Mortgage Credit: Denmark’s Financial Capacity Building Regime

ABSTRACT

The integration of small states into the international financial system has constrained their ability to enact the traditional macroeconomic tools of fiscal and monetary policy. As systems of mortgage credit are tightly integrated into global capital markets and influence flows of capital between states, this paper uses Denmark as a case study to explore whether domestic mortgage sector reforms have been used to build financial capacity to compensate for the loss of economic policy autonomy. The results of this analysis suggest that the Danish government has actively used mortgage credit to meet three specific macroeconomic objectives since the 1980s: (1) mortgage credit was restricted in the 1980s to resolve Denmark's persistent balance of payments problem; (2) liberalisations of mortgage credit in the 1990s and 2000s allowed the Danish government to stimulate the economy via privatised/house-price Keynesianism and reduce their sovereign debt burden; and (3) mortgage credit has been used as a form of privatised monetary policy, allowing Denmark to break-free from the ‘iron-cage’ of the Mundell-Fleming trilemma. It is in these specific ways that the Danish government has used mortgage reforms to achieve macroeconomic policy autonomy and navigate economic challenges whilst adhering to the constraints of the international financial system.     

新农保对农民最优储蓄的挤出效应及其影响因素分析——基于两期代际扩展模型的应用

摘要：新型农村养老保险制度的实施和持续发展,不仅具有维护农村居民社会养老保险权益公平性的社会作用,还能起到刺激农村消费需求增加从而促进农村经济发展的经济作用。通过两期代际扩展型的应用,证明了新农保的实施对个体农户终身效用最大化下的最优储蓄存在挤出效应,其主要影响因素有：缴费年限、缴费比率、养老保险账户的增值保值能力和收入替代率等,并以此为基础,提出了完善新农保制度、促进其可持续发展的政策建议。     

Playing in the Posthuman Band: Toward an Aesthetics of Intra-Action in Musical Leisure

Abstract

In this article we use ideas from theorists associated with the “new materialist” or “posthuman” turns in contemporary philosophy in order to challenge the conception of the musical subject posited in aesthetic contemplation advanced by what we term the “pedagogical music world,” and to pursue the possibilities afforded by an aesthetics of intra-action exemplified in practices of the musical “jam.” We return to ancient Greek conceptions of music and leisure (mousikē and scholē), mediated by posthuman theoretical concerns in an examination of the nature of musical affect to argue that an aesthetics of intra-action necessitates a distributed and immanent notion of musical agency rather than individual and transcendent one. Through this discussion, we attempt to trouble the ideas put forth by the pedagogical music world to illuminate leisure potential as imagined in the “posthuman band.”     

Emotion,affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

Recent research suggests that emotion, affect, and cognition play important roles in risk perception and that their roles in judgment and decision‐making processes may change over the lifespan. This paper discusses how emotion and affect might help or hinder risk communication with older adults. Currently, there are few guidelines for developing effective risk messages for the world's aging population, despite the array of complex risk decisions that come with increasing age and the importance of maintaining good decision making in later life. Age‐related declines in cognitive abilities such as memory and processing speed, increased reliance on automatic processes, and adaptive motivational shifts toward focusing more on affective (especially positive) information mean that older and younger adults may respond differently to risk messages. Implications for specific risk information formats (probabilities, frequencies, visual displays, and narratives) are discussed and directions for future research are highlighted.     

State antitrust enforcement in the US and implications for small business entry and relocation

This article examines the impact of the important, yet little studied, state-level antitrust enforcement activity on entry and relocation behaviour by small US firms. Feinberg and Husted (2011) have shown that this enforcement, especially nonhorizontal cases, may be viewed by potential entrants as a negative aspect of the state business climate. However, they did not pursue a more disaggregate analysis of small firm entry behaviour; nor did they investigate different responses between manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing firms. Another related issue is the extent to which state cases filed in tandem with federal investigations have the same impact on establishment entry as do purely ‘independent’ cases. These considerations are dealt with in this article. The author uses annual state-level data from the Statistics of US Business to examine entry and relocation reactions to state antitrust enforcement by firms within three small-business categories: 1–19 employees; 20–99 employees; 100–499 employees. Generally speaking, the smallest retail and wholesale firms seem to favour vigorous antitrust activity, especially enforcement targeted against cartel behaviour by suppliers. The largest small-firm retailers and wholesalers (those with 100–499 employees) seem somewhat threatened by such activity, especially the more controversial nonhorizontal enforcement. However, it must be acknowledged that the effects on entry or relocation of small firms – both positive and negative – are quite small.     

