Material consumption and social well-being within the periphery of the world economy: An ecological analysis of maternal mortality

The degree to which social well-being is predicated upon levels of material consumption remains under-examined from a large-N, quantitative perspective. The present study analyzes the factors influencing levels of maternal mortality in 2005 among 92 peripheral countries. We incorporate into regression analysis the ecological footprint, a comprehensive measure of natural resource consumption, and alternative explanatory variables drawn from previous research. Results illustrate ecological footprint consumption has a moderately strong direct influence shaping lower levels of maternal mortality. Path analysis reveals export commodity concentration has a negative effect on level of ecological footprint demand net the strong positive influence of income per capita. This illustrates cross-national trade dependency relations directly influence natural resource consumption opportunities and thereby indirectly contribute to higher maternal mortality levels within the periphery of the world economy. The results confirm material consumption is an important dimension of improvement in maternal mortality.     

Coalitional affiliation as a missing link between ethnic polarization and well-being: An empirical test from the European Social Survey

Many studies converge in suggesting (a) that ethnic and racial minorities fare worse than host populations in reported well-being and objective measures of health and (b) that ethnic/racial diversity has a negative impact on various measures of social trust and well-being, including in the host or majority population. However, there is much uncertainty about the processes that connect diversity variables with personal outcomes. In this paper, we are particularly interested in different levels of coalitional affiliation, which refers to people’s social allegiances that guide their expectations of social support, in-group strength and cohesion. We operationalize coalitional affiliation as the extent to which people rely on a homogeneous social network, and we measure it with indicators of friendships across ethnic boundaries and frequency of contact with friends. Using multi-level models and data from the European Social Survey (Round 1, 2002–2003) for 19 countries, we demonstrate that coalitional affiliation provides an empirically reliable, as well as theoretically coherent, explanation for various effects of ethnic/racial diversity.     

Too much of a good thing? Economic growth and human rights, 1960 to 2010

Despite widespread belief in the benefits of economic growth, some scholars emphasize the potentially negative consequences of growth—and especially rapid growth—for social and political outcomes. Using data for 149 countries between 1960 and 2010, I analyze the effect of economic growth on fundamental human rights conditions. Dynamic random-effects and two-way fixed-effects estimators, both with and without instrumental variables, yield several conclusions. First, economic growth is causally prior to rights conditions. Second, economic growth has a modest positive effect on human rights, albeit with diminishing returns at high growth rates. Third, low-income countries account for much of this relationship: growth improves rights conditions for most low-income countries, but extremely rapid growth is inimical. Growth has little effect among middle-income countries, while for high-income countries the relationship is positive but not robust. I bring these findings to bear on long-standing debates between proponents and critics of modernization theory.     

中国电信业技术效率与环境因素的相关性分析

运用DEA方法测度了2005—2008年中国31个省（市、自治区）的电信业相对效率,在此基础上,重点研究和分析了影响电信业技术效率的环境因素。研究结果表明：样本期间,我国电信业的技术效率整体上不高且呈现出明显的区域差异;技术效率按照东部、中部、西部依次降低,与我国经济社会发展的不平衡性相符合;地区生产总值、研究与试验发展经费支出、人均消费水平、人均生产总值、人口密度、人均可支配收入与我国电信业技术效率呈正相关关系且相关性依次降低;价格上限规制与我国电信业技术效率呈负相关关系。     

开征环境税对经济增长影响的实证研究——基于十二个发达国家二氧化碳税开征经验的面板数据分析

本文利用芬兰等十二个已开征二氧化碳税的发达国家1980～2009年间的跨国面板数据进行随机效应估计.结果发现:开征环境税在短期内可能给经济增长带来负向冲击;但环境税对经济增长的影响更多地体现为长期冲击,且这种长期冲击是显著的负向影响.因此,开征环境税时,不仅要通过税收体系调整缓解企业成本上升在短期内给经济增长带来的不利冲击,更应从长期影响的视角出发,设计配套政策,降低环境税在长期内对经济增长和社会福利可能存在的不利影响.     

