Labour mobility and decision making on social insurance in an integrated market

In a two-country model the consequences of labour mobility on social insurance levels are studied. There are two groups of workers, one with a high risk and the other one with a low risk of being nonemployed. In both countries the decision-making function on social insurance is some weighted average of the expected utilities of both groups. In case low-risk workers are much more mobile than high-risk workers, it can be concluded that labour mobility does not necessarily have a downward effect on social insurance. In that case coordination of decision making would not improve the levels of social insurance.     

我国政府在实现社会公正方面的职能与责任

在“全面奔小康”时代 ,中国民众对社会公正有了更高的要求 ,主要体现在产生了更多的权利保障要求和对发展机会的平等要求。尽管我国处在政府职能转变的过程中 ,但政府在满足民众的公平要求 ,实现社会公正方面仍有重大的责任。因此 ,需要可在归纳民众新公平要求的基础上 ,对政府在解决社会不公平问题上的职责进行对策性探讨。     

西方政府社会公共事业管理职能的嬗变

近代以来,西方各国政府对社会公共事业的管理经历了少量参与、全面介入和收缩调整的过程;西方政府公共事业管理职能的嬗变既是西方国家政治、经济和文化变迁的投影,也是西方各国政府应对这一变迁所作的理性选择;政府在一定时期的公共事业职能界定既要充分考虑该时期的社会公共需要,更要考虑该时期的社会历史条件和政府承受能力.     

试论社会资本在建设社会主义新农村中的作用

社会资本是促进社会良性发展的一种积极因素,它在构建社会主义新农村中起着不可或缺的作用。具体来说,网络社会资本可以促进农村良好治理和管理民主局面的实现,互惠规范这种社会资本可以促进农村的团结互助和乡风文明的水平,信任社会资本可以促进农民的良性互动和农村的社会和谐的水平。     

From social management to social governance: social conflict mediation in China

China currently faces increasingly serious social conflicts. In the past, China's approach to resolving social conflicts was ‘social management’. Now, however, it is turning to the development of ‘social governance’. This change reflects the inability of government acting alone to recognise and to address comprehensively the type of social problems that require co-ordination of social forces. Our research identifies three dimensions of governance and provides a comparative framework allowing us to illuminate how social governance as conceived in China differs from that in Western countries. Under China's current conditions, the strengthening and development of social governance is a holistic process. Neither market-centrism nor state-centrism is pursued, and pure social-centrism is not the favoured direction of development; the path chosen is rather a state-led social pluralism. The implications we see for the Government are that it should first transform its own functions to achieve a substantially higher quality of public service. This would put it in a position to empower (civil) society to mobilise multiple and varied social forces to participate so that social conflict can be optimally addressed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The decision to lobby bureaucrats

Despite a good deal of interest in lobbyists?? tactics, virtually no research has been published examining the conditions under which interest groups lobby the bureaucracy rather than or in addition to the legislature. Using two comprehensive datasets, I show that lobbying increases in both branches when conflict is higher and when the lobbyist has professional or political connections to that venue. In addition, certain conditions cause lobbyists to specialize in one branch or a particular branch only, depending on the issue area being lobbied, the interest group type being represented, the lobbyist??s resources, and other factors.     

论公共决策中的责任转嫁

政府、专家和群众相结合的决策机制是反映决策社会化的决策机制,但政府拥有最高的决策权力,因而也是决策责任的承担者。作为一个合法承担公共责任的决策主体,转嫁决策责任的后果是决策的严重低效、政府公信力的流失、政治冷淡的危机以及公民权利的不公正对待。结合理论和现实,分析公共决策中责任转嫁的形成原因既有公共精神的缺失,又有决策机制的缺陷,针对原因本文提出了责任转嫁的规避机制。     

Inferiority of restricted majority decision rules

The case in which a group of decision makers appoints a committee to choose between two symmetrical alternatives by a simple majority vote, namely restricted majority decision rule, is one member of the set of weighted majority decision rules. It is shown that for any group of decision makers one of the restricted majority decision rules is always the worst of all weighted majority decision rules. This inferiority exists both in terms of the efficiency and in terms of effectiveness of the decision rule. The importance of this finding should be kept in mind when deciding the size of the committee because a seemingly irrelevant change in the number of decision makers may result in the inferior rule, instead of the optimal rule, being used. Moreover, because of the widespread use of restricted majority decision rules and the relatively small number of such rules, the probability of the inferior rule being used is relatively high.     

All-pay-all aspects of political decision making

Decision-making processes are studied using non-standard all-pay structures. Our interest is motivated by regulatory, political, legal, military, and economic applications in which individual actions determine the consequences for a larger group or the general public. The common features of these examples are a competitive environment, a winner-takes-all reward structure, and some form of all-pay-all payment rule.