伊斯兰文化的金融约束与微型金融发展

本文利用文化维度理论,剖析了伊斯兰地区的人文特征,深入研究了伊斯兰文化的金融约束及当地微型金融服务的现实需求与人文嵌入方式。伊斯兰文化具有权利差距小、不确定性规避强、集体主义、阴柔气质以及长期取向等五大特征;伊斯兰文化对微型金融服务具有强力的约束效应,不但反对高利贷和利率,而且强调借贷双方的道德准则;伊斯兰微型金融服务通过成本加融资、利润共享及慈善贷款三种方式融入伊斯兰社区,因展现出形式灵活、运作高效等优越性而普受欢迎;微型金融服务与社区人文环境的有效交融是伊斯兰微型金融取得成功的关键之处。     

Being Well vs. Doing Well: Self‐Esteem and School Performance among Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Racial and Ethnic Groups

It has frequently been suggested that the academic achievement of minority students may be hindered by low self‐esteem in a white‐dominated society. Some researchers and theorists, however, have questioned such assumptions. The self‐esteem‐academic achievement issue is further complicated by the relatively strong performance of children of immigrants in general, and of children of Asian immigrants in particular. A substantial literature suggests that these children face insecurities and difficulties that are inconsistent with high self‐esteem. In examining data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that Asians do show the lowest levels of reported self‐esteem of the major racial/ethnic groups, but also the highest grade‐point averages. Black adolescents, on the other hand, show the highest levels of reported self‐esteem, but show relatively low grade‐point averages. In further examination, we demonstrate that despite this apparent inconsistency between school performance and reported self‐esteem, the two do have a positive relationship. Immigrant parental status, we suggest, has a complex relationship to school performance and psychological well‐being that can help to explain the apparent paradox.     

On the Social and Financial Effects of the Transformation of Microfinance NGOs

This article examines the social and financial performance of an international sample of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which transformed into microfinance institutions (TMFI). It shows that recent calls for the transformation of NGOs into TMFIs help improve the financial sustainability and the breadth of outreach of microfinance activities. However, this transformation hinders the depth of the services provided by TMFIs. This is especially significant in the case of bank-TMFIs and suggests that although the transformation might increase the financial independence of TMFIs, it might cause a mission drift that both NGOs and policy-makers ought to consider.     

Monitoring the Diversity of the Poverty Outreach and Impact of Microfinance: A Comparison of Methods Using Data from Peru

Many microfinance institutions claim to be oriented to a double bottom line, but while methods of financial performance assessment are widely agreed the same cannot be said about social performance. Monitoring social performance is most useful when it reveals variation in both outreach and impact over time and between clients. Data from a village banking programme in Peru is used to compare two methods for assessing each. On poverty outreach, we favour monitoring of proxy indicators for clients against national household survey data, and on impact we recommend making more use of individual in‐depth interviews.     

Procedural Control of the Bureaucracy, Peer Review, and Epistemic Drift

Regulatory peer review—in which independent scientistscomment on the technical underpinnings of proposed regulations—isa recently pursued form of political control of the bureaucracy.This article situates regulatory peer review in the contextof both the history of technical advice to government and theprincipal-agent perspective often used to explain the presenceof administrative procedures. Much of the academic discussionof attempts to influence bureaucratic decision making has utilizedprincipal-agent theory. We introduce two novel concepts to accommodateregulatory peer review into the principal-agent framework. Thefirst is "technocracy" where the preferences of technical expertsdisplace public preferences. The second is "epistemic drift,"a change in embodied knowledge that contributes to departuresfrom the policy intentions of an enacting coalition of policymakers. In addition to introducing these concepts, we arguethat regulatory peer review is more complex than other administrativeprocedures and that its efficacy critically depends on the detailsof its implementation. We hypothesize that regulatory peer reviewwill cause nongovernmental participants in regulatory conflictsto devote more effort to creating research and other epistemicresources. But we also hypothesize that, just as courts havebecome more politicized with their role in regulatory policy,peer review and regulatory science will become increasinglypoliticized as well.     

