Wagner’s law versus displacement effect

The public sector has grown dramatically over the past few centuries in many developed countries. In this article, we use wavelet methods to distinguish between two leading explanations for this growth – Wagner’s law and the displacement effect. In doing so, we use the long-term data of 10 OECD countries for a maximum time span of 1800–2009. We find that the validity of Wagner’s law is likely to vary strongly over time for each country. A roughly similar feature in most of the countries is that the law is less valid in the earliest stage of economic development as well as in the advanced stages, with the validity tending to follow an inverted U-shaped pattern with economic development. Further, our results indicate that the long-run growth of government size cannot be adequately explained by Wagner’s law. On the other hand, the displacement effect appears to account for the bulk of the growth in most of the countries.     

Heteroscedasticity of deviations in market bubble moments – how the goods and bads lead to the ugly

We conjecture that market bubbles may be the results of the interplay of Goods and Bads (toxic products) which develop through three interlocking moments – herding, swarming and stampeding, with deviations marked by heteroscedasticity. We use our stylized model of financial predation, the Consolidated Model of Financial Predation, and data we have accumulated through in-the-field eight-year research and the study of 30 years of U.S. market history in order to explore the foundations of market crises. We find that blind trust (or the positivity bias) and of the fear to miss out on an opportunity to enter/exit a market impacts the investors’ decisions to invest or retract. We show how markets are driven towards a make-or-break predatory dynamic that creates winners and losers due in part to weak regulations and identify a constant k that permeates market behaviours.     

地方人大中的地域代表现象探析——基于五省市人大代表建议的内容分析

本文试图探析在中国地方人大中是否存在地域性代表及其相关因素。通过收集和分析2017年国内五省市人大收到的近四千条代表建议,发现在地方人大代表的履职行为中,一定范围内存在从整体资源中为选区争取利益的现象。进一步回归分析的结果显示:来自经济发展水平相对较低的地区的代表,更倾向于提出地域性建议;由代表联名提出的建议更可能是地域性建议;担任地方党政领导职务的省市人大代表,在提出建议时更倾向于提出地域性建议。上述实证发现对中国地方人大地域性代表的实现机制提供了初步启发性证据,也有助于丰富我们对非竞选体制下的政治代表性和回应性机制的理解。     

信息化水平对生产率的直接效应和间接效应——劳动力技能结构的中介作用

构建了关于信息化水平、劳动力技能结构以及生产率的理论框架,探讨了信息化水平对生产率的直接和间接影响,以及劳动力技能结构在其中的中介作用,并利用中国省际面板数据对理论框架进行验证。结果表明:信息化水平对生产率同时具有直接影响和间接影响;信息化水平对生产率的直接影响呈现出动态的阶段性特征,两者之间存在U形关系,信息技术对生产率的促进作用只有在信息化水平达到一定程度后才能显现;信息化水平对生产率的间接影响通过劳动力技能结构的中介作用来实现:信息化水平的提升对低技能劳动者有明显的挤出效应,并带来了中、高技能劳动力需求上升,导致劳动力技能结构升级,从而促进劳动生产率以及资本生产率的提高;劳动力技能结构在信息化水平与全要素生产率之间的中介作用不显著。要使信息化更好地发挥作用,必须匹配较高水平的人力资本,劳动者需要进行持续学习与提升,以适应不断变化的社会需求。     

Experiment-inspired comments on John Roemer’s theory of cooperation

Abstract

We report on a nonsocial experiment where we find that all participants choose the dominant strategy in the experimental payoff, and compare it with the payoff-isomorphic, but social, Prisoner’s Dilemma treatment presented in a recent paper by Bosch-Domènech and Silvestre where 28% choose cooperation instead of the dominant strategy. The contrast reinforces Roemer’s emphasis on human cooperation. Next, we argue that Roemer’s Simple Kantian Equilibrium works well as a theory of cooperation under the assumption of monotonicity (positive or negative externalities), but not when efficient cooperation requires the division of labor by coordinating dissimilar tasks.     

现代企业伦理的基本特征及构建策略

现代企业越来越重视企业伦理对企业发展的影响。企业伦理是指以企业为行为主体,以企业经营管理的伦理理念为核心,企业在处理企业与出资者,企业与员工、企业与企业、企业与国家、企业与社会、企业与环境关系中的伦理精神、道德规范以及实践的总和。     

How should Engel's law be formulated?

Engel's law expresses a “negative stochastic association” of income and the proportion of income that is spent on food. However, there are many quite different notions of “negative stochastic association” and consequently there are different ways of defining Engel's law. We relate these different concepts to Engel's original statistical analysis and show that one must give credit to Engel for the first non-parametric statistical analysis of budget-data.