Food shopping behavior in the Arabian Gulf region: a comparative study

In the context of an online apparel setting, this study examined the effects of amount of information and music on consumers’ affective states (i.e. pleasure and arousal) and cognitive states (i.e. perceived risk and attitude toward the site), which in turn may affect consumer shopping response (purchase intent). The moderating role of situational involvement with online shopping on the relationship between music/amount of information and affective/cognitive stateswas further examined. Results revealed significant effects for amount of information and music in relation to consumer situational involvement with online shopping. In addition, results revealed a significant effect for pleasure on perceived risk and attitude toward the site which in turn affected purchase intent. The findings of this study provide valuable managerial insights to online retailers by indicating the importance of the amount of information available on an apparel website. Additionally, this study is a springboard in determining the significant effect of music on affect and shopping responses on online shopping websites.     

员工满意度与敬业度的现状分析——以L公司为例

员工的敬业度是近年来人力资源管理领域研究的热点,特别是经济危机背景下如何保持员工的工作热情更是急需解决的问题。以往,公司为了保持高绩效在管理政策上往往偏向提高员工的满意度,然而L公司的调查发现满意的员工不一定带来持续的高绩效,相反在敬业度和满意度上存在四种状态组合。文章从现状出发,剖析L公司四种组合存在及内在相互转化的原因,在此基础上提出如何让员工既满意又敬业的对策。     

科学技术在自然界演化状态中的作用探析

阐明科学和技术的本质,是科学哲学和技术哲学的基本问题。本文根据自然界演化的过程对其进行梳理,在演化论的视域下,对科学技术本质进行了重新解读。根据马克思"解放观"的思想,对自然界的演化过程进行了分析,说明了对各种演化态引入的具体的科学和技术以及人类是如何利用科技把"非常态"引入到"常态"的。通过这些思考更加明确了科学技术是人类争取自由、获得解放的重要工具,认为科学技术的本质是人类从自然界的各种演化状态中解放出来,即把"非常态"引入到"常态"环境的中介和手段。通过对自然演化状态中的每一个状态加以分析,肯定了科学技术在人类社会发展中的重要作用。本文从自然界的演化过程出发,具体探讨了科学技术在自然演化态向人类生存环境引入中的作用以及人类从各种演化态中解放的具体形式,进一步丰富了人工过程论的科学技术观,深化了对科学技术本质及相关问题的认识。     

Dynamic contracting under imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs

We develop a dynamic principal–agent model to show how imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs about payoff-relevant parameters, agency conflicts, and the agent's implicit incentives to influence the principal's posterior beliefs through his unobservable actions interact to affect optimal dynamic contracts. We make a methodological contribution to the literature by solving the continuous-time contracting problem using a discrete-time approximation approach. We obtain a simple characterization of optimal renegotiation-proof contracts in terms of the solution to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE). We then exploit the properties of the ODE to derive a number of novel implications for the dynamics of long-term contracts that alter the intuition gleaned from the previous literature. Optimism has a first-order impact on incentives, investment and output that could reconcile the “private equity” puzzle. Consistent with empirical evidence, the interaction between asymmetric beliefs, risk-sharing and adverse selection costs could cause the time-paths of the agent's incentive intensities to be increasing or decreasing. Our results also suggest that the incorporation of imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs could potentially reconcile empirical evidence of an ambiguous relation between risk and incentives, and a non-monotonic relation between firm value and incentives. Permanent and transitory components of risk have differing effects on incentives, which suggest that empirical investigations of the link between risk and incentives should appropriately account for different components of risk.     

The role of interpersonal affect in performance appraisal: evidence from two samples – the US and India

The interpersonal affect, a li ke–dislike relationship between a supervisor and his/her subordinate, has traditionally been conceptualized as a source of bias in performance appraisals. However, some researchers have argued that the interpersonal affect may not be a bias, especially where it develops as a result of past performance. In this field study, using data from 190 supervisors in the US, and 113 supervisors in India, we delineate the relationship between interpersonal affect and performance ratings. In both samples, interpersonal affect and performance level were found to have significant effects on performance ratings. Results from the US sample indicated that raters are able to separate their liking for a subordinate from actual performance when a ssigning performance ratings, suggesting that the interpersonal affect does not operate as a bias in the appraisal process. Results from the Indian sample, however, suggest that supervisors inflate ratings of low performers, suggesting that local cultural norms may be operating as a moderator.