完善我国立法听证制度的途径选择

在我国,听证制度是个舶来品。上个世纪90年代,随着我国市场经济被确立为改革的目标取向,立法听证制度才被我国法学界所接受并在实践中广泛运用,但还远远未达到现代法治和民主政治的要求。从公民参与的角度来看,我国现有的听证会制度存在问题的关键,不仅是它还没有成为公民参与立法过程的一种正常的渠道,而且在于听证制度中存在公民参与的严重不足。     

浅析我国价格听证制度的缺陷及对策

价格听证制度是政府听取民意的一种民主程序,以多方的参与、规范的程序、利益的平衡、协调共存来实现社会秩序的稳定和谐。我国的价格听证工作逐步进入规范化、制度化的轨道,取得了一定的效果,但价格听证制度还不够完善,一些价格听证会被公众认为是“听证秀”或“走过场”,价格听证会已成为涨价会。折射出一些地区公众对价格听证的失望,公共信任危机日益逼近价格听证会。文章就其价格听证的缺陷及对策作了具体的分析。     

价格听证会不能成为民主的"花瓶"

2004年11月30日上午,北京市发改委主持召开了“关于调整世界文化遗产游览参观点门票价格的听证会”。此次听证的包括故宫博物院、八达岭长城6处景点,参加听证会的各界代表21人,市民旁听代表10名,媒体记者12人。听证会虽然结束了,但有关此次听证会的争论却热闹非凡,公众就听证会代表的遴选、听证的公开透明性、听证的科学公正性提出了质疑,并引发了进一步完善听证制度的讨论。     

完善我国价格听证制度的途径分析

我国价格听证制度的建立,对于促进价格决策的科学化和民主化具有重要的意义。我国的价格听证制度在听证代表择选机制、听证主持人公正性、价格听证笔录的法律效力、价格听证会的信息透明度等方面存在不足,必须加以改革和完善。     

行政决策类正式听证制度存在的问题探究——从2002年铁路价格听证会想到的

我国决策类听证会已经有多年历史,历史上也已经有过多起影响重大的听证会,但在具体制度的操作上,还有诸多不完善之处。这些缺陷的广泛存在,严重地影响了我国正式听证功能的有效发挥。从我国历史上第一个公开召开的全国性价格听证会,2002年1月12日举行的价格听证会这一实例入手,分析我国现行决策类听证制度存在的不合理的地方,寻找完善行政决策类正式听政制度存在问题的解决方法。     

价格听证制度的反思与对策

价格听证制度在我国已经运行了13年,蔚然成风的价格听证会备受争议,公民参与热情日减,为了摆脱制度困境,亟须在制度构建上予以完善,文章从代表遴选、预备听证和案卷排他等方面提出了建议.     

价格听证制度的反思与对策

价格听证制度在我国已经运行了13年，蔚然成风的价格听证会备受争议，公民参与热情日减，为了摆脱制度困境，亟须在制度构建上予以完善，文章从代表遴选、预备听证和案卷排他等方面提出了建议。     

立法听政:和谐社会的民主示范

2005年9月27日,围绕个人所得税起征点的听证会如期在北京举行.虽然这已经不是听证这一民主形式首次面向中国的普通民众,虽然这次听证仅针对"起征点"一个问题,但是由于个税和每个人的切身利益休戚相关,同时本次听证又是全国人大及其常委会首次举行立法听证,因此其受关注程度远非前几次可同日而语,甚至其象征意义已经远远超出个人所得税立法的本身.它是我国社会主义民主法治进程中的一个重要里程碑,是构建和谐社会的一次重要的民主示范.     

