Hope for a Cause as Cause for Hope: The Need for Hope in Environmental Sociology

Hope is a crucial component of agency involving the setting of goals, visualization of obstacles, and increasing willpower in the effort of achieving a desired goal. This hope is not simply optimism and is potentially a bridge between structure and agency. Yet, the powers of hope in sociology have been greatly unexplored including the ability of collective hope to create social change. This lack of hope is particularly poignant in environmental sociology as the sub-discipline looks for solutions to some of the greatest challenges humanity and the planet faces. This article discusses the undercurrent of pessimism in environmental sociology and calls for the integration of hope as it is necessary for generating potential social environmental change.     

Automobile prices and protection: The U.S.-Japan trade restraint

We examine the effects of the U.S.-Japan trade restraint on automobile prices and quality upgrading, for both Japanese imports and American small cars. From April 1981 to April 1984 the suggested retail price of all Japanese models increased by 15.8 percent, or 5.3 percent per year. We find that nearly the entire amount of this rise can be explained by the upgrading of individual models. This upgrading may benefit consumers who would purchase a luxury import in any case, but harms those who desire the basic imports. In addition to upgrading, we conclude that a second cost of the trade restraint has been to prevent the yen depreciation from being passed onto American consumers, in terms of lower imported auto prices. For U.S. small cars we find a 9.1 percent rise in the suggested retail price, or 3 percent per year, with a fraction of this amount due to model upgrading. If the yen depreciation had led to lower import prices without the trade restraint, then we expect that U.S. auto prices would have been lower, too.     

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as “state of the environment” reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of “environmental harm” as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk‐management decisions.     

论民族地区教育行政制度的特殊性——新制度经济学视角下的教育行政制度研究

从新制度经济学的视角分析,与一般地区相比,民族地区教育行政制度在制度环境、非正式制度、实施机制和制度规范对象等方面具有特殊性。制度环境的特殊性规定了民族地区教育行政的价值取向,同时也给制度变迁和创新提供了广阔的发展空间;非正式制度的特殊性提示我们,在进行改革和创新时要顾及社会文化背景和相关的特殊问题;实施机制的特殊性要求我们注意理顺两个行政系统的职能分工、理顺教育行政系统内部的职能分工,切实提高制度的执行力;制度规范对象的特殊性则要求处理好“民族学校”和一般学校两类学校系统之间的关系。     

完善我国中小学环境教育之理性思考

本文从中国中小学教育实际出发,理性分析了完善中小学环境教育的对策。     

和谐社会模式下的环境政策分析

环境是人类赖以生存的基本条件。在当今世界,新的环境危机使经济社会的可持续发展受到严重地制约。以我国建设和谐社会为契机,从环境问题与环境政策的关系入手,来分析我国环境政策的现状,提出,为实现人与自然之间的和谐发展人类所应该采取的3种正确态度。在综合分析的基础上, 提出了7条有助于在我国建设和谐社会的环境政策建议。     

Local spatial data infrastructure, Trujillo-Peru

The development of a Municipal Information System, or currently better known as a local spatial data infrastructure, is considered complex due to the required inter-institutional relationships. In many developing countries Geographical Information Systems (GISs) are introduced but the benefits are modest as no changes take place in technical and organisational structure of organisations. Digital databases and computer-aided design (CAD) maps are mushrooming in great variety within different private and public institutions, municipal organisations and even within single departments and with structures similar to the paper period and thus operating on a stand-alone basis.Many national mapping agencies are not able to provide large-scale digital urban base maps, while the absence or low quality of cadastres makes those basic core data sets unavailable or inaccessible. The result is that duplication and incompatible data are frequently observed and also donor-driven stand-alone projects have a limited impact through the lack of institutional embedding and are not able to mature from the project to the institutional level. However, a positive sign is that there is an increasing awareness among data producers and consumers that investments in the development of digital data sets should be combined to reduce costs and increase benefits from especially GIS, and information and communication technology (ICT) in general.Within Trujillo a long-term vision was developed to make full use of ICT and GIS to modernise all operations of the Municipality to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its tasks. However, large investments are not feasible due to the very limited municipal budgets. To guarantee the support of the municipal council, short-term results are required. This paper describes three ‘products’ as part of the vision to develop through a step-by-step approach a local spatial data infrastructure for Trujillo.The three, rather different, products are:

1. fiscal cadastre, to increase municipal revenues through property taxation;

2. an ‘environmental atlas’ based on a compatible spatial and attribute data sets from a variety of organisations; and

3. a municipal website with interactive GIS and meta data information.

The paper concludes with some comments on the institutional and political requirements for the successful development of a local spatial data infrastructure and stresses that such an infrastructure is not a product but an incremental development process that will progress only in case such a process is simple, cost effective, user-friendly, and flexible with clear products.Political interest and institutional stability and genuine interest for inter-institutional cooperation will add much to the success of this process.     

我国制造型企业市场导向和创新导向对新产品绩效影响的实证研究

本研究基于我国227家制造型企业的问卷调查数据,实证考察了市场导向和创新导向对新产品开发绩效的影响,以及创新导向和环境变动在市场导向和新产品绩效关系中的调节作用。结果显示:(1)本研究的概念模型整体拟合度优于西方常用模型;(2)市场导向和创新导向对制造型企业新产品开发绩效的影响显著为正,且均高于以前文献研究的一般水平;(3)创新导向和技术变化对于市场导向和新产品绩效的关系起到正向调节作用;(4)市场变化和竞争强度的调节作用不显著。研究结果对于制造型企业改善产品创新绩效具有重要的启示意义。     

The impact of higher energy prices on growth and inflation in an industrializing economy: the Korean experience

The first serious problem faced by the Korean economy in recent years is the stagflation caused by the increasing energy cost of imported oil. How much does the oil crisis contribute to Korean inflation and unemployment? To answer the question, a variable input-output model is introduced. It differs from conventional models in one important respect: it allows the industrial structure to change in response to changing input costs. Under the model, the technical coefficient becomes an endogenous variable, a property that conventional input-output models fail to share.     

Some thoughts on the restructuring of North-South interaction

The theory of international trade presents trade as a positive-sum game for all participants. Yet, most of the negotiations between the developed and the developing countries seem to have been conducted under a perception of reality that views North-South relations as a zero-sum game. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a general framework for institutional and structural changes to benefit all participants. A number of original proposals for international reforms to support equitable development in developing countries are presented. The major element of the proposals include a Land Reform Fund, a rural and industrial development package for LDCs, support for trade liberalization of impacts from land reform countries, and an industrial Assistance Fund to help industrial countries to restructure production pattern.The proposals contain obviously far reaching national and international political implications whose impact is assessed in the concluding part of the paper. There the claim is made that unless both sets of countries find cooperation mutually attractive, they will be unable to embark in development strategies characterized by the highest chance of success and with the fewest economic and social disruptions.