Marcus Alexis and Regulatory Reform in Surface Transportation Industries

Marcus Alexis was a major contributor to the debate on deregulation of the surface transportation industry. He hypothesized that easing restrictions on rate-setting and firm-entry would promote efficiency and enhance consumer welfare in trucking and railroad industries. As commissioner and interim chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) he supported legislation that opened these industries to greater competition. This study revisits the model used by Alexis to derive his hypothesis, and uses current information to test its predictive accuracy long after the initial passage of deregulation. Findings from this study are consistent with Alexis’ forecast. Such evidence of his research expertise is just part of his legacy as a pioneer in the economics profession.     

也谈茅于轼《替富人说话，为穷人办事》

茅先生既不掌握政府权力,又不像李嘉诚那样富甲一方,如果不以"说话"这种特定方式为穷人办事,他能给穷人带来多大帮助呢茅于轼先生的文章《替富人说话,为穷人办事》引起的反响越来越大了,我的一些朋友和一些我所尊敬的前辈学人也卷入了批评或辩     

论经济学的边界

有经济学家认为经济学的基本逻辑可以解释人类所有的行为,他们运用经济行为模式对其他学科的传统“领地”簪越扩张,进行“经济学帝国主义”,试图用经济学的基本分析法方代替所有社会科学。但是随着经济学的扩张,经济学的解释力减弱,扩张的边际收益递减;同时,要求的理论创新加大,即边际成本递增。当两者相等时就达到了一种扩张的均衡,由此可以确立经济学的合理边界。     

美国经济发展趋势之我见2001年世界经济形势与理论研讨会部分纪要

编者按:2001年11月24日,中国社会科学院世界经济与政治研究所《国际经济评论》《世界经济》两刊编辑部与中国海关总署《中国海关》杂志社、上海大众汽车有限公司,共同在京举办了"2001年世界经济形势与理论研讨会".     

农村社区研究述评

农村社区研究是社区研究的重要组成部分。当代农村社区研究主要由三部分组成:具体特例研究,如对华西村、南街村、小岗村的实地调查;农村社区的现状及问题研究,与社会转型期的各种问题相关联;农村社区的理论构建,如桑德斯的三种社区研究的模式等。针对社区研究方法中宏观和微观分离的困境,运用个案延伸方法可以实现两者沟通的可能性。     

Comments on McCloskey and Weingast

Economic growth is an aspect of social change which cannot be explained by economic theory alone. McCloskey invokes ‘ideas’ but ideas only matter as embodied in institutions. Weingast makes this points but his institutions are too economistic. Only institutionalised self-emergence can explain massive, relentless and automatic change.     

Comments

The marginal-products-of-labour (MPL) wage gap is studied in the early-reform Chinese economy, using the Olley-Pakes estimation technique to estimate the production function, based on micro data including different categories of labour. From this measurement of MPL-wage gaps and econometric analyses, several conclusions are drawn. First, the MPL-wage gap was anomalously large for managers in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) compared with other categories of labour. Second, the large MPL-wage gap of managers raised the average MPL-wage gap across various categories of labour, resulting in higher than the average wage MPL throughout the entire workforce, which is regarded as homogeneous. Third, the large MPL-wage gap, or, in other words, the under-employment of managers, occurred not only because the state still centrally employed and allocated labour to SOEs, but because the economy faced a labour-supply constraint of managers in early-reform China. This observation supports a modified version of the state labour-monopsony hypothesis.