Is there a relationship between election outcomes and perceptions of personal economic well-being? A test using post-election economic expectations

Do individuals believe that an election victory by their favored candidate will improve their personal economic well-being? Previous work has either adopted an approach that is not well suited to determining this relationship, or ignored this question to focus on perceptions of macroeconomic conditions. In this paper we adopt a new approach that allows us to determine the relationship individuals perceive between elections and personal economic welfare, examining the relationship between vote choice, the election outcome, and post-election expectations for personal economic well-being. We find that economic individualism plays an important role in shaping the relationship individuals perceive between election outcomes and their personal economic well-being. Individuals who reject economic individualism do perceive a relationship, with those viewing an election outcome as favorable more optimistic in their expectations for personal economic well-being than those who view the election outcome as unfavorable. Conversely, election outcomes do not influence the expectations of economic individualists.     

俄罗斯与欧盟的经济关系

在当今的国际关系格局中,俄罗斯与欧盟的关系占据着重要的地位,其中双方的经济关系由于发展迅速更是备受世人关注。俄罗斯独立以来,特别是进入21世纪以后,出于各自的需要,俄欧双方积极展开了在贸易、投资和能源等经济领域的全面合作,并取得了相当大的成效。短期内,俄欧经济关系仍将维持以能源合作为主,其他合作为辅的基本格局,长期来看,俄欧经济关系能否取得突破主要还是取决于俄罗斯能否逐步完善市场经济体制的改革,改变畸形的经济结构并尽快恢复和扩大加工工业产品的出口。     

近十年中国—东盟经济关系新格局

2013年是中国与东盟建立战略伙伴关系10周年。10年来,随着中国与东盟战略伙伴关系的确立和中国—东盟自由贸易区如期建成,中国与东盟经济关系呈现出一系列新的格局变化。展望未来,中国与东盟经济关系发展将面临新的机遇和挑战。     

国际制度设计视角下的澜湄合作

为什么在湄公河流域已经存在数十个国际合作机制的情况下,还要建立澜湄合作(LMC)这一新型次区域合作机制?既有研究大多强调湄公河流域大国国际制度主导权竞争的宏观背景因素,而较少关注澜湄合作机制的新制度特征及其形成原因,即澜湄新型次区域合作机制究竟"新在何处"。与大湄公河次区域经济合作机制(GMS)等既有国际机制相比,澜湄合作机制具有两大新的制度特征:一是议题范围更加广泛,除了传统的区域经济合作议题外,还增加了区域安全合作以及水资源合作等新议题;二是集中程度更高,与之前合作机制主要由"职能部门引领"以及"借用"亚洲开发银行作为国际秘书处的做法不同,澜湄合作机制采取了"领导人引领、各部门参与"的机制运行模式,并逐步建立独立的国际秘书处。通过运用国际制度理性设计的理论模型,本文考察了在湄公河流域国际合作中上游国家与下游国家之间所面临的日益严峻的分配问题和执行问题,并以此解释了澜湄合作新制度特征的形成原因。     

土耳其旅游业浅析

经过近30年的快速发展,土耳其已经成为新兴的世界旅游目的地国家。在土耳其旅游业的发展过程中,政府的发展战略和政策导向发挥了关键性作用。土耳其的旅游产业在创汇增收、打造特色产业集群、优化产业结构等方面,不仅支撑并拉动了整个国民经济的持续增长与发展,也为解决国内就业问题做出了独特贡献。目前,土耳其旅游业正处于国际化发展进程中,其旅游业快速发展的经验值得发展中国家学习和借鉴。     

Cut Loose in the Caribbean: Neoliberalism and the Demise of the Commonwealth Sugar Trade

This article focuses on the way the Anglophone Caribbean succumbed to the overhaul of the European Union sugar trade and how these countries have attempted to restructure their economies in its wake. We show how the protagonists of reform gave a sense of inevitability to the demise of the Commonwealth trade system and conveyed (unrealistic) strategies for how this should be managed for the benefit of the Caribbean. In this way we detail the hegemony of neoliberalism in contemporary trade politics and the need for alternative strategies for rural development in the Caribbean region.     

台湾与东盟经济关系发展新趋势、成因与前景分析

近几年来台湾与东盟经济关系呈现出一些新的发展趋势，主要表现为台湾对东盟投资额和双方贸易额快速增长，东盟在台湾对外经贸格局中的地位不断攀升以及双方经贸交流合作日益密切，其中台湾与新加坡率先签订“经济伙伴协议”，标志着台湾与东盟国家的经济关系迈入新的发展阶段。双方经济关系的快速发展是东盟经济的“引力”、大陆经济转型升级的“推力”、两岸关系和平发展和台湾当局政策“助力”这三股力量共同作用的结果。未来台湾与东盟经贸往来有望继续保持平稳发展态势，东盟对台湾经济重要性将持续上升，台湾也将东盟及主要国家列为对外商签VrA的重点对象，但可预见的是，双方经济关系将继续在“一个中国”框架内运行，且不会从根本上影响两岸经济关系发展大局。     

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

Institutions and Caribbean Economic Performance: Insights from Jamaica

We explore the impact of social institutions on economic performance in Jamaica through a reinterpretation of the plantation economic model. In its original form, the plantation model fails to develop a causal link between the plantation legacy and persistent underdevelopment. Despite its marginalization, the model remains useful for discussions on growth and development. Consequently, we offer a reappraisal using the causal insights from Kenneth Sokoloff and Stanley Engerman. We use two examples to demonstrate how inequality encourages the formation of institutions that are inconsistent with growth, and an empirical analysis to confirm the hypothesized relationship between inequality, institutions, and economic development. Since inequality is expected to influence growth indirectly, we use a structural specification, which follows William Easterly’s recent test of Sokoloff and Engerman’s argument. Our reliance on a time-series specification is unique. We demonstrate that the expectation that, on average, inequality and growth is negatively related and that institutions may compromise growth are accurate for Jamaica, the most cited Caribbean nation in the current discourse. Our results carry several policy implications, including support for the recent calls in Jamaica for political restructuring. However, both the paucity of similar studies and the importance of the implications for sustainable growth and development demand further analyses.

少数民族地区经济开发应走循环经济之路

我国少数民族地区的生态环境非常脆弱,且已遭到严重破坏,尽管少数民族地区走循环经济之路存在着许多困难,但是国内外的压力、少数民族地区的现实状况和缩小地区差距等要求,使得少数民族地区开发只有走循环经济之路,才能实现少数民族地区的可持续发展。