Believing in employment discrimination: The case of Forrest Mims,Scientific American,and title VII protection

This article reviews the law regarding Title VII employment discrimination protection from religious discrimination. The issues surrounding the principal legal protection in this regard are explored in the context of a recent controversial case in which an author, Forrest Mims, was not hired as a regular contributor forScientific American magazine, ostensibly because of his belief in the theory of creation over the theory of evolution. The definition of what constitutes a protected religious belief or practice is seen to have expanded over time. However, a belief in creationism is not necessarily seen as being tantamount to a religious belief under present legal interpretation of Title VII. The implications of this finding for future needed Title VII revision are discussed.     

Rent, risk, and replication: Preference adaptation in winner-take-all markets

We study the evolution of an economy where agents who are heterogeneous with respect to risk attitudes can either earn a certain income or enter a risky rent-seeking contest. We assume that agents behave rationally given their preferences, but that the population distribution of preferences evolves over time in response to material payoffs. We show that, in particular, initial distributions with full support converge to stationary states where all types are still present. Although rents are perfectly dissipated in material terms at a steady state, efficiency is greater than if everybody had been risk neutral, since risk lovers specialize in rent seeking.     

Differential reporting in Germany - A historical analysis

Based on a contingent perspective of accounting change, this paper reviews the historical development of differential reporting in Germany, by drawing on primary and secondary sources. The main objective of the paper is to shed light on the driving forces and main influential parameters that have shaped the existing differential reporting framework. This historical approach supplies interesting insights for the current discussion on differential reporting in Germany produced by the EU Regulation on the application of International Accounting Standards.     

实现企业高成长的价值创新利基、途径及风险

作为一种新的战略逻辑,价值创新逻辑已经在一些高成长企业的战略实践中显示出巨大效力。价值创新的利基和途径依企业的类别而异。本文将以企业价值链及其多重联系为切入点,提出中间投入品生产型企业实现高成长的价值创新利基和途径,并对价值创新的风险进行了初步的探讨。     

The approach to transforming the traditional agricultural economy: a research on the multiple paths of poverty alleviation and transformation in rural China

Transforming a traditional agricultural economy into a modern economy is one of the main themes in economic development. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper finds out that the key to transformation is to raise the economic value of people, to improve human capital investment and to match the stocks of physical and human capital. China’s rural economy is on the edge of economic take-off, and different zones may pursue different paths for transformation. The source of rural poverty is not the scarcity of income or consumption, but the deficiency of education, social security, medical care and economic opportunity, which we define as “capability poverty”. __________ Translated from The Journal of World Economy (世界经济), 2005,(2) (in Chinese)     

Forecasting economic time series using flexible versus fixed specification and linear versus nonlinear econometric models

Nine macroeconomic variables are forecast in a real-time scenario using a variety of flexible specification, fixed specification, linear, and nonlinear econometric models. All models are allowed to evolve through time, and our analysis focuses on model selection and performance. In the context of real-time forecasts, flexible specification models (including linear autoregressive models with exogenous variables and nonlinear artificial neural networks) appear to offer a useful and viable alternative to less flexible fixed specification linear models for a subset of the economic variables which we examine, particularly at forecast horizons greater than 1-step ahead. We speculate that one reason for this result is that the economy is evolving (rather slowly) over time. This feature cannot easily be captured by fixed specification linear models, however, and manifests itself in the form of evolving coefficient estimates. We also provide additional evidence supporting the claim that models which ‘win’ based on one model selection criterion (say a squared error measure) do not necessarily win when an alternative selection criterion is used (say a confusion rate measure), thus highlighting the importance of the particular cost function which is used by forecasters and ‘end-users’ to evaluate their models. A wide variety of different model selection criteria and statistical tests are used to illustrate our findings.     

城市交通与城市空间结构演变

通过回顾城市交通和城市空间结构的发展演变过程,研究通过城市交通引导城市空间结构健康"生长"的有效途径,提出通过公共交通引导城市发展的TOD模式,以及适合中国特色的和谐城市形态和城市交通.     

先进的循环经济文化模式构建分析

从循环经济与循环经济文化的关系入手，探讨了循环经济文化的不同层次，提出了构建先进循环经济文化模式的路径选择，即培育循环经济文化观，倡导绿色生产观，弘扬绿色消费观。     

窄岭金矿剪切带基本特征与发展演化模式

河北丰宁窄岭金矿,可以区分3幕Ⅰ级韧性剪切带,1幕Ⅱ级脆韧性剪切带和1幕Ⅲ级脆性剪切带。伴随不同的剪切变形变质作用,分别有花岗岩(红旗菅子群花岗片麻岩)→闪长岩(变闪长岩)→正长斑岩→含金石英脉的侵位。而金矿则是这种多期多阶段构造—岩浆复杂演化使金逐步富集的最终产物。     

中国经济长期发展路径选择:切实转变经济增长方式,实现可持续发展

我国目前的粗放型为主的经济增长方式导致资源的过度消耗和环境的渐趋恶化,这已经严重威胁到中国经济的可持续发展.转变经济增长方式不仅是"十一五"期间的重要任务,更是中国经济长期发展的必然路径选择.中国经济要实现长期稳定、健康、可持续发展,必须切实转变经济增长方式.