Doing Psychology,Doing Inequality: Rethinking the Role of Psychology in Creating and Maintaining Social Inequality*

The relationship between psychological disciplines and inequality has been a subject of great scholarly interest in the last several decades. Most works on the subject analyze macro features of psychological disciplines (mainly their evaluative tools, theoretical assumptions, and disciplinary power) and criticize them as biased against minorities. This paper re‐examines the relationship between psychology and inequality from a micro, face‐to‐face standpoint. Drawing on close observations of 33 placement committees in which professionals from various psychological fields (psychology, social work, school counseling, etc.) discuss children’s eligibility for special education services, it portrays the actual doing of psychology as an inconsistent and malleable endeavor. In contrast to the macro‐oriented research on the relationship between psychology and inequality, it shows that in actual face‐to‐face interactions, professionals use different types of folk concerns that often exchange formal evaluative criteria, theoretical assumptions or professional authority in final placement decisions. By revealing the different folk considerations professionals use to sort and analyze working‐ versus middle‐class parents, this project adds an essential layer to scholarly understanding of the relationship between psychological practice and inequality.     

Returning Patients to the Community: disability, medicine and economic rationality before the Industrial Revolution

This paper offers an interpretation of physical impairment in eighteenth-century Britain which challenges the view that disability was largely a product of industrial capitalism. After reviewing the historical models of Finkelstein, Stone and Oliver, in which this position is put forward, attention turns to a case study of the General Infirmary at Bath, founded in 1739 to grant 'poor cripples and other indigent strangers' access to the spa waters. Dedicated to the prevailing moral economy of mercantilism, the Bath Infirmary sought to return its patients to the community in a state of physical and moral fitness. The economic implications of this objective are discussed in relation to the work imperative, the therapeutic performance of the institution and the age/sex characteristics of its clientele. The political implications are discussed in relation to the practice of medicine and the pursuit of an orderly society. It is concluded that medical charity points to incompatibilities between impairment and economic rationality in advance of the Industrial Revolution.     

家庭禀赋、家庭决策与农村迁移劳动力回流

在城乡收入差距持续扩大的情况下,中国民工潮和民工回流、民工荒并存的现象,一直是困扰国内外学术界的难题。本文根据湖北和河南两省的农户抽样调查数据,建立农村迁移劳动力回流决策的影响因素模型,从家庭决策的视角分析了家庭禀赋对迁移劳动力回流的影响及其作用机制。数据分析结果表明:家庭人力资本越丰富,劳动力越容易选择留在农村就业或者回流农村,但是家庭人力资本值达到一定程度后,农村劳动力又倾向于外出就业。家庭社会资本有助于迁移劳动力外出务工,但是随着家庭社会资本值的增加,那些家庭社会资本更为丰富的家庭的劳动力则更愿意回流家乡就业。丰富的家庭经济资本同时可以产生收入效应和替代效应,家庭经济资本可以为外出务工提供物质支持,但是丰富的家庭经济资本又会促使迁移劳动力回流农村,总体来说后者更为明显。     

社会建设和社会管理研究与中国社会学使命

根据中国社会学百多年发展的轨迹和中国社会学前辈艰辛探索学科本土化的启示,在我看来,探索社会建设和社会管理的重要且正确的研究路径是:立足现实,提炼现实;开发传统,超越传统;借鉴国外,跳出国外;正确总结中国理念,科学概括中国经验。     

缓解中小企业融资困境的出路——整改现有中小金融机构

我国中小企业融资难问题的特殊生成原因我国是一个正处于经济转轨时期的大国,面临着改革和发展的双重任务。与其他国家相比,我国中小企业融资难问题的形成有其诸多特殊原因。具体来说,可从以下几个方面来分析。首先,政府主导下的现行银行业市场结构,不利于中小企业进行间接融资。我国银行业的市场结构既不是完全竞争,也不是垄断竞争,而是寡头竞争。这种商业银行数量少,市场准入条件高的寡头结盟市场结构是一种政府主导下的高度非自然垄断,严重地阻碍了中小企业的发展:其一,国有商业银行拥有近70 %的存款资源和65 %左右的贷款份额,在商业金融…     

