Bioeconomics of some nonhuman and human societies: new institutional economics approach

New institutional economics (NIE) has been very successful in explaining the role of institutions such as the firm, money, and contract law in facilitating production and exchange in human societies. In this paper, I will show that the NIE approach, which so far has been used by economists to analyze institutions and organizations in human society, including the ethnically homogeneous middleman groups, can also be extended to explain the high degree of cooperation and coordination of activities of honeybees, ants, and schooling fish. In addition, the paper emphasize the importance of identity in nonhuman and human societies in eliciting cooperation and in detecting cheaters or fakers. This paper thus contribute to the integration/consilience of economics and biology by providing a more unified view of aspects of the bioeconomics of nonhuman and human societies.     

如何分析企业的赢利能力和偿债能力

开发中间商品牌有助于企业实施灵活的价格与促销策略 ,增加商业利润 ,减少单位商品促销费用 ,发展连锁经营。我们可以从开发主体构成、开发范围、操作方式上根据其不同于制造商品牌的特殊性运用其开发策略。     

规模连片经营一定要土地使用权的集中吗?——基于漯河市粮源公司“中间人”制度的案例分析

本文在交易成本经济学的分析框架下,分析了粮源公司的"中间人"制度安排。该制度将种子行业的部分资产专用性风险转移给对这些风险并不敏感的"中间人",从而在实现连片规模经营要求的同时避免农地流转产生的成本和其他社会问题,同时兼容了商品契约下的激励作用,化解了供需双方特定资产专用性风险。     

The Law and Bioeconomics of Ethnic Cooperation and Conflict in Plural Societies of Southeast Asia: a Theory of Chinese Merchant Success

Overseas Chinese dominate merchant roles in the economies of Southeast Asia. Chinese merchant success has generated envy and hatred by indigenous populations, resulting in episodes of racial violence toward the Chinese. In order to understand the economic basis of inter-ethnic conflict and violence, it is necessary to understand the economic basis of success of Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia. The paper presents an economic theory of Chinese middleman success. Central to the theory is the idea that the Confucian code of ethics which emphasize the importance of mutual aid/reciprocity among kinsmen, fellow-villagers and those speaking the same dialect, enabled the Chinese to cooperate among members of their own dialect group to form a club-like ethnically homogeneous middleman group (EHMG) for the provision of infrastructure, essential for middleman entrepreneurship. Chinese merchants embedded in the EHMG were able to economize on transaction costs, and this gave them a differential advantage to out-compete other ethnic groups to appropriate merchant roles. The EHMG functions also as a 'cultural transmission unit' transmitting Confucian ethics to future generations of Chinese middlemen, hence maintaining Chinese merchant roles over time. The paper draws on some key concepts in the New Institutional Economics literature as well as modern evolutionary biology.     

村民小组长的中人角色何以可能--以黔东北一村民组为例

村民小组的和谐发展与小组长的中人角色紧密相连。既往的理论从实然性和应然性两个维度探讨了村干部角色的定位及其价值，却缺乏对村民小组长的角色分析。通过对黔东北一村民组的调查发现，村民小组长在民间事务中扮演着受邀做中和自主做中的双重角色，并尽可能地遵循调解、习俗和谨慎等原则应对相关问题。村民小组长的做中行为凸显了农村社会秩序的权威，揭示了农村传统习俗的现代影响，但在社会变迁的进程中，小组长的行为逻辑也需要有所调适才利于更好地引导民间纠纷。     

中间人、转口贸易与加工装配活动关系研究——基于香港与内地的经验

内地加工装配活动对香港中间人的依赖有其历史原因,也与加工产品进出口市场存在不对称信息有关.中间人理论认为,只有存在不对称信息和逆向选择的市场才需要中间人,中间人必须具备鉴定产品质量的资格和能力,必须有良好的信誉、较低的交易成本并能够提高交易效率.通过对香港转口内地产品所进行的实证研究表明,信息不对称、进口方的GDP、内地与有关经济体政治关系等是影响香港中间人地位的主要因素.分析表明,内地对外贸易的发展可以增进市场信息的流动,减轻对中间人的依赖,但信息不对称和逆向选择问题仍将存在,内地开展的加工装配活动仍离不开中间人.     

论中间商的契约性质

传统的契约理论对纵向一体化的分析多从生产领域角度出发，忽略了流通领域中中间商的性质。交易费用理论分析认为，中间商的出现是因为当不确定性和产品的资产专用性程度较低时，它能比生产商与消费者直接交易节省费用；但是，中间商对市场的代替程度取决于投入品资产专用性程度；中间商人力资本的专用性决定了生产商自建销售队伍不能完全解决机会主义，现实中更多的交易是通过混合型组织来完成的。     

MIDDLEMEN AND THE ADVERSE SELECTION PROBLEM

We demonstrate that the coexistence of an uncoordinated search market and a middleman market may alleviate adverse selection in the trade of goods of different quality. Inability to conduct trade penalizes sellers of low‐quality goods disproportionately, encouraging them to trade via middlemen. A semi‐separating equilibrium exists when a sufficient number of sellers of low‐quality goods choose the middleman market to allow high‐quality goods to be successfully traded in the search market. The result may explain why a search market can survive alongside a coordinated market, a phenomenon characteristic, for example, of markets for used cars, housing and labour.