Educational Development in South Sudan: Conscious Design or Spontaneous Order?

Educational development is key to the future prosperity of South Sudan. Officially the situation appears bleak with up to 50 per cent of primary‐aged children out of school, high reported dropout rates and poor attainment. Those involved in the development of education, government departments, international agencies, individuals and communities are each following one of two different approaches as they seek to extend the reach of education. The article suggests that these different approaches arise because those involved hold to either a conscious‐design or a spontaneous‐order model for educational development. The article looks at the recent development of schools in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, in the light of these two theories and finds, despite the rhetoric of the official reports, that most growth is organic and that most recent educational development is emerging spontaneously.     

Defining Capitalism

This article aims to incorporate the essential features of capitalism in an operational definition that identifies capitalism per se (pure laissez‐faire capitalism), and clearly excludes variations such as welfare capitalism and crony capitalism. By concisely highlighting the fundamental structures and mechanisms of capitalism, this essential definition facilitates defences of it that are more robust than those ordinarily offered. It also clarifies the relation between capitalism and phenomena with which it is frequently associated, and suggests a straightforward way of identifying and measuring the extent of capitalism in mixed economies.     

Wilhelm Röpke and Richard C. Koo On Secondary Deflations and Balance Sheet Recessions

The concept of a ‘secondary deflation’ was developed in the 1930s by the German economist Wilhelm Röpke, who saw it as something different from a normal depression. While a primary deflation is a necessary reaction to the inflation from a boom period, a secondary deflation is independent and economically purposeless. Röpke argued that secondary depressions occurred in the US, Germany, France and Switzerland during the 1930s, but was vague on what made them follow primary depressions. Recently, the Taiwanese–American economist Richard C. Koo has claimed to have discovered the ‘Holy Grail of macroeconomics’, that is, what made the Great Depression so deep and long. During the Great Depression, the bursting of the asset price bubble resulted in private sectors having more debt than assets; as they shifted from maximising profits to minimising debt, the consequent debt deflation shrank the economy. According to Koo, Western economies today are suffering from a similar ‘balance sheet recession’. Strengthened by the notion of a balance sheet recession, Röpke's long‐lost insights might advance our understanding of the business cycle in general and the present crisis in the US and the Eurozone in particular.     

The Bertrand Paradox,the Useless Auctioneer and the Launhardt Model

We revisit the Cournot–Bertrand debate in the light of Cournot, Edgeworth and Launhardt, tracing back to Launhardt the origin of price competition in duopoly models with constant returns to scale. Then, we discuss the formalisation of consumer utility function for differentiated products, first appearing in Launhardt and then in Bowley. This allows us to point out that assuming that firms know the demand function(s) is equivalent to assuming that they know the structure of consumer preferences. Therefore, we argue that there is no role for the auctioneer, either in Cournot or in Walras.     

简述人力资源管理在集成系统项目中的重要性

本文探讨了项目管理九大知识域中人力资源管理在项目建设中的必要性和重要性,其中也不乏个人的经验和教训总结。     

服装电子商务B2B2C模式的创建

针对传统电子商务模式的不足,结合服装行业的特点创建了B282C模式,着重分析了B282C模式的特点及其实现条件,最后探讨了该模式在服装行业的运用中应该注意的问题.     

基于B/S的物流信息系统设计与实现

近年来,随着网络技术不断发展,尤其是基于Web的信息发布和检索技术、Java计算技术以及网络分布式对象技术的飞速发展,导致了很多应用系统的体系结构从C/S结构向更加灵活的B/S多级分布结构演变,使得软件系统的网络体系结构跨入一个新阶段.本文系统地分析了B/S结构的特点和现状,将其应用到物流信息系统的开发中,并客观地对应用B/S结构的物流信息系统的前景和优势进行了阐述.     

论B2C在适应性方面存在的问题

随着互联网和计算机的不断发展,电子商务已越来越受到大众的普遍关注。B2C在我国得到迅速的发展,但是在适应性方面存在的问题成为阻碍其发展的障碍。     

The impact of B Corp certification on financial stability: Evidence from a multi-country sample

B Corps are firms certified by the non-profit B Lab for pursuing both economic and non-economic goals. Whether B Corps realize a higher financial performance has met mixed evidence. Drawing on the stability-change framework, we ask whether B Corp certification is associated with the level and volatility of financial performance. Also, expecting a greater focus on non-economic activities after certification, equity ratio may decline as shareholders may question the increased non-economic focus. Using nearest neighbor propensity score matched pair method, we draw on a multi-country sample of 355 B Corps and 623 non-B Corps. Our findings are not encouraging. B Corp certification does not provide financial gains nor financial stability, and equity ratio declines and becomes more volatile following certification. Our findings paint a gloomy picture of limited economic benefits and declining participation of equity holders following B Corp certification.