China's Infrastructure Investment Boom and Local Debt Crisis

A noted Hong Kong-based economist addresses the emerging financing problems prompted by debt-laden local governments in China in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. More specifically, using the most recent data available, he traces the root of China's local debt overhang to a protracted debt-financed infrastructure investment boom in which several key institutions (the cadre evaluation system, the land management regime, and the banking sector) have created an environment that draws local governments into a land-infrastructure-leverage trap. The author argues that the resulting high levels of debt may ultimately impede the country's efforts to mitigate structural imbalances in its economy. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H600, H700, P200, P300. 3 figures, 9 tables, 121 references.     

论中国社会主义市场经济发展的六个阶段

社会主义市场经济在中国相继经历了萌芽、受挫、恢复探索、理论形成、体制建立、完善成熟等六个发展阶段。中国共产党在1956年完成三大改造之后就开始了这一探索过程,毛泽东等第一代领导集体对社会主义市场经济的探索是中国社会主义市场经济的萌芽阶段,所取得的成果是邓小平经济理论的源头和起点;从“计划经济为主,市场调节为辅”到尝试“计划与市场内在统一”的社会主义有计划商品经济体制,再到建立适应社会主义有计划商品经济发展的、计划经济和市场调节相结合直到社会主义市场经济的经济体制和运行机制,中国共产党对社会主义市场经济的认识日益深化,我国经济体制改革在理论和实践上取得重大突破和进展。中国社会主义市场经济的发展过程,说明了市场经济是人类文明的重要成果,是经济发展不可逾越的客观规律。     

网络、国家与亚洲地域秩序：华人研究之批判性反思

以华人网络、国家和亚洲地域秩序为切入点,分析和反思了海外华人研究中若干关键性的理论和方法论问题;探讨了华人网络与市场、社会与国家、地方化与全球化的互动关系;解构和重估了华人社会和商业网络的历史性、空间化、制度性和局限性,华人网络在与国家和市场的频密互动中发挥作用,并在这一进程中调适自身的机制和功能。     

Multiregional Perspectives on the Archaeology of the Andes During the Late Intermediate Period (c. A.D. 1000–1400)

During the Late Intermediate period (LIP, c. A.D. 1000–1400), the central Andes experienced the decline of the Wari and Tiwanaku states, as well as processes of state formation, regional population growth, and competition culminating in the imperial expansion of the Chimú and Inka polities. The LIP holds the potential to link the archaeological features of early Andean states with the material signatures of the later ones, providing a critical means of contextualizing the intergenerational continuities and breaks in state structures and imperial strategies. The recent proliferation of LIP research and the completion of a number of regional studies permit the overview of six LIP regions and the comparison of highland and lowland patterns of political and economic organization, social complexity, and group identity.     

Unique marine taphonomy in human skeletal material recovered from the medieval warship Mary Rose

The effect of skeletal exposure in a marine environment is an area of taphonomy that has been little investigated at the microscopic level. Understanding the peri‐mortem and subsequent post mortem history of deposition and/or redeposition is extremely important for event reconstruction and to identify deliberate or accidental redeposition. The material used for this study comes primarily from the Mary Rose shipwreck (a marine mass fatality dated AD 1545), and forensic material recovered from marine, lacustrine and terrestrial contexts is retrospectively referenced. Work presented here outlines a definitive type of marine exposure seen in temperate shallow off‐shore and intertidal marine contexts, and illustrates how it may be differentially identified from terrestrial deposition and exposure. Furthermore, the effects of rapid deposition on skeletal remains have been documented, and results indicate that marine organism fouling activity can be fully inhibited by rapid deposition of sediment. The responsible organism itself remains unidentified, but produces tunnels which are peripheral in their distribution and maintain fixed dimensions and morphology and are here associated with marine exposure. This type of microstructural change is unique and is not found in terrestrial or freshwater contexts. The study demonstrates a taphonomic microstructural change to bone and teeth which may be identified microscopically and interpreted as evidence of marine exposure. Secondarily, the history of depositional exposure between the two main Tudor layers has provided a new level of detail concerning exposure and site formation processes. The earliest Tudor layer formed rapidly over a period of months and contained no evidence of microstructural tunnelling, whereas microstructural tunnelling was seen exclusively in the second Tudor layer, formed over a period of decades, a period during which the ship's hull collapsed and a more open marine environment dominated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Archaeological excavations at Bosutswe,Botswana: cultural chronology,paleo-ecology and economy

Excavations at the site of Bosutswe on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana have uncovered over 4 m of deposit ranging in age from CE 700 to 1700. Our research has produced quantitative and qualitative measures of the material and ecological dimensions that structured the everyday actions and behaviors through which social identities were constituted, maintained, and transformed during the period when the polities of Toutswe, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami rose to power. By examining the material dimensions that underlay shifting relations of production, exchange, and social stratification we are able to contextualize the social judgments that ascribed value to material goods and food ways, while specifying the ways these were used to create and naturalize social relationships and power differentials. Stable isotope analyses, combined with evidence of vitrified dung, further enable us to suggest changes in herd management strategies used by the inhabitants of the site to compensate for ecological changes brought about by long-term occupation, while at the same time enabling them to economically tie subordinates to them as social divisions became more rigidly defined after CE 1300. The cultural and economic changes that took place at Bosutswe thus directly impact our understanding of the social transformations that immediately preceded contemporary configurations of ethnicity in Botswana.     

对促进柴达木循环经济发展的立法思考

发展柴达木循环经济是树立和落实科学发展观的根本要求,是提高经济增长质量和经济效益的重要措施,也是减轻环境污染和生态破坏的有效选择。循环经济立法具有可持续发展、经济效率、环境正义、环境秩序等价值。目前,柴达木循环经济立法刚刚起步,还缺少系统性,内容也不够完整,发展循环经济产业的法律保障体系以及市场激励机制还不够完善。对此,笔者提出了相应的措施和对策。     

构建环青海湖少数民族循环经济示范区之我见

本文依据循环经济的理念,结合环青海湖地区经济社会发展的实际和特点,提出了建设环湖少数民族循环经济示范区的重要意义、发展目标及其措施。     

探索市场经济条件下国有企业思想政治工作的新思路

随着社会主义市场经济体制的逐步建立和完善,中国经济迅猛发展,人们的思想观念、价值取向、行为方式和人际关系都发生着重大的变化,这就给国有企业思想政治工作提出了崭新的课题和更高的要求。     

大型主题活动的富矿效应

大型主题活动是一座富矿,一些预测数据表明,大型主题活动蕴涵着显的经济和社会价值。分析这些数据,可为旅游业应对将面临的机遇和挑战提供借鉴。