(In)equality and the South African Constitution

ABSTRACT

Does the South African Constitution constrain or empower government, courts and citizens in addressing systemic social and economic inequalities? This article argues that the Constitution is explicitly ‘transformative’, but is an enabling document, providing ‘scaffolding’ for political and legal activities. It is government, strong institutions and civil society that are ultimately responsible for securing its equality aspirations. Here the Constitution admits of different understandings of equality and different economic and social policy choices. This article identifies these contested meanings of equality and suggests that a liberal egalitarian/social democratic version is dominant in policy choices and the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. It illustrates this with reference to the Court’s jurisprudence on equality, and suggests that more radical and transformative interpretations remain possible. However, it concludes that we cannot escape politics, the need for good policy choices and effective implementation and enforcement.     

Forget about ‘the ideal worker’: A theoretical contribution to the debate on flexible workplace designs,work/life conflict,and opportunities for gender equality

This study integrates insights from Self-Determination Theory and Boundary Theory to present scenarios on how flexible workplace designs can trigger multiple motivational processes underlying gendered work/nonwork integration behaviors, and how these affect work/life conflict. We disentangle processes underlying work engagement and work/life conflict, explaining the paradoxical outcomes found with regard to gender inequality in terms of work/life performance, satisfaction, and health. Policy makers and organizations need an increased understanding and a reconceptualization of these issues, realizing that the ideal worker does not exist. Instead, a long-term perspective is needed in order to truly realize the potential benefits of flexible workplace designs for all stakeholders. Organizations need to take responsibility for preventing individual workers’ depletion and stimulating the regeneration of workers’ resources.     

我国市场经济初建时期知识经济的思考

债转股是防范金融风险和加快国有企业扭亏为盈的重要举措 ,但债转股的推行又产生了一系列的法律问题 ,本文借鉴国外的相关立法并结合我国的具体情况 ,就债转股的四个方面法律问题进行了讨论 :债转股与资本真实原则 ;债转股与公司治理结构 ;债转股与债权人利益保护 ;债转股与股     

论公正及其与自由、平等的关系

尽管学术界对自由、平等和公正问题有许多研究和阐释,但较少将自由、平等与公正问题联系起来从总体上进行考察和研究,以致关于自由、平等和公正及其关系问题成了人们最说不清、道不明的问题。本文试图立足于当代人类社会现实及其走向,着重从与自由、平等相互关联的视角研究公正问题,力求纲要性地对公正及其与自由、平等之间的关系提供一些阐释和见解,最终论证这样一种基本观点:现代公正是一种综合性的价值要求,它要求社会自由和平等,也要求对自由和平等可能导致的社会问题给予适当解决。     

经济增长的变化本质

在过去的一个世纪中,富裕国家的经济本质已经发生了巨大的变化。因此,文章提出“技术生理演变(technophysio evolution)”概念,即快速技术变化和人类生理进步的协同作用。这主要表现在以下三个方面：(1)消费结构和工作体闲时间分配的改变;(2)经济和家庭产出分配方面受高水平经济成就的影响;(3)全球市场迅速急剧转向耐用消费品和高科技服务。     

Testing equality of variances in the analysis of repeated measurements

The problem of comparing the precisions of two instruments using repeated measurements can be cast as an extension of the Pitman-Morgan problem of testing equality of variances of a bivariate normal distribution. Hawkins (1981) decomposes the hypothesis of equal variances in this model into two subhypotheses for which simple tests exist. For the overall hypothesis he proposes to combine the tests of the subhypotheses using Fisher's method and empirically compares the component tests and their combination with the likelihood ratio test. In this paper an attempt is made to resolve some discrepancies and puzzling conclusions in Hawkins's study and to propose simple modifications.
The new tests are compared to the tests discussed by Hawkins and to each other both in terms of the finite sample power (estimated by Monte Carlo simulation) and theoretically in terms of asymptotic relative efficiencies.     

我国城乡居民健康公平性研究

本文采用历史的、比较的分析方法,运用基尼系数、洛伦茨曲线等分析工具,分别从筹资公平、服务提供公平和健康公平三个方面对我国城乡居民健康公平问题进行了定性与定量分析,得出了新型农村合作医疗制度的开展显著降低了城乡卫生服务筹资的基尼系数等一系列结果.根据研究结果,对城乡健康公平性与二元社会结构,与政府干预、市场调节之间的关系作了分析,并对提高城乡健康公平性提出了相关政策建议.     

税收正义刍论

税收正义是当前税制改革的前提规范。一个税收体制公正合理性的基础是平等课税、公平税负、效能化税收的真正体现。构建社会主义“和谐社会”需要一个公正合理的税收制度的支撑,需要一个真正实现了程序正义、结果正义和制度正义的税收体制的建构。因而,现代税收制度的建构呼吁税收正义的实现。     

基尼系数与企业内部薪酬分配合理性研究

本文试图把基尼系数从宏观引向微观，探讨用基尼系数来反映企业内部收入分配的合理性问题。论文先从理论上分析了企业内部影响基尼系数的因素，企业分配政策对基尼系数的影响：然后根据实际数据对三个组织的内部收入分配的基尼系数进行计算，证明了在企业应用基尼系数的可行性：最后得出结论：目前社会上存在的不公平，并不是工资差别引起的，而是由灰色收入、城乡差别、行业差别等其他因素引起的。