Paradigm Shifts in Social Housing after Welfare-State Transformation: Learning from the German Experience

Welfare-state transformation and entrepreneurial urban politics in Western welfare states since the late 1970s have yielded converging trends in the transformation of the dominant Fordist paradigm of social housing in terms of its societal function and institutional and spatial form. In this article I draw from a comparative case study on two cities in Germany to show that the resulting new paradigm is simultaneously shaped by the idiosyncrasies of the country's national housing regime and local housing policies. While German governments have successively limited the societal function of social housing as a legitimate instrument only for addressing exceptional housing crises, local policies on providing and organizing social housing within this framework display significant variation. However, planning and design principles dominating the spatial forms of social housing have been congruent. They may be interpreted as both an expression of the marginalization of social housing within the restructured welfare housing regime and a tool of its implementation according to the logics of entrepreneurial urban politics.     

江苏企业“走出去”的模式及财务风险防控研究

随着中国“一带一路”倡议的逐步实施,越来越多的企业开始加入“走出去”的队伍。但是由于不同企业所处行业、资金实力、规模大小、对外投资目的等因素不尽相同,如果选择不恰当的模式往往会导致陷入经营困境。因此本文为江苏“走出去”企业提出相应的财务风险防控措施,旨在促进企业在国际化进程中健康、可持续发展。     

A study on factors affecting privacy risk tolerance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in South Korea

South Korea has been evaluated as a country that is responding well to COVID-19. The Government of the Republic of Korea discloses where, when, and by which means of transportation people confirmed to have the virus have visited. Although disclosure of movement has contributed to flattening the curve and providing timely medical service, concerns about privacy infringement have also been raised. This article determines what factors influence privacy risk tolerance, looking specifically at threat severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, and response cost. We also provide implications for the preparation of better countermeasures for the government to implement.     

The construction of a composite index for general satisfaction in Turkey and the investigation of its determinants

The goal of public enterprises is to increase the wealth and happiness of individuals. This target lets them make the investment to fulfill these expectations. However, not all citizens in a country might have the same opportunities. This case requires comparing citizens who live in cities with regard to satisfaction levels. This study consists of two stages. In the first stage, a composite index called the General Satisfaction Index (GSI), which aims to explain the satisfaction levels of citizens living in cities, is obtained by using the Benefit of the Doubt method. Contrary to the previous studies, the satisfaction indicators based on the emotions and senses of citizens are used to construct a composite index. Satisfaction indicators’ contribution to GSI is ensured using the minimum weights. In the second stage of this study, socioeconomic determinants of GSI are investigated in both countrywide and regions by using regularized regression methods. In the result of the regression analyze, it is confirmed that there are different socioeconomic determinants of satisfaction levels for countrywide and each region. For this reason, it is proposed that policymakers should follow different politicizes in each region to increase the satisfaction levels of citizens in the country.     

Tariffs and formation of free trade agreements networks

This paper examines the formation of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) on the basis of country heterogeneity in the tariff level. We demonstrate that a country's unilateral incentive to form an FTA depends on the relative magnitudes of the (negative) market concession effect and the (positive) market expansion effect, both of which are determined by the tariff levels of the two FTA partner countries. Global welfare is maximised when all country pairs form FTAs. Two countries in equilibrium are more likely to form an FTA when their tariff gap is smaller or when their tariff levels are neither very high nor very low. This finding is robust to several extensions of the model. Our preliminary empirical analysis provides some evidence for the finding.     

Asset indexes and the measurement of poverty,inequality and welfare in Southeast Asia

Using data on household consumer durables from the Asian Barometer Survey, this paper examines the evolution of inequality, poverty and welfare in six countries of South East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. We start by deriving the most common order of acquisition of these durables, using first an algorithm proposed by Paroush (1965), and then Item Response Theory. We also compute the frequency distribution of the number of durables owned by households. We then use these results to compute inequality, poverty and achievement or welfare indices adapted to the case of ordinal variables.Our empirical results confirm the existence of an order of acquisition. The results show that inequality was higher in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines and lower in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. A similar classification of countries was obtained when computing multidimensional poverty indices.Finally, using the welfare or achievement index recently introduced by Apouey et al. (2019), we found that welfare was generally higher in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and lower in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines.     

大数据背景下企业财务管理面临的挑战与变革

随着社会经济的快速发展,市场经济体制在不断地完善,科学技术水平也在不断地上升,这时我国进入了大数据时代。传统的财务管理模式已经无法再适应时代的发展变化,所以企业应该及时转变自身的财务管理模式,更新管理理念。论文针对大数据背景下企业财务管理面临的挑战和变革进行分析,介绍财务部门的主要作用和发展现状,并提出提高财务管理水平的具体方法和策略,希望能够为企业的发展起到一些参考作用。     

From elite capture to marginalization of the poorest: a new social exclusion in anti-poverty programmes in China

Based on a case study of state-directed aid resources in anti-poverty programmes, we detected a new phenomenon of social exclusion in China. In a period of several years, a shift is observed from elite capture to marginalization of the poorest. This phenomenon occurs under the administrative pressure from the authoritarian state and the morbid democratic mechanism. Contemporary structural changes in economic and social culture also make it difficult for marginal people to escape from this predicament. From a social structural transformation point of view, we suggest that the marginalization of the poorest should be seriously taken into consideration in rural development programmes and policies.     

A quantitative study of financing efficiency of low‐carbon companies: A three‐stage data envelopment analysis

This study set out to evaluate the financing efficiency of low‐carbon companies. Applying a three‐stage data envelopment analysis with the data from 85 listed companies in China's low‐carbon industries over the period 2011 to 2017, this study has found that the overall financing efficiency of low‐carbon companies was relatively high, and the pure technical efficiency was quite steady over the period. The overall financing efficiency of these low‐carbon companies on average tended to change with the scale efficiency. This study has also shown that the scale efficiency was the main constraint influencing the financing efficiency of low‐carbon companies in China over the period. Our results are robust and have significant implications for policy makers and corporate managers.     

Digital gaming culture in Vietnam: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT

New information and communication technologies continue to spread rapidly into the Asian marketplace, which has led to new patterns of leisure consumption, one of the most popular being digital gaming. However, in Vietnam there is limited research on gaming as a leisure activity. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of digital gaming in Vietnam to better understand how it is practiced in this culture. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-five gaming industry figures and gamers. Thematic analysis was used to guide data collection and analysis. The findings indicate that glocalisation, socialised gaming practices and competitiveness characterise the Vietnamese gaming experience. The distinct culture of Vietnam combined with globalised gaming consumption habits has created new modes of play culture, and hence leisure experiences that are growing in pervasive and influential ways.