Under what conditions may social contracts arise? Evidence from the Hanseatic League

Social contractarians commonly take social contracts to be solely hypothetical and refrain from elaborating on the factors that influence the feasibility of the formation of social contracts. In contrast, this paper aims at providing a discussion of the conditions affecting the feasibility of social contracts. I argue that the more aligned the preferences of group members for public goods are, the more the individuals share similar social norms, and the smaller the group is the more feasible a genuine social contract becomes. I provide evidence in support of my contention from the medieval Hanseatic League. At the Hanseatic Kontor in Novgorod, one of the four major trading posts of the Hanseatic League in cities outside of Germany, German merchants agreed to live under the rule of a constitution that gave rise to a political authority for the Kontor society.     

基于技术轨道的战略性新兴产业创新分析

借鉴高新技术产业发展的经验,可以促进战略性新兴产业的发展.通过自主创新技术可以不断深化形成产业技术轨道,同时带动相关产业的不断发展和相关技术的成熟与跨越.     

如何提高大豆高产栽培技术

种植大豆因受品种特性、气候条件等影响,播种后不能适期出苗、出壮苗和全苗,苗期生长还能受病虫草危害,造成苗稀、苗弱,产量低,品质和效益差;我国加入WTO后,大豆生产将面临更加激烈的国际竞争.质量不高、加工品质较差,混种、混收、混销是阻碍我国大豆进一步发展的主要限制因素.     

日本自贸区政策的演变:基于利益集团动态博弈的视角

利益集团政治在日本自贸区政策的形成中具有重要作用。日本自贸区政策的演变可被解释为外部冲击下不同利益集团的动态博弈均衡。在外部冲击的新约束条件下,不同利益集团游说力量的对比改变了官僚部门和执政党目标函数的内生变量,进而影响到政府的均衡政策。而日本自贸区政策的形成机制又决定着政府在国际上的行动策略。在未来的东亚合作中,不同的自贸区模式将成为大国间角逐的重要形式。     

Small and Medium Enterprise Financing in Transition Economies

This paper studies the financing status of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in transition economies. Factors causing financing obstacles are indentified and further analyzed to determine their influence over financing patterns. Bank regulatory practices relevant to SMEs’ access to bank loans and their influence over loan structures are identified. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the impact of specific bank regulatory practices on credit lending to SMEs in transition economies.     

Financial Globalization and Banking Crises in Emerging Markets

Bank crises in emerging economies have been a feature of the recent global crisis, and their incidence has increased in the post-Bretton Woods era. This paper investigates the impact of financial globalization on the incidence of systemic bank crises in 20 emerging markets over the years 1976–2002 using measures of de facto and de jure financial openness. An increase in foreign debt liabilities contributes to an increase in the incidence of crises, but foreign direct investment and portfolio equity liabilities have the opposite effect. A more liberal de jure capital regime lowers the incidence of banking crises, while a regime of fixed exchange rates increases their frequency. The results of the econometric analysis is consistent with the experience of East European and central Asian emerging markets, which attracted a relatively large proportion of capital flows in the form of debt in recent years and have been particularly hard hit by the global financial crisis.     

Inflation and Welfare in Latin America

This paper follows Bailey (J Polit Econ 64:93–110, 1956) and Lucas (Econometrica 68:247–274, 2000) and estimates the welfare cost of inflation for 17 Latin American economies. We use annual data, from 1955 to 2000, and recent advances in the field of applied econometrics to estimate the inflation rate elasticity of money demand and report significantly high and differential welfare cost estimates for these economies.