集体行动的逻辑与可持续发展的困境

个体理性的效率追求是经济活动的动力,但个体理性往往导致集体非理性。本文从个体理性与集体理性概念的相对性出发,探讨个体、地方政府、国家在经济活动中本位利益的追求与可持续发展目标的背离。纯粹的市场效率追求会导致“市场失灵,”政府在解决“市场失灵”时如果无法有效约束个体理性的本位利益追求与政绩偏好,在可持续发展问题上就会出现一定程度的“政府失灵”。在“双重失灵”的情况下,集体行动的逻辑必然导致可持续发展陷入困境。要在个体理性的效率追求与集体理性的“共同信念”中实现可持续发展战略,必须明确政府责任并进行追加性制度投资。     

我国海洋渔业资源利用中个体理性与集体理性的矛盾及其协调

本文论述了海洋渔业资源中个体理性与集体理性矛盾产生的根源，指出并分析了协调这些矛盾的措施：一是限制渔船的数量，二是采取各种措施恢复海洋渔业资源，三是实施配额捕捞制度。在前述分析的基础上作者提出了完善这些措施的对策和建议。     

政治生态与政治文明的价值合理性形塑

政治文明起源于市民社会对政治国家的分离，它以对市民社会主体性地位的确认为基础，标志着民主、自由、平等、人性的解放及实现程度；政治文明越是向前发展，市民社会的自治程度越高，政治发展也就越是依赖于市民社会的社会性资源，政治文明的价值合法性危机也就越大；为此，必须从政治生态的理论视野出发寻求对政治合法性危机的可能性途径，形塑政治文明的价值合理性。     

Rationality,foolishness, and adaptive intelligence

Technologies of model‐based rationality are the core technologies of strategic management, having largely replaced earlier technologies that placed greater reliance on traditional practice or on communication either with the stars or with the gods. The technologies used by organizations in their pursuit of intelligence can be imagined to change over time as a result of responding to the successes and failures associated with the technologies. Although technologies of rationality seem clearly to be effective instruments of exploitation in relatively simple situations and to derive their adaptive advantage from those capabilities, their ventures in more complex explorations seem often to lead to huge mistakes and thus unlikely to be sustained by adaptive processes. Whether their survival as instruments of exploratory novelty in complex situations is desirable is a difficult question to answer, but it seems likely that any such survival may require hitchhiking on their successes in simpler worlds. Survival may also be served by the heroism of fools and the blindness of true believers. Their imperviousness to feedback is both the despair of adaptive intelligence and, conceivably, its salvation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do environmental regulations hamper small enterprises' market entry? Evidence from China

Due to the serious increase of environmental pollution in China, environmental regulations have become significantly stringent. Such regulations are playing an increasingly important role in the development of small enterprises (SEs) in China, especially in SEs' market entry. However, existing studies pay little attention to this issue. This paper investigates for the first time the effect of environmental regulations on SEs' market entry and the mechanism of environmental regulation effects in China. We consider two sets of panel data for the periods 2003–2010 and 2012–2015 in China. We also use the fixed effect model and the instrumental variable method to explore the role of environmental regulations in SEs' market entry. The results show that, overall, environmental regulations play a significantly positive and robust role in SEs' market entry. However, the mechanisms associated with the effect of environmental regulations on different innovative types of SEs differ. Environmental regulations promote the market entry of SEs with product innovation, but this impact is not significant for SEs with research and development (R&D) activities and R&D institutions. Our findings indicate that China's SEs prefer product innovation, which is a lower level innovative type, over R&D innovation, as a means to avoid the negative impact of stringent environmental regulations.     

A probabilistic ghost in the experimental machine

This paper focuses on the opposition between two contemporary research programs in economics: behavioral economics (BE) and experimental market economics (EME). Our claim is that the arguments of this opposition can be clarified through the lens of another opposition in the philosophy of probability and in probability theory, between Bayesianism and frequentism. We show how this probabilistic opposition has indirectly shaped a controversy in psychology that opposes two research programs – Heuristics and Biases and Ecological Rationality – which play respective roles in the foundations of individual rationality in BE and EME. To understand these theoretical interrelationships, we investigate the 1996 controversy between Kahneman, Tversky, and Gigerenzer. Those psychologists held different views on how probabilistic representations influence the context-dependency of rationality. This provides a rationale to suggest that a probabilistic ghost may be haunting the experimental machine in economics, and explains how and why the oppositions between BE and EME are structured around the interplay between the norms of rationality and the context in which rationality is exercised.     

明清晋商“学而优则贾”价值取向探析

"学而优则仕"是隋唐以来中国知识分子理所当然的价值诉求。然而,明清晋商却断然提出"秀才学生意——改邪归正",令"子弟之俊秀者,多入贸易一途"。"学而优则贾"的价值取向促进了知识与经济的内在结合,工具理性与价值理性的契合统一,使得明清晋商能够"用儒意以通积贮之理",最终执商界之牛耳,在获得道德肯定的同时创造了商业奇迹。     

The emergence of new Islamic economic and business moralities

This article aims to explore the sources of the observed transformation in the embeddedness of economic, business, and financial practices of Muslim individuals in comparison to premodern period Muslims. It argues that the predomination of instrumental reasoning in modern times, as opposed to substantive morality in everyday practice, is one of the main reasons behind the transformation of embeddedness of Muslim individuals. Instrumental reasoning, being the dominant methodology, leads to diminished submergence in social relations; that is not limited to interpersonal relationships, but further extended to the core religious acts. How such an emergent economic and business morality is reconciled with the Islamic substantive morality is examined. It is argued that “transformation of exception into norm” is the main method used to reconcile instrumental reasoning with Islamic law in fulfilling religious obligations, at least in terms of fulfilling the form and in complying with the necessities of modern life. This has led to the emergence of new economic and business moralities.     

Policy Consequences of Multiple Equilibria and the Indeterminacy of Economic Outcomes in a Boundedly Rational World: Closing the System with Non-Economic Variables1

In the conventional economic wisdom, the notion of unique equilibria that are efficient and Pareto optimal dominates the modeling discourse. Hebert Simon proposed an alternative analytical framework where the notion of multiple and sustainable equilibria is critical. Multiple equilibrium is the crucial stylized fact of economic life that requires better understanding and modeling. Of particular significance, Simon touched on the importance of institutions and differential power relationships in affecting economic outcomes. But this modeling approach was not well developed by Simon. Following from his contributions, further develop the notion of multiple equilibria especially in the realm of production with an emphasis on x-efficiency theory. I bring to bear the importance of institutional parameters (including power relationships), culture, norms, ethics, and moral sentiments to the determination of economic outcomes. In the model developed here, boundedly rational decision-makers’ choices are contextualized and constrained by complex environmental factors. No one choice is either inevitable or economically efficient. A multiplicity of outcomes is possible and sustainable inclusive of those that are suboptimal. Much depends on individual preferences and institutional design. This has significant implication for institutional design and policy.     

Climate change adaptation actions by fish farmers: evidence from the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

This paper examined climate change adaptation strategies in fish farming and the effect of such methods on the profit of fish farmers in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Using cross‐sectional data obtained from 420 fish farmers from the region and applying multivariate probit and instrumental variable regressions, the study found that fish farmers have adopted a broad range of strategies to address climate risk and that these have significantly increased farmers’ profit. Our findings indicated important relationships between certain farm, socio‐economic and institutional characteristics and the adaptation actions. The study provides useful insight into factors that potentially encourage the adoption of livelihood‐enhancing climate risk adaptation strategies by fish farmers in the Niger Delta region and similar contexts.