制度变迁理论研究新进展

新制度经济学利用标准的新古典经济学经济人行为假设和成本收益分析方法，对制度变迁原因和路径的解释远不能满足复杂现实的要求，特别是完全理性假设和静态分析方法不断受到人们质疑。越来越多的经济学家包括新制度经济学代表人物诺思逐渐代之以有限理性假设，强调时间作用和历史重要性以及制度变迁的动态过程，从而使制度变迁理论更趋“演化”的特点。近年来，自二战后开始复兴的演化理性主义借鉴自然科学和社会科学的最新成果，在制度变迁研究领域形成了极为活跃而又迅速发展的学术思潮，多角度多层次地对制度变迁这一经济现象进行深刻的剖析，增强了制度变迁理论的现实解释力和预见性。     

自我执行的制度:比较历史制度分析(上)

本文把制度因素更多地看成是历史内生演化的,从而对制度变迁进行了跨学科的分析整合,进而对比较历史制度分析的研究方法做了一个较为前沿的总结和概括.本文还对制度的社会结构要素进行了分析,把制度定义为整合的社会变量,是由"信念、组织和规则"等要素构成的体系.结合博弈均衡分析,本文得出制度要素的社会传播和复制是自我执行的结果,作为历史过程的制度演进是一个内生的变迁过程,其中历史对当下的制度变迁方向具有突出的重要性.     

解析中国家族企业的制度变迁与创新:文献回顾与展望

目前理论界关于中国家族企业制度变迁与创新的研究主要是集中在四个方面:(1)家族企业的产权;(2)家族企业制度存在的原因;(3)家族企业组织制度的经济绩效;(4)家族企业的生命周期与前景。这四方面的研究较好解释了中国家族制的企业制度安排以及变迁与创新,但不足之处是借鉴国外理论居多,而打破“中国家族制企业”黑匣子来研究的文献较少,因而理论与实践的契合点还有待进一步寻找。     

自我执行的制度:比较历史制度分析(下)

本文把制度因素更多地看成是历史内生演化的,从而对制度变迁进行了跨学科的分析整合,进而对比较历史制度分析的研究方法做了一个较为前沿的总结和概括。本文还对制度的社会结构要素进行了分析,把制度定义为整合的社会变量,是由“信念、组织和规则”等要素构成的体系。结合博弈均衡分析,本文得出制度要素的社会传播和复制是自我执行的结果,作为历史过程的制度演进是一个内生的变迁过程,其中历史对当下的制度变迁方向具有重要意义。     

公共制度与社会自我运行约束动态关联的微观分析

制度分析中的演化博弈方法以参与人的有限理性为分析基础。它与社会学中的进化论相结合,因而具有宏观的眼光;而它的分析框架仍是微观,因此,它既可用于宏观的动态变迁分析,也可以用于微观的动态演变分析。     

城乡统筹协调发展的比较制度分析

比较制度分析是20世纪80年代以来兴起的一门新兴学科,其关于制度关联和制度互补的分析思路,进一步丰富和发展了新制度经济学的制度变迁理论,也对我们分析城乡统筹协调发展制度变迁具有重要的启示作用:(1)必须遵循制度变迁的内在逻辑和生成机制;(2)制度变迁路径的选择是关键;(3)找准制度变革的临界点,从最关键性制度入手,实现从诱致性制度变迁向强制性制度变迁的转换。目前,我国已经到了城乡制度变迁的“临界点”,在这一临界点进行制度变迁的成本最小,收益最大。为此,应以户籍制度的改革为突破口,同时对城乡分割的投融资体制、劳动就业制度、财税体制、社会保障福利制度和农地制度进行配套改革,城乡统筹协调发展的新的制度系统便会逐渐建立起来,城乡二元结构和城乡发展失衡的状况将会逐渐缓解。     

基于同质个体决策交易费用视角的制度变迁模型

主流的新制度经济学以交易费用为基础,逐渐发展了一个以交易费用、交易收益、交易利润或交易效率为核心变量,以制度变迁主体追求潜在利润最大化为动力,通过制度的均衡与非均衡过程的动态分析从而研究制度变迁的理论框架。当假设制度变迁主体都同质时,可以从这个制度变迁框架中抽象出主体理性、利益结构、资源约束、技术约束、制度约束等关于分析制度变迁的关键变量,以这些变量为基础可以构建一个以同质个体决策为基础的制度变迁模型。这个模型将为制度变迁的理性选择分析、演化变迁分析和博弈演化分析的统一提供一个全新的思路。     

