中亚汉学研究的历史和现状

中亚五国居亚州腹部。其中哈、吉、塔与中国接壤,乌、土为中国近邻。中亚五国与中、俄同为上海合作组织成员国,共同签订有《长期睦邻友好合作条约》。中亚在19世纪前由俄国所辖,进入20世纪归苏联管辖。该地区汉学研究与俄、苏一样,经历了对中国＂亲近＂、＂冷淡＂、＂汉语热＂的阶段。18世纪始,俄国汉学确立和发展。进入20世纪,苏联＂新汉学＂随着苏维埃政权的建立而形成、壮大和繁荣。先后有罗索欣、比丘林、瓦西里耶夫、阿列克谢耶夫、齐赫文斯基、李福清等在汉学研究上做出了历史性的贡献。苏联解体后,中亚哈、吉、乌东方学研究所对境内华人社群东干族以及当代中国的研究都十分重视和深入。在＂汉语热＂的今天,与中国合作建设孔子学院,促使汉语教学与＂中国学＂的研究成效显著。     

Poverty and deprivation among children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Although there is now a large body of literature on poverty in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, there remains a dearth of comparative analysis of child poverty and wellbeing. This article uses household survey microdata for the period 2001–2003 to compare absolute poverty, relative poverty, material deprivation and participation in schooling among children in five countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. The analysis shows that low absolute levels of household consumption are associated with other deprivation indicators and with children's participation in schooling. The article also highlights the usefulness of relative poverty measures that effectively identify children at risk of exclusion in even the poorest countries in the region. The article concludes by arguing that household consumption is a good indicator of child poverty and deprivation in the region, and that relative poverty measures should be more widely used in monitoring global targets for poverty reduction.     

Macroeconomic performance of inflation targeting in European and Asian emerging economies

The macroeconomic performance resulting from adopting an inflation targeting policy in emerging economies of Europe and Central Asia are examined. The research includes 26 countries in the period 1997–2019, with a special focus on the period 2008–2019. Our econometric analysis consists of two approaches: dynamic panel modeling and propensity score matching. The results suggest that macroeconomic performance has improved due to the inflation targeting monetary framework. We find that a policy of inflation targeting has been effective in reducing the inflation rate, inflation volatility, and GDP volatility. The results are particularly robust for the subperiod that started in 2008. Econometric results suggest that inflation targeting policy did not affect inflation persistence or GDP growth. Our results suggest that inflation targeting improves the macroeconomic performance of developing countries even when they only partially meet the standard requirements for its implementation.     

美国的介入和亚洲一体化——基于欧盟创立及发展历程的反思

近代欧洲各国曾经战火不断,然而"二战"后却迅速走向了一体化,这其中除了自身因素之外,早期美国的积极推动也起了重要作用。与欧洲相比,近代亚洲各国却不幸沦为西方的殖民地和半殖民地。"二战"结束后,亚洲各国纷纷求独立、谋发展,然而始终难以摆脱大国的影响力。近年来,域外大国美国推行"重返亚洲"的政策预示着该国将在亚洲谋求长期存在,这是导致亚洲局势长期不明朗化的重要原因,也导致了"亚洲一体化"久久不能实现。     

试析冷战后印度中亚政策的演变

从1991年中亚国家先后独立到现在,印度的中亚政策经历了三个发展阶段。从1991年至1998年,这一阶段印度中亚政策的主要任务是通过加强与新独立的中亚国家之间的接触,为印度与中亚关系的发展打下基础。从1998年至2001年,随着国际形势与印度自身发展的需要,中亚国家成为印度加快自身经济发展和打击极端主义与恐怖主义的重要合作伙伴。2001年至今,印度加大了对中亚地区的关注与投入,致力于加强与中亚国家在政治、经济、安全与文化诸领域的合作,印度在中亚的影响也随之增强。虽然印度与中亚国家关系的发展仍受到一些制约,但印度介入中亚事务越来越明确的态势值得关注。     

Exchange rate and wage policies in Central and Eastern Europe

After the eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) and due to increasing labor market integration, wage determination in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has become a key issue in European economic policy making. In addition, a controversial discussion concerning the monetary integration of CEE countries into the EMU has emerged. Both issues have earned particular academic and political interest because Eastern and Western Europe are at different stages of economic development and volatile international capital flows seem to require either a higher degree of wage or exchange rate flexibility. Based on the Scandinavian model of wage adjustment by Lindbeck (1979), we analyze the role of exchange rates in the wage determination process of the Central and Eastern European countries to identify which exchange rate strategy contributes to faster wage convergence in Europe. Panel estimations suggest that workers in countries with fixed exchange rates are likely to benefit in the long run from higher wage increases.     

