Payment by results in international development: Evidence from the first decade

Payment by results is a relatively new way of giving development aid, where a recipient's performance against pre‐agreed measures determines the amount of aid they receive. Advocates for the mechanism argue it provides donors with both a ready justification for maintaining aid budgets and better results through innovation and autonomy. It has proved popular, with most bilateral aid donors having at least experimented with the mechanism and the variety of measures stretching from individual health workers being paid for each procedure, to national governments being paid for students' test scores. However, there has not been a robust assessment of whether Payment By Results (PbR) achieves its aims for greater effectiveness. I synthesize the evidence from eight projects fully or partially funded by DFID, the recognized world leader on PbR. This represents the best evidence currently available, and is critically analysed using the leading theoretical framework that breaks each agreement into its constituent parts. I find no evidence that PbR leads to fundamentally more innovation or autonomy, with the overall range of success and failure broadly similar to other aid projects. This may partly be due to the current use of Payment by Results, with no readily identifiable examples of projects that truly meet the idealized PbR designs. Advocates of PbR may thus conclude the idea is yet to be tested. I argue PbR does not deal with the fundamental constraints that donors face, and so it is unsurprising that PbR is subject to the normal pressures that affect all aid spending.     

库切与凯里写作视角比较研究

在布克文学奖的颁奖史上，只有两位作家两度获奖，他们是彼得·凯里（PeterCarey）和J．M．库切（J．M．Coetzee），且这两位作家目前都拥有澳大利亚国籍。当文学研究者将这两位作家纳入文学研究范畴进行分析时，发现可以从世界文学与比较文学的角度研究这两位作家的作品。本文将从第三种文化的角度分析两住作家的作品，特别是他们在流散过程中所创作的具体作品来梳理他们的写作策略。     

Then press enter: digital payment technology and the history of telephone interface

The internet and other digital networks in the U.S. (and beyond) remain essentially an upgrade of the national telephone network built by AT&T over the first half of the twentieth century, and digital payment remains tethered to telephony at the level of infrastructure. Telephone history also continues to inform digital payment at the level of interface. Debit card readers feature a keypad nearly identical to those introduced (also by AT&T) to the dialling public a half-century ago on touch-tone telephones. In this essay I highlight the development of the touch-tone keypad as a transformative payment technology. There have been three great leaps forward in the history of telephone interface: the dial, the keypad and the touch screen. Each corresponds to a period of technological transformation in the telephone industry and society more broadly: the rotary dial and automation, touch-tone keypads and digitization, and touch screens and computerization. The successful careers of the dial and the keypad, especially when read in tandem, suggest that touch screens will alter the everyday economics of retail payment even more radically than its predecessors. I also describe a broader trajectory of digital naturalization, whereby telephone numbers have proliferated into a personal identification number, passwords and a plethora of personalized information. Payments increasingly circulate today as subsets of personal information within the vast sea of big data. Payment apps are demonstrating a capacity to reorganize retail transactions on a scale as vast as any technology since the cash register. The history of retail payment finds the point of sale heading from the till into shoppers’ pockets. As a result, consumers are increasingly shouldering the costs of purchasing, maintaining, upgrading and securing the technology used for everyday transactions.     

“第三极文化”视野下的中国电影美学

第三极文化理论对中国电影美学建设具有启示意义,在第三极理论的视野下,对中国电影的美学渊源、美学精神、美学内涵进行重新观照,有助于解释或解答许多困惑性的问题,尤其对中国电影的民族化建设具有重要的启示价值.     

情境植入视角下第三人称指称形式的所指定位

由于第三人称不是言语交际的直接参与者,其指称形式的所指定位存在诸多复杂的情况。基于Langacker的情境植入理论,分析探讨英汉日常语言中第三人称指称形式所指定位的认知规律。研究发现,英汉日常语言中第三人称指称形式的所指会在形态、语义及范畴层次等方面发生变化,其具体定位需通过话语参与者共建话语框架并进行认知加工才能得以完成。     

传承与裂变:马克思主义理论学习的拐点--以延安学习运动为中心的考察

延安学习运动建立了一套较为完整的学习内容体系,创建了行之有效的学习方法,建构了科学有效的学习机制,不仅提高了延安时期的革命干部之学习水平与能力,并为革命与战争取得胜利提供重要的智力支持,而且为今天的学习型政党建设创建可行的有益模式,因此,延安学习运动是中国共产党不断开展自身建设的重要拐点,具有重要的开拓与启迪之功效.     

中国共产党第三代领导集体民族理论是马克思主义民族理论在中国发展的新阶段--中国共产党第三代领导集体民族理论研究之十四

中国共产党第三代领导集体的民族理论,继承和发展了马克思主义民族理论,是马克思主义民族理论在中国发展的新阶段.本文主要论述了关于少数民族地区经济发展和改革开放的理论、关于培养少数民族干部和民族工作理论、关于少数民族地区社会事业发展理论等方面的继承和发展.     

中国共产党少数民族统一战线政策的形成和发展 --中国共产党民族纲领政策形成和发展研究之十七

统一战线是我国革命的三大法宝之一,中国共产党的少数民族统一战线政策是党的一项重要民族政策.本文系统论述了中国共产党少数民族统一战线政策在新民主主义革命时期形成和发展、在社会主义时期发展和完善的过程.     

中国共产党第三代领导集体关于培养和选拔少数民族干部的理论与政策--中国共产党第三代领导集体民族理论研究之九

中国共产党第三代领导集体关于民族干部的理论和政策的基本观点包括努力造就一支宏大的德才兼备的少数民族干部队伍,是做好民族工作和解决民族问题的关键;培养选择少数民族干部是一件关系全局、具有战略意义的事;少数民族干部队伍状况是衡量一个民族发展的重要标志;培养少数民族干部,既要有计划地扩大数量,更要提高素质、改善结构;要注意培养少数民族中高级干部和各种科技管理人才.     

Sourcing with Deferred Payment and Inspection under Supplier Product Adulteration Risk

We study the deferred payment and inspection mechanisms for mitigating supplier product adulteration, with endogenous procurement decision and general defect discovery process. We first derive the optimal deferred payment contract, which reveals that either entire or partial deferral can arise, depending on the moral hazard severity and the information accumulation rate. Because of the supplier's incentive to adulterate, the optimal procurement quantity under deferred payment generally is smaller than the first‐best quantity. We then investigate the inspection mechanism and characterize the equilibrium. We find that under the inspection mechanism, the optimal procurement quantity is no less than the first best. A comparison between these two mechanisms shows that the deferred payment mechanism generally can outperform the inspection mechanism when either the market size is small or the profit margin is low. However, we find that these two mechanisms can also be complementary, for which we characterize a necessary condition.