Do mother’s and father’s education condition the impact of parental divorce on child well-being?

We use the British Cohort Study to investigate to what extent parental resources moderate the association between parental divorce in childhood and lowered child well-being as indicated by maternal reports of child psychological well-being and by academic test scores (reading and math tests). We argue that children of mothers with more years of education suffer less when their parents split up because better educated mothers may be better able to provide a safe and stable environment for their children after divorce. In addition, we argue that having a better educated father could either aggravate or reduce the effects of parental divorce. This is one of the first studies to simultaneously investigate the role of maternal, and paternal resources, and pre-divorce shared resources. Our analyses indicate that the effect of parental divorce on psychological well-being is reduced for better educated mothers and for families with more pre-divorce economic resources, but increased for better educated fathers. For academic test scores we find a protective effect of having a better educated father and higher pre-divorce social resources.     

Competitive threat and temporal change in anti-immigrant sentiment: Insights from a hierarchical age-period-cohort model

The study focuses on over-time change in anti-immigrant attitudes across European societies and on the role played by cohorts in producing the change in attitudes. We assembled data from four waves of the European Social Surveys for 14 countries between 2002 and 2014. The data analysis is conducted within the framework of a hierarchical age-period-cohort model (HAPC) to estimate the dynamic relations between anti-immigrant sentiment and country's social and economic conditions, while taking into consideration variations across individuals and birth-cohorts. The analysis lends support to expectations derived from the ‘competitive threat’ theoretical model. The findings show that a higher share of non-European ethnic minorities in the country's population is associated with a higher level of ant-immigrant attitudes. Anti-immigrant sentiment was found to be more pronounced in the ‘old immigration countries’ than in the ‘new immigration countries.’ The impact of economic conditions on anti-immigrant sentiment becomes evident through the effect of cohort in the ‘new immigration countries’: cohorts that entered the labor market when the unemployment rate was high are likely to hold more negative attitudes toward immigrants.     

Societal projection: Beliefs concerning the relationship between development and inequality in China

We examine how the relationship between development and inequality at the societal level is perceived and evaluated by ordinary Chinese people. We hypothesize that because the Chinese have recently experienced rapid increases in both economic growth and social inequality, they tend to view economic development as a driving force of social inequality. To address this question, we conducted a social survey in 2006 in six Chinese provinces (n = 4898). The survey data reveal that a large proportion of Chinese people have internalized a causal model in which they project high levels of inequality onto countries they view as more developed and low levels of inequality onto countries they see as less developed. However, results also show that a smaller proportion of Chinese believe in a negative relationship between development and inequality. Hence, the study reveals heterogeneity among ordinary Chinese in their perceptions of the causal relationship between development and inequality. Surprisingly, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics provide no explanatory power in explaining this heterogeneity.     

环境风险社会放大的网络生成与法律规制

网络时代,环境风险的社会放大获得了新的场域,环境风险信息通过网络实现放大,产生涟漪效应,并导致严重的社会、政治和经济次级后果。其生成的主要原因是网络规制立法相对滞后、现实利益表达机制不畅、网络公共领域逐渐形成、地方政府环境风险应对失策等。因此需要完善环境风险网络沟通的法律保障机制,建立环境风险网络生成的法律预防机制,构建环境风险相关各方的利益整合机制,健全环境风险网络社会放大的监管追责机制,以有效应对环境风险社会放大的网络生成。     

Societal Inequality and individual subjective well-being: Results from 68 societies and over 200,000 individuals, 1981–2008

