Financial Intermediation Modernization in Countries with Transition Economy

During the modern phase of economic reforms directed at the establishment of market economy, many countries with transition economies face the challenge of solving the issue of formation and rational usage of internal sources of financing the real sector of the economy, as well as attracting considerable volume of direct foreign investment. In general, financial market imperfections hold back innovation and growth, and that public policy can complement financial markets. Therefore, the most relevant issue at the present time is the formation of attendant and complex supervision institutions, as well as an exigency of innovative economy governance as mainframe principles for further banking system elaboration and financial sector development in general. We have taken Armenia as a case study for transition economy as far as Armenia is currently in the stage of capital market development through integration into international financial markets.      

婚姻市场、农业剩余与光棍分布--一个理解农村光棍问题的中观机制

在婚姻市场渗透下,中西部农村家庭继替具有市场参与性特征：婚姻市场竞争过程形塑出以竞争力为指标的婚姻梯队序列,在优势梯队实现的家庭继替具有向上社会流动的特征,梯队末端则呈现为底层沦陷;农村男性青年在婚姻梯队序列所处的位置取决于其家庭的资源积聚方式、能力和分配方式。调查发现末端梯队集中分布于农业剩余稀薄村庄,其内在机理是农业剩余稀薄通过形塑家庭劳动力的不合理配置与以年轻人为主体的资源积聚方式和向家庭日常生活基本需要进行倾斜的资源分配方式削弱了男性青年的婚姻市场竞争力,其现象表征是扎堆分布的光棍。     

医疗保险对农村居民家庭消费的影响分析--基于不同收入层级的跨地区比较

利用2009、2010农村固定观察点数据,分析了医疗保险对不同地区、不同收入层级的农村居民家庭医疗消费支出和非医疗消费支出的影响。实证结果表明：医疗保险对农村居民家庭的医疗类消费不存在显著影响,对非医疗类消费支出则存在显著的正向促进作用。分地区来看,医疗保险对东西部地区农村居民家庭医疗类消费的影响差异显著,对东中部地区农村居民家庭非医疗类消费支出的影响同样差异显著;分收入层级来看,医疗保险对家庭医疗类消费的影响在不同收入层级的农村居民家庭之间不存在显著差异,但对非医疗类消费支出的影响在不同收入层级之间差异显著。此外,商业医疗保险作为医疗保险体系的重要组成部分,对促进农村消费起到带动作用。最后,本文从加大政府补贴和完善保障机制两个方面提出政策建议以期有效降低农村居民家庭超常的预防性储蓄,促进农村居民家庭消费。     

Neoliberalism as a real utopia? Karl Polanyi and the theoretical practice of F. A. Hayek

ABSTRACT

This article interprets Hayek’s theoretical practice with the help of Polanyi’s framework. Hayek aimed at renewing liberalism after the interwar period, thus helping transforming it into neoliberalism, a real utopia instrumentally concerned with the political and moral economies underpinning markets. The distance between neoliberal theory and practice is less pronounced than it is sometimes assumed. The strength of neoliberalism partially stems from a capacity to articulate an effort to think about real-world mechanisms with an effort to demolish, reconfigure or transform existing structures. Despite his failure to anticipate neoliberalism, Polanyi gives ample intellectual resources to critically interpret the tasks that neoliberals would collectively have to face at the theoretical level, in an epoch of ideological marginality, before their triumphal political deployment at the global level.     

Market/society: mapping conceptions of power,ideology and subjectivity in Polanyi,Hayek, Foucault,Lukács

ABSTRACT

In light of discussions around the common anniversary of the publication of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation and F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, this article puts these texts – iconic representations of social democratic and neoliberal political theory – into conversation with Michel Foucault’s subsequent, influential critique of neoliberalism, The Birth of Biopolitics. There are interesting points of contact in the way each text constructs its argument, even as they arrive at distinct positions vis-à-vis the material and subjective nature of market society, while nevertheless sharing an opposition to Marxian approaches. Yet the work of Polanyi and Hayek’s Marxian contemporary, Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness, offers precisely a critical framework for understanding the relationship between markets, liberty and society in which the material and the subjective need not be read as antagonistic. It is thus also examined here, in an effort to shed light on how discussions of contemporary neoliberalism are framed.     

Inequality in Social Insurance Participation and Generosity: Do Firm Characteristics Matter?

Income inequality in China has been much documented and debated. However, one important aspect of income inequality – social insurance inequality – has been largely understudied. We use a large national panel of firm data to examine the possible influence of various firm characteristics on the inequalities in social insurance participation and generosity in the period 2004–07. Our findings reveal substantial ownership sector and regional gaps in social insurance provision by firms, with the private domestic sector and those in the central region lagging behind. Unionized firms, larger firms, and firms with greater market shares also tend to provide better social insurance to their employees. While being an exporting firm is linked with greater social insurance participation and generosity, being a purely exporting firm, however, is associated with reduced social insurance generosity. Lastly, highly educated workers receive substantially better social insurance coverage than their less educated peers. These social insurance inequalities are highly relevant as China pushes forward with establishing a unified social insurance system across urban‐rural boundaries, ownership sectors and industries.     

Can Quasi‐market and Multi‐level Governance Co‐exist? Insights from the Case of Lombardy's Employment Services System

This article explores the functioning of Lombardy's networked employment services system, inspired by quasi‐market and horizontal subsidiarity principles, and specifically addresses a gap in the quasi‐market literature, where little attention is devoted to the role played by institutions at lower levels of government. A qualitative study of the Lombardy system, with a focus on the municipality of Milan, is relied upon in order to explore the extent to which the principles of quasi‐market and multi‐level governance pursued by the regional government are allowed to co‐exist in practice. Here, sub‐regional levels of government are directly involved in services provision, but enjoy a more privileged condition relative to the private providers, thereby jeopardizing the implementation of an effective quasi‐market. The article contributes to existing theories by suggesting that horizontal subsidiarity and marketization cannot neglect multi‐level governance in those sectors where public bodies at various levels of government are directly involved in implementation.     

诸神之争的再阐释:一个社会学的结构视角

世俗化及逆世俗化范式的对立其实蕴含着更大的连续性,即如何理解宗教多元主义背后的诸神之争,总的来说,韦伯之后那些解释宗教变迁的理论范式均未突破韦伯对宗教的比较研究范畴,难以在当前复杂而多元的文化环境下为个人提供总体指导,但是二者共同揭露了诸神之争条件下西方宗教工具理性和价值理性交互作用所促成的理性化的动力机制,即西方宗教维护自身价值理性的方式从中世纪教会主导的政治性垄断过渡到现代性条件下宗教多元主义的市场化竞争。     

A social welfare perspective of market‐oriented social enterprises

The article analyses market‐oriented social enterprises from a social welfare perspective, within the context of the innate conflict between business and welfare orientations. After defining the concept of market‐oriented social enterprises and presenting some successful examples on such entities that employ different marginalised populations, particularly people with disabilities, the article asks three interrelated questions: (i) What policy environment is needed to encourage the development of social enterprises? (ii) Given the innate tension between the social and economic objectives in social enterprises, what structural principles are needed to enable them to meet those dual objectives? Lastly, (iii) What intervention modalities are best suited to help individual participants in those frameworks? Answers to these questions are discussed within conceptual frameworks from the worlds of welfare and business that jointly provide a base for a social welfare rationale for market‐oriented social enterprises.