The Changing Face of Pensions in Latin America: Design and Prospects of Individual Capitalization Pension Plans

This paper discusses the spread of individual capitalization pension plans in Latin America in the 1990s. Following the example of Chile in 1980, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru have all introduced individual capitalization pension schemes in the 1990s. The paper discusses the rationale for the reforms and compares the main design features of the reformed pension systems in these countries. Lastly, the likely success of pension reform is discussed by focusing on issues of pension scheme coverage, benefit adequacy and administrative costs.     

统筹城乡环境建设问题的思考

当前我国城市环境有所改善,但农村环境持续恶化。造成这种差异的原因主要是环境政策有失偏颇,环境权益不公,环境保护投入不均,城乡环境保护意识差距等,归根结底是我国长期以来的城乡二元经济结构产生的城乡二元环境。城乡环境作为一个整体,不可分割,相互影响,城乡二元环境不利于统筹城乡经济社会发展,因此,应当统筹城乡环境建设,促进城乡环境保护的一致性。具体做法是:调整环境政策,实行城乡环境保护并重政策方针;调整城乡环境资源配置,建立生态补偿制度;转移环境保护支付,加大农村环境保护投入,加大农村环境教育,提高农民环境保护意识。     

"人的自我中心"与"理性"--兼评鲍曼的《现代性与大屠杀》

人的自我中心与理性是现代性的两个主要推动力和特征,也是后现代着力批判的对象."人的自我中心"与现代"理性"具有种种复杂关系,这种关系造成了现代理性的种种问题和矛盾.理性只有重新获得德性维度和反省能力,才能在促使人的自我中心的发展之后,与感性和信仰一道,超越人的自我中心.而个人生活的重新社会化同时也是新的生活共同体的建立,则是现代性问题的化解之道.     

Rationality and Order-Dependent Sequential Rationality

We show that an individual using a choice function is sequentially rational and the decisions he makes are independent of the order of implementation of the rationales if and only if he is rational with the union of the rationales as a base binary relation. When he makes his decisions following a choice correspondence, the sufficiency part of this claim still holds, the necessity part of it does not.      

曼海姆:社会重建时代的理性与非理性研究

曼海姆指出,现代西方社会危机根源于理性与非理性在社会发展中的失调,主要表现在:人类控制非理性能力发展的不均衡与分配的不平等;工业社会的功能理性导致实质理性的丧失;大众政治的非理性对现代民主的威胁;个人和社会处在一种“有组织的不安全”状态。曼海姆基于批判理性主义的立场,试图通过弘扬教育、实施民主、制定计划,来重建一种理性与情感协调的社会,以解决社会的危机。     

Action Bias and Environmental Decisions

Individuals have a penchant for action, often for good reasons. But action bias arises if that penchant is carried over to areas where those reasons do not apply, hence is nonrational. Action bias is explored theoretically, and then empirically, using data from surveys of hypothetical environmental decisions. Quite apart from agency considerations, individuals like to affect outcomes when gains are reaped. Given the ability to help one of two sites, we find that decision makers choose to foster improvement rather than prevent deterioration, despite framing that makes it arbitrary which site is improved, which preserved. Strong action bias—individuals choosing to reap gains even though they must impose losses—is also observed. These concepts are related to loss aversion, status quo bias, omission bias for losses, and bright-line behavior.     

Ageing Baby Boomers in Australia: Evidence Informing Actions for Better Retirement

The first Australian baby boomers are starting to retire. Consequently, it is essential to develop and apply a strong evidence base to facilitate their successful retirement and ongoing wellbeing. This review focuses on recent literature on pre‐retirement baby boomers to identify available research findings and gaps to be filled on retirement preparation. A notable shortage of empirical literature was found on pathways to retirement and financial plans. A trend emerged towards an intention to retire at an older age, and the main source of retirement income was expected to be superannuation. Over half of Australian boomers expect their savings to be sufficient; however, 30–50% anticipate a decline in their standard of living. The majority want the responsibility for funding retirement shared between the individual, government and employers. Further research is needed on the varying plans and expectations of men and women, of low‐skilled workers, and those from culturally diverse backgrounds.     

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.     

第三部门的兴起及价值理性的回归

第三部门的兴起在全球方兴未艾 ,这种社团革命缘于西方国家福利制度的失灵和市场的失灵。第三部门的兴起不是传统社会中的民间组织的复兴 ,而是对以理性为基础的现代社会的政府及市场的失灵进行纠正 ,也是对现代社会工具理性过度膨胀所造成的种种社会问题的解决途径。就某种程度而言 ,第三部门的兴起缓解了现代社会工具理性和价值理性的紧张关系 ,使价值理性回归成为可能。因此 ,第三部门的研究对转型的中国具有重要的现实意义。     

An Experiment on Rational Insurance Decisions

We describe the results of an experiment on decision making in an insurance context. The experiment was designed to test for the underlying rationality of insurance consumers, where rationality is understood in usual economic terms. In particular, using expected utility as the preference function, we test for positive marginal utility, risk aversion, and decreasing absolute risk aversion, all of which are normal postulates for any microeconomic decision context under uncertainty or risk. We find that there the discrepancy from rational decision making increases with the sophistication of the rationality criteria, that irrationality concerning fair premium contracts is uncharacteristically high, and that the slope of absolute risk aversion seems to depend on the format of the insurance contract. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Committee Decisions with Partisans and Side-Transfers

A dichotomous decision-making context in committees is considered where potential partisan members with predetermined votes can generate inefficient decisions and buy neutral votes. The optimal voting rule minimizing the expected costs of inefficient decisions for the case of a three-member committee is analyzed. It is shown that the optimal voting rule can be non-monotonic with respect to side-transfers: in the symmetric case, majority voting is optimal under either zero, mild or full side-transfer possibilities, whereas unanimity voting may be optimal under an intermediate side-transfer possibility. The side-transfer possibilities depend on the power of partisans (their ability or willingness to pay for neutral votes) relative to the corruptibility of neutral members (personal cost of deliberately casting a `wrong' vote).     