R&D in a post centrally-planned economy: The macroeconomic effects in Poland

Half a century of centrally planned policy in the Central and Eastern European countries resulted in outdated technologies, inefficient allocation of resources and low productivity. Following the end of communism there was a fifteen year process of transition which ended in 2004 with eight post-communist countries joining the European Union (EU) of which Poland was the largest. As part of the EU these countries now face the challenge of the common EU strategy Europe 2020, which has set the target of achieving R&D expenditure to GDP ratio (called the R&D intensity) of 3% by 2020 for the Union as a whole in an effort to increase the competitiveness of the region. Poland, like the other post-communist countries, faces a lower target of R&D intensity, set at 1.7%. Nevertheless, the challenge is immense, since the country is still at only half that level and has little experience in developing policies to help achieve it. In this paper we tested two possible policy options to achieve the target: (1) to increase government expenditures on R&D and; (2) to provide tax relief on R&D to businesses. The method applied to assess the options is a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Poland with an explicit link between productivity and R&D stock. The results show that achieving the R&D intensity target via the use of tax relief is 2.5 times more costly to the government budget, but it has a greater impact on the economy in terms of a higher GDP growth. Tax relief proved efficient in the short run while in the long run the government expenditure policy provides better value for money.     

Who Wants to Redistribute? An Analysis of 14 Post‐Soviet Nations

We investigate population groups' attitude regarding inequality reduction in post‐Soviet transitional countries of the Baltic, Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as the Slavic countries and Moldova. Empirical evidence presented in this article demonstrates that despite skyrocketing inequality, erosion of social provisions and efforts to introduce an individualistic market economy ideology during the last 15 years, overall support for redistribution and welfare state efforts to counterbalance rising inequality remained strongly legitimized among citizens in all post‐Soviet countries. Nevertheless, there are differences between population groups in attitude: the older, the less educated, the poor and women express more support for redistribution; while the younger, the better educated, the rich and men tend to not support redistribution. Populations in transitional countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia that face higher inequality and less effective redistribution policies expressed a strong desire for more redistribution and more active social welfare policies.     

The End of the Rollercoaster? Growth,Inequality and Poverty in Central Asia and the Caucasus

This paper examines the impact of a decade of transition on living standards and welfare in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Following independence in 1991 all countries suffered a sharp decline in GDP per capita, with levels in some countries falling to below a quarter of the pre‐transition level. Since then, all countries have experienced positive economic growth. The key questions are whether this growth has been accompanied by declines in inequality and poverty and, if so, how sustainable are these improvements. There is some evidence that recent growth has benefited the poor. However, at the start of the new century, an estimated 39 million people in Central Asia and the Caucasus were living in poverty, of whom over 14 million were living in extreme poverty. Moreover, there is evidence of growing inequalities in terms of access to health and education services, with implications for future human development. Continuing poor governance within the region represents a major barrier to future poverty reduction.     

美国对中亚战略的理论参照：确定性与不确定性交替

美国对中亚战略的国际关系理论,既有其契合性和确定性,也存在不周延性和逻辑陷阱,即便有些当时合适的理论也可能因时空转换而发生变异。美国在处理与包括中亚国家在内的伊斯兰世界关系方面多次出现失误或错误,机械套用一些学者推演出来的国际关系理论是重要原因之一,从中也可以反映出美国对中亚战略的不确定性一面。     

Hybridization instead of Clustering: Transformation Processes of Welfare Policies in Central and Eastern Europe

Welfare state theories tend to use concepts of clustering for defining the affiliation of national social security systems to overarching worlds of welfare. A closer look at the transformation processes of welfare policies in Central and Eastern Europe shows a great variability among those countries in approximating their welfare states to Western European standards. In the design of their pension systems, their health care provision and their unemployment protection, Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) follow different reform paths. Welfare clusters in Western Europe are used as reference models, but no single example applies to all sectors of social security. Thus, a generalizing picture of welfare provision cannot be drawn for Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of constituting a new individual type of welfare arrangement, a hybridization process is observable.     

The Trajectory of Post-communist Welfare State Development: The Cases of Bulgaria and Romania

Governments of countries undergoing a post‐communist transition face the dilemma of balancing conflicting demands for greater economic efficiency (to achieve a successful transition to a market system) with demands for enhanced social protection (to legitimize regime change through a visible improvement in living standards which includes vulnerable groups). This paper analyses the transition in Bulgaria and Romania. Unlike other European countries, these countries did not embark on retrenchment policies until the mid‐ to late 1990s, so convergence with policies of spending constraint elsewhere in Europe was belated and partial. The social problems created by strict economic policies, exacerbated by a determination to reorganize the post‐communist welfare states along the lines promoted by international organizations, are now being recognized. Post‐communist governments in South‐eastern Europe have belatedly started to address the social aspects of transition to democracy and the market. This probably reflects the process of regime change in Bulgaria and Romania, which has been characterized as a “two‐step transition to democracy”, with liberal governments only succeeding transformed communist elites in power after a protracted transition.     

