The Decoupling of Social Policy Reforms in Romania

Social reforms in Romania have been, from the beginning of the 1990s and throughout the EU post‐accession phase, the battlefield for many domestic and international actors. The article identifies, from an historical institutionalist perspective, the international actors who decisively influenced reforms of social protection in Romania during the transition, with a special emphasis on the EU pre‐ and post‐accession stages. Further, the article attempts to understand the impact of the various external influences on the sustainability and effectiveness of domestic reforms, by assessing the convergence, or the decoupling, between the rationales – i.e. ideologies and values – that explicitly grounded social reforms in Romania and the domestic public rhetoric on social risks and values. Answers to these questions can provide important insights in regard to both the impact of the EU upon new member states and the challenges of EU enlargement for the EU and its core member states.     

Myths and realities about input subsidies in sub‐Saharan Africa

Using a recent public expenditure dataset, this article proposes a ‘reality check’ of the level and composition of input subsidies in nine African countries between 2006 and 2013. Results show that input subsidies (1) received close to 35% of agricultural‐specific expenditure on average and (2) cover a variety of interventions, including investments in capital, such as on‐farm irrigation, and in on‐farm services, such as inspection or training. Further, the figures show that input subsidies tended to become entrenched in agricultural budgets over time, leading to sub‐optimal execution rates, and were primarily funded by the national taxpayer, while donors invested more in public goods. Findings confirm that input subsidies crowded out other spending categories likely to be more supportive of long‐term agricultural development objectives. The article concludes that the political economy of input subsidies should be directed to making more concrete efforts to attain a better balance of public expenditure on agriculture. Furthermore, policy‐makers should aim to increase the efficiency and policy coherence of input subsidies, since merely abolishing them is likely to be unfeasible in the short term.     

战国四公子风范及其性格探微

战国时期,群雄割据,连年混战,政局动荡。为了达到强大自己并统一天下的目的,各诸侯国对人才的需要极度膨胀,而这一时期,以好客喜士而闻名的四公子,即齐国孟尝君、赵国平原君、魏国信陵君、楚国春申君,为其所处诸侯国的人才储备与供应做了巨大贡献。司马迁在《史记》中对四公子的行径描述详细。在这里,分别从“四公子何以进入《史记》”“四公子之好客”“四公子之疏误…‘从生活环境窥探四公子的性格”和“太史公笔下的四公子”等方面浅显解析战国四公子之异同。     

A New Kuznetsian Dynamic: The Knowledge Economy and Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–2008

The rise of the knowledge economy resulted in higher levels of income inequality in the United States and forced many to question the Kuznets Inverted‐U hypothesis. However, this study argues that the establishment of a knowledge economy does not negate the importance of employment shifts for income inequality. Instead, the expansion of knowledge employment alters the major sectors that are responsible for the overall distribution of income. To this end, this article presents the key argument that the current service–knowledge transition impacts income inequality trends, of today, in a way that is similar to the agricultural–industrial transition, of the past. According to the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity regressions, the agricultural–industrial transition returns stronger associations with income inequality in the United States before 1950. The agricultural–industrial transition's impact diminishes thereafter as the service–knowledge transition shares a more robust association with income inequality after 1980.     

Economic Strain and Children's Behavior in the Aftermath of the Great Recession

Families across the income spectrum experienced subjective feelings of economic strain during the Great Recession. Existing evidence suggests that much of that economic strain did not arise from individual‐specific economic shocks, such as unemployment or income loss, as much as it did from worry and uncertainty about the future. The authors tested a model in which a measure of subjective perceptions of economic strain was the key predictor of children's behavior problems and objective indicators of economic experiences were treated as control variables. To do so, they used new data from a population‐based sample of children ages 4–17 (N = 303) living in southeast Michigan during the period 2009–2012. They found that economic strain exhibited a qualitatively large independent association with internalizing behavior problems for White—but not Black—children. This association was statistically significant over and above objective indicators of economic experiences and the family psychosocial context.     

Couple Longevity in the Era of Same‐Sex Marriage in the United States

The author used a new longitudinal data set, the How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys (N = 3,009), to generate the first nationally representative comparison of same‐sex couple stability and heterosexual couple stability in the United States. He measured the association between marriage (by several definitions of marriage) and couple longevity for same‐sex couples in the United States. Reports of same‐sex relationship instability in the past were due in part to the low rate of marriages among same‐sex couples. After controlling for marriage and marriage‐like commitments, the break‐up rate for same‐sex couples was comparable to (and not statistically distinguishable from) the break‐up rate for heterosexual couples. The results revealed that same‐sex couples who had a marriage‐like commitment had stable unions regardless of government recognition. A variety of predictors of relationship dissolution for heterosexual and for same‐sex couples are explored.     

Ethical Adoption Practice

Abstract

Dr. Paul Denhalter completed his doctoral candidacy research on adoptive family attachment and entitlement. Nineteen parents were interviewed about what elements of adoptive family life contributed to a sense of entitlement. The act of care giving increased entitlement; negative comments from others about adoption tended to decrease it. In his social work practice, Dr. Denhalter counseled adoptive and birth families and advocated education, counseling and support for successful open adoption relationships. His positive perspective on adoption included his father's adoption at age five. Dr. Denhalter was critical of the current trends in adoption that have pathologized adoption for political purposes. He emphasized the results of the Search Institute's study that had positive conclusions about adopted children as well as a blueprint for successful adoptive families to follow.     

Asymptotic Inference on Cointegrating Rank in Partial Systems

The likelihood ratio test for cointegrating rank is analyzed for partial (or conditional) systems in the vector autoregressive error-correction model. Under the assumption of weak exogeneity for the cointegrating parameters, the asymptotic distributions are given and tables of critical values are provided. A discussion is given of some of the assumptions of the model, why they are needed, and how they are tested.     

试论荆州古城历史文化资源的特点及其利用

作为国务院首批公布的国家历史文化名城之一,荆州古城历史文化资源丰富,特点十分鲜明。荆州古城历史文化资源具有历史底蕴深厚、分布广泛、类型多样、档次高、地面遗存少等特点。在开发利用古城历史文化资源时,要重视挖掘已灭失但历史底蕴深厚的历史文化资源,要以市场为导向,提高资源利用的经济效益,还要利用与保护并重,营造良好的旅游环境。     

战后美国对外援助政策的历史考察

〕关于美国对外援助 ,学者在论述时 ,往往侧重于得出结论性的评价 ,如把美国的对外援助与人权外交结合起来 ,认为美国对外援助尤其是经济援助是推行人权外交的工具 ,体现了美国的霸权主义 ;也有一些学者认为 ,美国提出对外经济援助计划的主要目的是为了维护美国的经济、政治利益 ,它与人权外交的关系不大。美国对外援助政策的提出 ,是美国外交政策的重大突破 ,自此美国人的视野更加开阔 ,对外援助政策是实现美国世界霸权的工具 ,无论何时美国的对外援助政策都是为了维护美国国内经济的持续繁荣 ,国内政策的制定一直是美国政府的中心工作