THE ORANGE BOOK: EIGHT YEARS ON

The Orange Book had an important influence on Liberal Democrat thinking, particularly on economics, tax, and public service reform. Without the policy changes which the book and its authors anticipated, it is much more difficult to imagine the governing Liberal Democrat‐Conservative coalition being formed and sustained. This paper examines the origins and impact of the book, and sketches out future directions for policy development.     

Corporate commitment to climate change action,carbon risk exposure,and a firm's debt financing policy

Motivated by the rising consensus that corporate engagement in climate change actions holds the key for society's transition into environmentally resilient economy, the study examines whether a firm's commitment to climate change action and its carbon risk exposure shape the firm's debt financing policy. Based on insights drawn from signaling, corporate reputation, and agency theories, we develop models that link corporate commitment to climate change actions and a firm's carbon risk exposure with its debt financing decisions. Using data drawn from S&P 500 companies, for years 2015 to 2019, we find a robust evidence that firms that engage in higher levels of commitment to climate change actions issue a higher proportion of debt with longer terms to maturity, even after controlling for their carbon risk exposure. However, we do not find a robust evidence corroborating an association between firms' carbon risk exposure and their debt financing policy. These findings are consistent with arguments that high-commitment firms enjoy positive reputation, better credit rating, and reduced agency and information asymmetry costs, allowing them to gain easier access to long-term debt markets.     

SHOULD THERE BE FREEDOM OF DISSOCIATION?

Contemporary liberal societies are seeing increasing pressure on individuals to act against their consciences. Most of the pressure is directed at freedom of religion but it also affects ethical beliefs more generally, contrary to the recognition of freedom of religion and conscience as a basic human right. I propose that freedom of dissociation, as a corollary of freedom of association, could be a practical and ethically acceptable solution to the conscience problem. I examine freedom of association and explain how freedom of dissociation follows from it, showing how dissociation protects freedom of religion and conscience. Extreme cases, such as the problem of the Satanist nurse, can be handled within a dissociationist framework, so it is reasonable to think less extreme cases can also be dealt with. The serious objection that dissociationism entails unjust discrimination is answered primarily by appeal to the need for ‘full and fair access’ to goods and services by all groups. I then allay important concerns about what kind of liberal society we should want to live in. Next, I refute the charge that a dissociationist society violates liberalism's ‘higher good’, arguing that liberalism strictly does not have a higher good. I conclude with some reflections on what a dissociationist society might look like.     

Frank Knight on Preachers and Economic Policy: A 19th Century Liberal Anti Religionist, He Thought Religion Should Support the Status Quo

Abstract . A central feature of the work of American economist and social philosopher Frank H. Knight was his antagonism toward organized religion, particularly Christianity and especially Catholicism. Knight's antagonism towards the Church may be traced to his historical views on the Liberal Revolution and the opposition of the Church to critical inquiry and open discussion, and its support for despotic social institutions. Additionally, Knight's antagonism stemmed from his skepticism about the possibilities of effective social reforms based upon Christian moral principles. Knight found little in Christian teaching that would offer appropriate solutions—certainly not the “Gospel of Love” which he took as the core of Christian social teachings. Furthermore he was critical of the reform efforts of preachers because of their ignorance of the function of the free market and their propensity towards radical solutions. On the centennial of his birth, he is remembered as an ardent social critic and a liberal supporter of the status quo.

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Factors of internal corporate social responsibility and the effect on organizational commitment

Internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential part of organizations' social responsibility. Yet, to date, CSR's internal dimension has been widely neglected in the literature. This paper empirically explores the concept of internal CSR and its relationship to employees' affective and normative organizational commitment. For conceptualizing internal CSR, seven factors are theoretically derived based on social exchange theory. The research model is initially tested through a pre-test consisting of 386 respondents from a German company active in the renewable energy sector. The main survey is carried out in an international pharmaceutical company, resulting in 2081 employee responses. The results reveal that the relevant factors constituting internal CSR are present and that the latter has a strong effect on employees' affective organizational commitment and a comparatively low effect on normative organizational commitment. Furthermore, a mediating role of affective on normative organizational commitment is detected.     