关于中国企业起源问题的若干思考

在中国日益成为全球经济重要的一极,中国企业正快速发展成长的今天,我们却一直对中国企业的起源没有很好的解释。而现有理论没能很好地解释中国企业的起源问题在于两点:一是没能从历史视角来考察这一历史过程问题;二是没有把中国特殊情境嵌入中国企业的形成分析中。基于此,本文阐释了什么是中国企业起源问题,提出了该问题可能的研究思路,并提出了研究中国企业起源问题的意义:即把企业的产生看作是制度的形成,把制度看作博弈均衡,利用博弈论制度分析研究特定社会背景下的中国企业起源问题。     

从传统博弈论角度阐述制度的形成与变迁

从传统博弈论的视角研究制度的形成与变迁,一般都假设博弈双方是完全理性的,并且具有共同知识。制度是博弈双方之间相互决策的均衡结果,当均衡结果发生变化时,意味着制度也在发生变化,并且在时间的推移中形成。本文对于制度形成和变迁过程,主要是用相关均衡和讨价还价模型来论述的。这种博弈方法在实践中存在一定的局限性,但是对制度形成的分析来说却是一种进步。随着其他学科的融入,关于制度形成和变迁问题的研究将会形成更科学的理论和方法。     

经济史研究的理论方法及其进展——兼评《晋商信用制度及其变迁研究》

经济理论在经济史研究中不可替代的作用在于提供描述的概念体系和分析的基本逻辑框架.前现代经济史中集中产权制度的缺失,使现代经济理论不适合作为其研究工具.历史制度分析框架,采用新古典"理性经济人"假设,将约束条件扩大到价格和收入之外,是对传统经济史研究的重要理论创新.<晋商信用制度及其变迁研究>一书正是运用此方法解决了中国传统社会产权制度环境与理论假设相左的困难.该书作为运用此理论方法的成功范例,采用从具体历史情境中给出效率评价的公理性假设的方式,解决了这一理论缺乏制度效率评价的缺陷,具有很高的逻辑一致性和经验一致性,推进了经济史研究的深入.     

The nexus of economic and institutional evolution

The current state of the development economics literature ascribes an indisputable central role to institutions. This paper presents a formal model of institutional evolution that is based on the dynamic interactions between formal and informal institutions and economic development; the main features of the model is consistent with the fundamental theories that shed light to institutional evolution, namely the collective action and transaction cost theories, as well as dialectics. As informal institutional quality accumulates like technological know-how, while the level of formal institutional quality is chosen by the government to maximize welfare, subject to the economic and political costs. The solution of the model yields a punctuated trajectory of formal institutional evolution. Simulations reveal that the extent of diversity in informal institutional quality across a country delays formal institutional reforms. We also observe that, both the optimal quality of formal institutions and welfare are higher the more homogeneous is the country with respect to its informal institutions or the cultural attributes.     

The institutional dynamics of early modern Eurasian trade: The commenda and the corporation

The focus of this article is on legal-economic institutions that organized early-modern Eurasian trade. It identifies two such institutions that had divergent dispersion patterns, the corporation and the commenda. The corporation ended up as a uniquely European institution that did not migrate until the era of European colonization. The commenda that originated in Arabia migrated all the way to Western Europe and to China. The article explains their divergent dispersion based on differences in their institutional and geographical environments and on dynamic factors, claiming that institutional analysis errs when it ignores migration of institutions and providing building blocks for the modeling of institutional migration.     

Entrepreneurship and institutional change

Entrepreneurs do more than just buy low and sell high; they sometimes also change our institutions, including our categories of thought. New institutional economics has been examining incentives that drive individuals to bring about market-supporting institutional arrangements. There is, however, an aspect of entrepreneurship conducive to institutional changes that has been neglected by contemporary institutionalist theories and that remains underdeveloped in entrepreneurship research. When and how does entrepreneurship bring about institutional change? I suggest that entrepreneurs are agents of institutional change when cultural categorization is ambiguous with regard to the proper and permissible applications of novel artifacts. Motherhood, for example, used to be a simple category, but surrogacy changed that radically. Examining newspaper evidence, social surveys, statutory law, and judicial cases, I show how entrepreneurs, by provoking a change in interpretation and judgment, challenged the existing institutional legal ordering of procreation turning a technically feasible method of surrogacy into current practice.     

