Interacting mechanisms of time inconsistency

We interact two prominent behavioral mechanisms of time inconsistency that have been used to study inadequate saving: hyperbolic discounting and short-term planning. Hyperbolic discounting is a conventional way to model impulsive decision making, and short planning horizons have been used to represent myopia. One might expect that interacting both mechanisms within the same model would compound the inadequacy of saving. However, our key finding takes the form of a paradox: hyperbolic discounting does not affect consumption and saving allocations if the planning horizon is short and fixed, although it will affect allocations if the planning horizon is equal to the remaining life span. We demonstrate analytically that this finding is robust to the shape of the disposable income path, to the coarseness of the time grid, and to alternative forms of the period utility function.     

Curation: a theoretical treatment

Curation is a key mechanism of sociality in a digital era. With an abundance of information, sifting, sorting, selecting, hiding, and standing out become laborious tasks. While researchers have diligently documented people’s curatorial strategies, digital curation remains undertheorized in its own right. I therefore theorize digital curation by disentangling productive curation from consumptive curation, addressing how people curate content that they share, and that which they consume. I embed these agentic curatorial practices within structural bounds, both social and technological. In doing so, I offer a basic theoretical model that captures a dynamic relationship between individual curators, their social networks, and technological design.     

企业推进消费文明的路径探索

应对＂消费—生态＂悖论,缓解生态危机,促进消费文明走向生态文明,企业应提高企业家和员工的生态道德素质,加强企业伦理建设,从而牢固树立生态消费理念,践行＂合度＂、＂合宜＂、＂合道＂的客观要求,实现经济合理性、生态合理性、伦理合理性的价值诉求,遵循环境友好,可持续发展,以人为本等基本原则,实施绿色、低碳的生态化模式,推进消费文明的发展。     

上海生态文明建设的激励和约束机制研究

生态文明建设是一项系统工程,需要通过整体推进,构筑规划、建设、管理、技术、产业、社会和合作协同发展的综合体系。未来上海应以建立和完善市场机制为核心,以法律机制为前提,以政府监管机制为保障,以能力建设机制为基础,以社会参与机制为监督,按照"引逼结合、多方合力、突出重点、先行先试"的原则,加快上海生态文明建设机制创新。主要途径有:完善碳排放交易试点,建立长效市场机制;推进分布式能源应用,提高清洁能源比重;加快新能源汽车推广,优化交通能源结构;培育发展再制造产业,推广先进制造理念。     

Ethical living: relinking ethics and consumption through care in Chile and Brazil

Mainstream conceptualizations of ‘ethical consumption’ equate the notion with conscious, individual, market‐mediated choices motivated by ethical or political aims that transcend ordinary concerns. Drawing on recent sociology and anthropology of consumption literature on the links between ordinary ethics and ethical consumption, this article discusses some of the limitations of this conceptualization. Using data from 32 focus groups conducted in Chile and Brazil, we propose a conceptualization of ethical consumption that does not centre on individual, market‐mediated choices but understands it at the level of practical outcomes, which we refer to as different forms of ‘ethical living’. To do that, we argue, we need to depart from the deontological understanding of ethics that underpins mainstream approaches to ethical consumption and adopt a more consequentialist view focusing on ethical outcomes. We develop these points through describing one particular ordinary moral regime that seemed to be predominant in participants’ accounts of ethics and consumption in both Chile and Brazil: one that links consumption and ethics through care. We show that the moral regime of care leads to ‘ethical outcomes’, such as energy saving or limiting overconsumption, yet contrary to the mainstream view of ethical consumption emphasizing politicized choice expressed through markets, these result from following ordinary ethics, often through routines of practices.     

Housing hardship and energy insecurity among native-born and immigrant low-income families with children in the United States

The costs for rent and utilities account for the largest share of living expenses, yet these two critical dimensions of material hardship have seldom been examined concurrently in population-based studies. This paper employs multivariate statistical analysis using American Community Survey data to demonstrate the relative risk ratio of low-income renter-occupied households with children experiencing ‘rent burden', ‘energy insecurity', or a ‘double burden’ as opposed to no burden. Findings suggest that low-income households are more likely to experience these economic hardships in general but that specific groups are disproportionately burdened in different ways. For instance, whereas immigrants are more likely to experience rental burden, they are less likely to experience energy insecurity and are also spared from the double burden. In contrast, native-born African Americans are more likely than all other groups to experience the double burden. These results may be driven by the housing stock available to certain groups due to racial residential segregation, decisions regarding the quality of housing low-income householders are able to afford, as well as home-country values, such as modest living and energy conservation practices, among immigrant families. This paper also points to important policy gaps in safety net benefits related to housing and energy targeting low-income households.     

解码“中国经济增长”

消费是人类经济增长最初也是最终的目的，单纯为了经济增长速度、为了增加就业、为了出口创汇等，可能脱离经济发展的消费目的，未必有利于真正的经济增长。新时期中国理想的经济增长必须考虑以下六个制约因素，即居民增长的消费需求、资源的供给、环境容量、国际竞争力、科技创新和制度。关键是突出消费作为增长的目的，抛弃狭隘的速度思维，将环境保护放在首位，以分配公平为前提，建立有责任约束的经济增长机制。     

The Environmental Risks of Incomplete Globalisation

As the liberal optimism of the long 1990s has faded into a world of growing inequality and resurging nationalism, there is less certainty about the prospects of economic convergence and global integration. Beyond the formidable human cost of maintaining a divided world, the possibility of incomplete globalisation also gives rise to a number of environmental risks. While environmental political theory generally sees strength in localism, history rather shows that a robust world trade system is crucial to offset local resource scarcities and that cosmopolitan norms of solidarity are essential for helping communities to rebuild after environmental catastrophe. In relation to climate change, statist thinking has led to a focus on non-scalable technologies and a silent acceptance of chronic poverty abroad as a way of avoiding a climate emergency. Contrary to such views, this paper argues that accelerating the transition to a fully integrated high-energy planet may more effectively mitigate Anthropocene risks.     

Sexual objectification decreases women’s experiential consumption (but not material consumption)

The current investigation examined our prediction that sexual objectification decreases women’s experiential consumption but not material consumption. Three experiments provided converging support for this prediction. In particular, female participants reported lower tendency to engage in experiential consumption after recalling a past experience of objectification (Studies 1 and 3) and chose a material product over an experiential one after receiving objectifying comments (Study 2). Furthermore, Study 3 found that sexual objectification reduced purchase inclination of experiential products, and this effect did not emerge for material products. These findings contribute to the literature on sexual objectification by showing the impact of sexual objectification on women’s economic decisions and behaviors.