党员民主听证会：非公企业民主决策机制创新——以浙江萧山非公企业为个案的调查研究

非公企业党员民主听证会是通过听证代表构成民主化、听证议题产生民主化、听证过程民主化、听证结果和反馈民主化以及听证旁听民主化达到企业民主决策机制创新的。非公企业党员民主听证会引入了党员和职工参与,相当程度上实现了从传统家族式决策模式向现代企业民主决策模式转型,其目标取向是塑造一种企业职工利益表达、利益聚合的新机制,培植中国式的企业和谐劳资关系。党员民主听证会作为非公企业民主决策的重大机制创新,其今后优化的趋势是走向专门化听证,实现党员听证和职工听证相分离。     

“治理-善治”视野下政府定价听证问题初探

上世纪90年代，我国在政府定价领域率先引入听证会制度，成为我国公共决策体制创新的范例。十几年来，我国定价听证制度不断发展完善，但在实践中却不断地引来质疑和争议，表明这一制度仍有待改进。本文以“治理-善治”理论为视角来审视这一制度创新，期待找出症结所在，以化解定价听证制度面临的困境。     

中国公用事业价格听证中消费者参与的调查分析

价格听证是实现有效公用事业价格管制的重要内容,科学的价格听证要求消费者充分有效的参与。信息、能力和制度模型能系统解释公用事业价格听证中的消费者参与。调查数据显示,中国公用事业价格听证中的消费者参与在这三个方面都存在问题,这也是完善未来中国公用事业价格听证中消费者参与的重点所在。     

Happy partisans and extreme political views: The impact of national versus local representation on well-being

The political party of elected officials can affect the happiness of the voting public through several different channels. Partisan voters will be happier whenever a member of their party controls political office regardless of the policies implemented. It is hypothesized that congruence between individual party identity and state politician affiliations should have a greater impact on citizen happiness than congruence with politicians at the national level due to results from the literature on Tiebout sorting. It is further hypothesized that individuals with extreme ideological views may report greater happiness as their ideology fulfills basic psychological needs for certainty and structure. Using data from the Generalized Social Survey the effect of party congruence of individuals with national and state politicians on happiness is estimated. The effect of extreme ideological political views on happiness is also estimated. Results find that congruence with presidential party affiliation has a much greater impact on happiness than congruence with national legislative affiliation, gubernatorial, or state legislative affiliation contradicting the hypothesis. Those who possess extreme political views are also found to report higher levels of happiness.     

Mandatory spending,political polarization,and macroeconomic volatility

This paper studies the impact of political polarization on macroeconomic volatility in a political economy model of optimal fiscal policy. I introduce the distinction between mandatory and discretionary public spending in a model where consumers disagree on the size of the public sector. In the presence of political turnover and political polarization, public policies that affect individual decision-making lead to macroeconomic volatility. I show that the legislative requirements behind the changes in mandatory public spending can reduce macroeconomic volatility caused by political polarization and political turnover. The numerical simulations of the model suggest that in the presence of a binding constraint on the changes in mandatory spending, an increase in the political polarization is associated with an increase in the share of mandatory spending and a decrease in the macroeconomic volatility, consistent with the U.S. data.     

State politics,tuition, and the dynamics of a political budget cycle

This paper attempts to improve the understanding of political budget cycles by first identifying a previously undocumented cycle in tuition and required fees at public four-year institutions of higher education in the United States. I find that tuition and fees are 1.5 % lower during gubernatorial election years than in non-election years. No similar cycle is found in private tuition and fees. Using a newly constructed dataset, I then explore the variation in electoral competition in gubernatorial and state legislative elections within states over time to uncover the underlying electoral incentives creating the cycle. The results suggest that the tuition cycle is not designed to increase the reelection prospects of governors as standard theories would predict. I find that tuition decreases during gubernatorial election years as the reelection prospects of the incumbent governor increases. Instead, the evidence suggests that popular governors use lower tuition as political pork to expand party power in the state by capturing swing districts in concurrent state legislative elections. I find that the magnitude of the cycle increases with the level of competition in state house elections and that the effect is concentrated among those districts held by the opposition party, particularly if those opposition districts are populated with voters likely to be responsive to tuition as a policy lever. These results reveal important dynamics about party competition within states in the United States and suggest that the electoral incentives driving political budget cycles can be complex.     

