Can NGOs Solve China''''s Difficult Problems?

In present-day China, "NGO" has become one of the most fashionable concepts in the wake of the WTO. However, in practice NGOs encounter many institutional obstacles. The first is difficulty in registration, which has forced some NGOs to register as enterprises with the departments in charge of industry and commerce. Some others are simply "illegal" organizations, not registered and just operating in their own way. The other obstacle is diffi-     

Can we declare military Keynesianism dead?

This paper empirically tests the Keynesian hypothesis that government defence spending positively impacts on aggregate output, by using a long-run equilibrium model for the US and the UK.Our contribution, with respect to previous works, is twofold. First, our inferences are adjusted for structural breaks exhibited by the data concerning fiscal and monetary variables. Second, we take into account different dynamics between defence spending on aggregate output, showing that the results are sensitive to sub-sample choices. Though the estimated elasticities in both countries show a lack of significance in the more recent years of the sample, defence-spending priorities addressed to international security may revitalize pro-cyclical effects in the UK, by an industrial policy of defence shared with the EU members.     

Can we rationally learn to coordinate?

In this paper we examine the issue whether individual rationality considerations are sufficient to guarantee that individuals will learn to coordinate. This question is central in any discussion of whether social phenomena (read: conventions) can be explained in terms of a purely individualistic approach. We argue that the positive answers to this general question that have been obtained in some recent work require assumptions which incorporate some convention. This conclusion may be seen as supporting the viewpoint of institutional individualism in contrast to psychological individualism.     

Can ranking techniques elicit robust values?

This paper reports two experiments which examine the use of ranking methods to elicit ‘certainty equivalent’ values. It investigates whether such methods are able to eliminate the disparities between choice and value which constitute the ‘preference reversal phenomenon’ and which thereby pose serious problems for both theory and policy application. The results show that ranking methods are vulnerable to distorting effects of their own, but that when such effects are controlled for, the preference reversal phenomenon, previously so strong and striking, is very considerably attenuated.

A Man Can be Destroyed but Not Defeated

Santiago,the main hero in the Old Man and the Sea is characterized as someone struggling against defeat. He has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish,the sail of his skiff resembles "the flag of permanent defeat." But the old man refuses defeat at every turn:he resolves to sail out beyond the other fishermen to where the biggest fish promise to be. He lands the marlin,tying his record of eighty-seven days after a brutal three-day fight,and he continues to ward off sharks from stealing his prey,even though he knows the battle is useless. He establishes a great hero:a man can be destroyed but not defeated.     

Can increased educational attainment explain declining Indigenous fertility?

Prior research shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to have children and have more children, on average, than non-Indigenous women. However, like those of the total Australian population, fertility rates of Indigenous women have been declining since the 1970s. The decline has been more significant in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, an increasing proportion of Indigenous women postponed childbirth from their teens into their 20s and 30s, leading women to have fewer children over their lifetimes. During the same period, there was a rapid increase in educational attainment among the Indigenous population. This paper examines educational gradients in fertility among Indigenous women and whether the observed fertility decline is linked with the increased educational attainment. Using data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Australian Census of Population and Housing and applying a shift-share decomposition analysis, we find that education has been a big driver of falling fertility rates in non-remote areas. In remote areas, education has had a much smaller effect (except for youngest women).     

Yan Fuxing: Man Who Can Chat With Birds

Yan Fuxing, vice-chairman of the Xingcheng Association for Literature and Culture, is acquainted with more than 30 bird languages, and can imitate the chirping of birds by finger whistle and wind instruments, and can even chat with them.     

Can alternative Taylor-rule specifications describe Federal Reserve policy decisions?

We look at how well several alternative Taylor-rule specifications describe Federal Reserve policy decisions in real time, using the newly developed Giacomini and Rossi (2007) test for non-nested model selection in the presence of (possible) parameter instability. Further, we isolate those Taylor-rule features that are most important for achieving relatively strong real-time performance. Key features of our preferred rule, which is robust to changing economic conditions, are the partial adjustment of the federal funds rate toward an equilibrium rate that depends on the unemployment rate and forward-looking inflation measures. We conclude by presenting an empirical application to show the policy relevance of our preferred rule in the context of the 2008–2009 recession.     

How Original Narrative Can Be Initiated in Chinese Philosophy?

随着人们对中国哲学常规性叙事不满足感的增强,要求改写中国哲学的愿望也变得更加强烈了,并开始尝试超越之道。文章从不同的角度和侧面,反思和检讨了中国哲学常规性叙事存在的问题,提出了走向中国哲学“原创性叙事”的途径和方式。认为建立多元的哲学观和哲学史观、通过历史时空的移动及广泛的对话参与寻求中国哲学的普遍性和差异性、在视域和范式的引导下获得观察中国哲学的深度视点、在领悟整体意义与深化部分研究之间形成中国哲学的良性诠释循环、追求对中国哲学的充分描述、复杂关联的说明及意义关怀等,对于造就中国哲学的原创性叙事来说,都是非常基本的。     

Poverty and Pediatric Palliative Care: What Can We Do?

