Economic Fluctuations and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Importance of Import Instability

The traditional thesis that export instability (XI) is deleterious to economic growth in developing economies has received mixed empirical results. For African countries, recent research suggests that the effect of XI is weak, but that capital (investment) instability (KI) adversely influences economic growth. The current study argues that in many of these nations, imports are likely to be critical to the growth process, while exports represent only one of the various sources of investment resources. Hence, import instability (MI) may pose a more serious problem than XI in hindering economic growth. Employing 1968-1986 World Bank data for 33 sub-Saharan African countries, XI, KI and MI variables are calculated for each country as the standard errors around the respective 'best-fitted' trends over the sample period. These instability measures and additional World Bank data are then used to estimate an augmented production function that controls for the effects of labour, capital, and exports. The study finds that although KI is still a relevant argument of the production function, MI appears to be even more important, while XI is extraneous.     

推进首都经济圈公共服务领域合作发展的重点

首都经济圈建设已经上升为国家战略,当前,首都经济圈内经济发展差距还较大,特别是基本医疗、社会保障等基本公共服务水平方面差距明显.首都经济圈建设是区域经济社会全面一体化发展的过程,推进公共服务领域的合作,是首都经济圈一体化发展的重要内容.该文在详细分析首都经济圈内公共服务差距的基础上,提出推动首都经济圈公共服务合作的基本思路和重点任务.     

Economic discourse and the capitalist order

This paper uses the concepts of business model and financial ecosystem to analyse the relation between the US capital market and corporate business. Under a capital market double standard, from 1995 to 2000, new companies with digital prospects could recover their costs from the capital market; but, after the tech stock crash in 2000, all companies were required to generate profits from the product market. This encourages a blurring of old and new firm identities, because sectoral power is increasingly necessary to secure cost recovery. But this does not imply any return to business as usual when the financial ecosystem for new technology survives the crash and large-scale venture capital investment continues. From this point of view,the new economy illustrated, concretely, the determining role of finance in the broader processes of financialization.     

Long-Term Capital Management and the sociology of arbitrage

Arbitrage is a key process in the practice of financial markets and in their theoretical depiction: it allows markets to be posited as efficient without all investors being assumed to be rational. This article explores the sociology of arbitrage by means of an examination of the arbitrageurs, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). LTCM's 1998 crisis is analysed using both qualitative, interview-based data and quantitative examination of price movements. It is suggested that the roots of the crisis lay in an unstable pattern of imitation that had developed in the markets within which LTCM operated. As the resulting 'superportfolio' began to unravel, arbitrageurs other than LTCM fled the market, even as arbitrage opportunities became more attractive, causing huge price movements against LTCM. Three features of the sociology of arbitrage are discussed: its conduct by people often personally known to each other; the possibility and consequences of imitation; and the limits on the capacity of arbitrage to close price discrepancies. It is suggested that by 1998 imitative arbitrage formed a 'global microstructure' in the sense of Knorr Cetina and Bruegger.     

"Connecting" and "Disconnecting" With Civic Life: Patterns of Internet Use and the Production of Social Capital

This article explores the relationship between Internet use and the individual-level production of social capital. To do so, the authors adopt a motivational perspective to distinguish among types of Internet use when examining the factors predicting civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and life contentment. The predictive power of new media use is then analyzed relative to key demographic, contextual, and traditional media use variables using the 1999 DDB Life Style Study. Although the size of associations is generally small, the data suggest that informational uses of the Internet are positively related to individual differences in the production of social capital, whereas social-recreational uses are negatively related to these civic indicators. Analyses within subsamples defined by generational age breaks further suggest that social capital production is related to Internet use among Generation X, while it is tied to television use among Baby Boomers and newspaper use among members of the Civic Generation. The possibility of life cycle and cohort effects is discussed.     

