什么阻滞了中国的国富？——新科诺奖得主普雷斯科特专访

倘若生活在200年前的中国，你的生活水平与欧洲人无异，而当时的美国仅仅是一片蛮荒之地。然而，伴随着现代经济的发展，20世纪的世界经济格局发生了巨大变化，美国和日本先后超越英国，上演了经济高速发展的奇迹。那么，到底是什么原因阻碍了中国汇入现代经济发展的洪流？在2004年诺贝尔经济学奖得主——爱德华·普雷斯科特(Edward Christian Prescott)看来，闭关锁国是导致中国经济停滞不前的根源，”宋朝时候的中国很富裕，     

The first WFSF Asia—Pacific course: the futures of development

Is development theory dead? It seems to be, if the thinking of some young people at a futures course in Bangkok is any indication. The course, ‘The futures of development: historical roots, present trends and alternative futures’, was held in Bangkok 23–30 August 1992 by the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), with sponsorship from UNESCO and the Communication Centre of the Queensland University of Technology, Australia.     

Do Firms Use Tax Reserves to Meet Analysts’ Forecasts? Evidence from the Pre‐ and Post‐FIN 48 Periods

We examine whether firms decrease tax reserves to meet analysts’ quarterly earnings forecasts in the period prior to FIN 48, and whether that behavior changed following FIN 48. We use analysts’ forecasts of pretax and after‐tax income to impute premanaged earnings, or earnings before any tax manipulation. Pre‐FIN 48, we observe that firms reduce their tax reserves (i.e., increase income) when premanaged earnings are below analysts’ forecasts. Specifically, 78 percent of firm‐quarters that would have missed the analyst forecast if not for the tax reserve decrease, meet that target when the decrease is included. Furthermore, we find a significant positive association between the decrease in tax reserves and the deviation of premanaged earnings from analysts’ forecasts. In contrast, post‐FIN 48, we find no evidence that firms use changes in tax reserves to manage earnings to meet analysts’ forecasts. Thus, our results suggest that FIN 48 has, at least initially, curtailed firms’ use of tax reserves to manage earnings.     

Conceptualization and Measurement of Virtuous Leadership: Doing Well by Doing Good

Despite a long history in eastern and western culture of defining leadership in terms of virtues and character, their significance for guiding leader behavior has largely been confined to the ethics literature. As such, agreement concerning the defining elements of virtuous leadership and their measurement is lacking. Drawing on both Confucian and Aristotelian concepts, we define virtuous leadership and distinguish it conceptually from several related perspectives, including virtues-based leadership in the Positive organizational behavior literature, and from ethical and value-laden (spiritual, servant, charismatic, transformational, and authentic) leadership. Then, two empirical studies are presented that develop and validate the Virtuous Leadership Questionnaire (VLQ), an 18-item behaviorally based assessment of the construct. Among other findings, we show that the VLQ accounts for variance in several outcome variables, even after self-assessed leader virtue and subordinate-rated social and personalized leader charisma are controlled.     

Comment on ‘The economics of tobacco advertising: spending,demand, and the effects of bans’

This paper comments on a paper by Lancaster and Lancaster ‘The economics of tobacco advertising: spending, demand, and the effect of bans’, published in the International Journal of Advertising, 22(1). In their response, the authors specifically tackle comments made on their method of meta-analysis.     

Union organizing in Britain: a survey of policy and practice

Analysis of the reasons for trade union decline in developed economies has pointed to their failure to invest in effective methods of recruitment as a contributory factor. This article presents survey and case research to examine the extent to which union failure in recruitment and organizing has been rectified in the United Kingdom. The evidence indicates a varied but nevertheless substantial re-direction of union effort towards recruitment since the mid-1990s and is used to identify the characteristics of 'recruiting unions' which have invested more heavily and adopted more ambitious recruitment targets. Recruiting unions are found to be those which are receptive to learning new approaches to recruitment from overseas and which have relatively advanced arrangements for the representation of women and minorities in their internal systems of government.