Evolution of the Economics of Agricultural Policy

西南交通大学博士研究生选题报告姓名学号导师姓名职称教授专业管理科学与工程研究方向题目基于利益相关者理论的旅游可持续发展研究2006年08月25日开题报告的内容应包括（1）课题的研究意义、国内外现状分析。

（2）课题研究目标、研究内容、拟解决的关键问题。

（3）拟采取的研究方法、技术路线、试验方案及其可行性研究。

（4）课题的创新性。

（5）计划进度、预期进展和预期成果。

注：（1）开题报告由各院（系、所、中心）组织实施，专家组成员由3-5位相关学科专家组成，其中博士生导师的比例不低于50％。

应同时邀请导师和督导组相关专家参加，导师担任组长。

（2）博士生应就所选课题进行详细报告。

专家组的作用是帮助导师和研究生执行选题论证，尤其是对开题报告的创新性和可行性进行重点论证。

论证意见按“优”、“通过”、“不通过”三级评定。

（3）对开题报告成绩评定为“优”者（比例不超过10％），可申请校博士创新基金，请专家组按有关文件要求推荐；通过者按计划开展论文工作；不通过者，在半年内需重新开题，仍未通过者取消博士生资格。

选题报告主要内容论文题目：基于利益相关者理论的旅游可持续发展研究一、课题的研究意义、国内外现状分析。

1.1课题的研究背景在过去的50年中，世界国际旅游业从一个无足轻重的产业发展成为举世瞩目的重要产业[1]。

1950年开始至1996年，世界旅游业保持了年均增长7.1％的速度，从1950年接待国际旅游者2500万人次增长到1996年的5.95亿人次，国际旅游收入(以当年价格计算，不包括国际交通)也从21亿美元增加到4250亿美元。

预计2020年全球将接待16亿人次国际旅游者，国际旅游消费将达20000亿美元，国际旅游人数和消费年均增长率分别达到4.35％和6.7％。

保守估计，2020年国际旅游人数将达到世界潜在旅游人数的10％。

如果把各国的国内旅游收入加在一起，1992年旅游业已经成为世界第一大产业（谢彦君，2001），成为服务贸易的主体性产业，它创造了大量的利润和税收，提供了众多的就业机会，促进了出口，吸引了投资，前景十分辉煌。