我国当前用工荒的成因探析

由美国金融危机深化和世界经济形势调整所带来的外部环境恶化,对我国产业结构的调整和升级提出了紧迫的要求,而且近几年我国持续的用工荒也逼迫着企业进行产业结构的调整与升级。本文认为,我国目前的用工荒其实质是技工荒,而企业在职培训投入不足则是用工荒的一个重要原因,并用信息经济学的相关理论构建数学模型,从理论上解释了企业对在职培训投入不足的原因。     

商业广告、资本逻辑及社会冲突的生成

商业广告作为一种社会冲突的生成变量,由于过度受制于资本逻辑,给构建和谐社会带来了极大威胁,其具体作用路径主要为阶层区隔与消费排斥、欲望制造与生态危机、文化暴政与信息抗争、理想展示与现实落差。发挥商业广告的积极作用,必须彻底打破＂资本逻辑＂一统天下的局面,让商业广告在制度规训、道德统摄、资本逻辑三者之间形成内在的张力平衡。     

北京信息化与经济增长——基于ICT资本存量和Ubiquitous指数的分析

信息化对经济增长的影响主要表现在信息化投资和信息化资源利用两个方面,在核算ICT资本存量和建立Ubiquitous指数的基础上,需要将ICT投资和信息化的普及与应用纳入一个统一的框架进行分析.利用ICT增长模型对ICT投资贡献度以及网络外部性的计量分析表明,ICT投资对北京经济增长发挥了重要作用,ICT投资与普及应用之间的交互作用产生了明显的溢出效应和网络效应,从而进一步增强了ICT对经济增长的影响力.软件投资与硬件投资相比较,软件投资的作用更为显著,对北京经济增长的影响更大.     

右翼民粹主义崛起背景下再论英国的市场社会主义思潮--对话英国著名学者戴维·麦克莱伦教授北大核心SSCI

20多年前,“为了公共利益而以强有力的方式控制和调节市场”的市场社会主义曾在英国得到热烈的讨论。在当下经济全球化出现变局、新自由主义面临危机并向民粹主义转化的大背景下,再论市场社会主义,就具有了更深的理论内涵和更直接的实践批判价值。本文以与英国著名马克思主义研究者戴维·麦克莱伦的直接对话为基础,就英美新自由主义因放纵金融资本而自我否定的必然性、民粹主义的崛起及其困局、市场社会主义对英美等国的理论和实践价值等议题,评析了麦克莱伦教授的最新观点。     

The role of authentic leadership on healthcare Street-Level Bureaucrats’ well-being during the pandemic

This study uses Conservation of Resources Theory, to explain Street-Level Bureaucrats’ (SLBs) workplace behavioural responses to threats to their well-being. We examine whether authentic leadership within street-level organisations positively impacts employee well-being by increasing SLBs’ perception of personal resources, and reducing their perceptions of work harassment. The research design comprises a survey that solicited quantitative and qualitative data from 163 healthcare SLBs working in Australian hospitals during the pandemic in April 2020. Analysis of the means indicates low levels of satisfaction with leadership and low levels of well-being for SLBs. The structural equation modelling findings show that poor leadership is associated with higher levels of work harassment and lower levels of employee well-being. Qualitative data support these findings. As healthcare workers were already listed as over-represented in the stress-related workers compensation statistics, one strategy may be to improve the level of organisational support by upskilling managers in authentic leadership behaviours with the aim of increasing their perception of support so as to increase employee well-being. This will benefit employees and their families, and the community they service.

Points for practitioners

• Street-Level Bureaucrats (SLBs) have been increasingly experiencing the public sector gap (demand outstripping supply of resources) because of the dominance of the austerity-driven managerialist paradigm.
• The recent COVID-19 crisis amplified the severity and impact of the public sector gap causing increased perceptions of work harassment and reductions in SLBs’ well-being.
• However, SLBs with high levels of Psychological Capital had a natural buffer in place to protect their well-being, and as such, they perceived less work harassment and erosion of their well-being.
• The way forward is to complement the austerity-driven managerialist paradigm in management decision-making with authentic leadership behaviours focused on maximising the well-being of SLBs and the public.