After Ethnic Violence in the Caucasus: Attitudes of Local Abkhazians and Displaced Georgians in 2010

The paper combines the results of two nearly simultaneous surveys in 2010 to provide a unique, rather comprehensive picture of the attitudes of (a) current residents of Abkhazia and (b) largely ethnic Georgian former residents of Abkhazia now living in forced displacement in Georgia following the 1992-1993 war. More specifically, it probes the views of these two groups about each other and the sensitive question raised by the disputed return of displaced Georgians to breakaway Abkhazia. Also investigated are the potential conditions for possible return in the future, including issues relating to property ownership. The authors conclude by discussing the policy implications of the survey results. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D740, I310, J600, O150. 13 figures, 24 references.     

Bao Shichen and Agrarian Reform in Early Nineteenth-Century China

Known primarily for his reformist proposals in the areas of military affairs, foreign policy, the salt monopoly, and the grain tribute system, the influential early nineteenth-century literatus Bao Shichen 包世臣 (1775–1855) also made throughout his life numerous suggestions regarding the improvement of agricultural practice and of rural life. Contrary to the arguments of his older contemporary Hong Liangji that the empire was facing an imminent demographic and provisioning crisis, Bao argued that there was ample possibility for increasing crop yields, and improving popular livelihoods, if a more rational approach was taken to cropping decisions, farm labor allocation, agricultural commercialization, and local-level social organization. Bao was fond of quantification, and, far more than Hong, employed statistical analysis (albeit crude) to bolster his arguments. Fundamentally committed to increasing the power and wealth of the imperial state in the face of threats both foreign and domestic, Bao was highly optimistic that this could be achieved simultaneously with fulfilling his other basic commitment, relieving what he saw as widespread popular immiseration.     

中国小产权房开发的社会网络研究——以杭州市城乡结合部村庄为例

本文选择了杭州市城郊结合部某村的小产权房开发作为研究案例,通过探索此处小产权房从网络构建到销售为止一系列的开发过程,来反映"小产权房"产生的背景与制度环境因素。研究发现,此案例小产权房的开发依托于社会网络形成并且运作。并且在开发的最后阶段,开发商通过两种途径,实现小产权房的进一步集中与出售,保证了小产权房的开发出路。作为时代的"产物",小产权房有其不合法性,也有其合理性。本文对小产权房的研究,对未来小产权房的进一步研究具有积极的意义,也为合理治理小产权房提供了有力的依据。     

清代地权交易形式的多样化发展

There were three kinds of financial transactions involving rights of land during the Qing Dynasty: debt financing through rights of land, the direct transferring of the rights of land, and the transaction of shares. This article attempts to clarify the confusion between several types of debt financing through rights of land. Ya 押 was loan through land as guaranty and repaying the interest and capital by the rent of land or harvest. Dian 典 was loan through temporary transferring of usage rights and harvest in a certain period of time. Dang 当 referred to various types of loans which involved the rights of land. Di 抵 meant using a certain portion of land right as repayment of debt. Similar with modern financial methods, these financial transactions in the Qing Dynasty allowed peasants to preserve their possessive rights over the land and also satisfied their financial needs. The direct transactions of rights of land and repayment of debt by harvest included juemai 绝卖 (finalized sale of land), huomai 活卖 (not finalized sale of land), dianquan dingtui 佃权顶退 (sell or purchase tenancy), zhaojia 找价 (price add-on after transaction), and huishu 回赎 (redemption). The main purpose of these transactions was to protect the land proprietors as far as possible. Share transaction and co-tenancy of land also appeared in the Qing Dynasty. Such diverse financial transactions not only were substitutes of modern financing tools which allowed peasants to weather financial hardship, but also promoted the changing ownership of land which further encouraged the combination of different production elements and reallocation of resources in the land market. This paper is the research result of the National Philosophy and Social Science Fund Project “Market of land rights and the evolution of its system, 1650–1950.”     

Generational transformation of Chinese families: A survey of the Republic period

Family division is the way of reproduction of Chinese families and the starting point of building new families. Reasons of family division in the Republic of China include bad terms among sisters-in-law, among brothers, between father and sons, between mother-in-law and daughters-in-law, or working outside. There are three patterns of family division: one-time thorough division, serial division, and special types of division. The circumstances of family division include: inheritance while parents are alive or after their death; equal inheritance among brothers hosted by their uncle (mother’s brother), inheritance rights attributed to the eldest son or grandson, and special principles of property distribution. The rite of family division is quite solemn; documents of family division definitely need to be made with specific regulations. There are three ways of supporting for the eldly, among which leaving some land to parents is popularly adopted in rural China during the Republic period. Translated into English by Luo Hui     

制度对于区域产业发展的影响研究——上海与深圳高科技产业发展比较

制度决定了交易成本,对于经济增长至关重要。产权确定了人与人之间使用稀缺资源的相互关系。有效率的产权应该具有排他性,根据排他性的程度产权可以分为私有产权与公有产权。制度和产权的变迁具有路径依赖特性。政府在制度和产权安排方面具有几乎垄断性的优势。上海与深圳的高科技产业发展比较,支持和验证了以上理论假设和判断。上海的高科技产业具有更大的规模和更广的行业门类,而深圳的高科技产业则具有更强的技术创新能力和更好的经济绩效。前者归咎于上海长期以来雄厚的产业基础,而后者则显示出制度对于区域产业发展模式乃至绩效的影响。不同的制度文化背景决定了高科技产业发展的不同制度安排。制度安排上的差异进而导致两地高科技产业发展绩效不同。     

Spacing Palestine through the home

This paper explores connections that can be made between houses, homes and violence in Palestine, and representational consequences of making such connections. Drawing on ethnographic field research in Birzeit, I put recent work on critical geographies of home into conversation with geographies and geopolitics of Palestine. I criticise the tendency to represent Palestinian geographies almost entirely through the lens of the Israeli Occupation. While such studies have a great deal of value both academically and politically, this paper augments such work by developing a different focus and a different representational approach. I use detailed ethnographic vignettes and interviews to engage with the domestic practices that make particular Birzeiti homes. These intimate domestic encounters underpin my argument that there is a need for more work that apprehends Palestinian geographies as complexities that bear a relation to, but are not fully determined by, the Israeli Occupation.     

Chiefdoms and the emergence of private property in land

A prevailing characteristic of complex, stratified societies is unequal access to critical resources, and in most cases land is the most fundamental of those resources. Gaining an understanding how relations to land are transformed is viewed as integral to revealing the origins of social inequality. Recent scholarship has proposed an evolution of property rights in land from open access to private property, the latter condition having been attributed to nation states. However, some scholars have concluded from their examinations of Early Medieval Irish texts that land within Irish chiefdoms was regarded as a commodity. The analysis carried out in this paper reveals that in Early Medieval Ireland some land could be considered to be private property, but the holding and transfer of land was restricted to chieftains and their dependents, the lands of commoners being held communally. The closest counterpart to this mode of land ownership is the form of feudalism proposed for the Classic and Post-Classic Maya.     

土地产权的变革与英国农业革命

英国农业革命是英国由传统的农业社会迈向工业文明的桥梁,它以土地产权的变革为基础,经历了大约三百年的时间,使农业劳动生产率得以大幅度提高,在其世界工场地位确立的同时,农业也达到了前所未有的辉煌程度。     

从农村合作化运动看国家构造中的集体及集体产权

集体产权不是一个主流经济学的产权概念,它只在中国才有财产和法律上的双重意义。伴随着农业合作化运动的互助组、初级社、高级社三个阶段,集体及集体产权也经历了一个萌芽、雏形、形成的过程。