B OSTON U NIVERSITY Center for Energy and Environmental Studies Working Papers SeriesNumber 9501 September 1995 THE CAPITAL THEORY APPROACH TO SUSTAINABILITY:A CRITICAL APPRAISALbyDavid Stern675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA 02215Tel: (617) 353-3083Fax: (617) 353-5986E-Mail: dstern@WWW: /sterncv.htmlThe Capital Theory Approach to Sustainability:A Critical AppraisalDavid I. SternBoston UniversityNovember 1995______________________________________________________________________________ Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA 02215, USA. Tel: (617) 353 3083 Fax: (617) 353 5986, E-Mail: dstern@The Capital Theory Approach to Sustainability:A Critical Appraisal______________________________________________________________________________ SummaryThis paper examines critically some recent developments in the sustainability debate. The large number of definitions of sustainability proposed in the 1980's have been refined into a smaller number of positions on the relevant questions in the 1990's. The most prominent of these are based on the idea of maintaining a capital stock. I call this the capital theory approach (CTA). Though these concepts are beginning to inform policies there are a number of difficulties in applying this approach in a theoretically valid manner and a number of critics of the use of the CTA as a guide to policy. First, I examine the internal difficulties with the CTA and continue to review criticisms from outside the neoclassical normative framework. The accounting approach obscures the underlying assumptions used and gives undue authoritativeness to the results. No account is taken of the uncertainty involved in sustainability analysis of any sort. In addition, by focusing on a representative consumer and using market (or contingent market) valuations of environmental resources, the approach (in common with most normative neoclassical economics) does not take into account distributional issues or accommodate alternative views on environmental values. Finally, I examine alternative approaches to sustainability analysis and policy making. These approaches accept the open-ended and multi-dimensional nature of sustainability and explicitly open up to political debate the questions that are at risk of being hidden inside the black-box of seemingly objective accounting.I.INTRODUCTIONThe Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) proposed that sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present generation while letting future generations meet their own needs". Economists initially had some difficulty with this concept, some dismissing it1 and others proliferating a vast number of alternative definitions and policy prescriptions (see surveys by: Pezzey, 1989; Pearce et al., 1989; Rees, 1990; Lélé, 1991).In recent years, economists have made some progress in articulating their conception of sustainability. The large number of definitions of sustainability proposed in the 1980's have been refined into a smaller number of positions on the relevant questions in the 1990's. There is agreement that sustainability implies that certain indicators of welfare or development are non-declining over the very long term, that is development is sustained (Pezzey, 1989). Sustainable development is a process of change in an economy that does not violate such a sustainability criterion. Beyond this, the dominant views are based on the idea of maintaining a capital stock as a prerequisite for sustainable development. Within this school of thought there are opposing camps which disagree on the empirical question of the degree to which various capital stocks can be substituted for each other, though there has been little actual empirical research on this question.There is a consensus among a large number of economists that the CTA is a useful means of addressing sustainability issues.2 Capital theory concepts are beginning to inform policy, as in the case of the UN recommendations on environmental accounting and the US response to them (Beardsley, 1994; Carson et al., 1994; Steer and Lutz, 1993). There are, however, a growing number of critics who question whether this is a useful way to address sustainability (eg. Norgaard, 1991; Amir, 1992; Common and Perrings, 1992; Karshenas, 1994; Pezzey, 1994; Common and Norton, 1994; Faucheux et al., 1994; Common, 1995). The literature on sustainable development and sustainability is vast and continually expanding. There are also a large number ofsurveys of that literature (eg. Tisdell, 1988; Pearce et al., 1989; Rees, 1990; Simonis, 1990; Lélé, 1991; Costanza and Daly, 1992; Pezzey, 1992; Toman et al., 1994). I do not intend to survey this literature.The aim of this paper is to present a critique of the capital theory approach to sustainability (CTA henceforth) as a basis for policy. This critique both outlines the difficulties in using and applying the CTA from a viewpoint internal to neoclassical economics and problems with this approach from a viewpoint external to neoclassical economics. I also suggest some alternative approaches to sustainability relevant analysis and policy. The neoclasscial sustainability literature generally ignores the international dimensions of the sustainability problem. I also ignore this dimension in this paper.The paper is structured as follows. In the second section, I discuss the background to the emergence of the capital theory approach, while the third section briefly outlines the basic features of the approach. The fourth section examines the limitations of the CTA from within the viewpoint of neoclassical economics and the debate between proponents of "weak sustainability" and "strong sustainability". The following sections examine the drawbacks of this paradigm from a viewpoint external to neoclassical economics and discuss alternative methods of analysis and decision-making for sustainability. The concluding section summarizes the principal points.SHIFTING DEBATE: EMERGENCE OF THE CAPITAL THEORY II. THEAPPROACHMuch of the literature on sustainable development published in the 1980's was vague (see Lélé, 1991; Rees, 1990; Simonis, 1990). There was a general lack of precision and agreement in defining sustainability, and outlining appropriate sustainability policies. This confusion stemmed in part from an imprecise demarcation between ends and means. By "ends" I mean the definition ofsustainability ie. what is to be sustained, while "means" are the methods to achieve sustainability or necessary and/or sufficient conditions that must be met in order to do the same. As the goal of policy must be a subjective choice, considerable debate surrounded and continues to surround the definition of sustainability (eg. Tisdell, 1988). As there is considerable scientific uncertainty regarding sustainability possibilities, considerable debate continues to surround policies to achieve any given goal.Sharachchandra Lélé (1991) stated that "sustainable development is in real danger of becoming a cliché like appropriate technology - a fashionable phrase that everyone pays homage to but nobody cares to define" (607). Lélé pointed out that different authors and speakers meant very different things by sustainability, and that even UNEP's and WCED's definitions of sustainable development were vague, and confused ends with means. Neither provided any scientific examination of whether their proposed policies would lead to increased sustainability. "Where the sustainable development movement has faltered is in its inability to develop a set of concepts, criteria and policies that are coherent or consistent - both externally (with physical and social reality) and internally (with each other)." (613). Judith Rees (1990) expressed extreme skepticism concerning both sustainable development and its proponents. “It is easy to see why the notion of sustainable development has become so popular ... No longer does environmental protection mean sacrifice and confrontation with dominant materialist values” (435). She also argued that sustainable development was just so much political rhetoric. A UNEP report stated: "The ratio of words to action is weighted too heavily towards the former" (quoted in Simonis, 1990, 35). In the early days of the sustainability debate, vagueness about the meaning of sustainability was advantageous in attracting the largest constituency possible, but in the longer run, greater clarity is essential for sustaining concern.In the 1990's many people have put forward much more precisely articulated definitions of sustainable development, conditions and policies required to achieve sustainability, and criteria toassess whether development is sustainable. This has coincided with a shift from a largely politically-driven dialogue to a more theory-driven dialogue. With this has come a clearer understanding of what kinds of policies would be required to move towards alternative sustainability goals, and what the limits of our knowledge are. There is a stronger awareness of the distinction between ends and means. Most, but not all (eg. Amir, 1992), analysts agree that sustainable development is a meaningful concept but that the claims of the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) that growth just had to change direction were far too simplistic.There is a general consensus, especially among economists, on the principal definition of sustainable development used by David Pearce et al. (1989, 1991): Non-declining average human welfare over time (Mäler, 1991; Pezzey, 1992; Toman et al., 1994).3 This definition of sustainability implies a departure from the strict principle of maximizing net present value in traditional cost benefit analysis (Pezzey, 1989), but otherwise it does not imply a large departure from conventional economics. John Pezzey (1989, 1994) suggests a rule of maximizing net present value subject to the sustainability constraint of non-declining mean welfare. It encompasses many but not all definitions of sustainability. For example, it excludes a definition of sustainability based on maintaining a set of ecosystem functions, which seems to be implied by the Holling-sustainability criterion (Common and Perrings, 1992; Holling, 1973, 1986) or on maintaining given stocks of natural assets irrespective of any contribution to human welfare. A sustainable ecosystem might not be an undesirable goal but it could be too strict a criterion for the goal of maintaining human welfare (Karshenas, 1994) and could in some circumstances lead to declining human welfare. Not all ecosystem functions and certainly not all natural assets may be necessary for human welfare. Some aspects of the natural world such as smallpox bacteria may be absolutely detrimental to people. In the context of the primary Pearce et al. definition, the Holling-sustainability criterion is a means not an end.The advantage of formalizing the concept of sustainability is that this renders it amenable to analysis by economic theory (eg. Barbier and Markandya, 1991; Victor, 1991; Common and Perrings, 1992; Pezzey, 1989, 1994; Asheim, 1994) and to quantitative investigations (eg. Repetto et al., 1989; Pearce and Atkinson, 1993; Proops and Atkinson, 1993; Stern, 1995). Given the above formal definition of sustainability, many economists have examined what the necessary or sufficient conditions for the achievement of sustainability might be. Out of this activity has come the CTA described in the next section. The great attractiveness of this new approach is that it suggests relatively simple rules to ensure sustainability and relatively simple indicators of sustainability. This situation has seemingly cleared away the vagueness that previously attended discussions of sustainability and prompted relatively fast action by governments and international organizations to embrace specific goals and programs aimed at achieving this notion of the necessary conditions for sustainability.III. THE ESSENCE OF THE CAPITAL THEORY APPROACHThe origins of the CTA are in the literature on economic growth and exhaustible resources that flourished in the 1970s, exemplified by the special issue of the Review of Economic Studies published in 1974 (Heal, 1974). Robert Solow (1986) built on this earlier literature and the work of John Hartwick (1977, 1978a, 1978b) to formalize the constant capital rule. In these early models there was a single non-renewable resource and a stock of manufactured capital goods. A production function produced a single output, which could be used for either consumption or investment using the two inputs. The elasticity of substitution between the two inputs was one which implied that natural resources were essential but that the average product of resources could rise without bound given sufficient manufactured capital.The models relate to the notion of sustainability as non-declining welfare through the assumption that welfare is a monotonically increasing function of consumption (eg. Mäler, 1991). The path ofconsumption over time (and therefore of the capital stock) in these model economies depends on the intertemporal optimization rule. Under the Rawlsian maxi-min condition consumption must be constant. No net saving is permissible as this is regarded as an unjust burden on the present generation. Under the Ramsey utilitarian approach with zero discounting consumption can increase without bound (Solow, 1974). Here the present generation may be forced to accept a subsistence standard of living if this can benefit the future generations however richer they might be. Paths that maximize net present value with positive discount rates typically peak and then decline so that they are not sustainable (Pezzey, 1994). Pezzey (1989) suggested a hybrid version which maximizes net present value subject to an intertemporal constraint that utility be non-declining. In this case utility will first increase until it reaches a maximum sustainable level. This has attracted consensus as the general optimizing criterion for sustainable development. Geir Asheim (1991) derives this condition more formally.Under the assumption that the elasticity of substitution is one, non-declining consumption depends on the maintenance of the aggregate capital stock ie. conventional capital plus natural resources, used to produce consumption (and investment) goods (Solow, 1986). Aggregate capital, W t,and the change in aggregate capital are defined by:W t=p Kt K t + p Rt S t (1)∆W t=p Kt∆K t + p Rt R t (2)where S is the stock of non-renewable resources and R the use per period. K is the manufactured capital stock and the p i are the relevant prices. In the absence of depreciation of manufactured capital, maintenance of the capital stock implies investment of the rents from the depletion of the natural resource in manufactured capital - the Hartwick rule (Hartwick 1977, 1978a, 1978b). Income is defined using the Hicksian notion (Hicks, 1946) that income is the maximum consumption in a period consistent with the maintenance of wealth. Sustainable income is,therefore, the maximum consumption in a period consistent with the maintenance of aggregate capital intact (Weitzman, 1976; Mäler, 1991) and for a flow of income to be sustainable, the stock of capital needs to be constant or increasing over time (Solow, 1986).The initial work can be extended in various ways. The definition of capital that satisfies these conditions can be extended to include a number of categories of "capital": natural, manufactured, human, and institutional.4 Natural capital is a term used by many authors (it seems Smith (1977) was the first) for the aggregate of natural resource stocks that produce inputs of services or commodities for the economy. Some of the components of natural capital may be renewable resources. Manufactured capital refers to the standard neoclassical definition of "a factor of production produced by the economic system" (Pearce, 1992). Human capital also follows the standard definition. Institutional capital includes the institutions and knowledge necessary for the organization and reproduction of the economic system. It includes the ethical or moral capital referred to by Fred Hirsch (1976) and the cultural capital referred to by Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke (1992). For convenience I give the name 'artificial capital' to the latter three categories jointly. None of these concepts is unproblematic and natural capital is perhaps the most problematic. Technical change and population growth can also be accommodated (see Solow, 1986).Empirical implementation of the CTA tends to focus on measurement of sustainable income (eg. El Serafy, 1989; Repetto, 1989) or net capital accumulation (eg. Pearce and Atkinson, 1993; Proops and Atkinson, 1993) rather than on direct estimation of the capital stock.5 The theoretical models that underpin the CTA typically assume a Cobb-Douglas production function with constant returns to scale, no population growth, and no technological change. Any indices of net capital accumulation which attempt to make even a first approximation to reality must take these variables into account. None of the recent empirical studies does so. For example, David Pearce and Giles Atkinson (1993) present data from eighteen countries on savings and depreciation of natural andmanufactured capital as a proportion of GNP. They demonstrate that only eight countries had non-declining stocks of total capital, measured at market prices, and thus passed a weak sustainability criterion of a constant aggregate capital stock, but their methodology ignores population growth, returns to scale or technological change.IV.INTERNAL APPRAISAL OF THE CAPITAL THEORY APPROACHIn this section, I take as given the basic assumptions and rationale of neoclassical economics and highlight some of the technical problems that are encountered in using the CTA as an operational guide to policy. From a neoclassical standpoint these might be seen as difficulties in the positive theory that may lead to difficulties in the normative theory of sustainability policy. In the following section, I take as given solutions to these technical difficulties and examine some of the problems inherent in the normative neoclassical approach to sustainability.a.Limits to Substitution in Production and "Strong Sustainability"Capital theorists are divided among proponents of weak sustainability and strong sustainability. This terminology is confusing as it suggests that the various writers have differing ideas of what sustainability is.6 In fact they agree on that issue, but differ on what is the minimum set of necessary conditions for achieving sustainability. The criterion that distinguishes the categories is the degree of substitutability believed to be possible between natural and artificial capital.7The weak sustainability viewpoint follows from the early literature and holds that the relevant capital stock is an aggregate stock of artificial and natural capital. Weak sustainability assumes that the elasticity of substitution between natural capital and artificial capital is one and therefore that there are no natural resources that contribute to human welfare that cannot be asymptotically replaced by other forms of capital. Reductions in natural capital may be offset by increases inartificial capital. It is sometimes implied that this might be not only a necessary condition but also a sufficient condition for achieving sustainability (eg. Solow, 1986, 1993).Proponents of the strong sustainability viewpoint such as Robert Costanza and Herman Daly (1992) argue that though this is a necessary condition for sustainability it cannot possibly be a sufficient condition. Instead, a minimum necessary condition is that separate stocks of aggregate natural capital and aggregate artificial capital must be maintained. Costanza and Daly (1992) state: "It is important for operational purposes to define sustainable development in terms of constant or nondeclining total natural capital, rather than in terms of nondeclining utility" (39).8 Other analysts such as members of the "London School" hold views between these two extremes (see Victor, 1991). They argue that though it is possible to substitute between natural and artificial capital there are certain stocks of "critical natural capital" for which no substitutes exist. A necessary condition for sustainability is that these individual stocks must be maintained in addition to the general aggregate capital stock.The weak sustainability condition violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as a minimum quantity of energy is required to transform matter into economically useful products (Hall et al., 1986) and energy cannot be produced inside the economic system.9 It also violates the First Law on the grounds of mass balance (Pezzey, 1994). Also ecological principles concerning the importance of diversity in system resilience (Common and Perrings, 1992) imply that minimum quantities of a large number of different capital stocks (eg. species) are required to maintain life support services. The London School view and strong sustainability accommodate these facts by assuming that there are lower bounds on the stocks of natural capital required to support the economy, in terms of the supply of materials and energy, and in terms of the assimilative capacity of the environment, and that certain categories of critical natural capital cannot be replaced by other forms of capital.Beyond this recognition it is an empirical question as to how far artificial capital can substitute for natural capital. There has been little work on this at scales relevant to sustainability. However, the econometric evidence from studies of manufacturing industry suggest on the whole that energy and capital are complements (Berndt and Wood, 1979).In some ways the concept of maintaining a constant stock of aggregate natural capital is even more bizarre than maintaining a non-declining stock of total capital. It seems more reasonable to suggest that artificial capital might replace some of the functions of natural capital than to suggest that in general various natural resources may be substitutes for each other. How can oil reserves substitute for clean air, or iron deposits for topsoil? Recognizing this, some of the strong sustainability proponents have dropped the idea of maintaining an aggregate natural capital stock as proposed by Costanza and Daly (1992) and instead argue that minimum stocks of all natural resources should be maintained (Faucheux and O'Connor, 1995). However, this can no longer really be considered an example of the CTA. Instead it is an approach that depends on the concept of safe minimum standards or the precautionary principle. The essence of the CTA is that some aggregation of resources using monetary valuations is proposed as an indicator for sustainability.The types of models which admit an index of aggregate capital, whether aggregate natural capital or aggregate total capital, is very limited. Construction of aggregate indices or subindices of inputs depend on the production function being weakly separable in those subgroups (Berndt and Christensen, 1973). For example it is only possible to construct an index of aggregate natural capital if the marginal rate of substitution between two forms of natural capital is independent of the quantities of labor or capital employed. This seems an unlikely proposition as the exploitation of many natural resources is impractical without large capital stocks. For example, in the production of caught fish, the marginal rate of substitution, and under perfect competition the price ratio, between stocks of fresh water fish and marine fish should be independent of the number of fishingboats available. This is clearly not the case. People are not likely to put a high value on the stock of deep sea fish when they do not have boats to catch them with.If substitution is limited, technological progress might reduce the quantity of natural resource inputs required per unit of output. However, there are arguments that indicate that technical progress itself is bounded (see Pezzey, 1994; Stern, 1994). One of these (Pezzey, 1994) is that, just as in the case of substitution, ultimately the laws of thermodynamics limit the minimization of resource inputs per unit output. Stern (1994) argues that unknown useful knowledge is itself a nonrenewable resource. Technological progress is the extraction of this knowledge from the environment and the investment of resources in this activity will eventually be subject to diminishing returns.Limits to substitution in production might be thought of in a much broader way to include nonlinearities and threshold effects. This view is sometimes described as the "ecological" viewpoint on sustainability (Common and Perrings, 1992; Common, 1995) or as the importance of maintaining the "resilience" of ecological systems rather than any specific stocks or species. This approach derives largely from the work of Holling (1973, 1986). In this view ecosystems are locally stable in the presence of small shocks or perturbations but may be irreversibly altered by large shocks. Structural changes in ecosystems such as those that come about through human interference and particularly simplification, may make these systems more susceptible to losing resilience and being permanently degraded. There is clearly some substitutability between species or inorganic elements in the role of maintaining ecosystem productivity, however, beyond a certain point this substitutability may suddenly fail to hold true. This approach also asks us to look at development paths as much less linear and predictable than is implied in the CTA literature.All things considered, what emerges is a quite different approach to sustainability policy. It is probable that substitution between natural and artificial capital is limited, as is ultimately technicalchange. Additionally the joint economy-ecosystem system may be subject to nonlinear dynamics. This implies that eventually the economy must approach a steady state where the volume of physical economic activity is dependent on the maximum economic and sustainable yield of renewable resources or face decline ie. profit (or utility) maximizing use of renewable resources subject to the sustainability constraint. As in Herman Daly's vision (Daly, 1977) qualitative change in the nature of economic output is still possible. Sustainability policy would require not just maintaining some stocks of renewable resources but also working to reduce "threats to sustainability" (Common, 1995) that might cause the system to pass over a threshold and reduce long-run productivity.The notion of Hicksian income originally applied to an individual price-taking firm (Faucheux and O'Connor, 1995). However, even here it is not apparent that the myopic policy of maintaining capital intact from year to year is the best or only way to ensure the sustainability of profits into the future. If a competing firm makes an innovation that renders the firm's capital stock obsolete, the latter's income may drop to zero. This is despite it previously following a policy of maintaining its capital intact. The firm's income measured up to this point is clearly seen to be unsustainable. In fact its policy has been shown to be irrelevant to long-run sustainability. In the real world firms will carry out activities that may not contribute to the year to year maintenance of capital and will reduce short-run profits such as research and development and attempts to gain market share.10 These activities make the firm more resilient against future shocks and hence enhance sustainability.b.Prices for AggregationSupposing that the necessary separability conditions are met so that aggregation of a capital stock is possible, analysts still have to obtain an appropriate set of prices so that the value of the capital stock is a sustainability relevant value. The CTA is more or less tautological if we use the "right" prices. However, these correct "sustainability prices" are unknown and unknowable. A number of。

