Neutrality in arrow and other impossibility theorems

Summary. Although not assumed explicitly, we show that neutrality plays an important role in Arrow and other impossibility theorems. Applying it to pivotal voters we produce direct proofs of classical impossibility theorems, including Arrow's, as well as extend some of these theorems. We further explore the role of neutrality showing that it is equivalent to Pareto or reverse Pareto, and to effective dictatorship for non-null social welfare functions satisfying the principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives. It is also equivalent to Wilson's Citizens' Sovereignty--which is related to the intuition that symmetry over alternatives makes social preference depend only on citizens' preferences. We show that some of these results are more fundamental than others in that they extend both to infinite societies and to considerably smaller domains of preferences. Finally, as an application of Arrow's theorem, we provide a simple proof of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem.Received: 13 April 2000, Revised: 6 December 2002, JEL Classification Numbers: D71, C70.I thank Salvador Barberá, Luis Corchón, Cesar Martinelli, Eric Maskin, Tomas Sjöström, Ricard Torres, José Pedro Ubeda, and an anonymous referee for feedback. The proofs of Arrow's theorem and two Wilson's theorems come from a note I wrote in 1987 at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Ubeda [16]). In 1996 Geanakoplos [7] wrote a proof of Arrow's theorem similar but not identical to mine. All work in this paper is independent of his.     

河南中小企业信息化过程中的问题、对策和原则

信息化是我国加快实现工业化和现代化的必然选择.本文指出了河南中小企业信息化程度不高,在信息化的道路上面临着一些问题,同时提出了相应的解决方法和中小企业在信息化的道路上应坚持的原则.     

下属潜能的开发——论企业人才从何而来

对企业而言，面对日益激烈的竞争，如何赢得或保住市场都是极为严峻的挑战。能够帮助企业迎接这一挑战的核心竞争力，便是来自高素质高技能的队伍——人才。企业缺乏合适的人才，如若采用挖墙脚方式虽可解救燃眉之急，但无法长期满足企业成长的需要，因此企业应着重于从内部培养。管理人员的一个最重要的职责就是有效地培育与发展下属，并激励团队成员为组织的目标全力以赴。从公司内部培养和提拔业务骨干和中层管理人员，对企业的长远发展来讲是一件非常重要的事情。公司的每位中、高级管理者都有培养下属的责任。但多数企业并没有下大力气实施人才培养，这其中有观念的问题也有实际的障碍。     

对完善我国企业环境会计报告的探讨

针对目前我国企业环境会计报告的现状以及存在的缺陷,本文认为我国企业环境会计报告应由报告使用者与目标、报告主体、报告内容、报告模式、报告呈报及报告审计六方面的内容构成,同时提出了完善我国企业环境会计报告的对策。     

发展我国养老保险的思考

本文分析了现阶段养老保险中人口老龄化的压力日益加剧，覆盖范围明显过窄，已入保群体“空账运行”，养老待遇过低等问题，提出了提高退休年龄、降低缴费比率、将社会统筹基金与个人账户基金实行分账管理、让基金保值增值加快社会保障制度立法等若干相关政策建议。     

Tolerance for uncertainty and the growth of informationally opaque industries

Hofstede's [Hofstede, Geert H. 1980. Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.] cross-country psychological survey of IBM employees finds that some countries (societies) are systematically less tolerant of uncertainty, while uncertainty-tolerance is shown by some theoretic models to be essential to the growth of emerging sectors about which less is known. This paper first uses Durnev, Morck, and Yeung's [Durnev, Art, Morck, Randall, and Yeung, Bernard. 2004. Value-enhancing capital budgeting and firm-specific stock return variation. The Journal of Finance. 59(1): 65–105.] methodology to identify these informationally opaque industries. The hypothesis is then made that countries characterized by high uncertainty aversion (measured by Hofstede's indicator, and two other alternative indicators) will grow disproportionately slower in industrial sectors where information is less available. Using the Rajan and Zingales [Rajan, Raghuram G. and Zingales, Luigi. 1998. Financial Dependence and Growth. American Economic Review. Vol. 88(3): 559–586.] “difference-in-differences” methodology, which is relatively free from the endogeneity problem, the study provides robust evidence of such an industrial growth pattern in 34 countries and 36 manufacturing industries. It also shows that national uncertainty aversion is not driven by underdevelopment of financial sector, inadaptability of civil law systems, lower level of economic or human capital development, labor market inflexibility, or any of many other institutional factors. The results remain robust when religious (Catholic vs. Protestant) composition is used as an instrumental variable for national uncertainty aversion. The international evidence presented helps explain why some countries are slower in embracing “new” (vs. traditional) industries.     

刍议"以德治国"的特殊社会功能

本文道德建设探讨了以德治国的社会功能。阐述了“以德治国”的重要性和必要性。     

高技术企业业绩评价指标体系的五维度框架设计

业绩评价已成为政府、市场和企业普遍关注的现实问题，指标体系是业绩评价的基础，指标体系构建的好坏直接影响到业绩评价的效果。高技术企业业绩的评价应结合高技术企业的特点，构建财务、产品与技术创新、智力资本开发、价值链流程、可持续发展五个维度的评价指标体系。     

Experiments in Environmental Economics and Some Close Relatives

Abstract.  It is not only the great number of papers written on environment economics that make it worth dealing with this special branch of experimental research, but the environmental problem in all its facets seems to serve as a catalyst for identifying some methodological problems of the experimental method. For this reason, we will not only try to give an overview of recent experiments in environmental economics but also add some thoughts on the methodological implications of this work. We identify three direct connecting factors for the experimental method and environmental economics. First, social dilemmas are, in many cases, at the core of environmental problems. Experiments are able to test theoretical hypotheses for individual behavior in such social dilemma situations. The second connecting factor comes from the field of applied experimental work and can be characterized as the testbedding of institutional arrangements for the solution of environmental problems. The last direct application of experimental methods to environmental economics concerns the individual evaluation of environmental resources.     

论瑞典社会民主党构建和谐社会的探索

瑞典式社会主义和谐社会经历了诞生、发展到成熟的过程。1932年秋社民党通过竞选上台执政,开始功能社会主义福利国家的尝试；1944-1975年是和谐国家建设的全面展开和建成；1982-1990年“保卫福利、重振经济”和谐政策的调整；1990-2000年建设自由与平等基础上相互关联的社会共同体；以2001年1 1月社民党第34次全国代表大会为起点,重建民主的人道的更加和谐的社会主义福利国家。