(某些)品德教育对自由主义民主的危害

本文以在加拿大多伦多市一大郊区开发的一个研究项目为案例,批评了北美“品德教育”的某些方面是怎样对维持一个健康的自由主义民主社会造成危害的。作为这种批评之基础的假设认为,把自由主义的动机作为一种政治理论确定下来,并且认为这种动机就表现在民主的原则和实践中,是为了解决生活在同一社会中的人们之间的(几种)冲突,而且要做到这一点,只要把公民的角色分化出来,按照这个目的进行建构即可。以此为抓手,本文把关注的焦点集中在这种观点的危险性上,认为这种观点无法区分好人和好公民这两个概念,尤其是在文化多元主义已经深入人心的背景中。     

根深蒂固的自由主义和压迫性的社群关系--道德教育主体面临的一个两难困境

现代西方道德政治理论中,自由主义主体这个概念作为道德经验、阐释、批评的中心一直非常繁荣。然而,本文认为某种道德上意义重大的关系——那种通过分等级的权力结构由互相联系的社会群体构成的关系——构成的一种不同的主体意识需要更多的理论和实践上的注意。和自由主义的四种核心特征相对应,本文从个体是怎样成为一些特殊的社会群体的成员来论述一种主体意识视角。文章认为,除非道德教育能认识到这种主体意识,否则道德教育本身就冒着为压迫形式(如种族歧视)作贡献而不是同它搏斗的风险。     

National culture and labour-market flexibility

This paper develops a cultural explanation for labour-market flexibility, building on the work of Lipset. Using Hofstede's conceptual framework for categorizing national cultures, certain hypotheses are derived concerning the association of various labour-market institutions and rigidities connected with employment, pay bargaining the treatment of the unemployed, and Hofstede's dimensions of national culture. These hypotheses are tested on data for OECD countries, using ordinary least squares regression. The results demonstrate a strong statistical association between Hofstede's cultural indices and the various labour-market rigidities. In particular, there is a strong inverse relationship between Hofstede's MAS variable and all our labour flexibility variables. Cultural values reflecting feminine gender structuring appear to be strongly associated with labour-market inflexibility. There is also a strong statistical association between scores on the UAI dimension, and employment rigidities and pay-bargaining practices. Cultural attitudes to power inequalities as reflected in the PDI index inversely related to rigidities in pay-bargaining practices. While the results demonstrate only statistical associations, they are suggestive of the possibility that culture plays more determining role. This has important implications for deregulation/regulation strategies.     

Global Heritage and Local Problems: Some Examples from Indonesia

This article examines what happens to those who live in and around monuments as a result of World Heritage designation. Using the examples of Borobudur and Prambanan in Indonesia as study sites, it is argued that the values that local people attach to heritage are often different from, although not necessarily less important than, the values ascribed by international agencies, government officials, tourism developers and others. However, their perspectives are often not adequately represented or respected by other participants in the planning and management of sites, to the detriment of both the plans and the people. The tendency to adopt top-down, rational comprehensive planning procedures has resulted in the disenfranchisement of local people, giving greater prominence to expressions of national, 'official' culture and nationalism at the expense of local culture. It has tended to freeze sites and displace human activities, effectively excluding local people from their own heritage.     

The Tax Consequences of Long‐Run Pension Policy*

A firm's pension fund is legally separate from the firm. But because pension benefits are normally independent of fund performance, pension assets impact the firm very much as if they were firm assets. Because they are worth more when times are good and less when times are bad, common stocks in the pension fund add to the sponsoring firm's leverage. They cause contributions to a pension fund to be high just when the firm can least afford to pay them. Conversely, bonds in the pension fund will make it easier for the firm to avoid default on its own bonds when times are bad all over: The more bonds a pension fund buys, the more the firm can borrow. The tax treatment accorded the pension fund differs notably from that accorded the firm. Some have argued that a firm can capitalize on the difference by accelerating the funding of its pension plan. The benefits of full funding are wasted, however, unless the added contributions to the fund are invested in bonds; higher pension contributions now mean lower contributions later, hence higher taxes later. The benefits come from earning, after taxes, the pretax interest rate on the bonds in the pension fund. If the firm wants to take advantage of the differing tax treatment of bonds without altering the level of its current pension contributions, it can (1) sell stocks in the pension fund and then buy bonds with the proceeds while (2) issuing debt in the firm and buying back its own shares with the proceeds. An investment in the firm's own stock creates no more tax liability than an investment in stocks through the pension fund.     

Earning Curves and Wage Curves

Using British county data for full-time male manual workers we extend earlier work to investigate wage and earning curves. We distinguish between total earnings and hourly wages for standard hours, uncontaminated by overtime premium. Using data from 1980–1995 we find that earnings behaviour is dominated by volatile hours in the short run, while wage growth is highly sensitive to the level of unemployment as in the classical Phillips curve with macro data. Macro evidence for sticky wages is thus confirmed at the local level, and the wage curve of rapid adjustment is rejected for normal hourly wages.