经济学研究范式的英文Economic research paradigms have evolved significantlyover the years, reflecting the complexity and dynamism of the field. The paradigms serve as frameworks that guideeconomists in their quest to understand and explain economic phenomena.One of the earliest and most influential paradigms is the Classical Economics paradigm, which emerged during the Industrial Revolution. It was characterized by a belief inthe self-regulating market and the 'invisible hand' that guides economic activity towards societal welfare. This paradigm emphasized the importance of laissez-faire policies and minimal government intervention.In contrast, the Keynesian Economics paradigm, which gained prominence in the mid-20th century, shifted the focus towards the role of government in managing economic cyclesand addressing unemployment. Keynes argued that aggregate demand, rather than market forces alone, determined the level of economic activity.The Neoclassical Economics paradigm, which emerged in the late 19th century, introduced the concept of marginal utility and the importance of individual choice in economic decisions. This paradigm also emphasized the role of equilibrium in markets and the efficiency of market outcomes.Behavioral Economics, a more recent paradigm, challenges the traditional assumptions of rationality in economic agents. It incorporates insights from psychology to explain anomalies in decision-making that deviate from the predictions of standard economic models.Another significant development is the Post-Keynesian Economics paradigm, which extends Keynes' insights to include issues of income distribution, financial instability, and the role of money and credit in the economy.The Institutional Economics paradigm, meanwhile, focuses on the role of social institutions and their impact on economic behavior and outcomes. It emphasizes the importanceof historical context and the evolution of economic systems.Finally, the Ecological Economics paradigm addresses the interdependence of economic systems with the environment, advocating for sustainable development and the integration of ecological concerns into economic policy.Each of these paradigms offers a unique lens throughwhich to view and interpret economic events and trends. The diversity of these paradigms reflects the multifaceted nature of economics as a discipline and the ongoing quest for a more comprehensive understanding of economic processes.。

《经济学家》推荐的英文书籍及简介《经济学家》（The Economist）是一份国际性的经济与商业周刊，涵盖了全球范围内的政治、商业、科技、金融等多个领域的报道和分析。

以下是一些根据《经济学家》推荐的英文书籍及简介，注意这只是一个示例，而且由于时间有限，我无法提供最新的推荐。

你可以查阅最新一期或他们的书评专栏获取更多信息。

1.《Sapiens:A Brief History of Humankind》－作者：Yuval NoahHarari简介：这本书以生动的语言概括了人类历史的发展，从早期的人类社会到现代文明。

作者提出了一些深刻的见解，涉及文化、宗教、科技等方面。

2.《The Great Convergence:Information Technology and the NewGlobalization》－作者：Richard Baldwin简介：本书探讨了信息技术是如何改变全球经济和社会格局的。

作者分析了数字化时代的新趋势，以及它对全球化和国际贸易的影响。

3.《The Third Pillar:How Markets and the State Leave theCommunity Behind》－作者：Raghuram Rajan简介：作者讨论了市场和国家之间的权衡，以及社区在这个平衡中的角色。

他提出了一种重新思考社会政策的方式，强调了社区在现代社会中的重要性。

4.《The Code of Capital:How the Law Creates Wealth andInequality》－作者：Katharina Pistor简介：本书解析了资本主义中法律的角色，以及法律如何塑造了财富的分配和不平等。

作者通过法律视角分析了资本主义体系的一些关键问题。

5.《The Narrow Corridor:States,Societies,and the Fate of Liberty》－作者：Daron Acemoglu,James A.Robinson简介：这本书由《为什么国家失败》的作者撰写，研究了国家、社会和自由之间的关系。

GRE阅读真题之OGPassage8-10汇总为了帮助大家在备考gre的时候能够练习更多的阅读题目，下面小编给大家带来GRE阅读真题之OG Passage 8-10汇总，希望大家喜欢!GRE阅读真题之OG Passage 8OG-1Passage 8Tocqueville, apparently, was wrong. Jacksonian America was not a fluid, egalitarian society where individual wealth and poverty were ephemeral conditions. At least so argues E. Pessen in his iconoclastic study of the very rich in the United States between 1825 and 1850.Pessen does present a quantity of examples, together with some refreshingly intelligible statistics, to establish the existence of an inordinately wealthy class. Though active in commerce or the professions, most of the wealthy were not self-made but had inherited family fortunes. In no sense mercurial, these great fortunes survived the financial panics that destroyed lesser ones. Indeed, in several cities the wealthiest one percent constantly increased its share until by 1850 it owned half of the community’s wealth. Although these observations a re true, Pessen overestimates their importance by concluding from them that the undoubted progress toward inequality in the late eighteenth century continued in the Jacksonian period and that the United States was a class-ridden, plutocratic society even before industrialization.1. According to the passage, Pessen indicates that all of the following were true of the very wealthy in the United States between 1825 and 1850 EXCEPT:A. They formed a distinct upper class.B. Many of them were able to increase their holdings.C. Some of them worked as professionals or in business.D. Most of them accumulated their own fortunes.E. Many of them retained their wealth in spite of financial upheavals.2. Which of the following best states the author’s main point?A. Pessen’s study has overturned the previously established view of the social and economic structure of early-nineteenth-century America.B. Tocqueville’s analysis of the United States in the Jacksonian era remains the definitive account of this period.C. P essen’s study is valuable primarily because it shows the continuity of the social system in the United States throughout the nineteenth century.D. The social patterns and political power of the extremely wealthy in theUnited States between 1825 and 1850 are well documented.E. Pessen challenges a view of the social and economic systems in the UnitedStates from 1825 to 1850, but he draws conclusions that are incorrect.GRE阅读真题之OG Passage 9OG-1Passage 9The evolution of intelligence among early large mammals of the grasslands was due in great measure to the interaction between two ecologically synchronized groups of these animals, the hunting carnivores and the herbivores that they hunted. Theinteraction resulting from the differences between predator and prey led to a general improvement in brain functions; however, certain components of intelligence were improved far more than others.The kind of intelligence favored by the interplay of increasingly smarter catcher sand increasingly keener escapers is defined by attention —that aspect of mind carrying consciousness forward from one moment to the next. It ranges from a passive, freefloating awareness to a highly focused, active fixation. The range through these states is mediated by the arousal system, a network of tracts converging from sensory systems to integrating centers in the brain stem. From the more relaxed to the more vigorous levels, sensitivity to novelty is increased. The organism is more awake, more vigilant; this increased vigilance results in the apprehension of ever more subtle signals as the organism becomes more sensitive to its surroundings. The processes of arousal and concentration give attention its direction. Arousal is at first general, with a flooding of impulses in the brain stem; then gradually the activation is channeled. Thus begins concentration, the holding of consistent images. One meaning of intelligence is the way in which these images and other alertly searched information are used in the context of previous experience. Consciousness links past attention to the present and permits the integration of details with perceived ends and purposes.The elements of intelligence and consciousness come together marvelously to produce different styles in predator and prey. Herbivores and carnivores develop different kinds of attention related to escaping or chasing. Although in both kinds of animal, arousal stimulates the production of adrenaline andnorepinephrine by the adrenal glands, the effect in herbivores is primarily fear, whereas in carnivores the effect is primarily aggression. For both, arousal attunes the animal to what is ahead. Perhaps it does not experience forethought as we know it, but the animal does experience something like it. The predator is searchingly aggressive, inner-directed, tuned by the nervous system and the adrenal hormones, but aware in a sense closer to human consciousness than, say, a hungry lizard’s instinctive snap at a passing beetle. Using past events as a framework, the large mammal predator is working out a relationship between movement and food, sensitive to possibilities in cold trails and distant sounds—and yesterday’s unforgotten lessons. The herbivore prey is of a different mind. Its mood of wariness rather than searching and its attitude of general expectancy instead of anticipating are silk-thin veils of tranquility over an explosive endocrine system.1. The author refers to a hungry lizard (line 31) primarily in order toA. demonstrate the similarity between the hunting methods of mammals and those of nonmammalsB. broaden the application of the argument by including an insectivore as an exampleC. make a distinction between higher and lower levels of consciousnessD. provide an additional illustration of the brutality characteristic of predatorsE. offer an objection to suggestions that all animals lack consciousness line2. It can be inferred from the passage that in animals less intelligent than the mammals discussed in the passageA. past experience is less helpful in ensuring survivalB. attention is more highly focusedC. muscular coordination is less highly developedD. there is less need for competition among speciesE. environment is more important in establishing the proper ratio of prey to predator3. According to the passage, improvement in brain function among early large mammals resulted primarily from which of the following?A. Interplay of predator and preyB. Persistence of free-floating awareness in animals of the grasslandsC. Gradual dominance of warm-blooded mammals over cold-blooded reptilesD. Interaction of early large mammals with less intelligent speciesE. Improvement of the capacity for memory among herbivores and carnivores4. According to the passage, as the process of arousal in an organism continues, all of the following may occur EXCEPTA. the production of adrenalineB. the production of norepinephrineC. a heightening of sensitivity to stimuliD. an increase in selectivity with respect to stimuliE. an expansion of the range of states mediated by the brain stemGRE阅读真题之OG Passage 10OG-1Passage 10In the United States between 1850 and 1880, the number offarmers continued to increase, but at a rate lower than that of the general population.1. Which of the following statements directly contradicts the information presented above?A. The number of farmers in the general population increased slightly in the30 years between 1850 and 1880.B. The rate of growth of the United States labor force and the rate of growth of the general population rose simultaneously in the 30 years between 1850 and 1880.C. The proportion of farmers in the United States labor force remained constant in the 30 years between 1850 and 1880.D. The proportion of farmers in the United States labor force decreased from 64 percent in 1850 to 49 percent in 1880.E. The proportion of farmers in the general population increased from 68 percent in 1850 to 72 percent in 1880.GRE官方指南(OG)中的阅读真题答案Passage 第一题第二题第三题第四题8 D E9 C A A E10 EGRE阅读真题之OG Passage 8-10汇总。

