Assessing techno-economic alternatives for rural development in Northeast Mexico

In the arid zone of Northeast Mexico are located some of the most socially deprived and economically marginal communities in the nation. This paper analyzes the current status of their social and economic organization and suggests alternative techno-economic subsistence activities that could improve productive capacity while preserving the fragile ecological balance between communities and exploitable natural resources. It shows how recent advances in computer mapping, linear programming, and techno-social modelling (SOPA technique) can assist decision makers and planners in choosing the best mix of social, economic, and technical advantages from an array of scenarios of change. A major finding is that the use of cooperatives as a managerial format is not always the best one to utilize, given the variability of community cohesiveness and varying organizational requirements of different techniques of exploiting animal and plant resources.     

A Comment on “The Dilemmas of Technology”

This paper documents Hohfeld's influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maurice Clark. They regarded Hohfeld's contribution on jural relations as a preliminary step toward the understanding of the adversarial nature of legal rights. Albeit with substantial differences in style, method and emphasis, Hohfeld's schema provided a powerful analytical and rhetorical tool for their analysis.     

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth's Catalan grandfather

Based on a 1831 note by Lord Holland, Sir John Hicks incorrectly concluded in a 1984 article that the maternal grandfather of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, General Antonio Eroles, ‘a political refugee from Catalonia’ according to Keynes (), was a close relative of the Baron of Eroles. In this article, new information from Spanish and Irish sources about Antonio Eroles and his family is presented. It includes his birth place and day and it details his activities during the period 1823?–?34. As a consequence of this information, Lord Holland and Sir John Hicks' speculations are refuted.     

Safe havens in the face of Presidential election uncertainty: A comparison between Bitcoin,oil and precious metals

Even though the empirical literature on safe haven properties of different assets with respect to financial risks is increasing, their abilities to safeguard against political risks has not been the subject of large empirical investigations. This paper uses an Empirical Mode Decomposition-based approach to look into the time-varying role of different assets (in particular, oil, precious metals and Bitcoin) as a safe haven against U.S. stocks in times of heightened uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our results suggest that oil can act as an effective safe haven against political risk exposure; but such property varies over time. The abilities of gold and silver to provide positive returns during downturns have been also documented in the medium-and the long-term. Bitcoin also serves as a safe haven against U.S. stock losses but in the short-term. These findings provide useful and relevant information to investors to help ensure better asset allocation in an uncertain environment.     

美,日两国技术创新战略的比较与启示

本文对美、日两国的技术创新战略进行了比较，对两国技术创新战略的最新发展作了分析，在此基础上提出，根据我国国情和世界各国技术创新的发展趋势，我国的技术创新战略应确立为：自主创新为主．模仿创新为辅，自主创新与模仿创新相结合。     

史前经济学中的企业家思想

企业家理论的研究,最早可以追溯到史前经济学。康替龙意义上的企业家是从事商业投机活动的套汇者;魁奈视野中的企业家则是农民或是大规模农场的经营者;杜尔哥说明了企业家作为企业的独立组织者和管理者的一般职能;尼古拉斯则强调企业家作为革新者的特征。     

美元汇率长期波动动因探析

基于国际金融危机背景来研究美元价值与美国国债、美国股指、经常项目逆差以及大宗商品价格之间的相关性具有现实意义。通过选取美国国债、联邦基金利率、标准普尔指数、经常项目逆差以及国际大宗商品价格指数,运用Johansen协整检验、VEC模型、脉冲响应模型及Granger因果检验等计量方法进行考察后发现,美国国债的泛滥与美元贬值没有直接的因果关系;美元价值的波动与美国经济基本面(包括金融环境)的状况存在显著的长期相关性;美元指数的走势与国际金融市场中石油、黄金等大宗商品价格指数的走势相关,且后者对美元变动具有一定程度的短期预测效应。     

The economic content of G.D.H. Cole’s guild socialism: behavioral assumptions,institutional structure,and analytical arguments

Despite a utopian tendency, G.D.H. Cole’s Guild Socialist writings exhibit considerable economic content. After sketching the historical context of Cole’s Guild Socialism and its broad ideology, we address its economic content by: 1. Cataloging Cole’s assumptions concerning worker motivation and utilitarian norms; 2. Clarifying the economic problems Cole sets out to address; 3. Describing the institutional structures of Cole’s Guild Socialism; 4. Exploring Cole’s theoretical contributions and their relation to modern constructs such as the economics of the employment relationship; and 5. Evaluating the extent to which the resulting body of theory is coherent, non-trivial, and normatively attractive.     

