Domestic political connections and international expansion: It's not only ‘who you know’ that matters

Former politicians on the board of directors bring to the firm domestic political connections and political knowledge. Previous research has mainly highlighted the role of contacts, without fully recognizing the role of political knowledge accumulated at home. By focusing on the effect of domestic political connections on foreign direct investment, we show that domestic political knowledge also shapes foreign expansion. We argue that contacts provided by former politicians may not be useful for foreign expansion whilst their political knowledge can be of help in countries with discretionary governments and with similar institutional environments to the one of the home country.     

Job growth in early transition: Comparing two paths*

Small start‐up firms are the engine of job creation in early transition. We ask about differences in their growth across two different transition economies: Estonia, which experienced rapid destruction of pre‐existing firms, and the Czech Republic, which reduced the old sector gradually. We find that the majority of job growth corresponds to within‐industry reallocation. The within‐industry growth of small start‐up firms is similar in the two countries, in line with the convergence to Western industry firm‐size distributions. We also find similar patterns in the evolution of wage differentials between start‐ups and old firms and small differences in the extent of low‐wage employment in start‐ups across the two transition paths. JEL Classifications: J2, J3, J4, L1, O1, P2.     

Rural taxation and government regulation in China

This paper places the problem of Chinese rural taxation in the context of government regulation and seeks to present an integrated theoretical framework of Chinese rural development in the past two decades. Our theoretical framework reconciles the seemingly contradictory facts that the average level of rural taxation relative to rural net income did not increase quickly from 1990, but rural taxation became a very serious problem in this period. Our findings suggest that this is in large part due to increases in rural income disparity from 1990 and uneven tax distribution among different income groups. We argue that differentiated enforcement of government regulations such as grain procurement and birth control play an important role in the rural taxation problem, and more generally, the problem of local government expansion and rising rural income disparity. The empirical findings support our hypotheses.     

Income and substitution effects of fiscal policy on work effort

The focus of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the impact on work effort of changes in government purchases financed with lump‐sum taxes, in a neoclassical framework, with respect to four industrialised countries. Second, it reconsiders the expenditure–work effort relationship in a broader conceptual context that allows for distortionary taxation and a disaggregation of the income and substitution effects. Our findings are shown to cast doubt on the empirical plausibility of the prevailing (neoclassical and New Keynesian) models which seem to rely heavily on the lump‐sum tax notion, thus ignoring the substitution effects of distortionary taxation.     

Why are Small Firms Different? Managers’ Views

Do incentives differ between large and small organizations? Results from a representative survey of compensation managers are used to shed light on the issues. I find that (i) small establishments rely less on pecuniary incentives, and have a significantly more hostile attitude towards incentive schemes based on competition and relative rewards; (ii) large units are more vulnerable to mechanisms of efficiency wages, effects that remain even after controlling for differences in monitoring ability; (iii) large units are more prone to indicate that negative reciprocity is important, and that their employees care about relative pay. I argue that these findings fit with behavioral stories of incentives and motivation, in particular those stressing group interaction effects, inequity aversion and gift exchange.     

Foreign debt and economic growth

This paper empirically examines the relationship between government foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP based on a total sample of 77 countries, as well as sub‐samples of various regions. Cross‐sectional estimates of the coefficient of foreign debt based on the total sample have a negative sign, but are not always statistically significant. Available data from African countries indicate that foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP were negatively related at a high level of significance. For industrialized and Latin American sub‐samples, this relationship is negative but statistically insignificant. The sub‐sample Asian and other developing countries show a positive but insignificant relationship. JEL classification: F34, H6, O23.     

人才强国,关键在于培养和使用好人才

我国是一个人口大国，如何将我国的人口负担转化为人才资源优势，这是党和国家建设事业的关键问题。笔者认为人才强国战略的实施，关键在于培养和使用好人才，在于快出人才，多出人才和出好人才。为此，文章提出了一些人才使用的策略。     

Estimating the Size of a Criminal Population from Police Records Using the Truncated Poisson Regression Model

The truncated Poisson regression model is used to arrive at point and interval estimates of the size of two offender populations, i.e. drunk drivers and persons who illegally possess firearms. The dependent capture–recapture variables are constructed from Dutch police records and are counts of individual arrests for both violations. The population size estimates are derived assuming that each count is a realization of a Poisson distribution, and that the Poisson parameters are related to covariates through the truncated Poisson regression model. These assumptions are discussed in detail, and the tenability of the second assumption is assessed by evaluating the marginal residuals and performing tests on overdispersion. For the firearms example, the second assumption seems to hold well, but for the drunk drivers example there is some overdispersion. It is concluded that the method is useful, provided it is used with care.     

论墨家思想的要指“强本节用”

司马谈在《论六家要指》中对先秦至汉初诸子思想进行了一次大的总结与评价，指出了各家要指所在，将墨家思想的要指总结为“强本节用”。司马谈对墨家思想及要指的评判，不仅仅是从学术角度出发，更重要的是从治国角度出发而作出的评定。     

发达国家科技政策导向及其启示

当今世界,科技政策已成为许多国家尤其是美、日、欧等发达国家全力打造科技强国的基本的公共政策。文章从国家战略引导产业发展、国家政策促进产业发展、全力追求知识与技术创新、注重培养和吸纳优秀人才等4个方面对此进行了探析。