Engendering Economic Recovery: Modeling Alternatives to Austerity in Europe

This article explores a gendered expansionary macroeconomic scenario for Europe as an alternative to current austerity policies over the medium term. Using a non-equilibrium structuralist macroeconomic model, it demonstrates that the dual aim of economic growth and increases in men’s and women’s employment can be achieved by adopting gender-sensitive expansionary macroeconomic policies. Based on historical data series, three scenarios for Europe for the 2015–25 period are compared: continued austerity, a gender-neutral expansionary scenario, and a gendered expansionary scenario. Projections for the gendered expansionary scenario suggest that 7.4 million more jobs could be created for women in the Eurozone and United Kingdom by reversing austerity policies and gendering and increasing government expenditure and private investment. Further, higher growth rates under this scenario lead to significant reductions of debt-to-GDP ratios and lower budget deficits. The study recommends Europe should roll back austerity policies and embark on a new gender-aware economic trajectory.     

创业动机与主观幸福感：社会规范的调节作用

基于自我决定理论与目标设置理论,对2013年GEM数据库69个国家的16 976个创业者进行调查,探究创业动机（生存型动机与机会型动机）对创业者主观幸福感的影响机制,分析创业效能感的中介作用和社会规范的调节作用。结果显示：创业动机正向影响创业效能感,进而提升主观幸福感;社会规范负向调节创业动机对主观幸福感的影响。结论可为改善创业者幸福感,打造“双创”战略升级版提供理论参考和实践指导。     

我国社会保障政策调整的战略选择

政府社会保障政策调整的战略选择,宜从弥补制度缺失、构建覆盖城乡居民的社会保障体系入手,积极稳妥、循序渐进地推进这一制度沿着公平、普惠、可持续发展方向发展,在解除全体人民生活后顾之忧的同时,不断提高人民的生活质量并增进人民的幸福感与尊严感。     

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.     

Social capital, innovation and growth: Evidence from Europe

This paper investigates the interplay between social capital, innovation and per capita income growth in the European Union. We model and identify innovation as an important mechanism that transforms social capital into higher income levels. In an empirical investigation of 102 European regions in the period 1990-2002, we show that higher innovation performance is conducive to per capita income growth and that social capital affects this growth indirectly by fostering innovation. Our estimates suggest that there is no direct role for social capital to foster per capita income growth in our sample of European Union countries.     

完善我国农村社会保障制度的思考

农村社会保障制度关系到我国的社会稳定、经济的持续发展,是当今党和政府迫切关注的重点问题。中国农业经济的市场化改革与发展动摇了传统的农村社会保障制度的依存基础。建立起适合我国国情的农村社会保障制度体系,是全面建设小康社会与和谐社会的需要。必须从完善资金的筹措体系、管理体制、法律体系等各方面逐步完善我国的农村社会保障制度体系建设。     

对完善我国社会保障制度的思考

我国目前的社会保障制度存在保障目标错位,保障功能扭曲,保障范围狭窄,保障层次紊乱,保障资金匮乏等缺陷,已严重阻碍了我国整体经济体制改革的进程,因此,欠必须在坚持总体目标的前提下,修正不适宜的改革措施,使改革更能体现出科学性、合理性的要求,总体设计要充分兼顾社会和经济目标的双重要求,实现公平和效率的最佳统一,正确选择保障重点,强化保障功能,提高保障效率;清理各种社会保障项目,按保障需求形成层次分明的保障管理体系;分别保障项目的性质,采取不同的保障基金管理方式。     

Employment and Productivity Growth in Europe and North America: The Impact of Labor Market Institutions

In this paper, we examine long-run employment and productivity growth in the major economies of North America and Europe from 1960 to the early 1990s. We develop a model in which output growth is determined by the growth of aggregate demand, and the relative contributions of employment and productivity growth to the growth of output depend on country specific labor market institutions. We find that institutions that promote collective bargaining, employment security and social protection have roughly equal and opposite effects on employment growth (negative) and productivity growth (positive), giving rise to an inverse relationship between these variables. The welfare implications of this finding are that labor market deregulation could result in more work and greater inequality and insecurity for workers, without significantly increasing the rate of economic growth.     

北欧独特的经济社会制度安排

北欧国家的社会福利制度对促进经济富足、社会安定、人民安居乐业等起到重要作用。目前,北欧国家70—80％左右的人是中等收入群体,基本实现了共同富裕;社会公正得到维护,占80％左右的中等收入者最低收入一般不少于2500欧元,最高一般不超过10000欧元。国家是人民自己的,一切是透明的,基本上没有腐败。有富裕、有公正、有效率,正是社会主义市场经济所要追求的目标。因此,北欧独特的经济社会制度对进一步思考我国的经济社会改革提供了有益的借鉴和启示。     

Inside Institutions of Progressive-Era Social Sciences: The Interdisciplinarity of Economics and Sociology

In the Progressive Era, sociology and institutional economics shared some important methodological principles and theoretical constructs. This study explores some of these similarities, focusing on the ideas and theories of Albion Small and Franklin Giddings, who were the most important sociologists in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Since the literature on the history of the interdisciplinarity of economics and sociology is somewhat scarce, this study aims to contribute to this historiography by considering the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of early institutional economics — mainly from the standpoint of Veblenian institutional economics.     

Social Change versus Transition: The Political Economy of Institutions and Transitional Economies

The “transition” process in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (EEFSU) was one of the most dramatic non-marginal adjustments in economic systems ever experienced. During the transition process, elements of centrally administered socialism and embryonic market relations co-existed. This made traditional economic theory irrelevant. The purpose of this paper is to discover policy concerns and outcomes that orthodox “transition” literature ignores. Stanfield’s contribution to the economic literature, a cultural-holistic approach of radical institutionalism, makes it possible to understand the “transition” process from a new and more enlightened perspective. Stanfield provides a better understanding of the complexities involved, since the nature of change in the EEFSU is social and ever-lasting, not an end-state in the form of “transition”. Students of transition and of international development would benefit from this novel approach, which dismisses “transition” and substitutes “social change”, as the proper designation and manifestation of what actually took place in EEFSU.     

Uncertainty,Rationality and the Study of Social Institutions

The insight that both ontological and epistemological perspectives are intertwined is certainly correct, but at the same time insufficient to differentiate mainstream from heterodox approaches to economic institutions. As this paper argues, it is important whether one starts from ontological or epistemological considerations first. The paper suggests that the difference can be described in terms of function versus rules and demonstrates that an intersubjective ontology for institutions requires also an intersubjective epistemology. Otherwise, ontological precepts contradict the epistemological ones with important repercussions for understanding knowledge, rationality and institutions.     

On the Determinants of Labour Market Institutions: Rent Seeking vs. Social Insurance

What determines the structure of labour market institutions? I argue that common explanations based on rent seeking are incomplete. Unions, job protection and egalitarian pay structures may have as much to do with social insurance of otherwise uninsurable risks as with rent seeking. In support of this more benign complementary hypothesis the paper presents a range of historical, theoretical and cross‐country evidence. The social insurance perspective changes substantially the positive analysis of the future of European labour market institutions. It is not clear that globalization and the ‘new economy’ will force countries to make their labour markets more flexible. These phenomena will probably increase the efficiency costs of existing institutions, but they may also make voters more willing to pay a high premium to preserve institutions that provide insurance.