Digest Of The. Economist.2006(6-7)Hard to digestA wealth of genetic information is to be found in the human gutBACTERIA, like people, can be divided into friend and foe. Inspired by evidence that the friendly sort may help with a range of ailments, many people consume bacteria in the form of yogurts and dietary supplements. Such a smattering of artificial additions, however, represents but a drop in the ocean. There are at least 800 types of bacteria living in the human gut. And research by Steven Gill of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, and his colleagues, published in this week's Science, suggests that the collective genome of these organisms is so large that it contains 100 times as many genes as the human genome itself.Dr Gill and his team were able to come to this conclusion by extracting bacterial DNA from the faeces of two volunteers. Because of the complexity of the samples, they were not able to reconstruct the entire genomes of each of the gut bacteria,just the individual genes. But that allowed them to make an estimate of numbers.What all these bacteria are doing is tricky to identify—the bacteria themselves are difficult to cultivate. So the researchers guessed at what they might be up to by comparing the genes they discovered with published databases of genes whose functions are already known.This comparison helped Dr Gill identify for the first time the probable enzymatic processes by which bacteria help humans to digest the complex carbohydrates in plants. The bacteria also contain a plentiful supply of genes involved in the synthesis of chemicals essential to human life—including two B vitamins and certain essential amino acids—although the team merely showed that these metabolic pathways exist rather than proving that they are used. Nevertheless, the pathways they found leave humans looking more like ruminants: animals such as goats and sheep that use bacteria to break down otherwise indigestible matter in the plants they eat.The broader conclusion Dr Gill draws is that people are superorganisms whose metabolism represents an amalgamation of human and microbial attributes. The notionof a superorganism has emerged before, as researchers in otherfields have come to view humans as having a diverse internal ecosystem. This, suggest some, will be crucial to the successof personalised medicine, as different people will have different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial flora. Accordingly, the next step, says Dr Gill, is to see how microbial populations vary between people of different ages, backgrounds and diets.Another area of research is the process by which these helpful bacteria first colonise the digestive tract. Babies acquire their gut flora as they pass down the birth canal and take a gene-filled gulp of their mother's vaginal and faecal flora. It might not be the most delicious of first meals, but it could well be an important one.Zapping the bluesThe rebirth of electric-shock treatmentELECTRICITY has long been used to treat medical disorders. As early as the second century AD, Galen, a Greek physician, recommended the use of electric eels for treating headaches and facial pain. In the 1930s Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini, two Italian psychiatrists, used electroconvulsive therapy to treat schizophrenia. These days, such rigorous techniques are practised less widely. But researchers are still investigatinghow a gentler electric therapy appears to treat depression.Vagus-nerve stimulation, to give it its proper name, was originally developed to treat severe epilepsy. It requires a pacemaker-like device to be implanted in a patient's chest and wires from it threaded up to the vagus nerve on the left side of his neck. In the normal course of events, this provides an electrical pulse to the vagus nerve for 30 seconds every five minutes.This treatment does not always work, but in some cases where it failed (the number of epileptic seizures experienced by a patient remaining the same), that patient nevertheless reported feeling much better after receiving the implant. This secondary effect led to trials for treating depression and, in 2005, America's Food and Drug Administration approved the therapy for depression that fails to respond to all conventional treatments, including drugs and psychotherapy.Not only does the treatment work, but its effects appear to be long lasting. A study led by Charles Conway of Saint Louis University in Missouri, and presented to a recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, has found that 70% of patients who are better after one year stay better after two years as well.The technique builds on a procedure called deep-brain stimulation, in which electrodes are implanted deep into the white matter of patients' brains and used to “reboot” faulty neural circuitry. Such an operation is a big undertaking, requiring a full day of surgery and carrying a risk of the patient suffering a stroke. Only a small number of people have been treated this way. In contrast, the device that stimulates the vagus nerve can be implanted in 45 minutes without a stay in hospital.The trouble is that vagus-nerve stimulation can take a long time to produce its full beneficial effect. According to Dr Conway, scans taken using a technique called positron-emission tomography show significant changes in brain activity starting three months after treatment begins. The changes are similar to the improvements seen in patients who undergo other forms of antidepression treatment. The brain continues to change over the following 21 months. Dr Conway says that patients should be told that the antidepressant effects could be slow in coming.However, Richard Selway of King's College Hospital, London, found that his patients' moods improved just weeks after the implant. Although brain scans are useful indetermining the longevity of the treatment, Mr Selway notes that visible changes in the brain do not necessarily correlate perfectly with changes in mood.Nobody knows why stimulating the vagus nerve improves the mood of depressed patients, but Mr Selway has a theory. He believes that the electrical stimulation causes a region in the brain stem called the locus caeruleus (Latin, ironically, for “blue place”) to flood the brain with norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter implicated in alertness, concentration and motivation—that is, the mood states missing in depressed patients. Whatever the mechanism, for the depressed a therapy that is relatively safe and long lasting is rare cause for cheer. The shape of things to comeHow tomorrow's nuclear power stations will differ from today'sTHE agency in charge of promoting nuclear power in America describes a new generation of reactors that will be “highly economical” with “enhanced safety”, that “minimise wastes” and will prove “proliferation resistant”. No doubt they will bake a mean apple pie, too.Unfortunately, in the world of nuclear energy, fine words are not enough. America got away lightly with its nuclearaccident. When the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania overheated in 1979 very little radiation leaked, and there were no injuries. Europe was not so lucky. The accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 killed dozens immediately and has affected (sometimes fatally) the health of tens of thousands at the least. Even discounting the association of nuclear power with nuclear weaponry, people have good reason to be suspicious of claims that reactors are safe.Yet political interest in nuclear power is reviving across the world, thanks in part to concerns about global warming and energy security. Already, some 441 commercial reactors operate in 31 countries and provide 17% of the planet's electricity, according to America's Department of Energy. Until recently, the talk was of how to retire these reactors gracefully. Now it is of how to extend their lives. In addition, another 32 reactors are being built, mostly in India, China and their neighbours. These new power stations belong to what has been called the third generation of reactors, designs that have been informed by experience and that are considered by their creators to be advanced. But will these new stations really be safer than their predecessors?Clearly, modern designs need to be less accident prone.The most important feature of a safe design is that it “fails safe”. Fo r a reactor, this means that if its control systems stop working it shuts down automatically, safely dissipates the heat produced by the reactions in its core, and stops both the fuel and the radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactions from escaping by keeping them within some sort of containment vessel. Reactors that follow such rules are called “passive”. Most modern designs are passive to some extent and some newer ones are truly so. However, some of the genuinely passive reactors are also likely to be more expensive to run.Nuclear energy is produced by atomic fission. A large atom (usually uranium or plutonium) breaks into two smaller ones, releasing energy and neutrons. The neutrons then trigger further break-ups. And so on. If this “chain reaction” can be controlled, the energy released can be used to boil water, produce steam and drive a turbine that generates electricity. If it runs away, the result is a meltdown and an accident (or, in extreme circumstances, a nuclear explosion—though circumstances are never that extreme in a reactor because the fuel is less fissile than the material in a bomb). In many new designs the neutrons, and thus the chain reaction, are kept under control by passing them through water to slow themdown. (Slow neutrons trigger more break ups than fast ones.) This water is exposed to a pressure of about 150 atmospheres—a pressure that means it remains liquid even at high temperatures. When nuclear reactions warm the water, its density drops, and the neutrons passing through it are no longer slowed enough to trigger further reactions. That negative feedback stabilises the reaction rate.Can business be cool?Why a growing number of firms are taking global warming seriouslyRUPERT MURDOCH is no green activist. But in Pebble Beach later this summer, the annual gathering of executivesof Mr Murdoch's News Corporation—which last year led to a dramatic shift in the media conglomerate's attitude tothe internet—will be addressed by several leading environmentalists, including a vice-president turned climatechangemovie star. Last month BSkyB, a British satellite-television company chaired by Mr Murdoch and run by hisson, James, declared itself “carbon-neutral”, having taken various steps to cut or offset its discharges of carboninto the atmosphere.The army of corporate greens is growing fast. Late lastyear HSBC became the first big bank to announce that itwas carbon-neutral, joining other financial institutions, including Swiss Re, a reinsurer, and Goldman Sachs, aninvestment bank, in waging war on climate-warming gases (of which carbon dioxide is the main culprit). Last yearGeneral Electric (GE), an industrial powerhouse, launched its “Ecomagination” strategy, aiming to cut its output ofgreenhouse gases and to invest heavily in clean (ie, carbon-free) technologies. In October Wal-Mart announced aseries of environmental schemes, including doubling the fuel-efficiency of its fleet of vehicles within a decade.Tesco and Sainsbury, two of Britain's biggest retailers, are competing fiercely to be the greenest. And on June 7thsome leading British bosses lobbied Tony Blair for a more ambitious policy on climate change, even if that involvesharsher regulation.The greening of business is by no means universal, however. Money from Exxon Mobil, Ford and General Motorshelped pay for television advertisements aired recently in America by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, with thedaft slogan “Carbon dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life”. Besides, environmentalist critics say, some firmsa re engaged in superficial “greenwash” to boost the image ofessentially climate-hurting businesses. Take BP, themost prominent corporate advocate of action on climate change, with its “Beyond Petroleum” ad campaign, highprofileinvestments in green energy, and even a “carbon calculator” on its website that helps consumers measuretheir personal “carbon footprint”, or overall emissions of carbon. Yet, critics complain, BP's recent record profits arelargely thanks to sales of huge amounts of carbon-packed oil and gas.On the other hand, some free-market thinkers see the support of firms for regulation of carbon as the latestattempt at “regulatory capture”, by those who stand to profit from new rules. Max Schulz of the ManhattanInstitute, a conservative think tan k, notes darkly that “Enron was into pushing the idea of climate change, becauseit was good for its business”.Others argue that climate change has no more place in corporate boardrooms than do discussions of other partisanpolitical issues, such as Darfur or gay marriage. That criticism, at least, is surely wrong. Most of the corporateconverts say they are acting not out of some vague sense of social responsibility, or even personal angst, butbecause climate change creates real business risks and opportunities—from regulatory compliance to insuringclientson flood plains. And although these concerns vary hugely from one company to the next, few firms can besure of remaining unaffected.Testing timesResearchers are working on ways to reduce the need for animal experiments, but new laws mayincrease the number of experiments neededIN AN ideal world, people would not perform experiments on animals. For the people, they are expensive. For theanimals, they are stressful and often painful.That ideal world, sadly, is still some way away. People need new drugs and vaccines. They want protection fromthe toxicity of chemicals. The search for basic scientific answers goes on. Indeed, the European Commission isforging ahead with proposals that will increase the number of animal experiments carried out in the EuropeanUnion, by requiring toxicity tests on every chemical approved for use within the union's borders in the past 25years.Already, the commission has identified 140,000 chemicals that have not yet been tested. It wants 30,000 of theseto be examined right away, and plans to spend between €4 billion-8 billion ($5 billion-10 billion) doing so. Thenumberof animals used for toxicity testing in Europe will thus, experts reckon, quintuple from just over 1m a yearto about 5m, unless they are saved by some dramatic advances in non-animal testing technology. At the moment,roughly 10% of European animal tests are for general toxicity, 35% for basic research, 45% for drugs andvaccines, and the remaining 10% a varietyof uses such as diagnosing diseases.Animal experimentation will therefore be around for some time yet. But the hunt for substitutes continues, and lastweekend the Middle European Society for Alternative Methods to Animal Testing met in Linz, Austria, to reviewprogress.A good place to start finding alternatives for toxicity tests is the liver—the organ responsible for breaking toxicchemicals down into safer molecules that can then be excreted. Two firms, one large and one small, told themeeting how they were using human liver cells removed incidentally during surgery to test various substances forlong-term toxic effects.PrimeCyte, the small firm, grows its cells in cultures over a few weeks and doses them regularly with the substanceunder investigation. The characteristics of the cells are carefully monitored, to look for changes in theirmicroanatomy.Pfizer,the big firm, also doses its cultures regularly, but rather than studying individual cells in detail, it counts cellnumbers. If the number of cells in a culture changes after a sample is added, that suggests the chemical inquestion is bad for the liver.In principle, these techniques could be applied to any chemical. In practice, drugs (and, in the case of PrimeCyte,food supplements) are top of the list. But that might change if the commission has its way: those 140,000screenings look like a lucrative market, although nobody knows whether the new tests will be ready for use by2009, when the commission proposes that testing should start.Other tissues, too, can be tested independently of animals. Epithelix, a small firm in Geneva, has developed anartificial version of the lining of the lungs. According to Huang Song, one of Epithelix's researchers, the firm'scultured cells have similar microanatomy to those found in natural lung linings, and respond in the same way tovarious chemical messengers. Dr Huang says that they could be used in long-term toxicity tests of airbornechemicals and could also help identify treatments for lung diseases.The immune system can be mimicked and tested, too. ProBioGen, a company based in Berlin, is developinganartificial human lymph node which, it reckons, could have prevented the near-disastrous consequences of a drugtrial held in Britain three months ago, in which (despite the drug having passed animal tests) six men sufferedmultiple organ failure and nearly died. The drug the men were given made their immune systems hyperactive.Such a response would, the firm's scientists reckon, have been identified by their lymph node, which is made fromcells that provoke the immune system into a response. ProBioGen's lymph node could thus work better than animaltesting.Another way of cutting the number of animal experiments would be tochange the way that vaccines are tested, according to CoenraadHendriksen of the Netherlands Vaccine Institute. At the moment, allbatches of vaccine are subject to the same battery of tests. DrHendriksen argues that this is over-rigorous. When new vaccine culturesare made, belt-and-braces tests obviously need to be applied. But if abatch of vaccine is derived from an existing culture, he suggests that itneed be tested only to make sure it is identical to the batch from which itis derived. That would require fewer test animals.All this suggests that though there is still some way to go before drugs,vaccines and other substances can be tested routinely oncells ratherthan live animals, useful progress is being made. What is harder to see ishow the use of animals might be banished from fundamental research.Anger managementTo one emotion, men are more sensitive than womenMEN are notoriously insensitive to the emotional world around them. At least, that is the stereotype peddled by athousand women's magazines. And a study by two researchers at the University of Melbourne, in Australia,confirms that men are, indeed, less sensitive to emotion than women, with one important and suggestiveexception. Men are acutely sensitive to the anger of other men.Mark Williams and Jason Mattingley, whose study has just been published in Current Biology, looked at the way aperson's sex affects his or her response to emotionally charged facial expressions. People from all cultures agreeon what six basic expressions of emotion look like. Whether the face before you is expressing anger, disgust, fear,joy, sadness or surprise seems to be recognised universally—which suggests that the expressions involved areinnate, rather than learned.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley showed the participants intheir study photographs of these emotional expressions inmixed sets of either four or eight. They asked the participants to look for a particular sort of expression, andmeasured the amount of time it took them to find it. The researchers found, in agreement with previous studies,that both men and women identified angry expressions most quickly. But they also found that anger was morequickly identified on a male face than a female one.Moreover, most participants could find an angry face just as quickly when it was mixed in a group of eightphotographs as when it was part of a group of four. That was in stark contrast to the other five sorts of expression,which took more time to find when they had to be sorted from a larger group. This suggests that something in thebrain is attuned to picking out angry expressions, and that it is especially concerned about angry men. Also, thishighly tuned ability seems more important to males than females, since the two researchers found that men pickedout the angry expressions faster than women did, even though women were usually quicker than men to recognizeevery other sort of facial expression.Dr Williams and Dr Mattingley suspect the reason for this is that being able to spot an angry individual quickly hasasurvival advantage—and, since anger is more likely to turn into lethal violence in men than in women, the abilityto spot angry males quickly is particularly valuable.As to why men are more sensitive to anger than women, it is presumably because they are far more likely to getkilled by it. Most murders involve men killing other men—even today the context of homicide is usually aspontaneous dispute over status or sex.The ability to spot quickly that an alpha male is in a foul mood would thus have great survival value. It would allowthe sharp-witted time to choose appeasement, defence or possibly even pre-emptive attack. And, if it is right, thisstudy also confirms a lesson learned by generations of bar-room tough guys and schoolyard bullies: if you wantattention, get angry. The shareholders' revoltA turning point in relations between company owners and bosses?SOMETHING strange has been happening this year at company annual meetings in America:shareholders have been voting decisively against the recommendations of managers. Until now, mostshareholders have, like so many sheep, routinely voted in accordance with the advice of the peopletheyemploy to run the company. This year managers have already been defeated at some 32 companies,including household names such as Boeing, ExxonMobil and General Motors.This shareholders' revolt has focused entirely on one issue: the method by which members of the boardof directors are elected. Shareholder resolutions on other subjects have mostly been defeated, as usual.The successful resolutions called for directors to be elected by majority voting, instead of by thetraditional method of “plurality”—which in practice meant that only votes cast in favour were counted,and that a single vote for a candidate would be enough to get him elected.Several companies, led by Pfizer, a drug giant, saw defeat looming and pre-emptively adopted a formalmajority-voting policy that was weaker than in the shareholder resolution. This required any director whofailed to secure a majority of votes to tender his resignation to the board, which would then be free todecide whether or not to accept it. Under the shareholder resolution, any candidate failing to secure amajority of the votes cast simply would not be elected. Intriguingly, the shareholder resolution wasdefeated at four-fifths of the firms that adopted a Pfizer-style majority voting rule, whereas itsucceedednearly nine times out of ten at firms retaining the plurality rule.Unfortunately for shareholders, their victories may prove illusory, as the successful resolutions were all“precatory”—meaning that they merely advised management on the course of action preferred byshareholders, but did not force managers to do anything. Several resolutions that tried to imposemajority voting on firms by changing their bylaws failed this year.Even so, wise managers should voluntarily adopt majority voting, according to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen &Katz, a Wall Street law firm that has generally helped managers resist increases in shareholder power butnow expects majority voting eventually to “become universal”. It advises th at, at the very least,managers should adopt the Pfizer model, if only to avoid becoming the subject of even greater scrutinyfrom corporate-governance activists. Some firms might choose to go further, as Dell and Intel have donethis year, and adopt bylaws requiring majority voting.Shareholders may have been radicalised by the success last year of a lobbying effort by managersagainst a proposal from regulators to make it easier for shareholders to put up candidates in boardelections. It remains to be seen if they willbe back for more in 2007. Certainly, some of the activistshareholders behind this year's resolutions have big plans. Where new voting rules are in place, they plancampaigns to vote out the chairman of the compensation committee at any firm that they think overpaysthe boss. If the 2006 annual meeting was unpleasant for managers, next year's could be far worse.Intangible opportunitiesCompanies are borrowing against their copyrights, trademarks and patentsNOT long ago, the value of companies resided mostly in things you could see and touch. Today it liesincreasingly in intangible assets such as the McDonald's name, the patent for Viagra and the rights toSpiderman. Baruch Lev, a finance professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, puts theimplied value of intangibles on American companies' balance sheets at about $6 trillion, or two-thirds ofthe total. Much of this consists of intellectual property, the collective name for copyrights, trademarksand patents. Increasingly, companies and their clever bankers are using these assets to raise cash.The method of choice is securitisation, the issuing ofbonds based on the various revenues thrown off byintellectual property. Late last month Dunkin' Brands, owner of Dunkin' Donuts, a snack-bar chain, raised$1.7 billion by selling bonds backed by, among other things, the royalties it will receive from itsfranchisees. The three private-equity firms that acquired Dunkin' Brands a few months ago have used thecash to repay the money they borrowed to buy the chain. This is the biggest intellectual-propertysecuritisation by far, says Jordan Yarett of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, a law firm that hasworked on many such deals.Securitisations of intellectual property can be based on revenues from copyrights, trademarks (such aslogos) or patents. The best-known copyright deal was the issue in 1997 of $55m-worth of “Bowie Bonds”supported by the future sales of music by David Bowie, a British rock star. Bonds based on the films ofDreamWorks, Marvel comic books and the stories of John Steinbeck have also been sold. As well asDunkin' Brands, several restaurant chains and fashion firms have issued bonds backed by logos andbrands.Intellectual-property deals belong to a class known as operating-asset securitisations. These differ fromstandard securitisations of future revenues, such as bonds backed by thepayments on a 30-yearmortgage or a car loan, in that the borrower has to make his asset work. If investors are to recoup theirmoney, the assets being securitised must be “actively exploited”, says Mr Yarett: DreamWorks mustcontinue to churn out box-office hits.The market for such securitisations is still small. Jay Eisbruck, of Moody's, a rating agency, reckons thataround $10 billion-worth of bonds ar e outstanding. But there is “big potential,” he says, pointing out thatlicensing patented technology generates $100 billion a year and involves thousands of companies.Raising money this way can make sense not only for clever private-equity firms, but also for companieswith low (or no) credit ratings that cannot easily tap the capital markets or with few tangible assets ascollateral for bank loans. Some universities have joined in, too. Yale built a new medical complex withsome of the roughly $100m it raised securitising patent royalties from Zerit, an anti-HIV drug.It may be harder for investors to decide whether such deals are worth their while. They are, after all,highly complex and riskier than standard securitisations. The most obvious risk is that the investorscannot be sure that the assets will yield。

