Economists, value judgments, and climate change: A view from feminist economics

A number of recent discussions about ethical issues in climate change, as engaged in by economists, have focused on the value of the parameter representing the rate of time preference within models of optimal growth. This essay examines many economists' antipathy to serious discussion of ethical matters, and suggests that the avoidance of questions of intergenerational equity is related to another set of value judgments concerning the quality and objectivity of economic practice. Using insights from feminist philosophy of science and research on high reliability organizations, this essay argues that a more ethically transparent, real-world-oriented, and flexible economic practice would lead to more reliable and useful knowledge.     

Poor Women Survey Poor Women: Feminist Perspectives in Survey Research

This essay examines how applying feminist principles in scientific inquiry changes both the process and the results of research. Overall, I find that including feminist perspectives improves research. Involving a women's community in the research process and allowing poor women to interview poor women may reduce interviewer bias, improve response rates and facilitate trust in answering questions that are often quite sensitive. Including poor women in the interviewing process also enables these women to learn about scientific inquiry and to participate in the research process.     

“统计学是研究方法论的科学”之说辨正——与杨缅昆、游玲杰先生商榷

本文从科学研究的任务是探求客观事物发展规律的观点出发,论述了规律的涵义,统计学是探求客观规律的科学,而背离客观规律的统计科研成果都是不非科学的。     

彼此隔绝的个体——现象学视野中的经济学个体主义方法论

个体主义方法论是西方主流经济学的基本研究方法,其核心观点往往被认为是不证自明的。但是这种不证自明恰恰不是绝对的,而是现代社会特定的理论与实践背景的产物。由于在对他人的理解的问题上采取了特定的立场,即认为对他人的理解都是通过类比推理实现的,才使得个体主义方法论成为可能。运用现象学方法进行分析可以发现,这一立场是站不住脚的,因此个体主义方法论并不是无庸置疑的。经济学要获得发展,在方法论领域必须实现变革。     

Between a rock and a soft place: Ecological and feminist economics in policy debates

The field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand, and discussions of normative values and visions for society, on the other. Using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative “hardness” and “softness” of these two sides, this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique “between” space in order to better inform policy. The current crisis of global climate change, it is argued, requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement, while ecological thinkers need to re-examine beliefs about markets and profit.     

Women's Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America,by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba

We analyze a comprehensive set of labor economics and industrial relations articles by authorship affiliation (economist vs. noneconomist) and discuss the relative openness of economists to variety in methodology and data sources.     

Hybrid Delphi: A methodology to facilitate contribution from experts in professional contexts

This work presents a new methodology based on three well-known qualitative techniques (Focus Group, Nominal Group Technique and Delphi method), with a view to harmonising their potentialities and reducing their limitations, through application in real contexts with experts who are professionals in their respective activities.The main contribution of this methodology is its joint consideration of the needs of the investigators and also of experts who act in professional contexts, in order to improve the effectiveness of preceding techniques in achieving the scientific and social objectives of the study.We have tested this methodological approach in three real cases, with experts holding different responsibilities in different companies and public organisations, and the results secured are highly satisfactory, due to both the quantity and quality of the proposals obtained, and the satisfaction exhibited by the experts taking part, with regard to the research methodology.     

The future of development economics: a methodological agenda

This paper discusses methodological differences between universalismand particularism in development economics by focusing on the‘East Asian Miracle’ debate. It proposes to builddevelopment economics as part of hetero-economics, not mono-economics,following Max Weber's methodology of social science, and suggestsdeveloping intermediate theories by abstracting directly fromgiven comparative settings. It also discusses the limitationsthat are inherent in this method, as well as ways to employthe method in actual analyses. This paper argues that the futuretask of development economics lies in recombining existing theoriesand developing new, complementing theories that will systematicallydelineate the diversity of developing countries.     

关注公寓安全 共建和谐校园

安全、规范、和谐的大学生公寓环境是学校宿舍管理能力和水平的集中体现。大学生公寓的安全管理是管理工作的重中之重。目前,大学生公寓安全管理存在学生及公寓管理人员安全意识淡薄、公寓安全管理体制不健全以及大学生普遍自我防范和自我保护能力差等诸多问题。因此,作为大学生公寓的管理者,加强大学公寓安全管理,应从安全宣传、完善安全监督和考评机制、加强外来人员出入管理、加强大学生安全素质教育以及人性化管理五方面进行,才能真正实现高校公寓安全管理。     

Conceptual Displacement: From the Natural to the Social

This paper distinguishes between epistemological naturalism, which it supports, and ontological naturalism, which it opposes. It sketches the emergence of anti-naturalist social theory among nineteenth-century African-American intellectuals and its refinement by twentieth-century feminists. These movements challenged ontological naturalism in the social sciences by substituting social constructionist concepts of race and gender for naturalist ones. Economics awaits a similar liberation. The paper identifies four naturalist concepts—atomism, determinism and biologically determined race and gender differences—as structuring mainstream economic theory. It concludes that ontological naturalism is inconsistent with the application of the epistemology of the natural sciences to the social sciences.     

