巴勒斯坦经济特点及当前的经济形势

巴勒斯坦地小、人多，资源贫乏，经济发展条件差，受巴以和平进程的影响明显，巴经济以农业为主，工业不发达，基础薄弱，水平低，许多工厂只是简易的手工作坊，设备粗陋，工作条件和工人待遇均无保障，巴自治政府虽推行了自由，宽松和开放的私有经济政策，但水形成独立的经济体系，巴经济的发展离不开外援，从当前看，国际援 助为巴经济的发展和人民生活水平的提高，产生了积极的影响，但与巴社会和经济建设的整体需求相比，仍远远不够，由于巴经济严重受制于以色列，故不从根本上解除以色列的封锁，巴经济前景堪虞。     

从经济角度看巴勒斯坦的建国努力

在长达半个世纪的时间里，巴勒斯坦人为了建立自己的民族国家作了不懈的努力。1948年第一次中东战争后，组成今天巴勒斯坦的约旦河西岸和加沙地带被约旦和埃及分别占领，在以后长达近30年的时间里，两地经济几乎没有什么发展。1967年以色列占领后，两地经济逐渐和以色列融为一体，但处于一种严重的依附地位。90年代后，巴以和谈取得重大突破，但巴勒斯坦的经济状况并未好转，经济命脉仍把持在以色列手中。这种经济上的弱势地位，造成了巴勒斯坦人建国努力的屡次失败。     

巴勒斯坦经济发展中的以色列因素分析

第三次中东战争后，以色列对约旦河西岸和加沙地带的占领为巴勒斯坦农业和工业带来了诸多负面影响，并使巴勒斯坦经济具有较强的依附性，突出表现为劳务输出和进出口贸易对以色列的依赖。以色列的占领严重地影响了巴经济的发展，并造成了巴勒斯坦在巴以和谈中的劣势。     

巴勒斯坦经济发展中的以色列因素分析

第三次中东战争后，以色列对约旦河西岸和加沙地带的占领为巴勒斯坦农业和工业带来了诸多负面影响，并使巴勒斯坦经济具有较强的依附性，突出表现为劳务输出和进出口贸易对以色列的依赖。以色列的占领严重地影响了巴经济的发展，并造成了巴勒斯坦在巴以和谈中的劣势。     

以色列阿拉伯公民的发展现状及其政治意识

以色列建国61年来,尽管其阿拉伯公民的社会地位和生活境况已有了很大改善,但他们并没有完全融入以色列社会.以色列作为一个犹太国家和西方民主国家的双重特性,决定了其对阿拉伯公民实行的是一种表面上平等而实质上则是剥夺与压迫、歧视、隔离和分化的政策.以色列阿拉伯公民的民族政治意识经历了几个发展阶段,已克服了最初的混乱和迷惘,将争取自己在以色列国内的平等地位和权利作为自己的目标,并提出了明确的政治愿景,对以色列的立国理念--锡安主义形成了挑战.正视阿拉伯公民的合理要求并将其纳入以色列民族国家构建的范畴之内,不仅关系到以色列国家的稳定和发展,而且对未来巴勒斯坦建国进程及其巴以关系的走向也将产生重要影响.     

中东变局对以色列安全的影响

2011年的中东变局触动着以色列的敏感神经,中东变局将对以色列的安全环境造成不利影响。穆巴拉克政府垮台后,以色列担心埃以和平协议能否继续得到遵守。对于叙利亚的阿萨德政府的未来,以色列则抱有矛盾心态。以色列最担心的是伊朗扩大其影响,并加快核发展进程。以色列对这场变局总体上采取旁观立场,但也意识到继续推进巴以和平进程具有紧迫性。     

中东变局对以色列安全的影响

2011年的中东变局触动着以色列的敏感神经,中东变局将对以色列的安全环境造成不利影响。穆巴拉克政府垮台后,以色列担心埃以和平协议能否继续得到遵守。对于叙利亚的阿萨德政府的未来,以色列则抱有矛盾心态。以色列最担心的是伊朗扩大其影响,并加快核发展进程。以色列对这场变局总体上采取旁观立场,但也意识到继续推进巴以和平进程具有紧迫性。     

2009年中东大选述评

2009年,以色列、伊朗和阿富汗等中东国家相继举行大选。以色列"利库德集团"时隔四年重执权柄,伊朗保守派竞选连任成功,阿富汗普什图族则再掌政权。中东大选表现出社会政治发展的转型性和国家安全的现实威胁性两大共性特征,而不同的历史文化又使其表现出政治发展道路的多样性和政治发展水平的不平衡性等个性特征。一系列大选将对"巴以和平进程"、"伊朗核问题"和"阿富汗重建"产生一定的影响。     