《经济思想史》课程教学大纲（2004年制订）课程编号：070088英文名：History of Economic Thought课程类别：专业主干课前置课：《政治经济学》、《西方经济学》等后置课：《当代西方经济学流派》、《西方经济学名著选读》等学分：3学分课时：54课时主讲教师：郭海儒选定教材：Stanley L. Brue, The Evolution of Economic Thought, Fort Worth, TX: The Dryden Press, 2000.课程概述：本课程采用清晰和有趣的方式结合现实讲述经济学的历史，分别介绍重商主义、古典经济学、历史学派、马克思主义经济学、新古典经济学、制度学派、凯恩斯经济学和凯恩斯主义经济学的形成背景、主要原则、代表的阶级利益、存在的合理性，并结合实际做出客观评价，同时有选择地介绍斯密、李嘉图、马尔萨斯、萨伊、小穆勒、李斯特、罗雪尔、马克思、列宁、斯大林、杰文斯、瓦尔拉、门格尔、马歇尔、凯恩斯、凡伯伦、诺斯等代表性人物的思想和主要贡献，较好地总结经济学流派兴衰交替的一般规律，深化对当代经济学理论和政策的理解与反思，奠定扎实的经济学理论基础和分析研究能力。

教学目的：全面了解和把握经济思想史上主要流派的形成过程和主要思想，了解各大流派的主要代表人物及其贡献，熟悉西方经济学理论发展的历史，也了解马克思主义经济学体系的形成和发展，奠定扎实的理论功底，客观地看待资本主义市场经济发展过程中主要思想流派的兴亡，充分认识经济自由和国家干预思想产生的具体条件和互补性，甄别西方宣传的“华盛顿共识”——市场自由化、政府最小化和私有化的缺陷，初步掌握经济思想发展的规律，形成正确的认知视角和分析能力，为解决我国面临的失业、市场风险、公有与私有之争等热点问题提供重要的思想启示。

教学方法：综合运用经济史、西方经济学、哲学等学科的研究方法，全面分析经济思想的起源、发展和衰亡的背景和原因，注重分析和比较；理论联系实际，注重把过去和当代的实际问题相结合分析；双语教学，使用自制的多媒体英文课件教授，既使学生能够准确把握西方经济学理论的原义，又能够培养学生运用英文原版材料独立研究的能力；随堂的思考题主要培养学生的反思分析能力，是提高学生思想认知能力的重要手段。

发展经济学英文原著English:"Development economics is a field of study that examines the economic aspects of the development process in low-income countries. It seeks to understand the causes and consequences of poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment, and to formulate policies and strategies to promote economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve living standards in these countries. The foundational works in development economics include seminal contributions by economists such as Arthur Lewis, Gunnar Myrdal, and Walt Rostow. Arthur Lewis's dual-sector model, which posits a transition from a traditional agricultural sector with surplus labor to a modern industrial sector as the engine of economic growth, remains influential in understanding structural transformation in developing economies. Gunnar Myrdal's concept of cumulative causation emphasizes the role of positive feedback loops in perpetuating poverty traps and underdevelopment, highlighting the importance of policy interventions to break these cycles. Walt Rostow's stages of economic growth theory proposes a linear progression of economic development through stages of traditional society, preconditions fortake-off, take-off, drive to maturity, and high mass consumption, providing a framework for understanding the trajectory of economic development. These foundational texts laid the groundwork for subsequent research and policy debates in development economics, which continue to evolve with changing global dynamics and emerging challenges."中文翻译："发展经济学是研究低收入国家发展过程中的经济方面的一个领域。