Financial frictions and indebtedness of Balkan firms: A comparison with Mediterranean and Central European countries

Using a large database of financial data for non-financial corporations, we study the process of debt accumulation and its influence on liquidity through the boom-bust-recovery regimes (2006–2010) in the Balkan countries and benchmark this against the Mediterranean and Central European countries. The domestic amplification effects (through the financial accelerator and collateral pricing) of both the capital surge from developed EU countries at the onset of the crisis and the capital reversal afterwards are the focus of the analysis. We show that domestic generators and amplificators of the crisis have much larger effects in the Balkan countries than in the Mediterranean countries, not to mention the countries of Central Europe. In the boom period, the financial accelerator was several times stronger in the Balkan countries than in the Mediterranean and Central European countries. In the bust and recovery periods, however, the direct effects of the financial accelerator declined, but the indirect effects increased considerably due to liquidity squeezes and contagion, especially strong were corresponding intercompany debt effects. In the Balkan countries, these effects in the bust and recovery periods were at least 50% larger than in the Mediterranean and Central European countries. Higher crisis costs in the Balkan countries, relative to the benchmark regions, could be attributed to the late integration of these economies into international financial and trade flows, weak institutions of financial intermediation, and inexperienced regulators; however, the importance of the contribution of misguided EU convergence doctrine cannot be ignored. Lessons for improving macromanagement in EU periphery countries are suggested.     

Cybernetics and Medical Diagnosis

The article analyzes why many transitional economies have succeeded by pursuing policies that differed significantly from the radical economic liberalization that was credited for economic success in the countries of Central Europe, while many countries with liberal policies have not succeeded. It emphasizes that the art of the policymaker is to create markets without causing government failure, as happened in many countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.     

The welfare state in liquidation?

This paper is about the most recent reforms of cash benefit systems and the sociopolitical debate in eight European countries. The welfare state and the social security system rank high on the political agenda. After many years of economic crisis, with increasingly widespread unemployment and changed family patterns, the welfare system that developed in most western European countries since the end of the Second World War is the focus of attention. In a world of increasing international trade, with competition from countries — in eastern Europe and Asia as well as the United States — which have not developed such comprehensive systems of social security, one of the main issues in the debate is whether western Europe can afford to maintain welfare at the existing level, or whether it is necessary to make fundamental changes. But the discussion also centres on what can be called the welfare state's own internal problems.     

Productivity,efficiency, and non-performing loans in the Chinese banking industry

In this paper, the directional distance function and the metafrontier-Luenberger productivity indicator are used to measure the efficiency and the total factor productivity in 25 Chinese commercial banks over the period between 2004 and 2010. It is found that the pure technical efficiency of the state-owned commercial banks is better than that of the joint-stock commercial banks and the city commercial banks, while non-interest income is the major source of inefficiency. In total, the Chinese banking industry performs well in terms of overall productivity. The technological scale change indicating the change of return to scale in technology is the driving force for overall productivity growth. However, the pure technical efficiency change and the pure technologic change are not significant, and the scale efficiency change has a negative effect to productivity. The potential technological relative change for the three groups is greater than zero.     

美国“重返亚太”战略的发展及其影响

本文从美国重返亚太入手,分析近年美国对亚太政策的调整、变化及其根源,在此基础上探讨美国重返亚太政策对地缘政治的影响。在当前的国际形势下,美国重返亚太反映了美国重视与亚洲各国的合作,而不仅仅是在亚太搞对抗。当然,加强与亚洲各国,尤其是与中国的合作才最符合美国的国家利益。美国在重返亚太的过程中,受到经济实力因金融危机而削弱的影响,露骨地使用军事硬实力、挑唆亚洲一些国家对华敌视情绪,不利于亚洲各国的发展,也对美国当前的经济恢复没有好处。     

China's energy inefficiency: A cross-country comparison

This paper constructs a total-factor energy technical efficiency index using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method following the total factor productivity framework. We then compare energy technical efficiency across 156 countries from 1980 to 2007. The results show that China's energy efficiency considerably trails other countries’ although it has made significant gains within the last 28 years. Further analysis indicates that scale inefficiency rather than pure technical efficiency contributes to China's energy inefficiency.     

Social Security in a Rapidly Changing Environment: The Case of the Post-communist Transformation

Overcoming the economic crisis and implementing institutional change in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has been greatly facilitated by a pre-existing social security network—although adaptations to the new circumstances have been necessary. This paper offers a review of these adjustments and the various strategies that have been employed for mitigating losses in income and in social cohesion with the market reforms. The paper shows how countries first expanded, then curtailed their social programmes, and have started moving away from collective to individualized solutions, not only in the economic but also in the social field. Although this thrust promises many advantages, such as greater personal responsibility and system transparency, several population groups—typically those that fail to form a powerful interest group—risk being left behind by the reform process. The paper concludes that these experiences from the region offer valuable lessons for social programmes assisted by international exchanges that aim to counter the negative impacts of rapid economic and institutional change increasingly a worldwide phenomenon.     

Croatian Social Policy: The Legacies of War, State-building and Late Europeanization

This article outlines the differences and commonalities between social policy developments in Croatia and those in Central Europe. In Croatia, issues such as national identities and the redefinition of citizenship, war, state-building and crisis management have produced a complex mix of statist centralization and parallelism of welfare actors at the central and local level. While subject both to neo-liberal pressures to privatize provision, and later to European Union influences, both of these came later, and were more mediated, than in Central Europe. Croatia forms a bridge to studying the uneven welfare arrangements of other countries in South-East Europe, marked as they are by complex governance arrangements and the presence of social development and postwar reconstruction discourses .