Towards Sustainability Economics: Principles and Values

Synopsis  Radical alternatives, in terms of our ideas about science in society, about economics, ideology and institutional arrangements, should be included among possibilities considered within the scope of a pluralistic philosophy. While all these aspects of our mental maps are interrelated and important, economics plays a key role in attempts to get closer to a sustainable society. Mainstream neoclassical economics is not enough. The tendency to exclusively rely on this particular theory is considered part of the problems faced. A ‘sustainability economics’ more in line with dominant ideas of democracy is proposed, emphasizing the ethical, ideological and political elements. Reference is made to institutional theory but the principles and concepts suggested are in many ways similar to other kinds of heterodox economics and developments in other social sciences. Neoclassical economics is used as a point of reference in pointing to alternative ideas about human beings, organizations, markets, decision- making, efficiency, rationality, progress in society and institutional change processes. Predilection for such an alternative conceptual framework (or for neoclassical economics) is not exclusively a scientific choice but as much a matter of political and ideological preferences. One paradigm may be dominant at a time, but because of the ideological specificity of each paradigm, competing theoretical perspectives should be accepted and even encouraged in a democratic society.      

农地股份合作制与土地社会保障功能的实现——以广东南海为例

农村社会保障制度的建立必须充分依靠土地的保障功能。通过对南海农村的调查，得出农地股份合作制是土地社会保障功能得以实现的制度保证。欠发达地区农地股份合作制的推广必须通过政府主导的强制性制度变迁来实现。     

Arrested development: the experience of European hard disk drive firms in comparison with US and Japanese firms

This paper analyses how US, Japanese, and European HDD firms responded to technological shifts in the hard disk industry from 1973 through 1996. Leading incumbent US HDD firms were frequently forced out of the market. Leading Japanese incumbent firms in the same industry, however, were not displaced by these changes. US startup firms thrived under these technological shifts, displacing US incumbent firms. Japanese startups did poorly. European firms encountered the worst of both worlds: its incumbent firms were frequently displaced by technological changes, as were US firms; while startup firms (with one exception) performed as poorly as those in Japan.     

Biology, Diseases, and Economics: An Epidemiological History of Slavery in the American South

The economic history of antebellum southern slavery has been and is the subject of ongoing debates among scholars. The literature includes assessments about the efficiency of slavery as well as about the adequacy of slave living standards and diets. Yet this literature under appreciates the important biologic and historical role that parasitic diseases played in the history of slavery. Recognizing the role of parasitic diseases calls into question some prevailing interpretations of slavery. Lacking direct evidence on slave diets, scholars turned to anthropometric evidence as proxies for the living standards of slaves, leading to the prevailing view that adult slaves were given adequate sustenance, but slave infants and children were severely malnourished. We argue it was not slave diets, but the combination of the plantation system and diseases that caused abnormally small slave children. The diseases that concern us, primarily hookworm and malaria, affected slaves ('blacks') and free labor ('whites') differently. Many slaves were concentrated on large plantations with infants and younger children crowded into 'nurseries.' This system allowed the maintenance and spread of diseases that adversely affected younger slaves. Southern white children however were less likely to be raised in conditions so conductive to parasitic diseases. The disease ecology of the antebellum South has implications for the prevailing view that slavery was more efficient than free labor. Biologic evidence indicates that people of tropical West African ancestry are more resilient to the effects of hookworm and malaria than European descendents. Thus when whites did contract these diseases, they were more afflicted than blacks. When slaves entered the adult work force they were taken from disease breeding grounds (slave nurseries) and sent into relatively (for blacks) healthy fields, while whites that went into the fields found a disease environment that was typically worse than that of their childhood. If black adults were more productive than were white adults because of a greater resilience to parasitic diseases, then part of any measured difference in productivity between slave and free farms should be attributed to the disease resistance of African descendents, rather than to any inherent efficiencies of slavery.     

Governance Structures, Insider Status, and Boundary Maintenance

If legal enforcement of contracts were omnipresent, omniscient, and costless, the identity and history of one's partners would be irrelevant, since any problems caused by unreliable partners could be remedied effectively. However, when legal enforcement is localized, imperfect, and costly, different governance structures for contracts carry implications for the sets of acceptable contracting partners. When legal enforcement for contracts is based on national law, whose reach is coterminous with a state's territory, acceptable partners tend to be defined territorially. When state enforcement of contract law is weak or nonexistent or when a contract is so vulnerable to nonperformance that it requires auxiliary support, actors must devise an alternative or supplement to state enforcement. The most relevant contracting boundaries then will be ones defining groups that can efficaciously create and maintain intertemporal, inter-issue, and inter-actor linkages. We examine just three of many possibilities: family-based, function-based, and ethnicity- or religion-based groups. These different systems of governance affect which entities are recognized as members in the club of actors, as well as how actors define their contracting boundaries and distinguish between those with whom they contract relatively freely and those with whom their contracting is more circumscribed.     

企业技术状态与企业成长性关联效应分析

从企业生产经营和技术的特点出发,用企业技术五要素结构分析方法,具体研究了企业技术结构,用未确知测度理论定量测度企业技术含量及增长率,来描述企业成长性的质的表现——技术创新能力,用总资产收益率及增长率与每元经营现金流量及增长率,来定量描述企业成长性的量的表现,从而构造了企业成长性评价指标体系和综合评价方法,定量地测度企业成长性。     

Stock return predictability of the cumulative abnormal returns around the earnings announcement date: Evidence from China

We find that cumulative abnormal returns adjusted by size, book-to-market, and momentum around the earnings announcement date (DGTW_CAR3 hereafter) significantly and positively predict stock returns in the 6-month period from May 2005 to October 2020 in the China's A-shares market. The monthly equally-weighted DGTW_CAR3 premiums are 0.47% and 0.67% after risk adjustment. Although stock price delay fails to fully account for the DGTW_CAR3 premium, we find that the DGTW_CAR3 premium is more significant for illiquid stocks and during periods with high investor sentiment. This result suggests that market inefficiency explains the DGTW_CAR3 premium. Further analysis shows that, in addition to earnings information, the optimism reflected in the management discussion and analysis section of the annual or half-year report also contributes to the DGTW_CAR3 premium. This finding implies that DGTW_CAR3 may contain new fundamental information that correlates significantly and positively with future stock performance. Finally, we find that the institutional ownership change of a stock associated with DGTW_CAR3 also significantly and positively predicts the stock's return, suggesting that institutional investors adjust their holdings according to DGTW_CAR3 and consequently influence the demand for the stock in the China's A-shares market.     

林业经济理论研究的一种可能的新思路

为探讨林业经济理论研究的新思路,首先回顾了我国林业经济理论的发展阶段,对国内外林业经济理论的研究对象及内容进行了分析和评价,随后介绍了新兴古典经济学中的分工与专业化思想,并简单分析了其在林业经济理论研究方面的可行性,认为经济系统的分工与专业化演进思想可以成为林业经济理论研究的理论基础,并可能成为一条新的可行的研究思路。     

“双碳”背景下连锁机构投资者对企业绿色创新的影响

在响应国家“双碳”战略的大背景下,绿色创新已然成为企业高质量发展的关键途径。以2011—2022年我国A股市场上市公司为样本,分析了连锁机构投资者对企业绿色创新活动的推动作用。研究发现,连锁机构投资者的参与能够显著促进企业绿色创新水平的提升;可以通过降低代理成本从而发挥治理效应促进企业绿色创新;对于非国有型企业、非高技术领域企业以及重污染行业企业,其促进作用更突出。