The Affection Effect in Insurance Decisions

We use insurance behavior as a context to study affective influences in seemingly purely monetary decisions. We report two related findings. First, people are more willing to purchase insurance for an object at stake, the more affection they have for the object, holding the amount of compensation constant. Second, if the object is damaged, people are also more willing to go through the trouble of claiming a fixed amount of compensation, the more affection they have for the object. These effects are not predicted by standard decision theories. We explain these findings by a consolation hypothesis, according to which, people perceive insurance compensation as a token of consolation, and we discuss its implications for affective influences in other types of decisions.     

Lottery Decisions and Probability Weighting Function

This article analyzes the implications of basic lottery tests for the probability weighting function w(p). We first show that the w(p) function with one argument cannot accommodate three basic tests of lottery choice. We also discuss in detail the links between the w(p) function with one argument and the preference reversal paradox. In the last section we propose an evaluation function that accommodates the restrictions imposed by the tests and we provide an example of such function.     

学习型组织:现代学校发展战略的理想选择

学习型组织理论是以系统动力学为理论基础创建的一种先进的管理理念。该理论以其思想的先进性、手段的时代性以及方法的务实性,为人们提供了一种全新的科学管理思想体系。构建学习型组织是适应现代学习化社会的需要,使学校教育教学活动的特征更体现了学习性机构的意义和价值。随着终身教育和学习化社会的普及,先进、科学、富于变革力量的学习型组织已经越来越成为现代学校管理模式和发展战略的理想选择。     

现实的摧毁与理想的建构--卢梭政治哲学方法论简论

卢梭以先验理性主义为指导 ,运用分析还原与理智重建的方法 ,提出了以“公意”为基础的契约理论 ,体现了摧毁与重建的方法论思想。卢梭政治理论本身是一贯的 ,但理论与实践之间却存在难以弥合的裂痕。这是因为先验理性的范导功能被约简到建构功能之中 ,从而使得价值的关切压倒了实践层面的具体操作。     

诸神之争的再阐释:一个社会学的结构视角

世俗化及逆世俗化范式的对立其实蕴含着更大的连续性,即如何理解宗教多元主义背后的诸神之争,总的来说,韦伯之后那些解释宗教变迁的理论范式均未突破韦伯对宗教的比较研究范畴,难以在当前复杂而多元的文化环境下为个人提供总体指导,但是二者共同揭露了诸神之争条件下西方宗教工具理性和价值理性交互作用所促成的理性化的动力机制,即西方宗教维护自身价值理性的方式从中世纪教会主导的政治性垄断过渡到现代性条件下宗教多元主义的市场化竞争。     

More than a piece of paper?: Personal education plans and ‘looked after’ children in England

This paper reports on research into personal education plans (PEPs) for ‘looked after’ children (children in care) in one large county local authority in England. PEPs were introduced by guidance from the Department for Education and Employment and Department of Health in 2000. The fieldwork for this research began two years after this guidance was published. The research findings show that although social services staff and teachers are critical of specific aspects of PEPs, they have helped to raise the profile of the educational needs of looked after children in the local authority studied. They have provided a forum for social work and education professionals to meet in the interests of particular children. Key problems relate to practical issues: ensuring social workers and teachers feel able to fulfil their expected roles in relation to the education of looked after children; making the system focus on meeting the needs of children as well as practitioners; difficulty in meeting specified timescales; more meaningful, constructive and sensitive involvement of children in the process of producing and reviewing PEPs. The broader issue, however, is about the ability to plan the education of looked after children. Additional barriers to planning were particularly apparent in residential care and specifically within secure accommodation.     

社会秩序·制度理性·公正理想——西方思想文化中公正观念之范式沿革（上）

人类政治活动的直接目标,即是平衡主体之个体性与社会性的关系。所谓正义或者公正,正是对个体性与社会性的理性平衡。西方历史文化中的正义观,概括起来,主要有六种形态:(1)奠立于古代"自然法"基础上的古希腊的理性"正义论";(2)奠立于基督教神学教义基础之上的中世纪"神学正义观";(3)奠立于社会"公意"基础之上的西方近代"契约正义观";(4)奠立于对人性之两面性整合与超越的哲学预设基础之上的"权利正义观";(5)奠立于未来美好的共产主义(社会主义)价值信念基础之上的马克思主义的"实践正义观";(6)奠立于自由主义基础之上的罗尔斯的"社会正义论"、诺齐克的"资格正义论"以及麦金太尔的后现代主义的"实用理性正义论"。     

An evaluation of alternative fiscal adjustment plans: The case of Italy

What advice can be given to the policymaker to reduce the burden of public debt after a crisis? In this situation, the debt consolidation calls for fiscal surplus based on increases in taxes and/or reductions in public spending. This paper aims at answering to the above question. Specifically, it evaluates different policy options on the table using the estimated model of the Italian dynamic General Equilibrium Model (IGEM). Our main message is that plans aimed at reducing the public debt based on tax increases rather than expenditure reductions are more effective. Therefore, consolidation should be designed on the former.