SHORT‐RUN POLICY COMMITMENT WHEN INVESTMENT TIMING IS ENDOGENOUS: ‘MORE HARM THAN GOOD?’

In our model, firms choose when to set cost‐reducing investment and the government, which only has short‐run commitment power, sets an output subsidy. We show that firms that delay investment without government intervention have an incentive to invest early under policy activism, strategically underinvesting or overinvesting to obtain larger subsidies. The policy scheme thus creates a new, potentially more harmful, distortion. Under oligopoly, a firm has a weaker incentive to manipulate policy than under monopoly, which makes policy intervention less harmful. We investigate when the government may do better by adhering to laissez‐faire than by engaging in active policy intervention.     

Overcoming Contemporary Mythology: An Essay

Over the last 35 years, a free market, laissez faire program has increasingly dominated perceptions as to what constitutes correct economic theory and policy. Most adherents of this program trace its origins to Adam Smith, and claim that its dominant position is the result of superior theory.

The argument here is that Adam Smith is not the theoretical ancestor of modern laissez faire economics, and that there are fundamental differences between Smith’s position on laissez faire and that of conventional neoclassical theory. A difference between “soft” and “hard” laissez faire is made, where Smith represents the former position; neoclassical theory the latter. Further, and more important, it is argued that the current laissez faire program is an outgrowth of a political program instituted in the 1930’s and financially supported in the present era by conservative foundations to promote an ideological framework that permits the development of specific governmental (and non-governmental) actions.     

古典自由主义中的市场与政府

对于自由主义，不应简单地将其视为“自由放任”和“无政府主义”，实际上，古典自由主义关于市场与政府有着极为丰富而深刻的理论和思想。厘清其基本理论和主要思想，并从中了解到相关经济学派(包括奥地利学派、产权学派、新制度经济学派、公共选择学派以及最新的新兴古典经济学派等)及其代表人物在理解经济自由方面的内在一致性和互补性，有助于我们避免陷入印象式的理解和“印象式的辩论”。     

LIBERAL ECONOMICS AND THE RISE OF LAISSEZ‐FAIRE ECOLOGY

The shift in thinking about how to manage national economies and economic systems in the 1980s was part of a broader revolution in intellectual thought. This is seen in ecology, where a shift in thinking about how to manage environments took place at the same time. Traditionally, the environment was viewed in determinist (structuralist) terms, as a system which was susceptible to management and manipulation. Ecosystems were thought to evolve through predictable stages, reaching a climax state. From the late 1980s, ecologists became increasingly convinced that ecosystems, like economic systems, are complex. They argued that while human intervention is often necessary, wherever possible it should be replaced with more natural controls, which can often fulfil policy aims as well if not better than deliberate intervention. Like economies, the best ecosystems are those which largely manage themselves.     

论会计的计量属性及其现实选择

会计计量是财务会计的一个基本特征,计量属性又是会计计量的组成部分之一,它是被量化描述的客体的特性或外在表现形式。FASB第5号财务会计概念公告《企业财务报告的确认和计量》提出了历史成本、现行成本、现行市价、可实现净值、未来现金流量现值5种计量属性。但随着经济的发展和金融创新,报表使用者对会计报表质量提出了更高的要求,历史成本计量下提供的可靠性较强而相关性较弱的信息不能满足信息使用者的决策需要。     

Gifts of tourism: insights to consumer behavior

Using empirical evidence from real-life accounts of the giving, receiving and consuming of tourism and leisure products as gifts, this paper examines the phenomenon of experience gift giving behavior. Although generic gift giving has an extensive literature expanding from the 1950s, there is a gap between consumer activity in experience gift consumption and academic understanding. The study findings show the constituent parts and processes of decision-making, gift exchange, and post-exchange, consumption and post-consumption. These concepts, whether new (for example, patterns of participation in consumption), adapted (for example, wrapping strategies) or absorbed (for example, impression management) from the gift giving literature, are drawn together as a Model of Experience Gift Giving Behavior.     

“国家干预”和“自由放任”的分野与交融

国家干预与自由放任的争论贯穿于重商主义、古典主义、凯恩斯主义和新自由主义理论中,信息经济学和制度经济学的发展论证了政府和市场走向交融的趋势。     

Pragmatism to Dogmatism: The Laissez Faire Myth and the Disabling of the American Fisc

The authors argue that the recent upsurge in anti-tax sentiment has its roots evolving social conditions and adherence to the laissez faire myth. Content analysis reveals that political anti-tax rhetoric increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a time of social distress in the US. This increased political attention provided a rhetorical punctuation whereby a substantial portion of Americans moved toward a much more dogmatic adherence to the laissez faire myth. The result has been to convert the laissez faire myth into a disabling myth that severely limits open discussion of fiscal issues and reduces the options in public finance decisions.     

Competition Policy under Laissez-Faireism: Market Power and its Treatment in Hong Kong

The paper describes the current competition policy framework in Hong Kong: how it came into existence, what business practices are prohibited, and how the enforcement system works. Recent cases in the telecommunications industry are used to illustrate the sectoral approach, a unique feature of Hong Kong's competition policy. We argue that a sectoral approach faces two fundamental drawbacks. First, due to having different ``rules of the game' for different sectors, the allocation of resources may be distorted in the long run. Second, since the relevant regulatory agencies perform dual roles both as competition policy enforcer and as traditional regulator of natural monopolies, the impartiality of their competition decisions may not be credibly conveyed to the public. We also address other specific problems associated with the sectoral approach, such as the exclusion of structural issues, narrow coverage of sectors, and the lack of public enforcement. We conclude that an overall competition law can better promote competition and economic efficiency in Hong Kong.