城市贫困成因:中美两国的对比

基于宏观层面,从社会制度、政策因素、结构调整、转型背景,以及剥夺、排斥和贫困文化等侧面对比分析了中美两国城市贫困问题产生及发展的作用因素,以期进一步明确和完善我国城市今后的减贫思路.如何切实避免类似于美国及其他西方国家的贫困文化对于我国的城市贫困治理和经济发展具有深远意义.     

知识递增,系统障碍与系统创新

本文通过对知识递增的分析，探讨了知识创新中存在的主要障碍因素，提出了系统创新的观点和对策。     

Hayek and Experimental Economics

This paper is an address given to the Austrian legislature in Vienna, Austria on March 3, 2004. The main focus is on the connection between insights from F.A. Hayeks research program and experimental economics.     

Malthus on causality

Allegations of inconsistency and self-contradiction have regularly been levied against Malthus, but some of the allegations might be the result of inadequate appreciation of his use of a distinctive methodology involving a complex structure of causal relations. After an introductory summary of his general statements on causality, this paper analyses 26 selected topics that show how he deployed this methodology.     

A new challenge to our brains: Finding the knowledge construct for world-level problems

If the ultimate resource is the human brain, the critical question is, “How well are we using it?” For the past 200 or so years we have concentrated on one capability—the power to reason, and in so doing have lost sight of the social and cultural components of knowledge. The new challenge is therefore to construct knowledge that is valid across the many societies and cultures in the world to enable world problems to be tackled in a world, rather than in a one- or two-culture, context.The purpose of this paper is to outline the limitations to knowledge constructed on a primarily rational basis and to propose how to go beyond them. These limitations encourage the reduction of the problems to a quantitative basis, and hence emphasize the measurable aspects of issues, usually the economic and the military. Unfortunately, as Stafford Beer pointed out many years ago, problems cannot be solved within their own context but only within a larger context. Present attempts to attain peace through measures of quantifiable destructiveness are therefore unlikely to prove effective. The way out, as Kenneth Boulding has noted, is to reformulate world problems in terms of peace, since the criteria for stable peace are not necessarily identical with those for the non-outbreak of war. One corollary is the need to reconstruct our knowledge using the whole brain, and in doing so, provide a knowledge basis valid across different societies and cultures. This is indeed a new, and very real, extension and challenge to the use of our brains.     

Normative and positive theories of public finance: contrasting Musgrave and Buchanan

This paper assesses James M. Buchanan's claim of following a positive approach in stark contrast to the normative approach to public finance of Richard A. Musgrave. The goal of this paper is to shed light on the foundations of modern American public finance by analysing one aspect of the methodology of its two most prominent fathers. I show (1) that it is difficult to distinguish Musgrave's and Buchanan's theories of public goods along the positive/normative dividing line and (2) that Buchanan's theory can also be considered normative. In the first three parts, I follow the Weberian methodological tradition in looking for value judgements in the theories, and by reflecting on the nature of ideal types. In the last part, I propose a broader interpretation of Buchanan's methodological stance within the academic context of the 1960s.     

J.A. Schumpeter and T.B. Veblen on economic evolution: the dichotomy between statics and dynamics

At present, the discussion on the dichotomy between statics and dynamics is resolved by concentrating on its mathematical meaning. Yet, a simple formalisation masks the underlying methodological discussion. Overcoming this limitation, the paper discusses Schumpeter's and Veblen's viewpoint on dynamic economic systems as systems generating change from within. It contributes to an understanding on their ideas of how economics could become an evolutionary science and on their contributions to elaborate an evolutionary economics. It confronts Schumpeter's with Veblen's perspective on evolutionary economics and provides insight into their evolutionary economic theorising by discussing their ideas on the evolution of capitalism.     

