The Changing Relationship Between Housing and Inequality, 1980–2010

Inequality in both income and wealth has grown rapidly in the United States since the 1970s. Over the same period, homeownership rates increased in step with expansionist government policies and the development of subprime and other exotic loan products, and housing affordability challenges emerged as the most prevalent housing problem for owners and renters alike. The subprime lending and foreclosure crises of the 2000s stretched households financially, threatening the traditional economic benefits of homeownership, bringing into stark relief the ways in which housing and inequality mutually influence one another, and implicating homeownership, housing affordability, and subprime lending in the widening gap between the rich and the poor. This article examines the changing roles of homeownership, housing affordability, and subprime lending in contemporary U.S. inequality by, first, describing trends in county inequality and housing characteristics and, second, modeling inequality as a function of the previous decade's housing characteristics over the period of 1980–2010. We build upon past models of county inequality by more explicitly considering causal order, place characteristics, and state and regional fixed effects. The results confirm that homeownership, affordability, and subprime lending not only reflect existing inequalities but also perpetuate those inequalities over time. Homeownership promotes equality, affordability problems undermine it, and subprime lending has the potential to ameliorate inequality in certain contexts, but these effects shift significantly over time, particularly as a result of widespread foreclosures and economic recession. Our analysis establishes the importance of housing in explaining contemporary inequality, highlights how place characteristics and causal ordering may improve county inequality models, and provides a foundation for future studies examining inequality in light of the Great Recession and the foreclosure crisis.     

反向假冒商标行为之刑法思考

反向假冒商标问题近年来成为知识产权刑法保护中的热点问题,对其是否应当入罪争议较大。可从反向假冒商标行为的典型案例出发,对这一问题进行思考。考察反向假冒商标行为的概念、特征和国外的立法例,可将反向假冒行为进行分类。对反向假冒商标的社会危害性的厘定问题,应从企业、消费者和市场秩序三个角度出发进行分析。部分学者将反向假冒商标入罪的观点既不符合犯罪行为本身应当具有社会危害性的要求,也不符合刑法的谦抑性价值目标。     

新城疫病毒La Sota疫苗株基因组全长cDNA克隆的构建及鉴定

为构建能为新城疫病毒拯救提供直接使用的全长cDNA克隆,利用分子克隆的方法,将新城疫病毒La Sota株全基因组分成末端部分重叠的11个片段(F1～F11),按其基因组顺序克隆至改造后的真核表达载体pVAXr上,同时在全长cDNA两侧引入T7启动子和丁型肝炎病毒核酶(Rib)序列,以确保病毒基因组转录产物的两端形成精确的核酸序列。鉴定结果表明,新城疫病毒La Sota株基因组全长cDNA已成功克隆至pVAXr上,命名为pVAXr-FL。本研究为新城疫病毒的拯救及外源基因的表达奠定了基础。     

Towards a Realignment of the Mind: Compass Lecture,Commonwealth Club,London, 10 February 2011

Britain urgently needs a national conversation about the economic, political and moral predicament it now faces. It should start with the economic crisis of 2008–09. Keynesians and neoliberals alike still seek to return to pre‐crisis business as usual, albeit with modifications. But the untamed capitalism that came to grief in 2008 had three major flaws. First, it undermined the public domain of equity, citizenship and civic virtue, whose creation was one of the great achievements of the late‐nineteenth and early‐twentieth centuries, exposing it to invasion by the market domain. Second, it led to a remorseless rise in inequality of resources and life chances, rendering British society one of the most dysfunctional in Europe. Third, it encouraged the emergence of a debased form of democracy, best called ‘market populism’, that mocks the dream of political equality that lies at the heart of the democratic ideal. Yet growth points of a better society can be detected amidst the gloom. Informal institutions and social movements like London Citizens and the burgeoning environmental movement show that the notion of the public good is still alive. So do the survival of Edmund Burke's communitarianism in the conservative tradition, of John Stuart Mill's social liberalism in the liberal tradition and of ethical socialism in the social‐democratic tradition.     

Orwell and the Oligarchs: George Orwell Memorial Lecture, 26 November 2010

The unique quality of George Orwell's political journalism is to force us to examine not just the utterances of our opponents, but what we say ourselves, in particular how we deceive ourselves as well as deceiving others. What would Orwell diagnose as our major self‐deception if he were alive today? Orwell was much taken with James Burnham's 1941 bestseller The Managerial Society. He agreed with Burnham that the predominant drift in modern society was towards oligarchy, and not towards democracy as we like to flatter ourselves. Whether in business or politics, decisions today rest in fewer hands. Power is concentrated, not dispersed. As in Russia, the emerging system enables oligarchs to collar a disproportionate share of the rewards. Management becomes a self‐remunerating elite. Inequality of income increases sharply as a result. Oligarchy is a perversion of liberal capitalism and not a natural development of it. It can be reversed. The Coalition government has set out in a liberal and localist direction. It remains to be seen whether these promising signs will develop into a sustained and effective programme.     

中国城市职场的性别不平等:基于权力的视角

由于缺乏对权力的清晰界定,既有的关于中国女性职场权力研究在权力界定上表现为宽泛化和狭隘化两种趋向。在批评这两种趋向不足的基础上,本文对职场权力做了更为明确和精细的界定。基于CGSS2006年城市样本的数据分析,本研究发现,女性拥有各种权力的比例都比男性要低,那些占据权力位置的女性也主要是边缘性的权力。进一步的实证分析发现,在控制了个体特征和工作单位特征等变量后,女性拥有权力的发生比也显著低于男性,这表明在通往职场权力的道路上存在明显的性别不平等。     

收入差距持续扩大背景下的收入流动性问题研究

收入流动性是收入分配问题研究的一个新领域,较高的收入流动性是社会公平的重要标志。本文首先界定收入流动性,其次从不同的角度对收入流动性进行分类,有相对收入流动和绝对收入流动、代际收入流动和代内收入流动、宏观收入流动和微观收入流动;从测度收入流动性的方法来看,主要有公理方法和福利主义方法。最后探讨了现有收入流动性研究的局限性和未来研究的方向。     

Why Progressives Should be Pro‐Family

For egalitarians, families are part of the problem. By bringing together advantages and passing on to their children, families redouble and (literally) reproduce inequalities. And, by cordoning off a private sphere into which government cannot roam, the family marks the limits of any progressive agenda. But defending families should be part of any answer to social injustice. Family relationships should be seen as a primary good: we need close, caring committed relationships no matter what else we want in life. Families are also increasingly important to one's chances in life. The gulf is widening between those rich and those poor in family life. This should worry egalitarians because lacking good, stable family relationships is a major disadvantage, and one that holds back progress towards other aspects of social justice.