Income inequality has been contentious for millennia, a source of political conflict for centuries, and is now widely feared as a pernicious “side effect” of economic progress. But equality is only a means to an end and so must be evaluated by its consequences. The fundamental question is: What effect does a country's level of income inequality have on its citizens' quality of life, their subjective well-being? We show that in developing nations inequality is certainly not harmful but probably beneficial, increasing well-being by about 8 points out of 100. This may well be Kuznets's inverted “U”: In the earliest stages of development some are able to move out of the (poorly paying) subsistence economy into the (better paying) modern economy; their higher pay increases their well-being while simultaneously increasing inequality. In advanced nations, income inequality on average neither helps nor harms. Estimates are from random-intercept fixed-effects multi-level models, confirmed by over four dozen sensitivity tests. Data are from the pooled World Values/European Values Surveys, Waves 1 to 5 with 169 representative national samples in 68 nations, 1981 to 2009, and over 200,000 respondents, replicated and extended in the European Quality of Life Surveys.     

投资低效与经济增长:对中国资本存量和无效投资的估算

投资对中国经济增长影响巨大,但与发达国家的资本产出效率进行比较,中国的固定资产投资中存在着严重的浪费.由于产出中有相当的份额用以弥补无效投资和浪费,我国居民消费占GDP的比重不断下降,影响人民生活和社会福利的提高.为了GDP增长速度进行的无效投资违背了发展经济的本来目的.倘若投资和GDP的增长不能带来财富的增加和人民生活水平的相应提高,那么这样的投资和"经济增长"就没有任何意义.     

节能减排的市场内涵与法律保障：一个文献综述

随着经济社会的快速发展,国际能源和环境问题日益严重。现阶段,节能减排已成为世界各国共同关注的话题,也是我国经济社会保持可持续发展的必然选择。节能减排,有待市场机制的建立和法律保障。明确责任机制,将节能减排纳入法制化进程,可从根本上确保节能减排的顺利推进。     

A Cross-National Analysis of Militarization and Well-Being Relationships in Developing Countries

We focus upon linkages between militarization and development in Third-World countries. The theoretical and empirical literature variously ascribes positive or negative developmental consequences to militarization. Part of this ambiguity results from an empirical focus solely on the impacts of national defense spending on growth in the gross national product. We expand our analysis to includethreecomponents of militarization (military regimes, participation in the military, and the importation of military hardware), as influences onthreeforms of national development (economic growth, accumulation of human capital, and growth in political rights). An important part of our analysis is the use of regression techniques that address the untoward consequences of a variety of regression problems, that are for the most part untreated in conventional analyses. We find with these techniques that militarization significantly impacts development in readily interpretable ways.     

思想政治工作的物质利益原则探析

现阶段我们在思想政治工作中存在片面强调物质激励、片面强调个人、片面强调眼前利益、片面强调效率等问题。对此,应以集体主义作为党的指导思想,把物质激励与精神激励结合起来,并坚持注重效率与维护社会公平的协调,实现经济利益与环境利益的协调。     

理性主义式微与功利主义勃兴——兼论知识产权侵权归责原则的走势

第二次世界大战以后,世界的政治格局和经济结构发生了深刻变化。恢复战争创伤和化解社会矛盾的需要,促使西方资本主义国家将目光投向经济生产领域,用于战争的科学技术和军事工业也纷纷转向民用产业,由此形成了新一轮科学技术的进步与创新。随着工业化程度和水平的提高,特别是作为智力活动成果的知识产权在生产力要素构成中地位和作用的日益明显,知识产权法律保护及其侵权赔偿责任问题被提到显要的位置。与之相适应,各国的侵权行为法也在不断发生变化,诸如惩罚、威慑、损害赔偿、预防损害等目的性和功能性策略被广泛地应用于侵权行为规范,极大地影响了侵权行为法的价值目标、机能和归责原则。社会法学派、功利主义和各种实用主义解释理论普遍将法律视为一种实现公共目标的机制,尤其是20世纪70年代以后兴起的经济分析方法,甚至主张允许法官对侵权行为法进行重新定位,使其服务于经济目标而不再是矫正正义目标。侵权行为法最初的道德基础和价值取向遭遇到空前的挑战,使其开始从以自然法为价值基础的理性主义向以实用性和工具性为目标的功利主义转变。     

