中国被忽视的非正规经济：现实与理论

中国的“非正规经济”就业人员（即没有工作保障,缺少福利和不受国家劳动法保护的劳工）已占今天2．83亿城镇就业人员总数中的1．68亿,比正规就业人员要多出一倍半。但是,今目的中国国家统计机构尚未真正正视非正规经济就业人员统计。其部分原因是当前的主流经济（以及社会）理论——即主要来自20世纪60年代在美国盛行的“二元经济”理论、“三部门理论”和“橄榄型”社会结构理论——的误导。这些理论共同构成了50年代和60年代风行美国的“现代化”模式。本文扼要论述该模式的关键论点,进而回顾70年代和80年代发展经济学“革命”中有关学者对其所作的批评,以及后来新古典经济学在美国新保守主义领导下进行的“反革命”辩驳,重在揭示论争双方的意识形态化偏颇,并突出各自的洞见,提倡适当结合双方正确的见解,由此建立去意识形态化的理论观点,以助于理解今天非正规经济的现实。     

Change in income distribution and aggregate spending: constraints on full-employment?

During the 1980s, rising income inequality in the UK resulted partly from market conditions, and partly from supply-side policies that reduced social security benefits and income supports for low-wage earners. Greater Inequality, plus low levels of investment spending (relative to consumption)hinder the ability of demand management to raise the level of output and employment in the UK economy. Higher income earners have higher import propensities. Consequently, at any stage of the economic cycle, the trade dificit is now larger than it was before 1980. Increases in demand leak into a demand for imports, further reducing the incentive to invest. The paper argues for lower interest rates to encourage investment, and a fiscal policy that redistributes income towards those with lower incomes to solve these problems.     

Emigration,wage differentials and brain drain: the case of Suriname

In this article, we examine two hypotheses concerning emigration. The first hypothesis is that emigration is positively correlated with wage differentials. The second hypothesis concerns a positive correlation between emigration and higher education in the sending country (the so-called brain gain hypothesis). We analyse unique time-series data for Suriname for the period 1972–2009, for which we fit error correction models to disentangle short-run from long-run effects. We document moderate support for the first hypothesis, but we find strong support for the brain drain (and not brain gain) hypothesis. We conclude with implications of our findings for Suriname.     

It's Not a Laughing Matter: Critical Geopolitics,Humour and Unlaughter

This paper explores the possibilities of considering humour and laughter as a serious matter of concern for critical geopolitics and political geography more generally. While there has been some interest in this topic, there is scope to devise a more expansive research agenda. Using both laughter and Michael Billig's notion of unlaughter, the paper considers how these visceral expressions contribute, often in subtle ways, to the making of geopolitical subjectivities. The final part of the paper considers some possibilities for future research.     

Fiscal decentralization and economic growth in the OECD

What impact, if any, does Fiscal Decentralization (FD) have on economic growth? Further investigations of the inter-relationships between FD and economic growth are timely given that government decentralization remains at the forefront of many Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) policy agendas. This study incorporates a range of measures of FD to better account for the direct impact of different levels of subnational fiscal autonomy on economic growth. The analysis also considers the impact of previously omitted public sector decentralization variables that provide further indication of the extent to which Subnational Governments (SNG) are ‘closer to the people’ and potentially better able to account for local preferences in fiscal decision-making. Whilst little evidence of a direct relationship between FD and output growth is found, some evidence is found to suggest that federal systems tend to have lower growth rates than do unitary states, independent of their degree of decentralization, and that countries with more elected tiers of government generally have lower economic growth.     

Pathways from discovery to commercialisation: using web sources to track small and medium-sized enterprise strategies in emerging nanotechnologies

This paper presents results from a pilot study of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on a web-scraping and content analysis of current and archived nanotechnology enterprise websites. We use this approach to explore nanotechnology SMEs transitions from discovery to commercialisation and understand how transitions vary by SME characteristics, technology and market sectors. Our findings suggest that although the idealised linear innovation model is present, important instances of divergence exist. Cluster analysis uncovered sectoral differences but even more distinctions based on the age, funding source, and research intensity.     

Adaptive Economic Models

The growth literature has identified four channels of transmission by which the abundance of natural resources can negatively affect economic growth. In this article, I suggest ideology as a fifth transmission channel. To test this hypothesis, I exploit the geography of Bolivia whose western regions have natural resources that differ considerably from its eastern regions. I find that regions with predominantly extractive natural resources tend to choose redistributive and interventionist rather than laissez-faire policies. Additionally, I identify two effects on growth depending upon the type of natural resource that a region possesses in abundance.     

Issues in Macroeconomics

This is a study of the nature of internal diversity within liberal and collaborative market economies. Based on large scale comparative survey data, we assess the extent to which specific clusters of practices are associated with specific varieties of capitalism. Given that recent literature has pointed to internal diversity within specific national contexts, we explore the nature of internal diversity within both liberal and collaborative market economies, and what makes each variety of capitalism distinct. We find that more than one cluster of practices is indeed likely to be encountered in a particular national context, but that this diversity was bounded: only a limited number of alternative paradigms are likely to emerge and persist. The survey findings not only shed light on the nature of this internal diversity, but also reveal the fact that liberal and collaborative markets remain distinct, with the rights accruing to employees being more deeply embedded in a wide cross section of firms within the latter.     

Institutionalism and the New Classical Economics

Neoliberalism has transformed markets supplying public goods. Analysis of five real-world Australian markets reveals the eligibility rules for access and ongoing participation, interaction of participants, the role of intermediaries and government, the extent of competition, complex regulatory regimes shaping and controlling these markets, and key market outcomes. Contrary to neoliberalism's free market rhetoric and the view promulgated by mainstream economics, a spectrum of market configurations and governance regimes were found along with participation being highly dependent on technology access and skills, market outcomes inconsistent with policy rhetoric, market interrelationships posing adverse cumulative impacts, and government is strongly interventionist through multiple roles.