Measuring social capital and its consequences

If social capital is understood to be a resource that can facilitate the attainment of a communitys goals, then it may be searched for in its institutions, in its patterns of culture, in its modes of communication and association, or in its shared psychosocial characteristics as expressed in qualities such as trust, cooperativeness, or initiative. This paper focuses on the latter expressions of social capital, and especially on efforts to measure its presence in large-scale national populations. Evidence from Hofstedes sample of 40 nations shows that the average strength of individualism in each national population was strongly correlated with measures of income equality and press freedom; and from Ingleharts sample of more than 40 nations that when positive social values such as trust are widely shared they produce desirable features of social organization such as economic growth and stable democratic government. The paper considers how far such psychosocial characteristics of national populations are stable or variable. It concludes with a discussion of the uses policymakers make of these distinctive elements of social capital.     

刍论畸形消费及其规制

畸形消费意识及其消费行为是建设节约型社会的巨大障碍.其背高科学发展观的发展理念和要求.长此以往,中华民族的生存和繁衍、中国的发展将难以持续.因此,必须建立长效制约机制,多管齐下、标本兼治以规制其蔓延和泛滥.     

ASEAN's norm adherence and its unintended consequences in HADR and SAR operations

This paper examines the effects and expressions of norm compliance in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ‘unintended consequences’ arising from such compliance. This is done through an analysis of ASEAN's responses in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) efforts in the Typhoon Haiyan disaster and in the search for missing flight MH370. It argues that the lethargic ASEAN responses in the Haiyan disaster and the uncoordinated search efforts for missing flight MH370 are unintended outcomes arising from norm adherence specifically to the norms of ‘respect for sovereignty’ and ‘consensual decision-making’ which constrained the range of ASEAN responses.     

Aggregation technology of common goods and its strategic consequences: Global warming,biodiversity, and siting conflicts

Abstract. The analysis of common goods needs to look closely at the characteristics of the goods in question and the social situations in which they are provided. Different characteristics lead to different strategic constellations and therefore to different opportunities for institutional solutions to the problems of provision. Basic differences in strategic constellations can be shown clearly by employing matrix games. In this paper a particular attribute of common goods, their aggregation technology, is systematically analyzed. Three variations in this dimension are exemplified by cases from environmental policy. It becomes clear that the analysis of one specific attribute of a good will seldom suffice to predict empirical behavior. Nevertheless, rigorous game theoretic analysis provides valuable insights into the links between the characteristics of common goods and the need for institutions.     

Aggregation technology of common goods and its strategic consequences: Global warming, biodiversity, and siting conflicts

The analysis of common goods needs to look closely at the characteristics of the goods in question and the social situations in which they are provided. Different characteristics lead to different strategic constellations and therefore to different opportunities for institutional solutions to the problems of provision. Basic differences in strategic constellations can be shown clearly by employing matrix games. In this paper a particular attribute of common goods, their aggregation technology, is systematically analyzed. Three variations in this dimension are exemplified by cases from environmental policy. It becomes clear that the analysis of one specific attribute of a good will seldom suffice to predict empirical behavior. Nevertheless, rigorous game theoretic analysis provides valuable insights into the links between the characteristics of common goods and the need for institutions.     

Economic and security consequences of supreme values

Islamic societies have in contemporary times lagged Western societies in income, growth, and human-development indicators. The supreme values of radical Islam further de-prioritize economic achievement and impose self-deprivation on own populations. This paper investigates the reasons for economic outcomes under Islam. Contemporary illustrations are also provided of the self-deprivation predicted from pursuit of the supreme-value objectives of radical Islam. The self-deprivation is placed in a rent-seeking context.     

The political consequences of thatcherism

While the economic changes effected by the British Conservative government in the 1980s are transparent, there is considerable debate as to whether there was a political dimension to the Thatcher Revolution. This paper argues that the Conservatives were successful in undertaking social structural reforms that effectively moved the political center of gravity in Britain to the right and toward the government's preferred market-oriented policy agenda. The government's strategy—manifest in the sale of council houses to tenants and of shares in privatized corporations to individuals, and its attack on organized labor—was narrowly targeted on the swing electorate among wealthier members of the lower socioeconomic strata. The Labour party has acknowledged the successes of the Conservatives' structural reforms, and has moved its policy platform, in Downsian fashion, to the right in order to regain electoral competitiveness.     

Organizational design and its consequences for administrative reform: Historical lessons from the U.S. Budget and Accounting Act of 1921

The landmark U.S. Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (BAA) instituted a series of administrative reforms that proponents claimed would improve budgetary control, stability, and coherence. We maintain that the compatibility of governance structures between agency and system levels is critical for understanding why these administrative centralization efforts were successful in achieving these aims for some federal agencies but not others. The BAA reforms impact on budgetary outcomes is evaluated using panel data on major U.S. federal agencies between 1894 and 1940. Applying semiparametric heterogeneous treatment estimation techniques, we find compelling support that administrative centralization of the federal budgetary process enhanced budget stability and coherence for executive departments while resulting in a lower caliber of budgetary performance for independent agencies. These findings imply that system‐level administrative centralization efforts may be effective only when public agencies are structurally amenable to such reforms.