浅析以色列的"定点清除"政策

2000年9月,巴以冲突爆发以来,以方不断强化以打击巴激进组织领导人和活跃分子为目标的"定点清除"政策.不可否认,短期内这种政策给巴激进组织和成员以沉重打击,在一定程度上使其行为有所约束.但是,此种违反国际法的"清除"政策遭到了国际社会的强烈谴责,也违背了以色列自身的长远利益.巴以冲突的历史表明,武力征服不了一个民族,巴以和平唯有通过政治谈判才能实现.     

中东和平进程十年回顾

中东和谈道路坎坷而漫长,虽曾取得一些进展,但目前叙以、黎以和谈僵持不前,巴以和谈严重受挫.掣肘和谈的主要因素是,以色列国内派别和民众政见不同、巴勒斯坦内部各派态度强硬、叙受国内压力牵制,黎奉行与叙共进退的政策等.目前大国作用仅限于调解和适度施压,美国受国内诸多因素牵制,不可能根本左右巴以政策;俄罗斯力不从心;欧盟(尤其是法国)和国际社会其他友好力量相对中立.美以在关键问题上往往唱双簧,因而不能过高指望美国通过向以大力施压来推动和平进程.未来的中东和谈形势依旧风云变幻,扑朔迷离.     

国际经济形势、中国经济结构转型和国际合作

结构调整是中国近年来经济改革的主题。但自从金融危机发生以来，中国的政策重点不得不转移到应对危机。经过一年多的努力，中国已经从金融危机的阴影中走出来，结构调整势必再次提上议事日程。国际经济形势的变化对中国的结构转型也正产生着越来越大的压力。因为中国经济和世界经济的一体化，国际经济环境影响着中国内部结构调整，而内部结构调整也必须考虑到国际经济环境。在充分考虑各方面因素情况下，对中国的调整策略进行深入分析。     

Thailand's responses to transnational migration during economic growth and economic downturn

This paper gives an historical overview of immigration to Thailand since the 1970s and emigration since the 1960s. It describes migration policies since the 1930s. Final discussion focuses on the impact of economic contraction on migration. Immigration to Thailand dates back to the 1760s when a huge wave of Chinese emigrated to Thailand. The flow continued until about 1850 and resumed during 1905-17. The next big waves of immigrants were after 1975, when refugees fled Indochina, and in the 1990s, when migrants flocked from neighboring countries drawn to the booming economy. Thai professionals left in the 1960s for the USA. During the 1980s, many left for work in the Middle East. During the 1990s, Thai migrants moved within the East and Southeastern Asian countries and the USA or Europe, and they included many women and illegal migrants. Emigrants leave as arranged by the government, by employers, by recruitment agencies, and as trainees. The first official act was in 1950 and revised in 1979. Many work permits were approved in the 1990s, especially for unskilled labor. There are supports for Thai migrants abroad, but little is offered to foreigners at home. By 1997, the country's recession led to nonrenewal of many work permits. The 1998 economic crisis led to a new labor policy that deported illegal and unskilled migrant workers in order to create jobs for Thais. Policy encouraged Thais to seek work overseas.     

The individual in economic analysis: toward psychology of economic behavior

“… Economics is supposed to be concerned with real people. It is hard to believe that real people could be completely unaffected by the reach of the self-examination induced by the Socratic question, ‘How should one live?’—a question that is, also a central motivating one for ethics. Can people whom economics studies really be so unaffected by this resilient question and stick exclusively to the rudimentary hard-headedness attributed to them by modern economics?” Amartya Sen, On Ethics & Economics.“… Apart from a few exceptions, the international consensus view within sociology, anthropology, political science and psychology seems to be that agents are not irrational in the way that neoclassical economists presume. The orthodox economic canons of rationality are thus widely rejected elsewhere,” Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Economics and Institutions.“Once we realize that the human mind is everywhere active and imaginative, then we need to understand the routes of this activity if we are to grasp how the human mind works. This is true whether the mind is trying to come to grips with painful reality, reacting to trauma, coping with the everyday or just making things up. Freud called this imaginative activity phantasy, and he argued both that it functions unconsciously and that it plays a powerful role in the organization of a person’s experience. This surely, contains the seeds of a profound insight into the human condition; it is the central insight of psychoanalysis … a pervasive aspect of mental life …. Are we to see humans as having depth—as complex psychological organisms who generate layers of meaning which lie beneath the surface of their own understanding? Or are we to take ourselves as transparent to ourselves?” Jonathan Lear, Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul.     

