An overview of Asian equity markets

This study overviews the development of 11 Asian equity markets, namely, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Prior to the onset of the global financial crisis, the Asian stock exchanges were generally bullish, underpinned particularly by China's robust economic performance. Innovations in financial products and services have been growing in importance, as stock exchanges in these countries have been making a concerted effort to introduce new features and best practices, with the objectives of raising market efficiency, enhancing service quality, and generally bringing operations up to par with international standards. But the potential to realize or support market efficiency can only be possible within an adequate legal framework, a sound market infrastructure, and appropriate corporate governance mechanisms. Thus, many challenges are still to be overcome in the region.     

Sustainable development of agricultural systems: competing objectives and critical limits

The sustainability of agricultural systems has become a major focus for debates about future human survival. Much of the argument appears to rely on simplistic interpretation of ecological models, and fails adequately to define what sustainability objectives are being sought. We explore the implications of two alternative approaches to agricultural sustainability: the Critical Limits view which would require future farming systems to accept the ecosystem-imposed limits on the number of people in the world and the lifestyle they can enjoy; and the Competing Objectives view would balance agricultural sustainability with economic viability, reduction of environmental harm and fulfilling public demands for food and landscape benefits. The development of farming systems of the future will depend on which of these views is adopted by planners and policy makers.This paper challenges some of the ecological assumptions underlying the Critical Limits approach and questions the conventional view that extensive farming systems are more sustainable agriculturally than intensive systems. We may be able to deal more effectively with the environmental side effects of intensive farming systems by treating them as unwanted externalities and taking direct action to avoid or remove them rather than attempting to change fundamentally the nature of modern farming systems.To cope with the increasingly complexity and inter-connectedness of modern farming systems in the context of globalisation and potential perturbations like climate change, we need a pluralistic approach to policy, which can cope with the high levels of uncertainty in these areas and which allows maximum flexibility of response to changing circumstances.     

低收入住房政策的国际经验借鉴:需求方补贴

随着国家住房保障制度的发展,世界各个工业化国家自20世纪70年代以来,对住房需求方进行国家补贴已变得越来越重要.近年来关于西方住房政策的研究认为,无论是从理论还是从实践效果来讲,需求方补贴的相关政策及执行在实现住房保障、促进社会公平方面起到了越来越积极和重要的作用;与此同时,随着近年来西方国家社会经济结构的转变,需求方补贴与传统的供给方补贴方式相比,负面影响更少,补贴的效力和效率更高.这些国际经验对于中国建立和完善城市住房保障制度具有重要的参考价值.论文旨在对低收入住房需求方补贴的相关国际经验进行概括总结,并探讨其对中国住房保障制度发展的借鉴意义.     

Problem‐Solving Orientations,Financial Self‐Efficacy,and Student‐Loan Repayment Stress

Using data acquired from a four‐time longitudinal survey, we tested a model linking two measures of self‐agency, i.e., problem‐solving orientations and financial self‐efficacy, to student‐loan repayment stress. Of those participants who responded at Wave 4 (N = 855) of a longitudinal study, 396 who had acquired student loans were included in our structural equation model's Mplus analysis. After we controlled for gender, college financial education, ethnicity, and participant annual income, we found that both financial self‐efficacy and negative problem‐solving orientation were related to perceived difficulty. More specifically, those participants with a greater financial self‐efficacy at Wave 4 perceived less difficulty in paying off their loans, while those with a more negative problem‐solving orientation perceived more difficulty in paying off their loans. We also found perceived difficulty to be directly related to the actual difficulty of repaying a loan, and this perceived difficulty was, in turn, associated with loan‐specific stress. We provide implications for financial education.     

Organizational success and success criteria: Conceptual issues and an empirical illustration

This paper deals with the concept of “organizational success” and success criteria. The discussion reveals that success may be conceptualized and measured in several ways. A variety of criteria for describing, explaining and predicting organizational success dealt with in the literature are explored in a small-scale study conducted in the newspaper industry. The findings show that commonly used success criteria, based on both unobtrusive and obtrusive data, are more or less unrelated, mapping different and only partly understood aspects of organizational success. Theoretical and management implications are highlighted.     

An Investigation of the Female–Male Wage Gap During the Industrial Revolution in Britain

During the industrial revolution women's wages were substantially lower than men's. This article documents the wage gap and shows that in most cases it can be explained without reference to wage discrimination. First, the wage data we have overestimate the wage gap; correcting for biases due to measurement error reduces the size of the wage gap. Second, because differences in productivity were substantial, the corrected wage gap is consistent with these.