Exploring Neglected Dimensions of Social Policy: The SDW, Fiscal Welfare and the Exemplar of Local Taxation in England

Titmuss's Social Division of Welfare (SDW) thesis is a vitally important but much neglected element of social policy analysis. This article seeks to explore the SDW, with a particular focus on fiscal welfare. Fiscal welfare has been described as forming a hidden welfare state, and while taxation is one of the main ways in which governments affect the lives of citizens, studies of welfare pay remarkably little attention to its impact. Fiscal welfare is examined by using, as an exemplar, local taxation in England, a subject that itself is neglected within social policy. Local taxation in England is of interest because it illustrates the impact of a system of taxation on different groups of citizens, and how this can operate to the benefit of rich over poor citizens. This is because the current system is highly regressive, meaning that those on low and middle incomes spend proportionately more of their income paying the tax than do those on high incomes. What is of further interest is how within the debate about reform of local taxation, concern with regressivity becomes obscured and ceases to be the focus of attention. We are thus provided with an example of how fiscal welfare remains a hidden issue. The article concludes by arguing that social policy analysis needs to move beyond the narrow confines of social welfare and develop a broader understanding of welfare, based on the SDW.     

西方国家廉政经验在我国的检讨与适应性分析

当前学术界在我国廉政建设中主张广泛借鉴欧美各国的廉政建设经验。客观来说，西方发达国家的廉政建设体制相对更加完善和卓有成效；不过，这些经验在我国是否适用，不能仅仅依据经验本身，更多的则取决于中国是否存在国外经验生长的土壤。由于这些国家的近现代发展历程、廉政建设面对的国情与我国有较大的相似性，因而其廉政经验比较符合我国的廉政建设需要。     

“三合一”型政府管理模式:现实与理论的全景式展示

建设法治型政府、责任型政府和服务型政府是我国政府进行政府改革的有益尝试,是用新的价值取向和路径选择对传统政府管理模式进行根本性或方向性的调整.本文将对这三种政府管理模式作一番现实考量和理论分析,以求正确处理好它们之间的关系,努力彰显出它们在目前我国市场经济发展水平和社会整体发展水平中的本色和个性,并使其相辅相成、相互促进,塑造"三合一"型政府管理模式,可以实现社会理想的崇高意蕴,契合"和谐社会"的构建,这对促进我国经济社会协调发展和全面进步,具有重大的理论和实践意义.     

西藏小学双语教育研究

文章是基于作者在2003年在西藏几所小学进行社会调查,运用问卷调查、访谈等形式搜集的部分材料的基础上进行分类整理的。主旨是为了揭示:(1)在人类学、教育学领域梳理有关双语教育的普遍性理论;(2)当前西藏的双语教育状况;(3)老师、家长、学生和校长等群体对当前双语教育的观点和立场;(4)联系到学生在学校的学习成绩、个人发展前景、民族文化保存和继承,藏汉语在学校教育中的如何界定和评估问题;(5)分析学生的社会和家庭两个宏、微观社会语言环境。在研究方法上采用了定量和定性两种方法,亦即文字采访记录和数据统计方法。     

论民族权利与宪政建设

本文阐述了民族权利与宪政建设的关系 ,分析了我国民族自治地方民族权利发展方面的新特点和新问题。作者认为 ,为了进一步保障和发展民族权利 ,必须加强民族自治地方的宪政建设 ,处理好民族自治权与民族其他权利的关系 ,处理好经济建设与宪政建设的关系 ,处理好秩序稳定与自由权利发展的关系 ,处理好基本权利制度与具体法律保障制度的关系 ,加快民族权利法治化建设的步伐。     

南疆基层社会的精英互动

本文根据帕累托提出的广义"精英"定义,将南疆基层社会的精英分子分为政治精英、道德精英和经济精英三种类型,并使用实地调查得到的资料和案例分析了这三种精英在当地实际社会运行过程中的互动方式,同时探讨了国家政权、乡村干部和传统宗教人士在基层社区民众生活中各自发挥的作用。     

Pooled Panel Unit Root Tests and the Effect of Past Initialization

This paper analyzes the role of initialization when testing for a unit root in panel data, an issue that has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. In fact, most studies assume that the initial value is either zero or bounded. As a response to this, the current paper considers a model in which the initialization is in the past, which is shown to have several distinctive features that makes it attractive, even in comparison to the common time series practice of making the initial value a draw from its unconditional distribution under the stationary alternative. The results have implications not only for theory, but also for applied work. In particular, and in contrast to the time series case, in panels the effect of the initialization need not be negative but can actually lead to improved test performance.     

Understanding Estimators of Treatment Effects in Regression Discontinuity Designs

In this paper, we propose two new estimators of treatment effects in regression discontinuity designs. These estimators can aid understanding of the existing estimators such as the local polynomial estimator and the partially linear estimator. The first estimator is the partially polynomial estimator which extends the partially linear estimator by further incorporating derivative differences of the conditional mean of the outcome on the two sides of the discontinuity point. This estimator is related to the local polynomial estimator by a relocalization effect. Unlike the partially linear estimator, this estimator can achieve the optimal rate of convergence even under broader regularity conditions. The second estimator is an instrumental variable estimator in the fuzzy design. This estimator will reduce to the local polynomial estimator if higher order endogeneities are neglected. We study the asymptotic properties of these two estimators and conduct simulation studies to confirm the theoretical analysis.     

On the Joint Estimation of Heterogeneous Technologies,Technical, and Allocative Inefficiency

In this article, we provide a semiparametric approach to the joint measurement of technical and allocative inefficiency in a way that the internal consistency of the specification of allocative errors in the objective function (e.g., cost function) and the derivative equations (e.g., share or input demand functions) is assured. We start from the Cobb–Douglas production and shadow cost system. We show that the shadow cost system has a closed-form likelihood function contrary to what was previously thought. In turn, we use the method of local maximum likelihood applied to a system of equations to obtain firm-specific parameter estimates (which reveal heterogeneity in production) as well as measures of technical and allocative inefficiency and its cost. We illustrate its practical application using data on U.S. electric utilities.     

The Local Power of the CADF and CIPS Panel Unit Root Tests

Very little is known about the local power of second generation panel unit root tests that are robust to cross-section dependence. This article derives the local asymptotic power functions of the cross-section argumented Dickey–Fuller Cross-section Augmented Dickey-Fuller (CADF) and CIPS tests of Pesaran (2007), which are among the most popular tests around.