Beyond a Liberal Critique of ‘Trickle Down': Urban Planning in the City of Malmö

This article scrutinizes the much used, but less examined, concept of ‘trickle down' in an urban setting. We make a distinction between the production of and distribution in the city, and argue that trickle down in contemporary urban policy could be regarded as the liberal link between production and distribution. Based on interviews with key figures and document analyses, we look at the transformation of the Swedish city of Malmö from an industrial to a post‐industrial city, where, during the last two decades, we have found three concurrent components: the ideology of trickle down; several urban policy programs and governmental policies to ‘make' money and resources trickle down; as well as increased economic polarization and segregation. A liberal critique of trickle down would argue that market mechanisms cannot by themselves solve distribution, and that government policies therefore are needed. We argue for the need to go beyond a liberal critique of trickle down and stress how unequal distribution is built into the unequal production of the city.     

JUDAISM AND LIBERALISM: ISRAEL’S ECONOMIC PROBLEM WITH ITS HAREDIM

This article argues that, in the arrangements for the public provision of welfare for the poor and a basic education for all in both biblical and post‐biblical times, Judaism is more closely in accord with classical liberalism than it is with those variants of liberalism which favour no more than the minimal night‐watchman state as well as those which favour the extensive welfare states of contemporary Western social democracies. To the extent that Israel's ultra‐orthodox Jews (its Haredim) have been able to secure more by way of state subsidies (through exploiting the leverage their country's national system of proportional representation has given them, which often leaves them holding the balance of power), not only are they endangering Israel's viability as a vibrant, developed liberal democracy, they are also guilty of departing from the religious teachings and tradition of Jewish orthodoxy.     

Social Value Orientation and Climate Strength as Moderators of the Impact of Work Group Cooperative Climate on Affective Commitment

We investigate the moderating role of an individual's social value orientation (which refers to self‐ versus other‐regarding preferences) and of climate strength (which refers to the extent of agreement among group members on group norms and values) on the relationship between work group cooperative climate and affective commitment among professional employees. We develop two plausible but opposite hypotheses on the moderation effect of social value orientation, one based on the behavioural assimilation assumption and the other on goal transformation theory. We argue that the work group's climate strength is an important contingency factor that affects which of both contradictory predictions holds. In a sample of 209 academic employees of a Belgian university, we find support for our arguments. Specifically, a cooperative climate enhances the affective commitment of employees with a prosocial value orientation (as predicted by the behavioural assimilation argument) but only when there is strong consensus among group members about the group's climate (high climate strength). Conversely, for those whose social value orientation is towards the self rather than others, a cooperative climate enhances affective commitment (consistent with goal transformation theory), especially when the climate is not agreed upon (low climate strength). These findings underscore recent claims that the predictive power of different theories in organizational behaviour depends on an individual's motives and values. We discuss the implications of our findings for the management of work groups consisting of employees with different social value orientations.     

The impact of the European social fund on youth education and employment

The effectiveness of the European Union's Cohesion Policy in reducing regional socio-economic gaps remains an open empirical issue, while evidence as to how the policy is affected by specific territorial factors and which social groups benefit most from it remains sparse. This article seeks to address this gap by disentangling the impact of the European Social Fund (ESF) on youth education and employment prospects. Drawing on macro-level data for the European NUTS-2 regions, we assess the impact that this fund has on different education-specific youth population shares and employment rates. In the case of education, we find that the receipt of funding is associated with a human capital polarization of regional populations. Specifically, we identify a positive impact of the ESF on population shares with lower-secondary and tertiary education, and a simultaneous negative impact on the share of those with upper-secondary education. In the case of employment, we find a positive response for youth of all education levels. A heterogeneity analysis indicates that both the education and employment responses of the youth population to the receipt of the ESF are strongly influenced by local specialization in high-skilled activities.     