The Evolution and Impact of the KnowledgeEconomyIn the rapidly changing landscape of the 21st century, the knowledge economy has emerged as a dominant force, transforming the way we live, work, and interact. Thisshift is not merely a product of technological advancements but a reflection of the increasing value placed on intellectual capital, innovation, and continuous learning. The knowledge economy is characterized by a strong reliance on knowledge and information as key drivers of economic growth and development. Unlike the industrial economy that thrived on physical resources and manufacturing, the knowledge economy thrives on the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge. This shift has led to a profound transformation in the structure of the workforce, with a growing demand for skilled and knowledge-intensive occupations.One of the most significant impacts of the knowledge economy is the rise of the information technology sector. The widespread adoption of computers, the internet, and other digital technologies has facilitated the rapidexchange of ideas, information, and knowledge. This has not only加快了知识和信息的传播速度，but also扩大了其传播范围，making it accessible to a wider global audience.Another crucial aspect of the knowledge economy is the emergence of the knowledge worker. These are individuals who possess a high level of expertise, skills, and knowledge in specific fields. They are often engaged in activities that require critical thinking, innovation, and problem-solving. The rise of the knowledge worker has led to a shift in the power structure, with knowledge and expertise becoming the new currency of power and influence. The knowledge economy has also had a profound impact on education and learning. The traditional model of education, which was primarily focused on imparting knowledge through rote learning, has given way to a more dynamic and interactive approach. The emphasis is now on fostering critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills, which are crucial for navigating the complexities of the knowledge economy.Moreover, the knowledge economy has fostered a culture of continuous learning. With the rapid pace oftechnological advancements and changes in the workplace, it has become imperative for individuals to stay updated and relevant. This has led to a surge in the popularity of online courses, workshops, and other forms of informal learning.The knowledge economy has also had a significant impact on global competition. As companies and nations compete for a share of the knowledge-intensive industries, they are increasingly investing in research and development, talent attraction and retention, and innovation ecosystems. This competition has spurred the development of innovative products, services, and business models that have transformed entire industries and markets.However, the knowledge economy also poses some challenges. The growing divide between those who have access to knowledge and those who do not can lead to increased social and economic disparities. The rapid pace of technological change can also create job displacement and skill obsolescence, requiring individuals and communities to adapt quickly and continuously.In conclusion, the knowledge economy represents a fundamental shift in the way we view and approach economic growth and development. It has opened up new opportunities for innovation, learning, and collaboration but also poses new challenges that require proactive responses and strategies. As we navigate this new era of the knowledge economy, it is crucial to foster a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and inclusivity to ensure that the benefits of knowledge are shared equitably and sustainably. **知识经济的演变与影响**在21世纪快速变化的景观中，知识经济已经崛起为主导力量，改变了我们的生活方式、工作方式以及互动方式。

The Rise of the Knowledge Economy:Opportunities and ChallengesIn the twenty-first century, the world has witnessed a profound transformation in the nature of economic activity, marked by the emergence of the knowledge economy. Thisshift away from a reliance on traditional resources towards a focus on intellectual capital, innovation, and technology has had profound impacts on every aspect of society.The knowledge economy is characterized by a rapid paceof technological advancement and continuous innovation. Itis driven by the creation, dissemination, and applicationof knowledge, often in the form of intellectual propertyand patents. This shift towards a knowledge-based economy has been enabled by the increasing availability of advanced technologies such as the internet, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. These technologies have made it easier for ideas and information to spread quickly,fostering a culture of continuous learning and adaptation.One of the key drivers of the knowledge economy is the increasing demand for skilled labor. As businesses and industries become more reliant on technology and innovation,they require workers who possess the necessary skills and knowledge to operate and adapt to these changes. This has led to a growing emphasis on education and lifelong learning, as individuals seek to equip themselves with the necessary skills to compete in the knowledge economy.The rise of the knowledge economy has presented numerous opportunities, but it has also brought about a series of challenges. One of the main challenges is the widening gap between those who have access to education and skills development and those who do not. This divide can lead to increased social and economic inequality, as those without the necessary skills are left behind in the race to adapt to the changing economic landscape.Another challenge is the rapid pace of technological change itself. While this has led to incredible advancements in areas like healthcare, education, and transportation, it has also made it difficult for individuals and businesses to keep up. The need to constantly adapt and retrain can be stressful and costly, and it can lead to a sense of instability and uncertainty.Despite these challenges, the rise of the knowledge economy has also presented numerous opportunities. It has fostered the emergence of new industries and sectors, such as technology, healthcare, and education, that are driving economic growth and creating new jobs. It has also enabled greater collaboration and cooperation between individuals and businesses across the globe, fostering a culture of innovation and creativity.In conclusion, the rise of the knowledge economy has been a transformative force in the global economy. It has presented numerous opportunities for growth and development, but it has also brought about a series of challenges that need to be addressed. As we move forward, it is crucialthat we continue to invest in education and skills development, promote inclusivity and access to technology, and foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation. By doing so, we can harness the power of the knowledge economy to create a more prosperous and sustainable future for all.**知识经济的崛起：机遇与挑战**在二十一世纪，世界经济经历了深刻的变革，以知识经济的崛起为标志。

有关时代变革英文书When it comes to books about the era of change, there are several notable works in English literature. These books explore various aspects of societal, cultural, and technological transformations that have occurred throughout history. Here are a few examples:1. "The Age of Revolution" by Eric Hobsbawm: This book discusses the profound changes brought about by the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the political upheavals of the 19th century.2. "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler: This influential book examines the concept of "waves" of societal change, with the third wave representing the shift from an industrial society to an information-based society.3. "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" by Klaus Schwab: This book explores the current era of technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, robotics,and the Internet of Things, and their impact on various industries and society as a whole.4. "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein: This book investigates the impact of economic and political transformations on societies, particularly focusing on the rise of disaster capitalism and the exploitation of crises for ideological gain.5. "The Great Transformation" by Karl Polanyi: This classic work delves into the social and economic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the development of market societies, discussing the consequences for individuals and communities.6. "The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzweil: This book explores the concept of technological singularity, a hypothetical point in the future when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence, and itspotential implications for humanity.These books offer diverse perspectives on differentperiods of change and provide valuable insights into the societal, cultural, and technological shifts that have shaped our world. They are just a starting point, and there are many more books available on this subject, depending on the specific era or aspect of change you are interested in exploring.。

雅思阅读模拟题《经济进化论》雅思阅读模拟题《经济进化论》雅思考试难度较大，对考生的要求比较高。

尤其是阅读理解。

下面，店铺为大家整理了一篇雅思阅读模拟题，供大家练习。

Economic EvolutionA Living along the Orinoco River that borders Brazil and Venezuela are the Yanomam people, hunter-gatherers whose average annual income has been estimated at the equivalent of $90 per person per year. Living along the Hudson River that borders New York State and New Jersey are the Manhattan people, consumer traders whose average annual income has been estimated at $36,000 per person per year. That dramatic difference of 400 times, however, pales in comparison to the differences in Stock Keeping Units (SKUs, a measure of the number of types of retail products available), which has been estimated at 300 for the Yanomam and 10 billion for the Manhattans, a difference of 33 million times.B How did this happen? According to economist Eric D. Beinhocker, who published these calculations in his revelatory work The Origin of Wealth (Harvard Business School Press, 2006), the explanation is to be found in complexity theory. Evolution and economics are not just analogous to each other, but they are actually two forms of a larger phenomenon called complex adaptive systems, in which individual elements, parts or agents interact, then process information and adapt their behavior to changing conditions. Immune systems, ecosystems, language, the law and the Internet are all examples of complex adaptive systems.C In biological evolution, nature selects from the variationproduced by random genetic mutations and the mixing of parental genes. Out of that process of cumulative selection emerges complexity and diversity. In economic evolution, our material economy proceeds through the production and selection of numerous permutations of countless products. Those 10 billion products in the Manhattan village represent only those variations that made it to market, after which there is a cumulative selection by consumers in the marketplace for those deemed most useful:VHS over Betamax, DVDs over VHS, CDs over vinyl records, flip phones over brick phones, computers over typewriters, Google over Altavista, SUVs over station wagons, paper books over e-books (still), and Internet news over network news (soon).Tho se that are purchased “survive” and "reproduce" into the future through repetitive use and remanufacturing.D As with living organisms and ecosystems, the economy looks designed—so just as humans naturally deduce the existence of a top-down intelligent designer, humans also (understandably) infer that a top-down government designer is needed in nearly every aspect of the economy. But just as living organisms are shaped from the bottom up by natural selection, the economy is molded from the bottom up by the invisible hand. The correspondence between evolution and economics is not perfect, because some top-down institutional rules and laws are needed to provide a structure within which free and fair trade can occur. But too much top-down interference into the marketplace makes trade neither free nor fair. When such attempts have been made in the past they have failed—because markets are far too complex, interactive and autocatalytic to be designed from the top down. In his 1922 book, Socialism, Ludwig Von Mises spelledout the reasons why, most notably the problem of “economic calculation” in a planned socialist economy. In capitalism, prices are in constant and rapid flux and are determined from below by individuals freely exchanging in the marketplace. Money is a means of exchange, and prices are the information people use to guide their choices. Von Mises demonstrated that socialist economies depend on capitalist economies to determine what prices should be assigned to goods and services. And they do so cumbersomely and inefficiently. Relatively free markets are, ultimately, the only way to find out what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept.E Economics helps to explain how Yanomam-like hunter-gatherers evolved into Manhattan-like consumer-traders. In the Nineteenth century French economist Frederic Bastiat well captured the principle: “Where goods do not cross frontiers, armies will." In addition to being fierce warriors, the Yanomam are also sophisticated traders, and the more they trade the less they fight. The reason is that trade is a powerful social adhesive that creates political alliances. One village cannot go to another village and announce that they are worried about being conquered by a third, more powerful village—that would reveal weakness. Instead they mask the real motives for alliance through trade and reciprocal feasting. And, as a result, not only gain military protection but also initiate a system of trade that—in the long run—leads to an increase in both wealth and SKUs.F Free and fair trade occurs in societies where most individuals interact in ways that provide mutual benefit. The necessary rules weren't generated by wise men in a sacred temple, or lawmakers in congress, but rather evolved over generations and were widely accepted and practiced before thelaw was ever written. Laws that fail this test are ignored. If enforcement becomes too onerous, there is rebellion. Yet the concept that human interaction must, and can be controlled by a higher force is universal. Interestingly, there is no widespread agreement on who the "higher force" is. Religious people ascribe good behavior to god's law. They cannot conceive of an orderly society of atheists. Secular people credit the government. They consider anarchy to be synonymous with barbarity. Everyone seems to agree on the concept that orderly society requires an omnipotent force. Yet, everywhere there is evidence that this is not so. An important distinction between spontaneous social order and social anarchy is that the former is developed by work and investment, under the rule of law and with a set of evolved morals while the latter is chaos. The classical liberal tradition of von Mises and Hayek never makes the claim that the complete absence of top-down rules leads to the optimal social order. It simply says we should be skeptical about our ability to manage them in the name of social justice, equality, or progress.Questions 1-5Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if the statement is trueFALSE if the statement if falseNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passageSKUs is a more precise measurement to demonstrate the economic level of a community.No concrete examples are presented when the author makes the statement concerning economic evolution.Evolution and economics show a defective homolog.Martial actions might be taken to cross the borders if trades do not work.Profit is the invisible hand to guide the market.Questions 6-8Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet.6 What ought to play a vital role in each field the economy?A a strict ruleB a smart strategyC a tightly managed authorityD a powerful legislation7-8 Which two of the following tools are used to pretend to ask for union according to one explanation from the perspective of economicsA an official announcementB a diplomatic eventC the exchange of goodsD certain written correspondenceE some enjoyable treatment in a win-win situationQuestions 9-13SummaryComplete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.In response to the search of reasons for the phenomenon shown by the huge difference in the income between two groups of people both dwelling near the rivers, several researchers made their effort and gave certain explanations. One attributes 9 to the interesting change claiming that it is not as simple as it seems tobe in appearance that the relationship between 10 which is a good example of 11 , which involve in the interaction of separate factors for the processing of information as well as the behavioral adaptation to unstable conditions. As far as the biological transformation is concerned, both 12 and the blend of genes from the last generation bring about the difference. The economic counterpart shows how generating and choosing the 13 of innumerable goods moves forward the material-oriented economy.参考答案：1 NOT GIVEN2 FALSE3 TRUE4 TRUE5 NOT GIVEN6 C7 C8 E9 complexity theory10 evolution and economics 11 complex adaptive systems 12 random genetic mutations 13 permutations。

