Are property rights enough?Re‐evaluating a big‐bang claim1

We investigate the claim made by proponents of the big‐bang strategy that the establishment of property rights in an economy in transition creates its own demand for the enforcement of laws to protect those rights. Our model contains a government engaging in activities to accomplish objectives that depend on public support for the enforcement of the rule of law and agents who interpret the level of activities of the government as indications of the government's intent to enforce the rule of law. Agents, using the level of government activities as an input to their decisions, choose whether to support the government's objectives. We establish conditions under which the level of activities chosen by the government maximizes its benefits, and simultaneously induces the constituency to support enforcement of the rule of law. These conditions provide a basis for the argument for the implementation of the big‐bang policy. When these conditions do not hold, however, we show that the level of activities that maximizes the government's benefits may have only a minor impact on support for the enforcement of the rule of law. Two characteristics play an important role in these conditions: the initial level of crime and the types of activities the government chooses to undertake. We present examples showing that the initial level of crime has the more dramatic effect on subsequent support for the rule of law.     

Do Shareholders Have Obligations to Stakeholders?

The question of whether, and to what extent, business managers have obligations to stakeholders has been the principal theme in much of recent business ethics literature. The question of whether shareholders have obligations to stakeholders, however, has not been addressed sufficiently. I provide some needed attention to this matter by examining the positions of shareholders in the contemporary world of investing. Their positions are considerably different than that often envisioned by business ethicists and economists where shareholders determine the directions of corporate activities through their voting decisions. Typical contemporary investors rarely control corporate activities. If they own corporate securities directly, generally they own too small an interest to exercise control. And, in most cases, they do not even own corporate securities directly, but, rather, own shares in funds. Because of the positions of shareholders today, it is highly questionable whether most have obligations to stakeholders. This has a significant implication for business managers. Whether or not shareholders have obligations to stakeholders, business managers have a greater obligation to educate shareholders about how corporate activities affect stakeholders. I provide a justification for that obligation and comment on how business managers might begin to fulfill it.     

Consumers' reaction to fair trade motivated price increases

Consumer perception of price increases and their reactions are a topic of great relevance for marketing research and practice. We investigate consumers' acceptance of price increases justified by higher costs due to company's corporate socially responsible activities by conducting two experimental studies. In the first study we examine perceived fairness and intentions following a price increase justified by a fair trade commitment. To assess the green attitude–behavior gap in consumer behavior our second study incorporates a real world experiment to explore actual consumer behavior against stated intentions. Our investigation adds nuance to our understanding of the effects of corporate social responsibility on consumer response to price increases. Our results reveal that a price increase due to a fair trade commitment is perceived as fair and does not have a negative impact on purchase behavior. We contrast our findings with a price increase due to higher taxes and due to profit increase. Our results demonstrate that fair trade justified price increases can skim twice the amount compared to tax justified increases. Furthermore, consumers' actual buying behavior reveals no difference to their stated intentions. Hence, prior research proclaiming an attitude–behavior gap in the context of consumers' socially responsible buying behavior has to be called into question.     

论中西马哲学背景下中国法治理念的基础

中国社会受到中西马不同哲学思想的影响,三种哲学思想在长期的相互冲突与融合过程中,与中国的具体实践相结合,逐渐成为中国社会意识的共同的组成部分。如何确立适合中国的法治模式及其法哲学层面的理论基础,是中国在法治进程中必须解决的问题。通过对中西马背景下中国社会意识形态的分析,探讨其内涵,并提出以马克思主义历史唯物主义为方法论的公共利益至上的法哲学思考,为中国的法治理念的渊源提供了符合中国具体实际的法哲学基础。     

风流闲雅《珠玉词》

晏殊《珠玉词》之艺术特色,前人公认为风流闲雅,这一风格的形成主要得益于清新淡雅的意象、华美明丽的色彩、珠圆玉润的声韵、和谐动听的词调。     

Large deviation asymptotics for statistical treatment rules

This note applies large deviation-based optimality theory to evaluate treatment rules for treatment assignment problems. We find nearly optimal treatment rules whose asymptotic maximum large deviation risks can be arbitrary close to the corresponding minimax bounds.     

《联合国反腐败公约》中的证据规范问题探析

《联合国反腐败公约》是联合国历史上第一个用于指导反腐败斗争的国际公约,全面规制国际反腐败活动,涉及面非常广泛,既包含实体规范也包含程序规范,比较直接系统地规定了惩治腐败犯罪的相关证据规则。在兼顾各国国内法证据规范及不同诉讼模式的基础上,通过协调和完善国际刑法中的证据规范与证据制度,使证据的种类、证据的收集、保全、质证、证明标准均有创新发展。深入研究反腐败公约,对于完善和发展国内法律规范以及丰富证据法学内容都有重大意义。     

Monetary policy inertia reconsidered: Evidence from endogenous interest rate trajectory

By finding small forecastable variability of future policy rates by highly smoothed central bank's endogenous interest rate trajectory, I suggest that market's failure to predict large portion of variability in future rates does not always imply limited policy inertia.     

旅行社网站服务公平性对顾客行为意向的影响研究

企业坚持公平性原则,才能建立和维系与顾客的长期关系.笔者以旅行社网站的顾客为研究对象进行了一次实证研究,探讨了旅行社网站服务公平性对顾客行为意向的影响.数据分析结果表明:旅行社网站服务公平性直接影响顾客信任感和满意感,间接影响顾客的行为意向.     

Proper scoring rules for general decision models

If a decision maker whose behavior conforms to the max-min expected utility model is faced with a scoring rule for a subjective expected utility decision maker, she will always announce a probability belonging to her set of priors; moreover, for any prior in the set, there is a scoring rule inducing the agent to announce that prior. We also show that on the domain of Choquet expected utility preferences with risk neutral lottery evaluation and totally monotone capacities, proper scoring rules do not exist. This implies the non-existence of proper scoring rules for any larger class of preferences (CEU with convex capacities, multiple priors).