教育公平与社会排斥现象研究

公平是相对于不公平存在的。对弱势群体来说是不公平的情况,不能指望强势群体主动来改变,而这正是政府的责任所在。在市场有限介入教育领域的情况下,政府如何调节教育机构和受教育者之间的关系?教育政策的角色和作用就显得至关重要了。     

Solving the “Lachmann Problem”: Orientation,Individualism, and the Causal Explanation of Socioeconomic Order

This article examines the question of whether social institutions should be treated as possessing the sui generis causal power to influence people's actions. It does so by means of a case study of the work of the Austrian economist Ludwig Lachmann. Lachmann's account of how social institutions facilitate intentional human agency in the face of uncertainty contains significant ambiguities and tensions, stemming from his reluctance to acknowledge the causal efficacy of social institutions. The conceptual resources required to overcome these problems are to be found in realist social philosophy and social theory. The proposed resolution comes at a price, however, for it calls into question Lachmann's self‐avowed commitment to methodological individualism.     

Effects of personal characteristics on organizational commitment: evidence from Brazil's oil and gas industry

In 1997, Brazil's major energy company faced a loss of its monopoly as part of the country's structural reform. Many of its employees were recruited by new entrants to the oil and gas industry. In order to retain employees, the company initiated a multiyear planning process which included a redesigned human resource management model oriented to organizational commitment. This study examines the long-term influence of five employee personal characteristics (type of employment, job level, gender, education level and service time) on the affective, normative and continuance components of organizational commitment. The research was conducted in one of the company refinery and involved a questionnaire survey of all employees and interviews with senior managers. It was found that type of employment (company staff or contractor) had the greatest impact on affective and normative commitment, while service time and education level are the most significant contributors to continuance commitment. Gender and job level were found to have limited implication for commitment. The results demonstrate that the company response to structural reform had the long-term positive effect of binding employees to the organization.     

Sismondi's principles of liberty and economic progress

The Swiss-born liberal thinker Jean-Charles-Léonard Simonde de Sismondi (1773–1842) rejected metaphysical systems of thought in favour of historical and social analysis. However, in his mature writings, he offered an organising, although a never explicit, set of principles guiding his political and economic disquisitions. I identify Sismondi's essential principles of social study, namely, the effect of political organisation on the character of the people, the need for a ‘national reason’, along with the weight of tradition over individual representation. Subordinate principles of liberty are examined, such as respect for minorities, freedom of public debate, and engagement in local affairs. I argue that, when the political idea of a slowly matured national reason guiding the constitutional progress of liberty is applied to a rapidly changing economic domain, tension is created within Sismondi's understanding of social sciences.     

The Financial Effects of Uniform and Mixed Corporate Social Performance

Firms typically present a mixed picture of corporate social performance (CSP), with positive and negative indicators exhibited by the same firm. Thus, stakeholders' judgments of corporate social responsibility (CSR) typically evaluate positives in the context of negatives, and vice versa. Building on social judgment theory, we present two alternative accounts of how stakeholders respond to such complexity, which provide differing implications for the financial effects of CSP: reciprocal dampening and rewarding uniformity. Echoing notable findings on strategic consistency, our US panel study finds that firms that exhibit uniformly positive or uniformly negative indicators in particular dimensions of CSP outperform firms that exhibit a mixed picture of positives and negatives, which supports the notion that stakeholders' judgments of CSR reward uniformity.     

Breaking With Neoliberalization by Restricting The Housing Market: Novel Urban Policies and the Case of Hamburg

Hamburg currently exemplifies the departure from a straightforward neoliberal urban track. The city's neoliberal path only moved into full swing in the first decade of the 2000s. During this period, urban development was primarily subject to property market mechanisms—with projects being granted to the highest bidder—prompting effects such as rapidly rising rents, deepened social segregation and increased property‐led displacement. Since 2009, however, the city's entrepreneurial urban policy encountered comprehensive resistance movements that eventually led to the rediscovery of a political will for a new housing policy and interventionist policy instruments. This article focuses on the turning point of neoliberal policies and examines the wider scope of the contemporary urban agenda in Hamburg. We first conceptualize potential limits of the neoliberal city in general and then discuss three momentous local policy experiments—the International Building Exhibition, promising ‘improvement without displacement'; the rediscovery of housing regulations through the ‘Social Preservation Statute'; and the ‘Alliance for Housing', aiming to tackle the housing shortage. We discuss these approaches as funding, regulation, and actor‐based approaches to limiting the neoliberal city.     