生计学学说沿革小史English Answer：1. Pre-Classical Period.Ancient Greece: Aristotle's "Oeconomicus" (c. 4th century BCE): Emphasized the importance of household management and wealth acquisition.Ancient Rome: Cato the Elder's "De Agricultura" (c.2nd century BCE): Focused on agricultural practices and rural economy.2. Classical Period (18th-19th Centuries)。

Physiocrats: François Quesnay's "Tableau Économique" (1758): Argued that economic value originated solely from agriculture and advocated for "laissez-faire" policies.Classical Economists: Adam Smith's "The Wealth ofNations" (1776): Promoted individualism, free markets, and the division of labor.Malthusianism: Thomas Malthus's "An Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798): Predicted that population growth would outpace food production, leading to widespread misery.3. Neoclassical Period (Late 19th-Early 20th Centuries)。

傳統產業策略變陏初探--以巨大機械為例An Initial Research on Strategic Change of Traditional Industries -Giant Bicycles As An Example張元和Yuan-Ho Chang蘭陽技術學院國際企業經營系摘要台灣的經濟發展目前已普遍碰到瓶頸。

過去所採取的有效策略已受到挑戰與質疑，比如擴大規模追求規模經濟，或者是將大量生產模式移到開發中或未開發國家複製。

這些成本領導的經營模式，在更有競爭力的生產要素條件下，近年已在中國大陸、印度等新興國家崛貣。

台灣傳統產業要由低獲利的代工製造中脫困而出，必然要歷經轉型的階段。

而要經過轉型的這條道路，難以避免的必須要進行變陏。

可以說策略變陏是台灣傳統產業陎對全球競爭新局勢下的首要任務。

本文以台灣傳統產業為研討範圍，選擇以自行車業為研究產業，並選擇以巨大機械為自行車產業中轉型成功的重要範例。

經由策略管理理論中的產業競爭理論與資源基礎論，提出進行差異化、創新追求、發展品牌..等策略，可以確切的說，正確的策略選擇對企業轉型的成敗具有重要的影響，扮演著關鍵的角色。

透過對巨大機械此一標竿類型的台灣傳統產業的策略變陏過程，來認識策略管理在企業轉型過程中的影響及可資借鏡的策略選擇。

關鍵字: 策略變陏、成本領導、差異化策略、產業定位AbstractThe economic development in Taiwan has been meeting a bottleneck in recent years. The strategies worked in the past like pursuing economies of scale or transferring the mass production model to developing or underdeveloped countries have been challenged and questioned. These years, cost-leadership business model has arisen in emerging economies like China or Indiabecause of their competitive production capability. To be released from the difficulty of low profit OEM business model, Taiwan’s traditional industries have no better choices other than change. This article suggests strategies like differentiation proceeding, innovation pursuing and brand development in accordance with the industry and resource-based view in strategic management. We could say that strategic change has become the most essential subject they have to manage while facing the unfolding global competition. This article aims at the bicycle industry, and chooses Giant Bicycles as the typical example. Through observation and analysis of the procedure of strategic change in Giant Bicycles, the impact of strategic management and the development of strategic change for corporation transformation are presented.Key words: Strategic change, Cost leadership, Differentiation strategy, Industry position壹、前言時序進入廿一世紀第七年，全球企業競爭陷入前所未有的慘烈淘汰比賽中。

关于目前融资租赁立法的各种疑问的分析内容提要总结成熟租赁市场国家的实践，我们可以发现，一国融资租赁市场的发展，取决于该国租赁市场工具的创新和以法律、税收、会计和监管为主的租赁法律框架（也称政策框架）的协调。

然而，尽管中国融资租赁比股票市场起步还早，却至今徘徊在低谷。

对租赁法律框架缺乏完整而准确的认识，导致我国政策制定者所制定的有关融资租赁的政策之间缺乏协调性，甚至还存在着相互的矛盾性，成为阻碍我国融资租赁市场发展的主要因素。

而这一问题，在这次融资租赁法立法进程中，表现得尤为突出。

本文全面分析了我国融资租赁法律框架的现状、存在的问题及其原因，并提出了相应的建议。

关键词融资租赁法律框架监管税收中国为了适应我国社会主义市场经济发展、社会全面进步和加入世贸组织的新形势的需要，全国人大常委会于2003年底公布了确定今后五年中国立法方向的《十届全国人大常委会立法规划》。

起草并颁布《融资租赁法》成为规划之一。

2004年初，《融资租赁法》起草组成立，标志着此项立法工作正式启动。

全国人大财经委员会负责起草融资租赁法的组织工作。

目前，《融资租赁法（草案）》正在进行第二轮的讨论之中。

笔者作为《融资租赁法》顾问小组中唯一的融资租赁理论专家，在参与诸多有关草案的国内、国际研讨会过程中，再次深切地感受到我国租赁市场的参与者与政策制定者在这一问题上所存在的严重的认识混乱，由此而形成了本文。