It has been recognized that families of children with life-limiting health conditions struggle with significant financial demands, yet may not have awareness of resources available to them. Additionally, health care providers may not be aware of the socioeconomic needs of families they care for. This article describes a mixed-methods study examining the content validity and utility for health care providers of a poverty screening tool and companion resource guide for the pediatric palliative care population. The study found high relevance and validity of the tool. Significant barriers to implementing the screening tool in clinical practice were described by participants, including: concerns regarding time required, roles and responsibilities, and discomfort in asking about income. Implications for practice and suggestions for improving the tool are discussed. Screening and attention to the social determinants of health lie within the scope of practice of all health care providers. Social workers can play a leadership role in this work.     

How Can the Draft Property Law Get through the Constitution?

The dispute over whether differential or equal protection should be accorded to real right has deep roots in the Constitution and is a manifestation of the contradictions in content and implications among different provisions of the Constitution. On the one hand, Articles 6, 7 and 12 of the Constitution stipulate that "the basis of the socialist economic system of China is public ownership of the means of production," "the state economy is the leading force in the national economy," and "socialist public property is sacred and inviolable," that is, the property of different property holders enjoys different constitutional positions.     

Animal suffering in New Zealand: Can science make a difference?

Abstract

The main influences in the regulation of animal welfare policy in New Zealand are discussed. Animal welfare organizations on the one hand are intent on improving conditions for animals, whereas government regulatory bodies are more concerned with preserving the status quo. Both types of organizations have allies in academia. Government agencies are largely informed through research from the ‘mandated’ field of Animal Welfare Science, which is characterized by a positivistic framework that tends to support the status quo. Animal Welfare Science can be contrasted with the emerging interdisciplinary field of Human Animal Studies, which continues the tradition of critical theory that questions the positivistic basis of the animal welfare establishment. We conclude that while genuine science, defined as all rational and theoretically informed discourse, could make a difference to animals, the mandated field of Animal Welfare Science serves more to entrench animal suffering than to prevent it.     

Qualitative Approaches to the Study of Thriving: What Can Be Learned?

Using the data from two ongoing studies of resilience and thriving, one of gay men growing up in heterosexist environments, the other of women living with AIDS, we review how qualitative approaches have enabled researchers to grapple with conceptual, methodological, and ethical dilemmas related to the study of resilience and thriving. We discuss the implications our values as researchers have on determining who is thriving; the powerful social, cultural, and political contexts that must be considered when investigating the effects of and resistance to adversity; and the implications of conceptualizing thriving as a process. Finally, we consider the opportunities opened up by qualitative analysis and suggest some avenues for future research.     

Can oil-led growth and structural change go hand in hand in Ghana?

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a multi-sector intertemporal general equilibrium model with endogenous savings and investment behavior. Results show that in addition to the well-known short-term Dutch disease effects, long-term structural effects can indeed impede Asian-style economic transformation in Ghana (and other resource rich countries). We also demonstrate how oil wealth may go hand in hand with structural change in the future.     

Can Likert Scales be Treated as Interval Scales?—A Simulation Study

The Likert scale is widely used in social work research, and is commonly constructed with four to seven points. It is usually treated as an interval scale, but strictly speaking it is an ordinal scale, where arithmetic operations cannot be conducted. There are pros and cons in using the Likert scale as an interval scale, but the controversy can be handled by increasing the number of points. Several researchers have suggested bringing the number up to eleven, on the basis of empirical data. In this article the authors explore this rational and share the same view, but simulate artificial data from both symmetrical normal and skewed distributions where the underlying metric is known in advance. Results show that more Likert scale points will result in a closer approach to the underlying distribution, and hence normality and interval scales. To increase generalizability social work practitioners are encouraged to use 11-point Likert scales from 0 to 10, a natural and easily comprehensible range.     

Can cities be held responsible for early school leaving? Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper examines if ‘naming and shaming’ is an effective tool to increase accountability in school dropout for cities with disadvantaged student populations. It argues that a comparison with other cities might be unfair if regional and population characteristics differ. It discusses the example of two Dutch new towns. The new town policy deliberately attracted low- and medium-income households in the past, such that today the population of those cities differs from other cities. We use a matching analysis to account for observed differences in population and regional characteristics. The results point out that ‘naming and shaming’ may be a dangerous policy to increase accountability: early school leaving differences are driven, to a large extent, by observed differences in population and regional characteristics.     

Can Body Mass Index (BMI) be used as a proxy for somatotype?

In a paper published in The Social Science Journal, Maddan et al. [Maddan, S., Walker, J. T., & Miller, J. M. (2008). Does size really matter? A reexamination of Sheldon's somatotypes and criminal behavior. The Social Sciences Journal, 45, 330–344.] proposed that Body Mass Index (BMI) can be used as proxy for somatotype, a quantitative system for describing body build, in social science research. This paper tests this proposal using a sample of 200 males from an archival data set collected by Sheldon [Sheldon, W. H. (1942). The varieties of temperament: A psychology of constitutional differences (with S.S. Stevens). New York: Harper and Row Publishers.]. The data included somatotype data, height, and weight. BMI was calculated and individuals were assigned to the categories endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph based on the Maddan et al. BMI criteria. The BMI method was only able to correctly classify 110 individuals, 55% of the sample. This finding suggests that BMI is an inadequate proxy for somatotype.