Mitigating climate change: A role for regulations and risk‐taking

Why do some firms engage in actions to reduce climate change? We propose two counterintuitive mechanisms: high levels of regulation and a firm's increased tolerance for risk. Drawing from insights on how institutional contexts constrain, and enable, prosocial firm behavior, we argue that external pressures, amplified internally by a firm's higher tolerance for risk, increase the likelihood that a greenhouse gas (GHG)‐intensive firm will engage in climate change actions that exceed regulatory requirements. An analysis based on 7,101 observations of U.S. publicly traded firms during the 2013 to 2015 period supports our hypotheses. Our models show high overall prediction accuracy (88.6%) using an out‐of‐time holdout sample from 2016. Moreover, we find that firms that have exhibited environmental wrongdoing are also more likely to engage in beyond‐compliance activities, which may be a form of greenwashing. Thus, more formal and informal regulatory oversight has the potential to spur positive environmental actions. This has implications for a firm's corporate social responsibility actions as well as for climate change regulatory policy.     

Complexity and the Meaning of Freedom

A bstract . The technological and social complexities and synergistic interdependencies of our times have rendered the individualistic, classical liberal view of freedom all but helpless as a guide to intelligent action. An alternative conceptualization is needed. The instrumentalist view, founded as it is in the principle of the continuity of the life process , provides such an alternative. In contrast with the negative "freedom as the absence of coercion" view of the individualists, the instrumentalist views freedom as a positive power of participation in the framing of rules of right conduct. Such power, in order to be instrumentally effective, must also be founded in the best available warranted knowledge of the potential consequences of alternative patterns of rules. This need for a more expansive and relevant view of freedom comes most forcefully into focus at the interface between powerful, but potentially destructive technologies and the attendant need for their social control.     

Can Corporate Social Responsibility Lead to Social License? A Sentiment and Emotion Analysis

The term social license (SL) refers to the acceptance or approval by a community of a company's presence. It is generally assumed in the literature that effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions will lead to an SL. In this study we examine the CSR-SL relationship at the local community level and establish boundary conditions on the effectiveness of local CSR in creating an SL. Using consent-based micro-social contract theory, we theorize that commitment to local CSR improves the level to which a local community grants an SL to a multinational corporation (MNC), but the impact is moderated by the global legitimacy of the parent company, the nature of institutions in the host country, and the degree of polarization within the focal community. Based on 3696 articles regarding 43 global mining MNCs operating in 523 local communities between 2008 and 2020, we use natural language processing and sentiment analysis to evaluate the degree to which a local community grants an SL. Our empirical evidence indicates that local CSR does positively influence the granting of an SL, but the effect is reduced when there is strong rule of law or high community polarization and increased when the focal firm has strong global legitimacy.     

EUROPE AND CHINA: THE FATAL CONCEIT1

China's recent economic growth has been driven by an apparent acceptance by the Chinese government of many of the key insights of Hayek's economic and social thought. Current Chinese economic policies stand in stark contrast to those being pursued by the EU and many European countries, where interventionist policies of the kind Hayek predicted would lead to relative impoverishment and declining freedom are being pursued. The long‐term consequence of these two trends is likely to be the economic dominance of China over Europe in the present century.     

Choosing an Accounting Method to Explain Public Policy: Social Return on Investment and UK Non-profit Sector Policy

We examine why certain accounting methods are chosen by government policy-makers to explain and rationalize their policy actions. We focus on the case of social return on investment (SROI), an accounting methodology that aims to capture and quantify the value created by social purpose organizations, and employs techniques of monetization and the expression of value as a ratio of benefits for investments [see REDF. (2000). SROI methodology: Analyzing the value of social purpose enterprise within a social return on investment framework. San Francisco: REDF; New Economics Foundation (NEF). (2007). Measuring real value: A DIY guide to social return on investment]. In particular, we examine how and why SROI was chosen for explaining and rationalizing the UK Government's policy of greater involvement of non-profit sector organizations in public service delivery. Our central contribution is to propose two important factors, which we identify as the capturability and communicability of accounting methods, that help to explain why a particular accounting method would be chosen by policy actors to explain and rationalize their public policy choices. The research helps further our understanding of the intersection between accounting and public policy by focusing explicitly on accounting's important role in explaining and rationalizing public policy.