Research on Generation Mechanism of Technical Innovation

Technical advancement includes technology generation, diffusion and aggregation. This paper focuses on researching the mechanism of technology generation from the viewpoint of technology cycle, and the source spring of the generation of the innovation based on technology is scientific discovery. The technical perfection and secondary innovation are determined by the pulling force of demand, unbalanced inducement mechanism and profit. Standardized innovation is the sign of technology mature stage, the limit in demand and supply of technology drives the technical innovation into lag phase.     

制度、技术与中国农业发展问题新探——基于诺斯制度变迁与舒尔茨农业发展理论的思索

诺斯的制度变迁理论启示我们,制度变迁是促进农业发展的根本原因;舒尔茨的农业发展理论则使我们了解技术进步对农业发展的重要性.20世纪90年代后,我国农业发展水平一直没有明显的提高,其根源就在于制度与技术发展的双双滞后.以往鉴来,当前我国的新农村建设应走技术与制度并重之路.     

Women and Minorities in Introductory Economics Textbooks: 1974 to 1984

The authors conducted a painstaking review of widely used economics textbooks to determine if or how issues relating to race and gender are treated. In doing so, the authors also shed light on the nature of the treatment of these issues.     

A nowcasting model for Ecuador: Implementing a time-varying mean output growth

We propose a model to nowcast the annual growth rate of real GDP for Ecuador, whose economy lacks timely macroeconomic information for some key variables and has gone through unstable periods due to its dependence on oil exports. Our specification combines monthly information for 30 macroeconomic and financial variables with quarterly information for real GDP in a mixed-frequency approach. Our setup includes a time-varying coefficient on the mean annual growth rate of output to allow the model to incorporate prolonged periods of low or high growth. The model produces more accurate nowcasts of real output growth in pseudo out-of-sample exercises than a nowcasting model that assumes a constant mean real GDP growth rate. We also conduct sensitivity analyses on our nowcasting model within the time-varying mean setup and find that including financial variables can be detrimental to the performance of the proposed model.     

Economization of Society: Functional Differentiation and Economic Stagnation

The explanation of economization and marketization processes is typically approached in the mindset of structural superiority, primacy or hegemony of the economic subsystem over non-economic spheres of social life. However, economic primacy is an underexplored puzzle for social theory from the perspective of functional differentiation theory, which emphasizes equal autonomy of social subsystems. Schimank has paved the way for theorizing economic primacy and economization pressures coherent with functional differentiation. Economization in his theoretical solution is connected to the economy’s governance mechanism—the market which is seen as having a weak order-building capacity. The contribution of this article lies in suggesting an alternative conceptualization of the internal dynamics of the economy—the stagnation tendency for explaining economization pressures as a systematic outcome.     

Understanding Benign Liquidity Traps: The Case of Japan

Japan has been in a benign liquidity trap since the 1990s. In a benign liquidity trap, interest rates approach zero and monetary policy is ineffective but output and employment perform decently. Such a pattern contradicts traditional macro theories. This paper introduces a monetary general equilibrium model that is compatible with Japan's performance and resolves puzzles associated with liquidity traps. Possible conclusions for Anglo‐Saxon countries and eurozone members are also discussed.     

On the Persistence of Labour Market Insecurity and Slow Growth in the US: Reckoning with the Waltonist Growth Regime

In this article I systematically incorporate empirical work on rising income inequality and wage stagnation into a regulation theoretic framework for analysing macroeconomic growth. The rise of job polarisation and income inequality coincides with a long period of macroeconomic stagnation, both continuing through to the present (with the exception of a brief period of strong growth and declining inequality in the second half of the 1990s). The corporate scramble to restore profit rates after the crisis of Fordism has transformed the institutional configuration of the political economy. In particular, institutions supporting upward mobility and middle-class incomes in the economy have been eroded by the twin forces of internationalisation (leading to the re-emergence of wage-based competition) and employment externalisation (outsourcing, downsizing, antiunionism, etc). The current growth regime, which may be characterised as Waltonist, based on the Wal-Mart model of buyer-driven global supply chains focused on cutthroat wage-based competition and deunionisation, is not transitional but rather embedded in apparently long-term institutional settlements that amount to a dysfunctional regime.     

员工职业停滞的理论分类与现实判定

职业停滞的现有分类存在诸多问题,一定程度上导致了目前职业停滞预测效果、治理效果不理想的局面。本研究从内容分析、文献研究入手提炼职业停滞的分类依据,进而透过动机、能力和机会三个层面对职业停滞进行理论分类,最后通过实证研究对职业停滞作出现实判定和检验,为今后的相关研究奠定基础。     

Perspectives on Michael A. Bernstein's A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America *

The article compares Joseph Schumpeter's well-known perspectives of long term economic development with those put forward in the 1920's by the German economist Werner Sombart who followed an approach of ‘theoretical historicism’. There was general agreement between Schumpeter and Sombart that capitalism as an economic system was on the decline. Whereas according to Sombart this was attributable to a tendancy towards stagnation; in Schumpeter's view capitalism was doomed due to its success, not for its failure. The strongest parallels are to be found with respect to forces driving the transformation process, at the end of which Schumpeter expected a socialist system whereas Sombart envisioned some kind of mixed economy. The article also discusses the relevance of differences of approaches and of value judgments for the results of both authors' investigations.     

技术创新、劳动力就业与产业模式选择:假说、框架和检验

从技术和劳动力的替代关系假说出发,探讨中国产业发展过程中技术创新、劳动力就业和产业模式之间的内在联系。研究发现:随着劳动效率的提升,三次产业内部确实存在技术替代劳动力的情况;但从整体和长期来看,技术创新虽然推动了产业结构调整和经济增长,但对劳动力就业总量的影响不显著;只有当大规模技术变革引起产业发生结构性变动时,技术替代劳动力所带来的失业现象才会出现。得出结论:就业在相当大的程度上表现为宏观经济增长的结果,与技术创新的关系并不明朗。