Fiscal,financial and monetary foundations for the formation of nation states in the west compared to imperial states in the east c.1415–c.1839

This speech introduces O’Brien’s research approach to the divergence debate and presents the fiscal capacities of the states as the key condition for ushering in modern economic growth in the pre-industrialization West. The concerns of pre-modern European states (1415–1839) were not with economic development, but with external security and internal stability of their kingdoms. Mercantilism prepared European states for capitalist industrialization. Historical evidence supports the hypothesis that effective command and control over sovereign revenues were what gave Britain and other European states the advantage over their oriental counterparts in providing public goods of external security and internal stability, which made the divergence in economic development inevitable.     

Shared Standard Setting in the Public Interest:A Strong Model

正The last two decades have been a definitive era in the evolution of the accountancy profession.In the wake of major corporate scandals at the turn of the century,an international public debate arose on the need for more effective and well-considered regulation;this debate then reignited during the global financial and sovereign debt crises.     

关于中国社会主义改革的几点思考

中国社会主义改革三十余载,机遇与挑战并存,成就与问题并生,值得认真总结和思考。在改革的过程中,我们必须毫不动摇地坚持社会主义的改革方向,健全和完善中国特色社会主义。     

Accounting, Modernity and Health Care Policy

The National Health Service of the United Kingdom has been the subject of many reforms since it was established in 1948. This paper examines the process of reform in relation to significant changes to the NHS in recent decades. This reform process places ideas of the modern at the heart of these various initiatives. This paper also examines the intended or actual role of accounting in this modernisation process to examine its significance in the making of health care policy.     

论政府与市场二元调节机制的优化组合

市场作为资源配置的基础性力量,由价值规律自发地调节经济运行,但可能出现市场失灵。政府调节作为市场调节的补充,也可能出现政府失灵。为实现资源的优化配置和福利最大化,就需要将政府调节与市场调节结合起来,找到两者的最优组合点,最大化地发挥市场在配置资源方面的作用,同时充分发挥政府对宏观经济的调节作用,实现国民经济又好又快发展。     

20世纪30年代前后中国社会性质大论战

20世纪30年代前后,中国出现"社会性质大论战"。结果以下理论成为中国现代思想的主流:中国历史社会虽显示某些"亚细亚生产方式"的特点,然而与世界多数国家同样经历原始社会、奴隶社会、封建社会等各阶段,近代以来,则显示"半殖民地半封建"社会特征。     

Tourism to a realm of memory: the case of a Thai royal craft

ABSTRACT

Modernisation brings the decline of traditional crafts and practices and thereby of their old, linked communities. Memories of these communities might survive though only for a time. A public policy dilemma presents – whether to conserve communities and their crafts as ‘living museums’ (akin to a milieu de mémoire in Pierre Nora’s terms) for tourist titillation; alternatively to merely retain the traces of that culture, as a museum more conventionally understood (lieux de mémoire); or, alternatively again, to accept the ephemerality of culture and its metamorphosis? And, if the last, then how is that to be presented to the discerning tourist? The paper mostly uses the case of the ancient goldsmith community of Wat Koh in Phetchaburi city, Thailand, to reflect on this dilemma. At stake academically are two sets of dialectic opposites: history against memory, and memory against nostalgia – also the contingent dichotomy of tourism and memory.     

Whence reform? A critique of the stiglitz perspective

This paper discusses the key hypotheses which Joseph Stiglitz proposed, in his wide-ranging critique of the “Washington Consensus”, with regard to transition reforms and economic policies in China and Russia. The primary purpose is to evaluate the Stiglitz perspective in the light of empirical evidence, including the experience of countries outside China and Russia. Although some of the points Stiglitz makes are important for understanding what has happened in the transition, this paper argues that his perspective mis-interprets the key facts of the Chinese transition, mis-describes the facts of the Russian transition and fails to consider the theoretical and policy implications of the success of a “third model”, which is represented by some Central European and Baltic transitions.     

Revisiting the Quantitative-Qualitative Debate: Implications for Mixed-Methods Research

Health care research includes many studies that combine quantitative and qualitative methods. In this paper, we revisit the quantitative-qualitative debate and review the arguments for and against using mixed-methods. In addition, we discuss the implications stemming from our view, that the paradigms upon which the methods are based have a different view of reality and therefore a different view of the phenomenon under study. Because the two paradigms do not study the same phenomena, quantitative and qualitative methods cannot be combined for cross-validation or triangulation purposes. However, they can be combined for complementary purposes. Future standards for mixed-methods research should clearly reflect this recommendation.     

环渤海经济圈外资利用中心城市之争

环渤海经济圈近年来作为中国经济增长的“第三极”受到了普遍关注,从实际利用外资额来看,环渤海经济圈是北方吸引外资最大的地区,那么,在这个区域,是否存在一个中心城市起“龙头”作用？伴随着天津滨海新区和青岛城市规划的兴起,天津和青岛的龙头之争开始凸显,作为环渤海经济圈的两大核心城市,天津和青岛的发展是应当有所侧重,还是齐头并进？文章从实证分析的角度对天津和青岛分别作为中心城市的模式进行检验,结果表明,无论是天津还是青岛,都没有作为整个地区中心城市的实力,但是,从整体来看,天津发展更胜一筹,因此,为了提升整个环渤海经济圈的综合竞争力,两个城市应当相互协调,共同发展,同时要利用各自独特的优势,在外资利用上各取所需,特色发展。