A new tool for urban governance or just rhetoric? The case of participatory budgeting in Taipei City

Increasing interest in participatory budgeting has been observed in local governments around the world. This paper stresses direct citizen participation in the budgeting process leads to good governance, deepens democracy and improves social justice, while also highlighting some challenges in its efficiency and effectiveness. Unlike participatory budgeting, the Sub-borough Chiefs Forum is a community-based representative democratic mechanism; it could be regarded as a form of participatory budgeting in a broad sense. If so, then did the Taipei programme simply duplicate the goals of the Forum or lead to a better governance by making up for the inadequacies of the Chiefs Forum? To find out whether the Taipei participatory budgeting programme made a difference, we carried out qualitative and quantitative comparisons of projects passed under the participatory budgeting process and at the Forum. We also interviewed several participatory budgeting participants and sub-borough chiefs. The findings suggested that participatory budgeting and the Forum generated different proposals and budget requests, and the Taipei programme supplemented the shortcomings of the Forum and therefore led to deeper civic engagement and better urban governance.     

What is Integration? A Comparative View from Immigrants and Municipal Policy

The ongoing project of citizenship construction in societies receiving international immigration demands a perspective that takes into account the interests, views and needs of all socio-demographic groups, including those of newcomers as potential new citizens. We interviewed representatives of 16 immigrant associations operating in the Spanish autonomous community of Galicia, reviewed immigration policy in 13 Spanish (Galician) municipalities, and interviewed 20 municipal government staff members who put these into practice. With this research, we aim to explore the perspectives of immigrants with respect to their own integration and to examine how these compare with local policies designed to facilitate these processes. By comparing the immigrant representatives' perceptions with local policy discourses and practice, our study reveals how local integration practice is not only inconsistent with its own policy discourse but also fails to consider and include immigrants' own understandings of what integration means and how it can be achieved.     

Determinants of the heavily right-tailed residential housing price in Tianjin

The housing price in Tianjin, one of the typical monocentric cities of China, exhibits a heavily right-tailed distribution even after the logarithm transformation of the price, which might lead to a biased estimation of the parameters under normal distribution assumption. Therefore, the extended Cox proportional hazards regression model and the generalized concept of relative risk are used to identify factors associated with the housing price. The analysis shows that the implementation dates of the macro regulation policies were related to the price changing trends. Qualities of public elementary and secondary schools were significantly associated with the housing price, and the associations between the structure and neighborhood characteristics and the housing price were influenced by the distance of the residential property to downtown Tianjin.KEYWORDS: Cox proportional hazards model, cumulative opportunity method, housing price, restricted cubic splines, relative risk     

市场是"无形之手"还是"有形之手"

本文说明了斯密的市场“无形之手”学说其实是“有形之手”学说,认为将市场视为“无形之手”既不符合斯密的本意,也不符合各种市场的客观实际,还会给我国市场化改革造成思想上的混乱和行动上的困惑,增加构建社会主义和谐社会的成本。     

Inferences for a Partially Varying Coefficient Model With Endogenous Regressors

In this article, we propose a new class of semiparametric instrumental variable models with partially varying coefficients, in which the structural function has a partially linear form and the impact of endogenous structural variables can vary over different levels of some exogenous variables. We propose a three-step estimation procedure to estimate both functional and constant coefficients. The consistency and asymptotic normality of these proposed estimators are established. Moreover, a generalized F-test is developed to test whether the functional coefficients are of particular parametric forms with some underlying economic intuitions, and furthermore, the limiting distribution of the proposed generalized F-test statistic under the null hypothesis is established. Finally, we illustrate the finite sample performance of our approach with simulations and two real data examples in economics.     

Diana Fu: Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

儒家祭祀文化与东亚书院建筑的仪式空间

祭祀文化是儒家礼制文化最重要的内容之一,祭祀是书院教育的一个重要组成部分。中韩两国的书院都有祭祀的建筑以及相应的仪式空间。东亚书院祭祀建筑的布局有着严格的规矩,遵照传统礼制思想中的方位观念。因礼仪交往行为中的宾主位置关系形成了古代建筑(包括书院建筑)中的东西阶制度。     

“大一”新生思想特点及行为倾向浅析——对河北大学化学系1999级新生的问卷调查

根据第一手调查资料 ,分析了河北大学化学系 1999级新生在学习、生活、交往、思想方面的特点、成因 ,在此基础上 ,提出高校学生工作应采取的对     

中国企业社会责任行动的意愿与能力——对上海浦东新区企业履行社会责任的实证分析

文章基于对浦东600多家企业的调研分析,揭示当前企业对于企业社会责任（CSR）认知情况,企业履行社会责任的意愿程度以及能力。文章认为,企业对于CSR具有趋同性的认知,但在落实到CSR实际行动时,则表现出极大的不一致性,企业对CSR的认识和行动意向两者之间存在很大的差异。主要表现在企业实际履行CSR的能力经常因企业自身生存、发展的需要与其履行CSR的意愿不能匹配。     

论高校协商民主管理模式的建构

由于民主涵义的复杂性和实际操作中的选择偏好,当前中国高校在民主管理模式上往往重视代议民主,而轻视或忽略协商民主.协商民主是代议民主的必要补充,它有助于解决代议民主在实际运作中存在的不足,对于维护广大师生合法权益、提高高校公共决策质量、培养师生公民人格和精神具有重要的实践意义.当前中国高校的协商民主管理模式建构,可以在参与主体的广泛性、参与事务的公开性、参与问题的价值性、参与过程的论辩性、参与行为的有效性等方面重点展开,从而为和谐校园的创建奠定政治基础.