Unbundling institutional determinants of multinational investments

Previous studies often examined how a broad-based institution affects foreign direct investment (FDI) flows across countries. However, analysis of differential impacts of two or more constituent institutions within a broad-based institution appears to be more useful for policy decision-making. There is a paucity of studies on how constituent institutions within a broad measure of institution affect FDI across countries. Our article constitutes the first attempt in bridging this gap. In this article, we examine the relative effects of property rights institution (PI) and contracting institution (CI) on investment flows. Our results show that PI is much more important than CI in determining the cross-border flows of FDI and affiliate sales. Moreover, PI is found to be more important for FDI than for affiliate sales, indicating that final goods are less of a concern for being expropriated by governments and powerful elites than capital goods. Through unbundling a broad-based institution and examining how the constituent institutions affect investments flows, our article provides practical location decisions for investments in FDI, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and affiliate sales.     

马克思是制度经济学家吗

马克思的制度分析既不同于早期的制度经济学家，也不同于后来的新制度经济学家。基于历史唯物主义的制度分析可以成为一般制度分析范式的基础。马克思主义的制度分析框架可以用来解释人类社会制度变迁的规律及其基本趋势，这是一种长期的、历史的、动态的制度变迁观。     

新制度经济学的新发展与政治学新制度主义:比较与启示

新制度经济学和政治学新制度主义在发展中都因为缺乏现实性、历史性和社会性而受到批评.面对相似的问题,经济学领域兴起了以青木和格雷夫为代表的比较制度分析,政治学领域兴起了历史制度主义和社会学制度主义.本文从制度观、制度对行为的影响、制度的变迁、过去的制度对现在制度的影响、文化观念和意识形态在制度形成和发展中的作用等方面,对比较制度分析和历史制度主义、社会学制度主义进行了比较,就未来制度研究的发展趋势提出了看法.     

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     

Circular economy： from an institutional perspective

Circular economy （CE） has been put fonvard as an important environmental and resource strategy in China.Aiming at the high utilization rate of resources and reduction of pollutants,CE means to realize a shift of fundamental paradigm.With the mode of production and consumption from linear to recycling model,the promotion requires transdisciplinary researches which integrate technological,ecological,social-cultural and other sciences.The present study focuses on the implementation of circular economy from an institutional perspective.Institution acts as a crucial factor by providing incentives for technical innovation,leading investment orientation and determining policy effectiveness,etc.This paper mainly discusses about： firstly,the feature of institution,institutional changes and institutional innovation is articulated,together with eco-industrial park strategy,extended producer＇s responsibility and dematerialization principle as innovative institutional arrangements; secondly,as policy plays great role on institutional changing process,the mechanism of policy implementation is needed to be related; as a result,coevolution of institutions and policies is thus presented; at last,a pilot attempt is made to find out some operational avenues in accomplishment of CE through both theoretical and practical methodology,special resolutions are put forward after some projecting difficulties and dilemmas in China are described.     

Choosing a future based on the past: Institutions,behavior, and path dependence

Institutions do not always produce behavior consistent with what theory predicts, leading comparative scholars to turn to explanations based on historical or cultural exceptionalism. Context can influence not only how an institution performs but also the very choices of institutions that societies choose to govern themselves. In this paper, we construct a model that produces contextual effects that result in institutional path dependence. In doing so, we provide formal foundations for qualitative arguments that context matters and identify a contributing causal mechanism: behavioral spillovers. Using both mathematical and computational techniques, we show that spillovers provide a mechanistic explanation for how pre-existing institutions affect the performance of new institutions as well as the optimal choice among institutions. We find that these spillovers can depend on either the set or the path of previous institutions. Both results support qualitative arguments that historical institutional contexts influence outcomes in current institutions. Importantly, the spillovers depend not only on the outcomes produced in the institutions but also on the specific behavior that produces the outcomes. As a result, we show that institutions that create diverse ensembles of behaviors generate better outcomes and less path dependence than those that cause all agents to converge on the identical strategy.     

Strategies and public propositions in games of institutional change: Comparative historical cases

This paper argues that the game-theoretic approach is incomplete for institutional studies, because comparative institutions as well as institutional changes involve the possibility of multiple equilibria. In order to solve the common knowledge problem, this paper proposes to unify game theoretic thought with an analysis of public representations/propositions to summarize salient features of the recursive/emergent states of play. From this perspective the paper tries to reconcile differences in three accounts of institutions: endogenous outcome, exogenous rules and constitutive rules accounts. Then, the unified approach is applied to comparative and historical cases of Tokugawa Japan and Qing China. Specifically it sheds new light into the coalitional nature of the Tokugawa Baku-Han regime nesting the fundamental Samurai-village pact as well as the tendency toward decentralization of political violence and fiscal competence to the provincial level toward the end of Qing China. From these new historical interpretations, endogenous strategic forces and associated public propositions leading to institutional changes through the Meiji Restoration and the Xinhai Revolution are identified and compared.