John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism and the social ethics of sustainable development

This paper considers the writings of John Stuart Mill in political philosophy and political economy as a prototype for ideals of a 'sustainable development' grounded in a norm of justice and social solidarity. Mill's conception of a just 'stationary state* of society is examined alongside his attempts to reconcile precepts of non-interference (individual freedom) and private property, with the constraints and obligations of social, economic, and ecological coexistence. It is shown that notwithstanding vaccillations, Mill ends up espousing an ethical norm of reciprocity and solidarity that is quite different from the premise of self-interest axiomatized in most economic models of competitive market economies. These intuitions about a duty of care complementary to the non-interference principle, when systematized, are shown to find a new contemporary application to questions of economic justice and environmental sustainability.     

Theorizing Chinese Employment Relations Comparatively: Exchange, Reciprocity and the Moral Economy

This paper contrasts the socio-cultural systems underpinning employment relations in the West and in the Overseas Chinese case. The analysis centres on the norm of reciprocity which, whilst taken as a universal phenomena, exhibits significant cross-cultural variation. Western employment relations are characterised by a model of impersonal rational economic exchange in which individuals engage in a utility calculus. Chinese employment relations remain more fully embedded in the wider socio-cultural system of which reciprocity is a vital and integral part. Employment relations are sustained by a personalistic tacit moral order. The implications for managing employment relations in changing and multi-cultural situations are discussed. The sustainabilty of the different employment relations systems are also discussed.     

强互惠理论的扩展

社会何以可能?这是Georg Simmel提出的一个社会科学的基本问题。本文认为,作为具有社会交往本能的人类演化的必然结果,高交往频率的人群相互间的亲和性和共同利益使合作在群体内成为可能,于是社会成为可能。美国Santa Fe研究所的经济学家的研究表明,群体中自发的强互惠的出现,保证了合作在群体内的延续,从而使得群体成功演化。在此基础上,强互惠者的职业化以及政府型强互惠能更有效地对不合作者实施制裁,合作在强制下使得社会成为可能。这为我们展开了对制度演化研究的新视角。     

The Effect of Initial Endowments in Experimental Auctions

We report the results of an experiment designed to test whether initial endowments affect value estimates elicited from experimental auctions. Comparing bids for one unit of a good, two units of a good, and a second unit of a good when endowed with the first unit, we find that willingness to pay for the second unit of a good is, on average, as much as 75% higher when endowed with the first unit. We go on to advance two theories that could potentially reconcile our results with neoclassical consumer theory.     

Searching for a balance: work–family practices,work–team design,and organizational performance

The crucial impact of work–family issues on employee's well-being has been recognized and responded with a variety of research in field of organizational behavior. However, few studies examine the impact of how work–family practices affect productivity at firm-level. Following the research stream of strategic human resource management, we proposed that work–family may form the norm of reciprocity, which is a more sophisticated and more critical, internal social-structure component to enable organizational performance. We also examine the contingent effect, work–team structure – on the extent to which the work–family practices are appreciated by employees – and then create complementarities. We conduct a longitudinal study and utilize a data set of 204 Taiwanese public-traded firms to test our hypotheses. The results show that, contrary to our prediction, utilizing work–family practices does not have a significant positive impact on organizational productivity. However, the most important finding of this study is that there are synergies between work–family practices and work–team design on organizational productivity. Work–team design is an important situation in which the returns of work–family practices can be enhanced.     

Military Expenditures and Industrialization in Africa

My purpose here is to strengthen Karl Polanyi’s work through critique of and extension to abductive processes. Polanyi presented history woven into a new paradigm for analysis of socioeconomic systems, demonstrated discovery similar to abductive processes, and extended abduction into a holistic context. One of Polanyi’s most important contributions to socioeconomic analysis is the explanation of three integrated network models of socioeconomic reciprocity. They are coadjuvancy, redistribution, and market exchange. Polanyi extended abductive reasoning in two ways. First, he extended it beyond the cognitive logic of a person to inferences and societal belief changes of institutions. Second, he showed that, in the real world, beliefs are not only fixed like an abductive process, they are fixed in law. Throughout Polanyi’s historical presentation, market beliefs are being revised, thus serving as a demonstration of the abductive process. I make both positive and negative critique of a number of Polanyi’s concepts, with special attention to reciprocity, the double movement, and freedom. This critique and abduction extension strengthens Polanyi’s paradigm for future socioeconomic analysis with his integrative network models.     

基于政府型强互惠的共享意义制度化的均衡与内卷

政府型强互惠将那些共享意义的习惯、习俗以具体的形式固定下来,实现制度化。当制度演化收敛于某一均衡点时,群体成员对于现行的规范体系不再有异动的要求,于是制度在均衡状态下表现为被简单的遗传复制,从而强互惠的政府就无须再对这些制度的强互惠投入成本,制度演化也自发地达成了均衡状态。在自发式内卷和强互惠式内卷两种力量共同作用下,制度会呈现长期低效率的锁定状态。