我国区域经济社会发展的动力机制与图景展望

我国区域经济社会发展是以生态支撑力和民生保障力为依托，围绕产业结构调整和转变经济发展方式两大主轴，以投资驱动力、区际联动力、消费拉动力和文化资本力为动力的动态反馈调整系统，呈现出“美丽中国”、幸福中国和特色中国三大图景。因此，前总书记胡锦涛同志在十八大报告中提出的到2020年“区域协调发展机制基本形成”的目标一定能实现。     

东盟国家当前经济形势及前景

东盟国家为了对付经济衰退采取了一系列措施,并取得了一定成效。但是,同时也仍然存在着许多问题有待解决。由于国际和国内因素的影响,近期东盟国家经济将仅能实现低速增长。     

云南烟草产业竞争力的实证分析

把产业竞争力作为一项指标体系来分析,云南烟草产业在名优品牌、规模经济、经济效益等方面有很强的竞争力,但在科技创新、产业开放度、营销网络等方面竞争力不强。在国际市场上,云烟很难同外烟竞争,传统计划体制、地方封锁和僵化的行业管理体制是云烟提高竞争力的主要障碍,只有深化经济体制改革,才能在加入WTO的情况下不断提高云烟的竞争力。     

The personal vote and economic reform

Do electoral rules affect the progress of economic reforms? The students of economic reform have examined the effects of inter-party competition, partly shaped by electoral rules, on economic reform, but have neglected the more direct effects of electoral rules, namely the extent to which they encourage the personal vote. More broadly, studies of the effect of electoral rules on economic policy have relied on the simplistic SMD/PR distinction and have neglected features of electoral institutions that affect the level of intra-party competition. Building on the personal vote literature, we argue that electoral institutions that encourage the personal vote are not conducive to reform progress. We provide the first systematic multivariate cross-country test of the implications of the personal vote literature for economic reform in the context of the post-communist countries from 1990 to 2006. We find that, in line with our theory, countries where electoral rules encourage the personal vote are less likely to reform.     

Post-communist transformation in progress: Poles' attitudes toward democracy

The present study investigates how Poles perceive the post-communist political system of contemporary Poland. A nationwide random sample of 400 adults was selected, using a probability quota sampling strategy, and interviewed face-to-face in respondents' homes. The chief outcome variables were: full acceptance, conditional acceptance, and rejection of the Polish version of democracy. The majority of respondents generally approved, fully or at least conditionally, the new democratic system in Poland. Multiple regression analyses showed that differential attitudes toward Polish democracy depend on respondents' age, their understanding of the concept of democracy, evaluations of democracy in general, and levels of political anomie.     

Approaching the EU and Reaching the US? Rival Narratives on Transforming Welfare Regimes in East-Central Europe

Post-communist welfare regimes are frequently portrayed as a hybrid consisting of the relics of communist social policy and a neophyte imitation of the US model of welfare. Both components of that hybrid are regarded as incompatible with the 'European social model'. At the same time, most welfare reformers in East-Central Europe try to avoid falling into the trap of first, conserving the statist, inefficient and pseudo-egalitarian character of the old system of social policy; second, seeking new forms of welfare collectivism along the national-conservative/populist 'third roads' between capitalism and communism; third, triggering popular discontent by dismantling the old welfare regimes too rapidly, or in a haphazard way; and fourth, targeting an end-state which has become unsustainable in the Western world during the past two decades. Meanwhile, the emerging welfare regimes in the region are far from being identical and the reformers do not find stable institutional arrangements in the West to copy. In an effort to make sense of this complex picture, the paper examines what has 'really' happened in the welfare sectors in the region during the past decade by presenting three dominant narratives of the social transformation: 'leaping in the dark', 'marking time' and 'muddling through'.     

Welfare reforms and socio-economic trends in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe

The paper reviews recent socio-economic changes in the 10 new EU member states of Central and Eastern Europe and the earlier and latest debates on the emergence of the post-communist welfare state regime. It asks two questions: are the new EU member states more similar to each other in their social problems encountered than to the rest of the EU world? Do they exhibit enough common socio-economic and institutional features to group them into the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime that deviates from any well-known welfare state typology?The findings of this paper indicate that despite some slight variation within, the new EU countries exhibit lower indicators compared to the EU-15 as it comes to the minimum wage and social protection expenditure. The degree of material deprivation and the shadow economy is on average also higher if compared to the EU-15 or the EU-27. However, then it comes to at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers or Gini index, some Eastern European outliers especially the Check Republic, but also Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary perform the same or even better than the old capitalist democracies. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, however, show many similarities in their social indicators and performances and this group of countries never perform better than the EU-15 or the EU-27 averages. Nevertheless, the literature reviews on welfare state development in the CEE region reveal a number of important institutional features in support of identifying the distinct/unified post-communist welfare regime. Most resilient of it are: an insurance-based programs that played a major part in the social protection system; high take-up of social security; relatively low social security benefits; increasing signs of liberalization of social policy; and the experience of the Soviet/Communist type of welfare state, which implies still deeply embedded signs of solidarity and universalism.     

Occupational structures across 25 EU countries: the importance of industry structure and technology in old and new EU countries

This article analyzes the occupational structure of 25 European Union countries during the period 2000–2004. Shift-share analyses are used to decompose cross-country differences in occupational structure into within sector and between sectors effects. The static analysis for 2004 shows that the new member countries employ a lower share of skilled workers because their industry structure is biased towards less skill-intensive industries and because they use fewer skills within industries. The differences in the shares of (high-skilled) non-production workers are dominated by the between (industrial) effect. In contrast, the dynamic analysis of 2000–2004 showed that changes in the share of high-skilled non-production workers are mostly driven by within sector changes, which are probably related to skill-biased technological change. Similar trends in the countries’ within effects support the catch-up of the new member countries’ skills demand, while the structural developments that could equalize the industry mix of the new and old member countries are related to increased domestic demand and will probably take time.

Fiji Economy: Muddling Through

Abstract

Twenty-five years since the first military coup in 1987, Fiji continues to muddle through both politically and economically. The promise of a general election under a race-free constitution remains the fervent hope of all citizens. Economically the country continues to slide downwards, reflected in poor economic growth in 2010 and 2011. A poor level of private sector investment remains a feature of the macroeconomic picture, and it is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. This article provides an overview of the Fiji economy and reflections on future prospects.     

论东亚经济增长模式的特征

东亚金融危机之后,关于东亚经济增长模式纷争不断。东亚宏观经济模式的特征可以概括成高储蓄率、高投资率、高出口比重和大政府,东亚微观经济模式的特征可以概括成企业的家族式管理、企业的规模小而淘汰率高、企业的创新能力低而模仿能力高、企业的初创阶段发展速度快。本文认为,东亚金融危机与东亚经济增长模式不存在内在的必然联系。