Can corporate social responsibility resolve the sanitation question in developing Asian countries?

The existing state of sanitation in developing Asian countries fails to deliver a level of service that is adequate for meeting the human right to a standard of living consistent with dignity and health, or for sustaining the capacity for future generations to have access to clean water resources and healthy ecosystems. We argue that translating the current neo-centralised technologies and institutional arrangements mainstreamed by industrialised countries would not resolve the problem in the context of developing countries. Instead it is necessary to ‘leap frog’ to the emerging technological and institutional arrangements that are responsive to current needs and contexts and to potential risks. The sustainability focus and often decentralised technologies of this emergent stage in sanitation present many opportunities for new actors to enter the urban sanitation industry. At the same time, there are many barriers to entry, particularly from the perspective of conventional business management focused on increasing shareholder value.We propose that perspectives from the corporate social responsibility discourse have the potential to provide both the ‘pull’ for seizing the business opportunity for profit while serving social needs, and the ‘push’ to overcome the barriers in order to serve a wider social purpose for corporations. The wealth of nations, at least as reported in ubiquitous GDP terms, has greatly increased through the activities of corporations driven by a profit motive; but the increased poverty, injustice and ecosystem degradation that have resulted from economic activity suggest that corporations perhaps ought to have regard for broader concerns beyond shareholder value. We explore how the alternative relational view of a corporation, as a metaphorical person within society who adopts a moral code consistent with both Buddhist economics and Adam Smith's philosophy, may facilitate profitable corporations that provide better economic, ecological and social outcomes in serving the need for sustainable sanitation services in developing Asian countries.     

西方国家环境信息披露:实践、特点与启示

本文介绍了美国、加拿大、荷兰、日本等国家环境信息披露的现状和发展趋势,分析了西方国家环境信息披露的特点以及信息披露后对企业的影响,总结了对我国进行环境信息披露的启示。     

中外全面预算管理比较

本文在分析中外全面预算管理相同点的基础上,着重论述了两者在预算目标定位、预算组织管理、人力资源配置、信息技术研发和应用及预算执行与评价等方面的不同点,并提出了适合于中国企业研究和借鉴的建议。     

Processes and patterns in transitions and system innovations: Refining the co-evolutionary multi-level perspective

This article investigates transitions at the level of societal functions (e.g., transport, communication, housing). Societal functions are fulfilled by sociotechnical systems, which consist of a cluster of aligned elements, e.g., artifacts, knowledge, markets, regulation, cultural meaning, infrastructure, maintenance networks and supply networks. Transitions are conceptualised as system innovations, i.e., a change from one sociotechnical system to another. The article describes a co-evolutionary multi-level perspective to understand how system innovations come about through the interplay between technology and society. The article makes a new step as it further refines the multi-level perspective by distinguishing characteristic patterns: (a) two transition routes, (b) fit–stretch pattern, and (c) patterns in breakthrough.     

Why England? Demographic factors, structural change and physical capital accumulation during the Industrial Revolution

Why did England industrialize first? And why was Europe ahead of the rest of the world? Unified growth theory in the tradition of Galor and Weil (2000, American Economic Review, 89, 806–828) and Galor and Moav (2002, Quartely Journal of Economics, 177(4), 1133–1191) captures the key features of the transition from stagnation to growth over time. Yet we know remarkably little about why industrialization occurred much earlier in some parts of the world than in others. To answer this question, we present a probabilistic two-sector model where the initial escape from Malthusian constraints depends on the demographic regime, capital deepening and the use of more differentiated capital equipment. Weather-induced shocks to agricultural productivity cause changes in prices and quantities, and affect wages. In a standard model with capital externalities, these fluctuations interact with the demographic regime and affect the speed of growth. Our model is calibrated to match the main characteristics of the English economy in 1700 and the observed transition until 1850. We capture one of the key features of the British Industrial Revolution emphasized by economic historians — slow growth of output and productivity. Fertility limitation is responsible for higher per capita incomes, and these in turn increase industrialization probabilities. The paper also explores the availability of nutrition for poorer segments of society. We examine the influence of redistributive institutions such as the Old Poor Law, and find they were not decisive in fostering industrialization. Simulations using parameter values for other countries show that Britain’s early escape was only partly due to chance. France could have moved out of agriculture and into manufacturing faster than Britain, but the probability was less than 25%. Contrary to recent claims in the literature, 18th century China had only a minimal chance to escape from Malthusian constraints.     

"非市场经济国家"在国际反倾销中对我国的影响

我国改革开放20多年，已成功地从计划经济转向市场经济。但在国际反倾销中，何为市场经济国家与非市场经济国家，并无一个统一的客观标准。一些国家(特别是欧美)基于经济和政治利益，根本不考虑客观实际情况，常把我国视为“非市场经济国家”，对我国实行不公平，不合理的贸易待遇和不平等的反倾销规则。这在过去，已经使我国对外贸易遭受了很大损失，在将来一段时间内还会进一步严重影响我国的对外贸易的发展。     

The hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth in Asian countries - evidence using an asymmetric cointegration approach

ABSTRACT

This study examines the four commonly tested hypotheses in hydroelectricity consumption – economic growth literature for 12 Asian countries. Our results from a recently developed hidden cointegration technique uncover rich and significant relationships between negative and positive components of the variables under consideration. In particular, we find evidence to support the neutrality hypothesis in five countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand), the growth hypothesis in four countries (India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan), and both growth and conservation hypotheses in three countries (China, Malaysia, and New Zealand). These findings suggest that appropriate economic policies should be elaborated on the basis of the country’s specific hydroelectricity consumption–growth nexus. Finally, our new evidence suggests that the lack of stable relationship between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth documented in previous studies for some of these countries could be due to the failure to properly account for the nonlinearity property in the data.     

东道国因素与东道国外商直接投资特征

国际直接投资时空分布的差异性对忽视东道国因素的西方国际投资理论提出了挑战。东道国因素对国际生产资本地域运动有很大的影响,国际直接投资是东道国因素与投资主体综合作用的结果,东道国环境、体制、政策系统的状态特征决定了东道国外资特征。     

资本形成路径与资本存量调整模型——基于中国转型时期的分析

本文综合考察了我国生产性资本的总量水平、形成路径及其调整机制。通过改进的方法所估算的资本存量在改革开放以来已经翻了不止两番 ,年平均增长率为7 3 6 % ,积累极为迅速。资本形成路径明显分为两个阶段 ,增量改革推动的配置效率改进使资本—产出比率在 1 994年之前持续下降 ,而近年来的资本形成过快是由于经济增长越来越倚重资本深化 ,必须通过全方位结构调整加快转型进程。本文进一步给出了我国转型期资本存量调整的供求决定框架 ,实证结果表明 ,需求导向的资本存量调整机制和投资行为已经在中国的转型经济中基本形成 ,产出水平与资本成本均为资本调整与投资需求的主要决定因素     

全球金融体系的脆弱性与发展中国家的金融安全

全球金融体系脆弱性的根源在于金融经济脱离实质经济的过度扩张。恐慌有自我正名的能力,由于市场的双重标准的存在,与发达国家相比,发展中国家抵抗恐慌自我正名机制的能力更加脆弱。在金融全球化的背景下,一个国家的经济体受到恐慌自我正名机制的攻击而爆发金融危机时,危机产生的破坏性影响会通过一定的途径扩散到其它的一些国家,使得发展中国家面临着空前的系统性风险,从而加剧了发展中国家面临的挑战。