The Drift Toward Problem Behavior During the Transition to Adolescence: The Contributions of Youth Disclosure,Parenting, and Older Siblings

Prospective associations of mothers’ parenting processes, youth disclosure, and youth problem behavior were examined in a longitudinal design following 244 adolescent sibling dyads over a 3‐year period. For both siblings, authoritative parenting was positively associated with youth disclosure and was negatively related to problem behavior, and coercive parenting was negatively associated with youth disclosure and was positively related to problem behavior. When the influence of older sibling problem behavior on younger sibling problem behavior was modeled, younger sibling disclosure accounted for the relationship of maternal parenting processes to problem behavior. Findings indicate the important role of sibling influence in the development of problem behavior, contextualizing the relative roles of maternal parenting and youth disclosure in the transmission of risk.     

Capital Dependence,Financial Risk,and Change from the Multidivisional to the Multilayered Subsidiary Form

Students of the modem corporation continue to assume that corporations have the same form as they did before the turbulent 1980s when the economy became increasingly globalized and competitive. Our analysis shows that corporations are changing from the multidivisional form to a multilayered subsidiary form. Previous research showed that most corporations were multidivisional in the late 1970s. However, by 1993, 42% of the largest 100 industrial corporations had one or no divisions. The mean number of divisions per corporation declined from 8.8 in 1981 to 4 in 1993, while the mean number of domestic subsidiary corporations increased from 23 in 1981 to 51 in 1993. Parent corporations are creating a hierarchy of subsidiary corporations. Most of these changes occurred after the mid-1980s change in state business policy. The theoretical framework historicizes the corporation by identifying how capital accumulation constraints and changes in the institutional arrangements (e.g., the state) within which corporations are embedded created motives and behaviors that resulted in a change in the corporate form. Findings from logistic regression suggest that corporations that have low profits, have low working capital, have a decline in dividend payments, and manufacture high-risk, liability prone product lines have an increased probability of change to the multilayered subsidiary form. Our results provide support for the capital dependence perspective.     

Financial Problems and the Significance of Financial Counseling to the Practice and Profession of Marital and Family Therapy

No abstract available for this article.     

A Comparative Analysis of the Use of Microfinance and Formal and Informal Credit by Farmers in Less Developed Areas of Rural China

Based on household survey data, this article shows that farmers' demand for credit in poor areas of rural China has increased significantly in recent years, and credits from various sources are used differently in production and consumption. For example, microfinance is used primarily in livestock and non‐agricultural investments, formal credit is often used in crop production, and informal credit is largely used to meet farmers' consumption requirements. Developing a complementary system with various financial channels in rural China, particularly for non‐governmental microfinance, is crucial for meeting farmers' rising demand for credit in both production and consumption.     

埃及宪法的创设、沿革及其修订

1971年,埃及颁布永久宪法,该体制在30多年里一直保持着稳定状态。然而,自从美国以反恐的名义发动伊拉克和阿富汗战争并大力推行对中东伊斯兰国家的“民主改造”以来,埃及国内政治改革进程发生了复杂而微妙的改变;加之埃及近年来经济发展遭遇困难,贫困现象激增,社会动荡加剧,宗教势力崛起,民众要求进行政治和民主改革的呼声与日俱增。2005年5月和2007年3月,穆巴拉克总统直接主持两次重大的宪法修订活动,允许全民通过直接选举从多个候选人中选出总统,禁止以宗教名义建立政党和从事政治活动,将反对恐怖主义写入宪法,有力地推动了埃及政治改革的进程,加速了埃及社会改革的步伐,对埃及国内和周边地区产生了积极的影响。