Do Institutions Cause Growth?

We revisit the debate over whether political institutions cause economic growth, or whether, alternatively, growth and human capital accumulation lead to institutional improvement. We find that most indicators of institutional quality used to establish the proposition that institutions cause growth are constructed to be conceptually unsuitable for that purpose. We also find that some of the instrumental variable techniques used in the literature are flawed. Basic OLS results, as well as a variety of additional evidence, suggest that (a) human capital is a more basic source of growth than are the institutions, (b) poor countries get out of poverty through good policies, often pursued by dictators, and (c) subsequently improve their political institutions.     

对维吾尔民族医药知识产权保护的思考

维吾尔医药是维吾尔族人民留给人类的伟大的物质财富,已形成了具有维吾尔特色的医学理论体系。发展维吾尔医药产业,对于新疆经济的发展具有深远的影响。然而,相比较其他民族医药产业,新疆雏药的发展却相对落后,究其原因,缺乏重视知识产权保护是主要原因之一。因此,运用专利、商标等知识产权法律制度加强对维药的法律保护具有重要意义。     

Property rights protection and access to bank loans

Poor protection of private property has limited the access to bank loans by private enterprises in developing and transition economies. Under those circumstances, private entrepreneurs have resorted to various ways of enhancing the de facto protection of private property. Using a dataset of 3,073 private enterprises in China, this paper empirically investigates the impact of political participation and philanthropic activities – informal substitutes for the lack of formal protection of private property – on the access to bank loans.     

Shareholder Value Maximisation,Stock Market and New Technology: Should the US Corporate Model be the Universal Standard? 1

In 1992 a blue‐ribbon group of US economists led by Michael Porter concluded that the US stock market‐based corporate model was misallocating resources and jeopardising US competitiveness. The faster growth of US economy since then and the supposed US lead in the spread of information technology has brought new legitimacy to the stock market and the corporate model, which is being hailed as the universal standard. Two main conclusions of the analysis presented here are: (a) there is no warrant for revising the blue‐ribbon group’s conclusion; and (b) even US corporations let alone developing country ones would be better off not having stock market valuation as a corporate goal.     

Willingness to Pay for Forest Property Rights and the Value of Increased Property Rights Security

This paper studies the willingness to pay (WTP) for forest property rights in Viet Nam. We do so by asking respondents to estimate the value of two different forest property rights regimes where only the level of property security differs and all other forest plot characteristics are constant. We use this information to identify the value of the property rights security. Our results reveal that a significant number of individuals are willing to pay for an additional area of forestland but that the amount offered appears to be inadequate to compensate sellers, as very few land market transactions actually take place. The results further indicate that income relates positively to WTP, irrespective of forest property regime. Wealth, age, and ethnicity also have an impact on the amount households are willing to pay. As expected, there was a significant mark-up on the more secure right. Econometric estimates of the difference between the WTP for secure and insecure property rights show that a higher level of female education, and household age decrease the difference between the two WTP measures while the difference tends to increase as income improves. This has important policy implications, as it indicates that households tend to evaluate the property rights institutions differently.     

人力资本产权视野下企业剩余索取权的配置分析

人力资本产权理论运用于分配企业剩余索取权,有利于提升人力资本的经济利益,形成对人力资本产权所有者的有效激励和约束。本文运用博弈论方法,以剩余索取权作为研究的切入点,旨在从理论上探寻人力资本所有者分享企业剩余索取权的必要性和可能途径,以及由此给企业带来的相关效应。     

公务员个体人力资本产权残缺与纠正方式

公务员个体人力资本产权残缺不仅会使人力资本价值难以充分实现,也会导致人力资本产权价值大打折扣.而要克服公务员个体人力资本产权残缺,一方面要完善公务员收益分配制度;另一方面要改善公务员人力资本配置方式.     

THE CASE AGAINST MELIORISM: VEILED TRAGEDIES, OR WHEN COST–BENEFIT ANALYSIS IS IN PRINCIPLE IMPOSSIBLE

The philosophy of meliorism seeks to spread the cost of the tragedies of the few over the many, thus easing the suffering of the few, while hardly burdening the many. The problem with this is that such cost-spreading itself causes tragedies, except that the tragedies are veiled – they are not only unknown; they cannot, in principle, be known. Thus meliorism distributes not from the tragic few to the ordinary many, but from the visibly tragic few to another group of tragic few, the latter group unseen and unknown, hence unable to complain about this state of affairs.     

土地经营权的性质研究 ——基于土地经营权抵押贷款规范性文件的分析

研究目的:明确农村土地"三权分置"中土地经营权的性质。研究方法:采用文献分析法和归纳演绎法。研究结果:(1)土地经营权抵押贷款实践中的农村土地权利结构逻辑各不相同。不同的农村土地权利结构直接影响土地经营权的性质。(2)农村土地"三权分置"是将土地承包经营权分置为土地承包权和土地经营权,从而采用"土地所有权——土地承包权——土地经营权"的农村土地权利结构。土地经营权将取代土地承包经营权,成为法定的用益物权。(3)土地经营权人既可以是通过家庭承包方式取得土地经营权的农户,也可以是通过转让、互换或者入股等流转方式获得土地经营权的新型农业经营主体。在期限届满之前,土地经营权应当独立于土地承包权存在,土地承包权消灭与否对土地经营权不产生影响。研究结论:明确土地经营权属于用益物权,才能解决土地经营权抵押贷款实践的疑难问题,从而促进土地经营权有序流转。