Intergovernmental competition for donations: The case of the Furusato Nozei program in Japan

This paper shows that municipalities compete excessively for donations under a unique program called Furusato Nozei (Tax payment to hometown) in Japan. Under the program, people make donations to their favorite municipalities and municipalities that have received donations give reciprocal gifts in return. This causes governments to compete for donations by setting “return rates” — the value of a gift as a percentage of the donation received. Our estimates show that, in the most likely case, this competition reduces net revenue by at least 7.5% compared to when the municipalities do not compete for donations.     

城市两性初婚年龄模式分析——基于中国综合社会调查2005年度数据

国人婚配年龄的变迁，一直缺乏长期性数据；婚配市场的实际情况，也缺乏实证性的长期数据。利用CGSS2005数据，对五代A（20世纪20年代-20世纪70年代）的平均初婚年龄的变化、趋势加以研究．对男性和女性初婚年龄、早婚、不婚、晚婚、集中成婚等进行了横向和纵向的比较，揭示了各自独立和彼此承接的关系和特点。     

Women's Labor Force Participation and Status Exchange in Intermarriage: A Model and Evidence for Hawaii1

Women's labor force participation, ethnic status and interracial marriage are examined in this paper to test Grossbard-Shechtman's marriage market theory. Perceived racial and ethnic group status is found to be an important attribute in marriage market exchange that combines marriage and working outside the home. Caucasian women, who have a higher perceived ethnic status, tend not to work when they marry men of a lower perceived ethnic status, while the opposite is found of women who have a lower perceived group status and who marry into a higher-status group. This is especially of women with low education, while highly educated women are less affected by compensating differentials at marriage as related to ethnic status of the couple. Ethnic groups that have a recent immigration history also have a different pattern of intermarriage and women's labor force participation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Population Genetics and Economic Growth

This paper builds an age-structured model of human population genetics in which explicit individual choices drive the dynamics via sexual selection. In the model, agents are endowed with a high-dimensional genome that determines their cognitive and physical characteristics. Young adults optimally search for a marriage partner, work for firms, consume goods, save for old age and, if married, decide how many children to have. In accord with the fundamental genetic operators, children receive genes from their parents. An agent's human capital (productivity) is an aggregate of the received genetic endowment and environmental influences so that the population of agents and the economy co-evolve. After calibrating the model, we examine the impact of physical, social, and economic institutions on population growth and economic performance. We find that institutional factors significantly impact economic performance by affecting marriage, family size, and the intergenerational transmission of genes. The principal novel findings are that i) genetic diversity has a nonmonotone causal impact on population size and economic performance; ii) an endogenous population threshold exists which, absent frictions, causes societies with declining populations and output to reverse course and grow; and iii) that the emotion love substantially accelerates economic growth by increasing genetic diversity just enough, which we term The Goldilocks Principle.     

Sex and the City

Throughout the industrialized world, young women outnumber young men in urban areas. This paper proposes that such a pattern may be linked to higher male incomes in urban areas. The argument is that urban areas offer skilled workers better labor markets. Assuming that there are more skilled males than females, this alone would predict a surplus of males. However, the presence of males with high incomes may attract not only skilled females but also unskilled females. Thus, a surplus of women in urban areas may result from a combination of better labor and marriage markets. Swedish municipality data support the results.     

Internet exposure during adolescence and age at first marriage

The expansion of the internet has provided people with more channels to obtain information. New information about the world and other lifestyles provided by the internet may affect teenagers’ attitudes and change their behavior of first marriage in adulthood. Using data from China Family Panel Studies, this paper explores a national policy reform of the internet in 2000 and combines a difference-in-difference framework with a discrete-time hazard model to estimate the impact of internet exposure in adolescence on women’s age at first marriage. The results show that internet exposure during adolescence significantly reduces the risk of women’s age at first marriage. No change is observed in men of similar age. Further analysis of the mechanism shows that women’s education or search costs in the marriage market cannot explain the findings. In contrast, women’s traditional attitudes toward gender roles vary with internet exposure. Their gender role attitudes become more egalitarian, and their attitudes toward marriage become more open. Exposure to the internet also makes women even more reluctant to enter marriage, an institution that is increasingly differentiated by traditional gender roles.     

性别失衡背景下应对资源与未婚男性农民工的心理失范

以紧张-应对理论为基础,构建了性别失衡背景下未婚男性农民工心理失范的分析框架,并在此基础上讨论了应对资源对面临婚姻挤压的未婚男性农民工心理失范的影响及其内在机制。应对资源可以独立于成婚困难对未婚男性农民工心理失范具有直接的增益效应;部分应对资源对未婚男性农民工的心理失范的影响具有中介效应,应对资源会通过影响成婚困难的感知而影响未婚男性农民工的心理失范;参与同乡会可能会增加成婚困难感知的概率从而对未婚男性农民工心理失范产生负面影响。挑战了社会资源作为缓冲器的主流观点,应对资源的影响具有二元性。     

张爱玲笔下的女性形象探析

张爱玲为我们塑造了一组鲜明典型的女性形象。发生在这些女性身上的故事 ,或悲凉、或精彩、或无奈 ,但通过这些故事 ,我们体味到的是女性为生存而付出的艰辛 ,而婚姻往往成为女性生存选择的唯一途径。     

一体化还是差别化——有关区域协调发展的理论解析

企业常选择市场规模较大的区域或区内贸易自由度较高区域作为生产区位,这可提高产业的集中度.产业集中具有溢出效应,因此产业的空间集中提高经济增长率,而区际收入的差距,随资本存量区际差距的扩大而扩大,随经济增长率的提高而缩小.产业集中又导致拥挤效应,此时如果产业的空间集中度低,则经济增长率随产业集中度的提高而提高,但如果产业的空间集中度很高,则经济增长率随产业空间集中度的提高而下降.因此,大范围的产业集中必须要适中.要实现产业活动的适度集中,外围地区必须拥有一定份额的产业活动,这就需要建立适度的差别化政策来约束外围地区的产业进一步向经济发达地区集中.要实现区域经济协调发展,应实行差别化政策而不应实行一体化政策.     

差异窥见进步——比较分析《傲慢与偏见》与《劝导》

通过对简·奥斯丁前期与后期最有代表性的两部小说——《傲慢与偏见》与《劝导》的对比分析,从婚姻观、理想女主角和理想男主角三个角度论证了简·奥斯丁随着阅历丰富和对人性以及社会的观察探索,作品日益变得成熟,更具有现实意义。