State Capitalism Revisited: A Review of Emergent Forms and Developments

Even when the neoliberal ideology of the free market was more dominant than it now is, the state was involved in economic activities that could be undertaken by private firms. State capitalism takes increasingly diverse forms, including beyond direct, partial or even indirect ownership. This paper briefly reviews some of these forms without claiming to be exhaustive as the shape state capitalism takes differs widely across the institutionalized contexts of countries. We assess state capitalism using Polanyi’s double movement framework and argue that this framework needs adaptation to novel forms of state capitalism that include, e.g., state-owned multinationals and sovereign wealth funds.     

Is Downward Wage Flexibility the Primary Factor of Japan's Prolonged Deflation?

By using both macro‐ and micro‐level data, this paper investigates how wages and prices evolved during Japan's lost two decades. We find that downward nominal wage rigidity was present in Japan until the late 1990s, but disappeared after 1998 as annual wages became downwardly flexible. Moreover, nominal wage flexibility may have contributed to Japan's relatively low unemployment rates. Although macro‐level movements in nominal wages and prices seemed to be synchronized, such synchronicity is not observed at the industry level. Therefore, wage deflation does not seem to be a primary factor of Japan's prolonged deflation.     

False prosperity: Rethinking government support for farmers’ cooperatives in China

The rapid development of farmers’ cooperatives in rural China cannot be separated from government support. To ensure the growth of farmers’ cooperatives, the Chinese government uses it as a key performance indicator for its local institutions. Superficially, rural China's cooperative population and membership size witnessed rapid growth during the first decade after the Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives Law was enacted in 2007; however, such government intervention also leads to non-standard phenomena due to market distortion. Using nationally representative survey data from 504 cooperatives in Jiangsu, Jilin, and Sichuan provinces, this paper provides a reliable estimate of the “shell cooperative” rate around 2014. The empirical study sheds further light on the role of government during the period of rapid but chaotic growth by a subset containing 241 marketing cooperatives. Results show that direct administrative intervention leads to the emergence of many shell cooperatives (approximately 37%). Further study also confirms that task-oriented policy support is only positively associated with the nominal coverage ratio but has no significant relationship with cooperatives’ function. This study provides new insights into the formation of shell cooperatives and suggests that direct administrative intervention may not be a good strategy for promoting the sustainable development of farmers’ cooperatives.     

20世纪30年代专科以上学校毕业生就业训导班研究

20世纪30年代前期,专科以上学校毕业生失业严重。在学生运动风起云涌之际,设立专科以上学校毕业生就业训导班,被国民政府赋予解决专科以上学校毕业生就业问题的重大使命。就业训导班声势大、力量强、目标明确,部分反映了国民政府试图纠正专科以上学校毕业生就业问题的努力。然而该班的设立因被动、临时、人数有限,且并不触及就业问题的根本,而成为国民政府安抚学生和社会情绪的又一项权宜之计。     

中国和平发展战略对全球应对气候变化行动的影响

2005年中国首次发布《中国的和平发展道路》白皮书,2011年9月6日中国再次发布《中国的和平发展》白皮书,向全世界公布中国和平发展的战略。中国采取什么样的发展战略,不仅对全球世界政治经济格局具有重要影响,同时也对全球应对气候变化的行动产生重要影响。重点分析了中国和平发展战略对全球应对气候变化行动的影响:(1)中国的和平发展,坚持以科学发展为指导,本身就是全球应对气候变化行动的重要组成部分;(2)中国的和平发展,推动了世界的和平与发展,有利于创造全球应对气候变化的良好政治经济环境;(3)中国的和平发展,推动了全球资源合理有效配置,有利于提高全球应对气候变化的实际成效;(4)中国的和平发展,提倡的是国际合作,有利于推动全球应对气候变化的国际协同。     

The Labor-Managed Firm: Permanent or Start-Up Subsidies?

We explore a new argument that seeks to explain the near absence of the labor-managed firm or cooperative, despite a range of inefficiencies attributed to the present-day capitalist firm. We derive the crucial condition for the emergence of labor-managed firms and show that it is unduly restrictive from an efficiency point of view. The policy implication is that public intervention to promote labor-managed firms should primarily be in the form of start-up subsidies rather than in providing permanent tax subsidies.     

Does microfinance empower women? Evidence from self‐help groups in India

Microfinance programmes like the Self Help Bank Linkage Program in India have been increasingly promoted for their positive economic impact and the belief that they empower women. However, only a few studies rigorously examine the link between microfinance and women’s empowerment. This article contributes to this discussion by arguing that women’s empowerment takes place when women challenge the existing social norms and culture, to effectively improve their well‐being. It empirically validates this hypothesis by using quasi‐experimental household sample data collected for five states in India for 2000 and 2003. A general model is estimated by employing appropriate techniques to treat the ordinal variables in order to estimate the impact of the Self Help Group (SHG) on women’s empowerment for 2000 and 2003. The results strongly demonstrate that on average, there is a significant increase in the empowerment of women in the SHG members group. No such significant change is observed however, for the members of the control group. The elegance of the result lies in the fact that the group of SHG participants show clear evidence of a significant and higher empowerment, while allowing for the possibility that some members might have been more empowered than others.     

Are remittances good for economic growth? The role of political institutions

Within a sample of 109 developing countries for the period 1975–2014 and controlling for country and time-fixed effects, this article presents evidence that workers’ remittances are more effective in promoting growth in developing countries with strong democratic institutions. The evidence is robust to alternative samples and different measures of democratic institutions.