一、在融资租赁法起草过程中所遇到的两个主要问题融资租赁法立法工作简报第15期对立法程序启动以来自各方的情况、意见和建议等进行了汇总。

主要根据第15期简报所反映的情况，我们发现，大家关于融资租赁法讨论的内容中，主要集中在两个问题上，一是对什么立法，二是立什么法。

关于对什么立法的问题，在第一次启动立法程序的会议上，就已经产生了很大的争论，并且，这一困惑在以后的讨论中也未能得到清晰的回答。

争论的焦点是只对融资租赁立法，范围是否过窄，提出的建议是应该对各种融资租赁形式立法，甚至是应该对租赁业立法。

外文翻译Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and AgendaMaterial Source: Journal of Economic Literature Author: ROSS LEVINE The Functions of the Financial SystemA.Facilitating Risk AmeliorationIn the presence of specific information and transaction costs, financial markets and institutions may arise to ease the trading, hedging, and pooling of risk. This subsection considers two types of risk: liquidity and idiosyncratic risk. Liquidity is the ease and speed with which agents can convert assets into purchasing power at agreed prices. Thus, real estate is typically less liquid than equities, and equities in the United States are typically more liquid than those traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Liquidity risk arises due to the uncertainties associated with converting assets into a medium of exchange. Informational asymmetries and transaction costs may inhibit liquidity and intensify liquidity risk. These frictions create incentives for the emergence of financial markets and institutions that augment liquidity. Liquid capital markets, therefore, are markets where it is relatively inexpensive to trade financial instruments and where there is little uncertainty about the timing and settlement of those trades.Theory, however, suggests that enhanced liquidity has an ambiguous affect on saving rates and economic growth.'' In most models, greater liquidity (a) increases investment returns and (b) lowers uncertainty. Higher returns ambiguously affect saving rates due to well-known income and substitution effects. Further, lower uncertainty ambiguously affects savings rates (David Levhari and T. N. Srinivasan 1969). Thus, saving rates may rise or fall as liquidity rises. Indeed, in a model with physical capital externalities, saving rates could fall enough, so that growth actually decelerates with greater liquidity (Tullio Jappelli and Marco Pagano 1994).Besides reducing liquidity risk, financial systems may also mitigate the risks associated with individual projects, firms, industries, regions, countries, etc. Banks, mutual funds, and securities markets all provide vehicles for trading, pooling, and diversifying risk. The financial system's ability to provide risk diversification services can affect long-run economic growth by altering resource allocation and the saving rates. The basic intuition is straightforward. While savers generally do notlike risk, high-return projects tend to be riskier than low-return projects. Thus, financial markets that ease risk diversification tend to induce a portfolio shift toward projects with higher expected returns (Gilles Saint-Paul 1992; Michael Deverettx and Gregor Smith 1994; and Maurice Obstfeld 1994). Greater risk sharing and more efficient capital allocation, however, have theoretically ambiguous effects on saving rates as noted above. The savings rate could fall enough so that, when coupled with an externality-based or linear growth model, overall economic growth falls. With externalities, growth could fall sufficiently so that overall welfare falls with greater risk diversification.Besides the link between risk diversification and capital accumulation, risk diversification can also affect technological change. Agents are continuously trying to make technological advances to gain a profitable market niche. Besides yielding profits to the innovator, successful innovation accelerates technological change. Engaging in innovation is risky, however. The ability to hold a diversified portfolio of innovative projects reduces risk and promotes Investment in growth-enhancing innovative activities (with sufficiently risk averse agents). Thus, financial systems that ease risk diversification can accelerate technological change and economic growth (Robert King and Levine 1993c).B. Facilitating ExchangeBesides easing savings mobilization and thereby expanding the of set production technologies available to an economy, financial arrangements that lower transaction costs can promote specialization, technological innovation, and growth. The links between facilitating transactions, specialization, innovation, and economic growth were core elements of Adam Smith's (1776) Wealth of Nations. Smith (1776, p, 7) argued that division of labor-specialization-is the principal factor underlying productivity improvements. With greater specialization, workers are more likely to invent better machines or production processes.The critical issue for our purposes is that the financial system can promote specialization. Adam Smith argued that lower transaction costs would permit greater specialization because specialization requires more transactions than an autarkic environment. Smith phrased his argument about the lowering of transaction costs and technological innovation in terms of the advantages of money over barter (pp. 26-27). Information costs, however, may also motivate the emergence of money. Because it is costly to evaluate the attributes of goods, barter exchange is very costly. Thus, an easily recognizable medium of exchange may arise to facilitate exchange(King and Charles Plosser 1986; and Williamson and Randall Wright 1994).The drop in transaction and information costs is not necessarily a one-time fall when economies move to money, however. For example, in the 1800s, “it was primarily the development of institutions that facilitated the exchange of technology in the market that enabled creative individuals to specialize in and become more productive at invention"(Lamoreaux and Sokoloff 1996, p. 17).Thus, transaction and information costs may continue to fall through a variety of mechanisms, so that financial and institutional development continually boost specialization and innovation via the same channels illuminated over 200 years ago by Adam Smith.Financial Structure and Economic GrowthThere exists considerable debate, with sparse evidence and insufficient theory, about the relationship between financial structure and economic growth. After briefly outlining the major examples used in discussions of financial structure, I describe the major analytical limitations impeding research on financial structure and economic growth. The classic controversy involves the comparison between Germany and the United Kingdom. Starting early in this century, economists argued that differences in the financial structure of the two countries help explain Germany's more rapid economic growth rate during the latter half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century (Alexander Gerschenkron 1962). The premise is as follows. Germany's bank-based financial system, where banks have close ties to industry, reduces the costs of acquiring information about firms, This makes it easier for the financial system to identify good investments, exert corporate control, and mobilize savings for promising investments than in England's more securities market oriented financial system, where the ties between banks and industry are less intimate. Indeed, quite a bit of evidence suggests that German bankers were more closely tied to industry than British bankers. Unlike England, nearly all German bankers started as merchants. The evolution from entrepreneur to banker may explain the comparatively close bonds between bankers and industrialists.There are severe analytical problems with linking financial structure to economic performance. First, existing research on financial structure does not quantify the structure of financial systems or how well different financial systems function overall. For example, German bankers may have been more closely connected to industrialists than their British counterparts, but less capable at providing liquidity and facilitating transactions. Similarly, while Japanese Keiretsumay lower information acquisition costs between banks and firms, this does not necessarily imply that the Japanese financial system provides greater risk sharing mechanisms or more accurately spot promising new lines of business. Furthermore, while Japan is sometimes viewed as a bank-based system, it has one of the best developed stock markets in the world (Demirguc-Kunt and Levine 1996a). Thus, the lack of quantitative measures of financial structure and the functioning of financial system make it difficult to compare financial structures.Second, given the array of factors influencing growth in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, it is analytically difficult-and perhaps reckless-to attribute differences in growth rates to differences in the financial sector. Moreover, over the post World War II period, the devastated Axis powers may simply have been converging to the income levels of the United States, such that observed growth rate differentials have little to do with financial structure. Thus, before linking financial structure with economic growth, researchers need to control for other factors influencing long-run growth.A third factor that complicates the analysis of financial structure and economic growth is more fundamental. The current debate focuses on bank-based systems versus market-based systems. Some aggregate and firm level evidence, however, suggest that this dichotomy is inappropriate. The data indicate that both stock market liquidity-as measured by stock trading relative to GDP and market capitalization-and the level of banking development-as measured by bank credits to private firms divided by GDP predict economic growth over subsequent decades {Levine and Zervos 1996). Thus, it is not banks or stock markets; bank and stock market development indicators both predict economic growth. Perhaps, the debate should not focus on bank-based versus market-based systems because these two components of the financial system enter the growth regression significantly and predict future economic growth. It may be that stock markets provide a different bundle of financial functions from those provided by financial intermediaries. For example, stock markets may primarily offer vehicles for trading risk and boosting liquidity. In contrast, banks may focus on ameliorating information acquisition costs and enhancing corporate governance of major corporations. This is merely a conjecture, however. There are important overlaps between the services provided by banks and stock markets. As noted above, well-functioning stock markets may ameliorate information acquisition costs, and banks may provide instruments for diversifying risk and enhancing liquidity. Thus, to understand the relationshipbetween financial structure and economic growth, we need theories of the simultaneous emergence of stock markets and banks and we need empirical proxies of the functions performed by the different components of financial systems.A fourth factor limiting our understanding of the links between financial structure and economic growth is that researchers have focused on a few industrialized countries due to data limitations. The United States, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom have basically the same standard of living. Averaged over a sufficiently long time period, they must also have very similar growth rates. Thus, comparisons of financial structure and economic development using only these countries will tend to suggest that financial structure is unrelated to the level and growth rate of economic development. Future studies will need to incorporate a more diverse selection of countries to have even a chance of identifying patterns between financial structure and economic development.Finally, there are important interactions between stock markets and banks during economic development that have not been the focus of bank-based versus market-based comparisons. As noted, greater stock market liquidity is associated with faster rates of capital formation. Nonetheless, new equity sales do not finance much of this new investment (Cohn Mayer 1988), though important differences exist across countries (AjitSingh and Javed Hamid 1992). Most new corporate investment is financed by retained earnings and debt. This raises a quandary: stock market liquidity is positively associated with investment, but equity sales do not finance much of this investment. This quandary is confirmed by firm-level studies. In relatively poor countries, enhanced stock market liquidity actually tends to boost corporate debt-equity ratios; stock market liquidity does not induce a substitution out of debt and into equity finance (Demirgu-Kunt and Maksimovic 1996a).However, for industrialized countries, debt-equity ratios fall as stock market liquidity rises; stock market liquidity induces a substitution out of debt finance. The evidence suggests complex interactions between the functioning of stock markets and corporate decisions to borrow from banks that depend on the overall level of economic development. Thus, we need considerably more research into the links among stock markets, banks, and corporate financing decisions to understand the relationship between financial structure and economic growth.ConclusionTheory and evidence make it difficult to conclude that the financial system merely-and automatically-responds to industrialization and economic activity, or thatfinancial development is an inconsequential addendum to the process of economic growth. I believe that we will not have a sufficient understanding of long-run economic growth until we understand the evolution and functioning of financial systems. This conclusion about financial development and long-run growth has an important corollary: although financial panics and recessions are critical issues, the finance-growth link goes beyond the relationship between finance and shorter-term fluctuations.Undoubtedly, the financial system is shaped by nonfinancial developments. Changes in telecommunications, computers, nonfinancial sector policies, institutions, and economic growth itself influence the quality of financial services and the structure of the financial system. Technological improvements lower transaction costs and affect financial arrangements (Merton 1992). Monetary and fiscal policies affect the taxation of financial Intermediaries and the provision of financial services (Bencivenga and B. Smith 1992; Roubini and Sala-i-Martin 1995). Legal systems affect financial systems (LaPorta et al. 1996), and political changes and national institutions critically influence financial development (Haber 1991, 1996). Furthermore, economic growth alters the willingness of savers and investors to pay the costs associated with participating in the financial system (Greenwood and Jovanovic 1990). Much more information about the determinants and implications of financial structure will move us closer to a comprehensive view of financial development and economic growth.金融发展与经济增长：观点与目的标题：金融发展与经济增长：观点与目的资料来源: 经济学文献杂志作者：罗斯·莱文（1）金融系统的作用第一，促进分散风险。

生产函数框架下的中国能源及碳排放分解摘要：在生产函数框架下，本文将多维校准分解方法和完全结构分解方法结合，首先计算了2002～2007年各类能源使用的价格替代效应和实际技术进步，随后对期间中国碳排放增量进行了分解。

本文发现，在观察期内能源之间的要素替代表现为电力替代煤炭和石油，石油是主要的被替代类能源。

2002～2007年经济规模增长和资本强度提高是中国碳排放增长的主要因素，而能源使用实际技术进步则是帮助减少碳排放的主要因素，同时，劳动力的实际技术进步和价格替代效应、能源的价格替代效应、以及终端需求结构的变化，都对碳排放增长起到了抑制作用。

关键词：能源使用；碳排放；要素替代；技术进步中图分类号：F062.2文献标识码：A文章编号：10035192（2015）02007105doi：10.11847/fj.34.2.711引言在“十二五规划”中，中国政府提出了新的节能减排目标。

而这些目标需要一系列政策的共同实施来实现，如投资可再生能源、推广节能技术、产业结构转变和要素替代等。

为最大程度发挥各政策效应，有必要知道影响中国能源消耗和碳排放增长的因素，这些因素又在过去产生了何种影响。

之前文献一般采用结构分解法（Structural DecompositionAnalysis，SDA）和指数分解法（Index Decomposition Analysis，IDA），对中国能源和碳排放总量或强度展开分解，考察分解后的各影响因素产生何种作用，从而提出相关政策建议，采用SDA方法的如，Chang和Lin[1]，Chang等[2]和郭朝先[3]，采用IDA方法的如，Zhang等[4]，陈诗一[5]。

虽然上述文献取得了丰硕成果，但由于SDA和IDA建立在单能源投入单产出框架基础上，投入要素只有能源，是基本的三因素分解模型，无法考察非能源要素投入技术进步对能源消耗和碳排放增长的影响，更无法考察价格激励引起的要素替代的影响。

英国古典经济学论文Title: The Evolution of Economic Thought: A Study of British Classical EconomicsAbstract:The British classical economists were a group of influential thinkers in the 18th and 19th centuries whose ideas shaped the foundations of modern economic theory. This paper examines the evolution of economic thought in Britain during this period, focusing on the contributions of key figures such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill. It explores their theories on topics such as the division of labor, the labor theory of value, and the role of government in the economy. Through a thorough analysis of their works, this paper aims to highlight the significance of British classical economics in shaping our understanding of the economy today.Introduction:The British classical economists were a group of thinkers who revolutionized the field of economics during the 18th and 19th centuries. Their ideas laid the groundwork for modern economic theory and had a lasting impact on the field. This paper will explore the evolution of economic thought in Britain during this period, focusing on the contributions of key figures such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill.Adam Smith, often referred to as the father of modern economics, is best known for his seminal work "The Wealth of Nations." Inthis book, Smith laid out his theory of the division of labor, arguing that specialization and trade are the key drivers of economic growth. He also introduced the concept of the invisible hand, which suggests that individuals pursuing their own self-interest can unintentionally benefit society as a whole.David Ricardo, another prominent British classical economist, developed the labor theory of value, which states that the value of a good is determined by the amount of labor required to produce it. Ricardo also made significant contributions to the theory of comparative advantage, which argues that countries should specialize in producing goods for which they have a lower opportunity cost.John Stuart Mill, a later figure in the British classical school, built on the ideas of Smith and Ricardo while also introducing new concepts such as the principle of diminishing marginal utility. Mill believed in the importance of government intervention in the economy to address issues such as inequality and poverty.Conclusion:The British classical economists were instrumental in shaping the field of economics and laying the foundation for modern economic theory. Their ideas on topics such as the division of labor, the labor theory of value, and the role of government in the economy continue to influence economic thought today. By studying their works, we can gain a deeper understanding of the principles that govern our economic system and the challenges that we face in the modern world.。

最值得一读的经济史书单著名的经济史学家David S. Landes上月逝世，加州大学柏克莱分校经济学教授DeLong曾是Landes的学生，在缅怀这位老师时，DeLong分享了一份关于经济史的个人书单：1，《想象的共同体：民族主义的起源与散布》本尼迪克特·安德森著《Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism》Benedict Anderson 2，《美国革命的思想意识渊源》伯纳德·贝林《The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution》Bernard Bailyn3，《第二性》西蒙娜・德・波伏娃《The Second Sex》Simone de Beauvoir4，《意识形态的终结》丹尼尔·贝尔《The End of Ideology》Daniel Bell5，《重建母职》美国社会学家邱德洛《The Reproduction of Mothering》Nancy Chodorow6，《新阶级》密洛凡·德热拉斯《The New Class》Milovan Djilas7，《文化的解释》克利福德·格尔茨《The Interpretation of Cultures》Clifford Geertz8，《通往奴役之路》《知识在社会中的运用》哈耶克《The Road to Serfdom》《The Use of Knowledge in Society》Friedrich Hayek9，《退出、呼吁与忠诚》赫希曼《Exit, Voice, and Loyalty》Albert Hirschman10，《就业、利息与货币通论》《和平的经济后果》凯恩斯《The General Theory of Employment，Interest and Money》《The Economic Consequences of the Peace，“The End of Laissez-Faire”》John Maynard Keynes11，《科学革命的结构》托马斯•库恩《The Structure of Scientific Revolutions》Thomas Kuhn12，《解除束缚的普罗米修斯》大卫·兰德斯《The Unbound Prometheus》David Landes13，《国际经济秩序之演化》威廉·阿瑟·刘易斯《The Evolution of the International Economic Order》W. Arthur Lewis14，《瘟疫与人》威廉·麦克尼尔《Plagues and Peoples》William McNeill15，《民主与专制的社会起源》巴林顿•摩尔《Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy》Barrington Moore16，《向加泰罗尼亚致敬》《1984》《通往威冈码头之路》奥威尔《Homage to Catalonia》《1984》《The Road to Wigan Pier》George Orwell17，《马基雅维利时刻》J.G.A.波考克《The Machiavellian Moment》J.G.A. Pocock18，《大转型》卡尔·波兰尼《The Great Transformation》Karl Polanyi19，《东方学》萨义德《Orientalism》Edward Said20，《英国工人阶级的形成》爱德华·帕尔默·汤普森《The Making of the English Working Class》E.P. Thompson。