However, combining selectivity and transparency can result in excess liquidity. Overall, the empirical findings not only confirm our theoretical hypotheses, but also raise challenging issues regarding the management of social banks.     

“Ending Welfare as We Know It”: The Symbolic Importance of Welfare Policy in America

In this paper, I offer a framework for analyzing non-market oriented household activities in a way that overcomes some issues about defining the boundaries among household activities. I utilize the concept of a social process and discuss how unpaid household activities are part of labor, care, recreation, and consumption processes. Next, I explain the importance of introducing economic class and social class processes into the framework, as well as the importance of making a distinction between the two. Economic class accounts for the basics of the capitalist economy, and social class opens contexts of variation. The framework allows for a multidimensionality of individuals and opens the question of unpaid activities varying in categorization based on economic class. Also, it helps the economic analysis of capitalism consider that maintaining a household lifestyle directly involves and pertains to unpaid household activities that are part of each of the delineated labor, care, recreation, and consumption processes.     

新制度经济学委托代理理论视野的拓展

新制度经济学中的委托代理理论基于\"经济人理性\"假定,设计出了精密、精巧、精致的委托代理制度,有效化解了现代企业中委托人与代理人之间利益冲突并提升了企业运营效率。然而,现代企业实践已经证明,即使委托代理制度十分精密、精巧、精致,仍然没有彻底解决委托人与代理人之间的利益冲突和企业运营效率进一步提升问题。因此,必须拓展既有理论视野,从\"经济人理性\"假定拓展到\"经济人+社会人+家庭人复合理性\"假定,这样就能够实现委托代理理论视野的拓展。运用新制度经济学研究方法和双边对称信任数理模型表明:基于委托代理制度,进一步强化委托人与代理人之间双边对称信任度,可以进一步化解他们之间的利益冲突并且改善企业运营效率。基于这一结论,强化委托人与代理人之间双边对称信任度的具体路径是优化社会信任环境系统。     

对企业环境绩效的思考

本文对企业环境绩效的内涵、特征、地位和作用进行了分析,介绍了先进国家和企业对改善企业环境绩效的一些认识和实践,给出了企业可持续经营目标的构成,建立了企业环境绩效目标的模型结构,提出了企业环境绩效评估的原则关系和内容,探讨了提高企业环境绩效水平的途径。     

Optimal incentives to reduce transboundary emissions: Theory and empirical illustration to sulphur emissions in Austria and (former) Czechoslovakia

The observation that only one out of 14 tons of sulphur compounds immissions in Austria originates from Austrian sources highlights the contribution of transboundary pollution (predominantly from Eastern Europe). Therefore, further abatement in Austria has only a marginal impact but is very costly given the already high Austrian abatement standards. Thus, scientists and politicians conclude that it is in the rich countries' (e.g., Austria, Germany and the Scandinavian countries) own interest to support environmental protection in the former centrally planned economies that are apparently less concerned about environmental harms and risks. However, the proposed policies lead to a crowding out of the recipient country's own abatement investments. In order to mitigate such strategic behaviour, which is possible due to asymmetric information, we apply the principal-agent theory to derive optimal incentives. These incentives are in stark contrast to actual policy proposals, in particular, no subsidy should be paid if the neighbouring and polluting country does not care sufficiently about environment. Indeed, the empirical application shows that only sufficient environmental concern in Czechoslovakia warrants subsidies from Austria.We acknowledge discussions with Markus Amann and Gary Brennand and in particular, the very constructive comments from three anonymous referees.     