制度现代化的演进取向与路径选择

全球化浪潮的核心内容是国家制度竞争,对发展中国家的转轨发展而言,制度现代化具有基础意义和首要价值,其核心要旨则是自由与民主的有机协同。公民自由需要政治民主的制度保证,而政治民主则必须内含公民自由的核心内容。公民自由可以提升创新能力并促进经济发展效率,而政治民主则可以保障机会均等并实现社会公平。自由与民主的有机协同,能够在民本主义的制度基础上,实现公平与效率的良性互动,达成发展质态的高效均衡,从而能够造就全方位发展的长效繁荣。     

风险社会风险的成因与治理

现代风险社会风险的成因是多方面的,但最根本的还是人为因素作用的结果。人类的过度实践及非理性的发展方式,市场经济、现代化和科技发展的负面效应,政治异化和低能,社会治理失效及全球化等是最重要的风险源。要有效治理风险,增强人类生存的安全性,必须改变传统的实践观和发展方式,再造政治和提升政治能力,保证科技、经济、社会的有限发展与合理发展,优化社会治理,加强制度建设,建立风险治理责任机制和风险的复合治理结构。     

Life satisfaction across nations: The effects of women’s political status and public priorities

Feminist scholars suggest that improving the quality of life of individuals living in nations around the world may be more readily achieved by increasing women’s political power and by reorienting public-policy priorities, than by focusing primarily on economic growth. These considerations raise the question of which characteristics of societies are associated with the quality of life of the people in those societies. Here, we address this issue empirically by statistically analyzing cross-national data. We assess the effects of gender equality in the political sphere, as well as a variety of other factors, on the subjective well-being of nations, as indicated by average self-reported levels of life satisfaction. We find that people report the highest levels of life satisfaction in nations where women have greater political representation, where military spending is low, and where health care spending is high, controlling for a variety of other factors. GDP per capita, urbanization, and natural resource exploitation are not clearly associated with life satisfaction. These findings suggest that nations may be able to improve the subjective quality of life of people without increasing material wealth or natural resource consumption by increasing gender equality in politics and changing public spending priorities.     

政治与经济:中国改革的可能走向

经济发展与社会稳定为何呈现出"负相关"的关系?学术界的主流形成了三类具有代表性的分析框架:"宪政转型"、"体制落后"和"分配不公"。这三类框架具有各自的特点和局限性。在马克思的理论框架中,关于经济发展与社会稳定的关系背后,隐藏着一个更为深刻的相关性:经济基础与上层建筑之间的关系。这与主流观点有着本质的区别。对于中国当下的现实,马克思的分析框架有着极为深刻的解释力。这种解释的要义在于:(1)经济发展与经济基础的变化是同一过程的两个方面;(2)经济基础的变化必然要求上层建筑与之相适应;(3)经济基础与上层建筑的内在张力必然催生相应的政治诉求;(4)经济发展与社会稳定之间的"负相关",正是这种"政治诉求"没有得到有效满足的表现。因此,在经济基础日趋多元化的背景下,既要强化共产党的执政地位,又要确保市场化的改革方向。这个难题如何解决,不仅对中国未来的改革构成了巨大挑战,也将决定中国未来几十年甚至上百年的前途命运。     

中国中产阶级的增长及其现状

本文采用EAMC中产阶级分类界定,利用国家统计数据和社会调查数据,估计了中国中产阶级的规模增长,描述了中产阶级的收入和消费特征,并重点分析了中产阶级的社会政治态度.本文的基本结论是,中产阶级是经济改革和经济增长的极大受益者.尽管他们有较多的民主意识和群体利益冲突意识,但目前阶段他们仍希望维持社会的稳定和支持渐近的改革策略.