Explaining Asian economic organization

Conclusion Social theorists are challenged to explain an increasingly complex economic order. It is clear that old theories that posited a developmental sequence from undeveloped to industrialized cannot explain the diverse patterns of industrialization that exist. Certainly, Japan is as developed as Western nations but its patterns of development, its economic norms, and its industrial practices are substantially different from the United States and even its Asian neighbors in Taiwan and South Korea. For example, the fact that Japan has the largest banks in the world, and Taiwan relatively few and weak ones (despite the world's largest per capita foreign reserve holdings), cannot be explained only by recourse to market or state factors, although each play a role. Both countries were literally awash in money in the 1980s, and both countries are clearly capitalist societies where banking institutions are assumed to be critical to economic development, as they have been in the West. But more than market and political economy factors are at work here.In Japan, historically developed institutional factors, dating from before the Meiji Restoration and industrial revolution, created conditions for business group self-financing. Modern-day keiretsu, such as Sumitomo and Mitsui, with their huge banks as centerpieces, trace their origins to pre-industrial merchant houses under family ownership. Inheritance practices in Japan are based on primogeniture, inheritance of the entire fortune by the eldest son. This practice allowed merchant family fortunes to remain intact under the stewardship of the heir. Successful families thus had huge sums of money available to finance the businesses of affiliated branches operating under the badge of the mother house. The descendents of the zaibatsu merchant houses, the keiretsu, continue to rely on their own sources of finance, now institutionalized in banks that serve their credit and other financial needs. To see large banks encapsulated within business networks as only the outcome of distorted market conditions, or as only the result of a powerful business class, misses the institutional origins and overlooks the contemporary institutional underpinnings of the Japanese banking system. Ironically, the weakness of Taiwanese banks can also be traced to a strong family system. Chinese societies practice partible inheritance, that is, division of a family estate equally among all sons. As a result, families divide their fortunes every generation, mitigating against the development of large sums of money. Instead, there is great pressure within families to develop multiple businesses so that at the death of the family head, each son can claim an independent enterprise. Because all Chinese families face the problem of setting up children in business (being an employee is not a desirable status in Taiwan as it is in Japan), a range of informal lending arrangements have arisen within families and among friends to generate investment capital. Strong social norms dictate that one assist financially a kin member or close friend. Banks play a relatively minor role in Taiwan because alternative institutional arrangements, also with preindustrial origins, have obviated the need for banks for some financial functions. Again, market factors are important to understanding the strong curb market and weak formal banking system in Taiwan, and political economy factors, notably the absence of a strong central bank, are also significant. But an institutional explanation integrates these factors into an explanation that begins with the character of the society being explained. We need theories that can account for difference without reducing cases to unique instances, that do not presume the individualistic character of Western social orders, and that are sensitive to an array of ideal as well as material factors operating in different locations. Although political economy, market, and culture theories each have contributions to make, an institutional perspective of the type I outline may be especially suited to the comparative analysis of emerging world economic organization. I think, ironically, that a sensitivity to institutional factors may yield better theories of the West. Rather than assume that the United States and Europe are the exemplars of advanced capitalism, the closest empirical instances of the idealized competitive market, Japan and other Asian nations are suggesting that the West is simply one form of capitalist economic development, an expression no doubt, of the West's own institutional heritage. When we relinquish ethnocentric perspectives we can begin to look at ourselves and our own institutional heritage more clearly.     

On real economic freedom

Among the various concepts of freedom important for economics, ranking or measuring the freedom of choice provided by budget sets has an important place. The volume ranking has strange properties and cannot be justified by unit invariance and symmetry. The pointed distance (of the budget hyperplane from the origin along some line) provides a measure or ranking that coincides with the standard “purchasing power” or real income. The linear price index is practically unavoidable for measuring or ranking freedom. This is applied to the determination of income distribution and taxation implied by the equal freedom of choice of different domains. Concepts of equal or compared potential freedoms and utility-freedom relate freedom analysis to the basic classical concepts of fair allocation (equity-no-envy, egalitarian equivalence, etc.). The crucial difference between the two opposite concepts of invariance in comparisons is emphasized.