中国静脉产业发展模式：基于委托代理模型的分析

静脉产业是经济系统有机的组成部分。发展静脉产业是解决环境、资源、能源问题,推进循环经济持续快速发展的有效手段。如何发展静脉产业？通过怎样的模式,怎样发展静脉产业？文章通过委托代理模型对此进行了有益探索,提出由政府委托民营企业打造静脉产业园区是推动静脉产业发展的有效方法,也是必然选择。在此基础上提出了政府和企业之间的委托代理的内容和相应的制度建设建议？     

山东省国有独资企业治理效率实证研究

国有企业治理效率的高低直接关系到国有资产的保值增值乃至国民经济的增长,同时也是衡量一个地区国有资产状况的重要标志。本文构建山东省国有企业治理效率的指标体系,对山东省国有企业治理效率诸多因素运用主成分分析法进行实证分析,从而为国有企业的有效治理和国有资产的科学监管提供了可操作性的评价方法。     

The Emptiness of Peasant “Rationality”: “Demirationality” as an Alternative

This article discusses consumption as a social process that is part of social provisioning and is in an evolutionary interplay with other social processes. The analysis provides grounds for a context-specific research that explores consumption in the context of a culture-nature life process, and draws on material from various disciplines. The article seeks to contribute to the literature on social provisioning as an organizing concept in heterodox economics. The first section explains what is meant by social process and delineates its elements. The second section formulates a categorization of social processes, and locates a consumption process within a system of culture-nature life processes. The rest of the article delineates the elements of the consumption process, providing illustrations based on literature from various disciplines. Specifically, the third section discusses consumption activities. The fourth section discusses institutions and systems of provision of goods and services. The fifth section applies the concept of habits of life and thought to the consumption process. Finally, the article concludes that the formulated analysis transcends dualisms such as social-economic, cultural-material, society-nature, and micro-macro, and draws implications for heterodox economics.     

国有企业企业家创新精神的培育

企业家创新精神是决定企业绩效和其长远发展的核心要素。对中国国有企业来说,企业家创新精神的培育更显重要,它是解决当前国有企业的种种困境的一个现实的切入点。培育企业家的创新精神,就须从国企的委托-代理关系着手,通过各种举措实现企业家的创新绩效最大化,从而诱至其创新行为,实现国有企业的效用目标。     

论企业可持续发展与企业社会责任

企业可持续发展和企业社会责任不是一对不可调和的矛盾,两者不是分离的、对立的,而是相互促进、相互协调的,两者统一于企业和社会的发展过程之中。在将企业可持续发展与企业社会责任结合起来进行探讨和研究,并阐述两者共性的基础上,系统而全面的论述了两者的内在深层次的相互关系,以期为企业更好的履行社会责任、促进可持续发展提供理论参考。     

Fully sincere voting

In a general social choice framework where the requirement of strategy-proofness may not be sensible, we call a social choice rule fully sincere if it never gives any individual an incentive to vote for a less-preferred alternative over a more-preferred one and provides an incentive to vote for an alternative if and only if it is preferred to the default option that would result from abstaining. If the social choice rule can depend only on the number of votes that each alternative receives, those rules satisfying full sincerity are convex combinations of the rule that chooses each alternative with probability equal to the proportion of the vote it receives and an arbitrary rule that ignores voters' preferences. We note a sense in which the natural probabilistic analog of approval voting is the fully sincere rule that allows voters maximal flexibility in expressing their preferences and gives these preferences maximal weight.     

社会养老金金融功能的制度安排研究

社会养老金制度设立方式直接关系到一国经济体系的健康运行和发展.从社会养老金制度的产生和相当长的发展过程中,大多数国家大体上都是采用的随收随支的制度.这种制度一般只从政治、社会的安定等原因而设立的,没有考虑社会养老金制度对国民经济发展的直接作用,社会养老金制度只有社会保障功能.社会养老金制度合理安排金融功能,能够使社会养老金积累规模巨大的长期储蓄资金,促进资本市场的成熟发展,对经济发展产生巨大的推动作用,社会保障功能也得到加强.     

植入“过度自信”因素的委托-代理合同研究

传统的委托代理关系研究假设委托人和代理人都是完全理性的,但大量研究表明,双方参与人并非完全理性,最显著的非理性表现就是过度自信。本文将行为经济理论与委托-代理理论相结合,把代理人过度自信的因素引入Holmstorm—Milgrom模型中,对代理人的参与约束条件进行了改进,建立了代理人过度自信情况下的委托-代理模型。研究结果表明,代理人的过度自信水平与代理人的绝对风险规避度和努力成本以及外生不确定性因素有关,代理人适当过度自信将给委托-代理双方带来更高的收益。