收入差距、社会保障支出与农村居民幸福感

收入差距的日益恶化严重影响到了居民的幸福感,社会保障支出作为民生性支出,具有典型的福利性与公平性特征,其可能加剧或缓解收入差距对农村居民幸福感的影响。本文基于2010年中国社会综合调查数据（CGSS）,采用Ordered Probit模型,实证分析了收入差距、社会保障支出对农村居民幸福感的影响。研究发现,收入差距与农村居民幸福感呈倒“U”型关系,低水平的收入差距对农村居民幸福感有积极影响,而较高的收入差距则会降低农村居民幸福感,且这一效应对农村低收入者幸福感的影响更大;社会保障支出不仅对农村居民幸福感有显著的正向影响,而且缓解了收入差距过大对农村居民幸福感带来的不利冲击。在采用工具变量法矫正内生性后,结论依然稳健。因此,我国政府理应将收入差距控制在合理区间,同时加大社会保障支出,从而使农村居民更幸福感。     

幸福感、社会资本与代理成本

幸福感是社会学和经济学领域关注的热点问题,但较少研究幸福感对公司治理行为影响的经济后果。本文运用中国A股上市公司的经验数据,在对幸福感与代理成本的关系进行理论分析的基础上,首次检验了幸福感与代理成本之间的关系。研究发现:地区幸福感能够显著降低地方政府控制上市公司的代理成本,与之相反,地区幸福感加剧了民营控制上市公司的代理成本,并从幸福感的社会资本视角对地区幸福感与代理成本的关系进行了解读。本研究在一定程度上增进了企业代理成本问题的研究积累,研究结论对国民福利的公共政策和企业员工福利计划的制定具有一定的启示意义。     

工业化过程中的人地关系演化与生态悖论

青山绿水是山水环境内生一致性的传统机理,并成为一些治山得水公共政策的出发点。随着工业现代化发展,人地系统中的山水联系机理已经发生了重大改变,山青水不绿成为一个重要的现代生态悖论。探讨工业化过程中的人地关系变迁,有助于我们透析现代水生态的影响机制,考虑更加综合的人文影响因子,从源头改进水资源治理模式。本文对目前我国一些地区实行的生态公益林补偿政策可能存在的低效率情形进行了深入分析,提出水资源管理由关注山向关注地转变的公共政策建议:本文运用虚拟水贸易理论,解析了目前我国存在的以缺水区弥补富水区的水资源管理逆向选择情形,揭示了由此可能导致我国南北方流域水危机同时加剧的发展模式根源。鉴此,本文提出我国必须改变末端治理型工业化模式,改变基于比较利益与GDP中心导向的水资源配置方式,实行幸福导向的水资源管理新模式。以全面协调解决中国的水危机问题。     

Examining the impact of psychological capital on workplace outcomes of ethnic minority foodservice employees

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of psychological capital on workplace outcomes of ethnic minority employees in the foodservice industry. Guided by the social exchange theory and the equity theory, this study developed and tested a survey instrument and collected 407 valid responses through an online survey. Results of the structural equation model analysis confirmed the positive impact of psychological capital on work engagement and workplace happiness, and their further impacts on job satisfaction and commitment. The results of multi-group comparisons showed differences between salaried and hourly employees. For individuals holding salaried positions, it was work engagement, rather than psychological capital, that affected their workplace happiness. For hourly employees, although psychological capital influenced their work engagement and workplace happiness, their work engagement and work happiness remain unrelated. Based on the findings, this study offered practical implications on how to enhance psychological capital for ethnic minority employees.     

Economic Growth,Happiness and Socialism: Durkheim’s Critique of Economic Reason and Beyond

The paper argues that Durkheim’s positions on happiness and socialism are relevant in today’s neoliberal and post-affluent societies. Durkheim dissociates happiness from economic progress and makes it contingent upon the relationships between the individual and society. An important component of Durkheimian happiness is the dynamic equilibrium between desires and means. Therefore, his friendly criticism of the socialist project is that it promises to fulfil the desires that were released by a disembedded market economy. Durkheim’s point helps us to understand why the social democratic promise was broken and how the neoliberal imperatives of competition and unlimited wants sow unhappiness.     

Cooperatives and happiness. Cross-country evidence on the role of relational capital

Why is the share of happy people higher in some countries than in their equally developed neighbours? We conjecture that the apparent contradiction might depend on a country’s endowment of relational capital, which we proxy empirically with the extent of cooperativeness. In particular, within the black box of social capital, we consider relational capital as the outcome of the civil economy paradigm and use cooperativeness as the macro and objective proxy of long term face-to-face interaction. Compiling an index of the importance of the cooperative sector, we test whether more cooperativeness associates with more happiness controlling for countries’ HDI and other control variables. Checking for endogeneity, using various country samples, and through different regression methods we find support for our hypothesis. This suggests that, indeed, an institutionalized cooperative culture can promote happiness.     

Who needs a reason to indulge? Happiness following reason-based indulgent consumption

While consumers and marketers perpetuate the lay theory that indulging with a reason is more pleasurable and makes everyone happier, this research identifies a condition under which indulging without a reason “feels right” and produces a more positive emotional reaction. The authors show that indulging with or without a reason and consumers' trait self-control interact to influence happiness felt following an indulgent purchase. While high self-control consumers are happier when they have a reason to buy indulgent products (e.g., when they can justify the indulgence), low self-control consumers are happier when they do not have a reason to indulge. That is, indulging with a reason is less pleasurable for consumers with low self-control. This effect on happiness has an impact on downstream judgments about the product and yields important implications for consumer welfare as well as marketing managers. Across four studies we show the effect on consumption happiness, examine consequences of the effect, and report evidence for the underlying process.     

改革开放以来广东幸福文化的现实演进

幸福是人人都追求的至高目标,但是由于历史文化、国情、个人观念等因素的影响,每个人的幸福理论又不尽相同,因此就诞生了形形色色的幸福文化。幸福文化大体说来可以分为重财富的物质幸福文化、重感情的精神幸福文化,和两者并重的社会幸福文化。这些文化在广东发展的不同时期都曾起过积极的作用,也曾在某种程度上滞后了广东的发展进程。本文将试着从改革开放以来的三个不同历史时期浅析广东幸福文化的现实演进过程,以求为幸福广东的建设提供理论支撑。     

A monetary valuation of individual religious behaviour: the case of prayer

The majority of the US population is religious. The value of a fundamental religious behaviour, prayer, is determined using the well-being valuation method. Theoretically appropriate Instrumental Variables (IV) are used to avoid bias in estimating the effects of household income and the frequency of prayer on well-being. The marginal value of an additional weekly prayer session for individuals already at the national mean is estimated to be $6550 per annum (2004 dollars). Praying at the frequency of the national mean of 8.1 prayer sessions weekly is valued at $53?055 (2004 dollars) per annum. This is larger than the median household income in the US in 2004: $44?684. This suggests that the perception of communion with God is highly valued by religious individuals.     

Income growth,redistribution, and subjective well-being in Taiwan – a simulation study

This study simulates different income growth and income distribution scenarios in Taiwan in 2001, and examines how social happiness and people's happiness at different income levels change. Without taking downward comparison into consideration, the simulation supports income redistribution in favour of the poor. When the downward comparison is taken into consideration, the simulation does not support any kind of income redistribution. The present study investigates the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being, and shows that a change in the Gini index can be interpreted in terms of a shift in revealed subjective well-being.