Using dead reckoning in economic projections

Economics is an inexact science, measurement of basic data is at best approximate, and most interesting relationships change relatively rapidly in developing countries. Key variables determining economic prospects are often impossible to include into models. Models and their mathematical algorithms however are deceptively precise, which often complicates the process of constructing and using economic projection models in developing countries.This paper will examine those macro models intended for operational policy purposes and how they are used. These models try to be analytically good and have sufficient plausibility to influence policy. Thus, a great deal of judgment is required in constructing, using, and interpreting projection models in developing countries: the “dead reckoning” element.     

Assessment of technological appropriateness: The case of Indonesian rural development

It is commonly recognized at the present that technological appropriateness is not an intrinsic quality of any technology, but it derived from the surroundings (technological as well as sociocultural, politicolegal, economic, and environmental) in which it is to be utilized and the specific purpose of its application. On this basis, this paper presents two case studies for the selection of appropriate technologies for rural development in Indonesia. The first case deals with the problem of identifying a “set of appropriate technologies” to be promoted for accelerated rural development. The second case deals with the problem of selecting the “most appropriate one” among available technologies of one kind. The assessment exercises are carried out using existing methodologies and inputs (such as national priorities, assessment factors, and decision weights) from Indonesian nationals. It is shown that the analysis can provide useful guidelines for science and technology policy planning in developing countries.     

美国航天业进入结构调整期 对华合作有望恢复——从近期美国航天业发展新动态看中美航天合作走向

美国航天业新闻不断:一方面地缘政治和气候变化等原因对其发展构成威胁,另一方面私营航天企业异军突起、成绩显著。同时,美国不断流露出与我国恢复航天合作的积极信号。我方该如何看待美国航天发展的新动向?中关航天合作又将何去何从?本文根据美国航天业出现的新情况,分析美国航天业发展的趋势及中美航天合作走向。     

张家港碳排放人类驱动分析

大量证据表明,人口的增加、经济的增长及城市化改变着人类生存的环境.现阶段并没有完整的衡量人类对环境影响的框架,文章在分析IPAT等式发展的基础上,应用STIRPAT对张家港1999～2005年人口,富裕程度及其他因素对其碳排放的影响.结果表明,在张家港城市化进程及经济发展的过程中,人口因素是影响其碳排放最重要的因素,人口数量与环境影响呈现明显的正相关变化,富裕程度增加对环境的影响存在不同的产业有不同的影响,总体上第一产业总值的增加对碳排放影响较大,而城市化率对环境的影响程度不是十分明显.     

Employment And Mobility Of Workers In Industries With Different Intensity Of Innovation: Evidence On Italy From A Panel Of Workers And Firms

In this paper a panel of workers and firms is used to investigate employment composition and dynamics in industries which differ by innovation intensity. To define the latter industry-wide statistics were used (for a subset of 2,800 firms, individual data on R&D expenditures and investments in innovative processes were available from a survey on manufacturing). Firms and workers are observed over the period 1985–1991. The paper document an high rate of labour turnover. Annual separation rates are high in all size-classes, but they decline from 50% in small firms (less than 20 employees) to 13% in large ones (with more than 1,000 employees). Separations are inversely related to an industry's innovative intensity (from 18% in the highly innovative industries to 31% in the traditional industries). A logit model, which controlled for the characteristics of workers and firms, showed that the probability of separation is higher among manual and young workers and decreases monotonically with the firm size. The probability of separation declines as job tenure and, perhaps more importantly, the individual's wage increases. After controlling for these factors, the evidence suggests that the highest probability of separation is in traditional industries, the lowest is in the more innovative industries. The result is strengthened when firm-level data on R&D and other innovative expenditures are used. Other things being equal, firms that invest in R&D have a more stable labour force, and firms that invest in non-innovative processes have a less stable labour force. We therefore find empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that more innovative firms cultivate more durable employer-employee relationships. The fraction of job-to-job moves (with no intervening period of unemployment) on total separations qualifies the turnover of workers. Controlling for firm size, the percentage of job-to-job moves increases fairly regularly with worker's skills and with the industry's innovative intensity. Thus the innovative intensity of he industry appears to have a positive effect on the share of job-to-job moves, while there is some evidence that it lowers the chances of separation. This result may be linked to the skills and specialisations of the workforce; it is certainly related to the higher demand for labour in the High Tech Sectors (where employment is growing) relative to the less innovative sectors.