South Africa's post-apartheid microcredit experiment: moving from state-enforced to market-enforced exploitation

The international donor community arrived in post-apartheid South Africa in the early 1990s to restructure the economy along neoliberal lines. One of the most important of the interventions it promoted was microcredit, which was widely seen as one of the principal self-help solutions to the exceptionally high levels of unemployment and poverty that prevailed in the Black South African community. In spite of an early ‘boom-to-bust’ episode in the early 2000s and worrying evidence it was actually further impoverishing far more Black South African's than it was actually helping escape from poverty and unemployment, the microcredit model did not lose its international support: if anything, this support was expanded as the international development community desperately sought to ensure the survival of the microcredit model and therefore also the centrality of self-help and individual entrepreneurship as the only way out of poverty for the poor. This article shows how and why the microcredit model was supported so strongly by the international development community and South African financial community in spite of its manifestly calamitous impact on Black South African community. Overall, I conclude, microcredit can be viewed as South Africa's own sub-prime-style disaster which, like the original US version, has mainly served to benefit a tiny financial elite working within and around the microcredit sector, whilst simultaneously destroying many of the most important pillars of the economy and society.     

从单点到并行:聚焦战略的分化趋势与实现路径

随着经济技术社会的进步和企业间竞争的加剧,消费者内在的求异偏好得到持续强化,市场需求因之不断分化,而现有的专注于单个细分市场的聚焦战略理论无法应对。本文从案例事实的观察入手,提出了并行聚焦战略的概念,论证了聚焦战略从单点聚焦向并行聚焦发展的动因,探讨了并行聚焦战略"并行不悖、和而不同"的理想境界及其达成途径。     

From R&D management to knowledge management: An overview of studies of innovation management

This article is intended to establish links and seek connections between the contributions made to the study of innovatory phenomena. Specifically, it analyzes the evolution undergone by studies on the topic of the technological innovation (TI) process carried out by different disciplines from the point of view of the objectives they pursue and the suppositions on which they are based. Hence, it attempts to provide evidence for the relationships existing between research done at macro level (sociology, history, economics, and industrial economics) and that undertaken at micro level (management).     

Forecasting South African inflation using non-linearmodels: a weighted loss-based evaluation

The conduct of inflation targeting is heavily dependent on accurate inflation forecasts. Non-linear models have increasingly featured, along with linear counterparts, in the forecasting literature. In this study, we focus on forecasting South African inflation by means of non-linear models and using a long historical dataset of seasonally adjusted monthly inflation rates spanning from 1921:02 to 2013:01. For an emerging market economy such as South Africa, non-linearities can be a salient feature of such long data, hence the relevance of evaluating non-linear models’ forecast performance. In the same vein, given the fact that 1969:10 marks the beginning of a protracted rising trend in South African inflation data, we estimate the models for an in-sample period of 1921:02–1966:09 and evaluate 1, 4, 12, and 24 step-ahead forecasts over an out-of-sample period of 1966:10–2013:01. In addition, using a weighted loss function specification, we evaluate the forecast performance of different non-linear models across various extreme economic environments and forecast horizons. In general, we find that no competing model consistently and significantly beats the LoLiMoT’s performance in forecasting South African inflation.     

Institutional obstacles to African economic development: State, ethnicity, and custom

To account for the African growth tragedy and, in particular, for its causes rooted in governance problems, the institutional legacy that African countries inherited from pre-colonial and colonial times must be considered. Three aspects are examined here. First, the relationship between ethnicity and state performance is bi-directional: if strong ethno-regional identities prevent the emergence of modern citizenship, they themselves constitute an endogenous outcome of continuous state failures. Second, the persistence of informal rules and social norms causes legal dualism, which undermines the credibility of modern statutory law. Third, social customs and norms that hinder socio-economic differentiation and individual capital accumulation lower the performance of indigenous enterprises.     

附属于企业集团上市公司的财务绩效:基于西部上市公司的分析

对西部上市公司的统计分析发现,附属于企业集团的上市公司,其财务绩效总体上好于非属于企业集团的上市公司.背后的原因可能是,集团公司控股可以降低控股股东与上市公司之间的交易成本,缓解双方之间的信息不对称和国有上市公司的所有者缺位,以及可利用集团优势对上市公司进行业务提携和其他支持.集团公司控股上市公司也带来一系列治理问题,文章探讨了这些问题并提出了一些建议.     

Efficient Selection and Insider Contracting Groups: a Comment on the Yarbrough & Yarbrough Paper

Beth & Robert Yarbrough's paper reviews and augments an extensive literature analyzing how insider trading groups support the process of exchange. They argue that these groups efficiently adapt to changes in the transacting environment. Yarbrough & Yarbrough's argument is compelling for groups operating in a free and open civil society but not when competition among groups is impaired by barriers to entry and externalities. This article considers whether insider trading groups are able to reach a steady-state equilibrium and presents a number of historical and contemporary examples in which insider trading groups plant the seeds of their own destruction.     

劳动价值论的数学模型分析:方法论特性与建构

马克思主义政治经济学方法是实践观指导下的科学的抽象分析法。劳动价值论的实质是唯物史观方法论的不断转化和科学运用,具体化形式是哲学思维分析与数学模型分析的统一,从而构成经济本质分析与经济运行分析统一的基础。具体而言,价值创造及运行对应了微观层面的价值(经济)本质分析和价值(经济)运行分析的统一,价值决定及其运行对应了宏观层面的价值(经济)本质分析和价值(经济)运行分析的统一。在当前,劳动价值论的数学模型分析需要更加广义化和应用化,以增强实际运用价值。     

Interpreting Ricardo: a rejoinder to Peach

This note answers Terry Peach's (1998) response to our criticismsof his interpretation of Ricardo. We show that the availableevidence supports Sraffa's interpretation. The arguments putforward by Peach, far from undermining that interpretation orfurthering an understanding of Ricardo's project, do littlemore than catalogue the already well-known difficulties thatRicardo encountered as he grappled toward a clearer accountof the laws that regulate distribution and prices.