The stock market and U.S. presidential approval

Since the 1970s research has demonstrated a strong relationship between national economic performance and presidential approval. Traditionally, these popularity models rely on macroeconomic conditions; however, other economic performance measures may more fully capture the direction of the economy. One such measure, the stock market index, captures elements of national and household economic well-being. Therefore, market performance should impact presidential ratings. Our presidential approval model, based on quarterly data covering 1960–2011, demonstrates that approval is highly sensitive to the stock market's acceleration or deceleration, even with strong controls in the model for the other economic and political determinants of popularity. A rapid fall in the stock market index reduces president approval, while a sharp acceleration in the index growth boosts U.S. presidential approval.     

Paul Gilroy: Race and culture in postmodernity

Abstract

Using archival evidence, this paper tries to use Callon's idea of ‘embeddedness of the economy in economics’ in order to understand the process of economization of India under the East India Company. The Company's state self-consciously tried to construct an economic terrain by using their coercive power, but the rise of the market did not lead to the proliferation of ‘calculative agencies’. The paper seeks to explore the reasons behind this by delving deeper into the history and politics of marketization in colonial India and by reflecting on some unexamined presuppositions of the process of economization.     

Spatial egalitarianism as a social ‘counter-movement’: on socio-economic reforms in Chongqing

Abstract

Through a framework drawn from Karl Polanyi's substantivist theorization of economic practices, this paper evaluates the quest for equitable urbanization in Chongqing, a major city-region in south-western China. Illuminating the tensions arising from two interrelated reforms, namely the ambitious attempt to construct 40 million m² of public rental housing between 2010 and 2012, and the large-scale drive to ensure peasant migrants enjoy equal access to social benefits as current urban residents, the paper explains how the quest for equitable urbanization magnifies two nationwide dimensions of institutionalized uneven development, namely (i) the caste-like categorization of populations according to ‘urban’ and ‘rural’; and (ii) the coastal bias in national economic development. The paper concludes that this state-driven pursuit of spatial egalitarianism in Chongqing expresses the dialecticism of economic development in China: it is a social ‘counter-movement’ against the effects of an uneven spatiality that was instituted to drive and deepen the marketization of Chinese society.     

Vietnam’s ‘socialization’ policy and the moral subject in a privatizing economy

Abstract

The Vietnamese term for socialization, xã h?i hóa, is grounded in its history of socialist construction, originally referring to the collectivization of property and resources. Since the country shifted to a market economy, yet remaining under the leadership of the Communist Party, the term has come to imply the individualization of responsibilities and the privatization of public goods. As a policy, however, it continues to evoke the idioms of ‘the whole society’ or ‘all the people’ as the basis of wellbeing and development. This paper examines the practices of socialization as part of broader shifts in welfare provision and local dynamics of exemplarity. I show that socialization concerns not only the mobilization of resources, but also the production of a moral subject that is self-optimized and yet sensitized to helping others, self-governed and yet governable by the party state. In a socialist country that is rapidly marketising, this moral subject plays into governing rationalities that blends new-prudentialist logics with socialist genealogies, privatization with a notion of society within which individual actions can be made morally meaningful. While the tension and contestation induced by people’s greater burdens are immanent, the continued reference to collective idioms appeals to people’s moral sensibilities, and thus makes socialization meaningful to some extent, even as they resent the turn away from broad-based structures of wellbeing.     

Economics and the ‘nonsense’ of law: the case of the Chicago antitrust revolution

Abstract

The Law and Economics movement that emerged in the University of Chicago through the 1940s and 1950s, around Ronald Coase's example, is a manifestation of the neo-liberal project of applying neo-classical economics to state sovereignty. In the 1970s and 1980s, Law and Economics ideas revolutionized the application of antitrust laws in the United States. However, this achievement came about not through a transformation in economic orthodoxy, but through persuading legal experts to recognize the inherent ‘nonsense’ at work in their own normative assumptions. The Chicago antitrust revolution is therefore symptomatic of trends that Foucault viewed as definitive of neo-liberalism more broadly.     

Visualizing the invisible hands: the shadow economy in North Korea

Abstract

The outside world is well aware of the totalitarian side of North Korea. Much less well-known is the shadow economy of the country which has enveloped the everyday lives of ordinary North Koreans for the last fifteen years or so. Based on refugee testimonies, this article aims to shed light on this heretofore unexamined aspect of the country, by visualizing the invisible hands of the ever-growing shadow economy in North Korea. In particular, we will investigate who the main actors are (the agency question), how they obtain their items (the supply mechanism), how they move items from one place to another (the distribution mechanism) and who consumes these items (the consumer question) in contemporary North Korean society.     

Why reregulation after the crisis is feeble: Shadow banking,offshore financial centers,and jurisdictional competition

A crucial element in the complex chain of factors that caused the recent financial crisis was the lack of regulation and oversight in the shadow banking sector, which is largely incorporated in offshore financial centers (OFCs), but instead of swift and radical regulatory reform in that sector after the crisis, we observe only incremental and ineffective measures. Why? This paper develops an explanation based on a two‐level game. On the international level, governments are engaged in competition for financial activity. On the domestic level, governments are prone to capture by financial interest groups, but also susceptible to demands for stricter regulation by the electorate. Governments try to square the circle between the conflicting demands by adopting incremental and symbolic, but largely ineffective, reforms. The explanation is put to empirical scrutiny by tracing the regulatory initiatives on shadow banks and OFCs at the international level and within the United States and the European Union, where I focus on France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.     

中国农村发展与农村土地制度改革

农村土地制度改革是城镇化与农业现代化发展的客观要求。该文通过深入分析中国城镇化过程中的城乡土地利用格局,阐述了古今中外农村土地制度设计的基本原则,提出应有限度地放开农村土地市场,以满足利用市场机制有效配置土地资源的要求,但必须以保障农地生产功能为前提,严格防止土地过度资本化可能带来的弊端。     

证券经纪人代客理财的风险及对策

在追求利益最大化的投资市场中,股市波动导致证券经纪人私下代客理财,这一违规行为无论是对于投资者个人,还是市场经济秩序,都具有很高的风险。应建立相关法律法规,明确监管部门,加强规定和管理,并进行普法宣传,从而最大限度地防范潜在风险,保障投资者的权益。     

中国政治体制改革：必要性、方向与路径

政治体制的改革是当下中国面临的最大的一项课题。改革开放30多年来,中国特色社会主义市场经济体系的初步建立和完善,使中国发生了翻天覆地的变化,但是经济体制改革存在着一些潜在的问题和社会矛盾,反过来倒逼政治体制改革。中国现代化的转型不只需要经济体制的改革,更是要在市场经济的时代下进行政治体制的改革。政治体制的改革就是要建设一个成熟的民主和法治的现代化国家。为了实现这一目标,中国政治体制改革应该走一条既要有自上而下的推动,又要有自下而上的探索和实践的改革路径。