Economic and Political Solutions to Social Problems: The Case of Second-hand Smoke in Enclosed Public Places

This article utilises a case study of the problem of second-hand smoke in enclosed public places to examine economic and political solutions to social problems. The responses of economic actors to this problem are examined via review of a number of pre-existing case studies of private arrangements in bars and restaurants prior to the introduction of smoking bans. The responses of political actors are examined via a study of the legislative process that led to the ban on smoking in enclosed public places introduced in England in 2007. This empirical evidence supports the view that economic decision-making leads to a plurality of different accommodations of different preferences, suggestive of inter-subjective learning, whereas political decision-making leads to exclusive, all-or-nothing solutions indicative of an adversarial approach to decision-making and the imposition of one group's preferences on the whole population.     

Ethnic identities,public spending and political regimes

Do democracies discriminate less against minorities as compared to non-democracies? How does the dominance of an ethnic group affect discrimination under various political regimes? We build a theory to analyse such questions. In our model, political leaders (democratically elected or not) decide on the allocation of spending on different types of public goods: a general public good and an ethnically-targetable public good which benefits the majority ethnic group while imposing a cost on the other minorities. We show that, under democracy, lower ethnic dominance leads to greater provision of the general public good while higher dominance implies higher provision of the ethnically-targetable good. Interestingly, the opposite relation obtains under dictatorship. This implies that political regime changes can favour or disfavour minorities based on the ambient level of ethnic dominance. Several historical events involving regime changes can be analysed within our framework and are consistent with our results.     

Environmental Protection: A Theory of Direct and Indirect Competition for Political Influence

How is it that environmental groups can have a strong impact on environmental policy but without much lobbying? This paper develops a model of "direct" (lobbying the government) and "indirect" (persuading the public) competition for political influence and finds that they are complementary. However, an increase in the effectiveness of public persuasion, or a rise of public environmental awareness, induces substitution between the two. The findings establish that the empirical phenomenon of lack of political contribution from environmental groups may not be related to financial constraints, but to their greater effectiveness in public persuasion and growing public environmental awareness.     

A comparative analysis of the voting behavior of constituents and their representatives for public debts

We explore the quality of political representation of constituents?? preferences for budgetary decisions within a quasi-experimental setting. In the Swiss referendum process, constituents reveal their preferences for budgetary proposals which are either expected to increase or decrease public debts. We match individual politicians?? voting behavior on debt increasing and debt reducing legislative proposals with eight real referendum decisions on exactly the same issues from 2008 to 2011. Thereby, we directly explore deviations of politicians from constituents?? preferences with respect to budgetary policies.     

中国民营企业家参政议政与企业规模—效益分析

本文检验了民营企业家参政议政与企业发展路径的关系,企业是选择做大规模还是提高效益?实证结果发现,民营企业家借助参政议政这种战略资源,企业规模首先实现快速扩张,总收入有显著增长,而反映企业变强的效益指标,则在规模扩张两年之后显著超过对比组,其中国家级政治身份样本显著.本文深化了对中国民营企业家参政议政的实证研究,发现了中国民企借助参政议政等资源,通过规模的快速扩张实现盈利能力增强的发展逻辑.     

Public education and redistribution when talents are mismatched

In democratic countries, elected policymakers determine public spending. The level of public spending depends on taxes that are decided by a voting mechanism. Policymakers also decide how to allocate funds among different policies, such as public education and pure redistributive transfers. How are the levels of funding for public education and redistribution determined in the political process? What impacts do votes on these two policies have on inequality, growth and social mobility? We develop a politico-economic model that highlights a novel mechanism: public education provides opportunities for the children of the poor to be recognized for their talent. This reduces the probability of a mismatch, which takes place when individuals with low talent who come from rich families find jobs that should go to people with high talent (and vice versa). Hence, the poor may prefer public spending on education to direct redistribution, while the rich prefer redistribution, as education implies more competition for good jobs from the poor.