Chinese Social Sciences Review

Author: Zhang Shuguang, Deng Zhenglai (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The "Theme Discussion" section of this issue published two articles on financial issues. Dr. Sun Lijian's article advances the analysis of the financial system's resource allocation mechanism from a general static market mechanism to a dynamic market transmission mechanism. Through a comparison of the functions and micro-conduction mechanisms of market-dominated and bank-dominated financial systems in terms of liquidity, price discovery, risk diversification, information production, and corporate governance, it points out that the construction of the financial system should pursue "reasonableness" rather than "perfection" to maintain the efficiency of the financial system and achieve the ideal state where enterprises create the maximum value for society and consumers enjoy the maximum benefits. Under the conditions of financial globalization, the market transmission mechanism is quite complex, and its effects may be contradictory. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent and avoid the fallacy of composition. The key lies not in whether the market or the bank dominates, but in creating an environment that facilitates intermediaries or markets to provide good financial services for society. Yin Jianfeng's article introduces asymmetric information into the growth model, explaining how the heterogeneity of parties will lead to adverse selection and the "asymmetric information trap," negatively impacting economic growth. It further reveals that the financial system can identify heterogeneous parties through means such as credit rationing to overcome the "asymmetric information trap" and solve the problem of adverse selection. Based on this, it concludes that a decentralized and competitive banking industrial structure is not conducive to the implementation of credit rationing, while a relatively concentrated banking structure is superior to a relatively decentralized one. Several articles published in the "Academic Monographs" and related sections are worth reading. Zhu Xiaoyang's paper adopts the "extended case study" method to discuss the transformation of a village in Yunnan over more than half a century, illustrating how people redefine major historical events according to the environmental conditions of the time in the long course of history, forming "conditional information" for individual and collective action, as well as "collective memory" of the village community. This, in turn, influences the "reality" of village development and the construction of community order, including the village elections and village self-governance in the 1990s. Wang Xiaozhang's paper compares and analyzes the ideas of Simmel and Weber on modern self-practice, revealing their inherent tension in denying the prophet yet playing the role of the prophet, while also highlighting the limitations of each. Simmel believes that self-practice is an endless battle where life transcends itself and confronts itself, and only by maintaining a certain degree of superficiality can life continue. Weber proposed asceticism as a personality and self-practice, but modern society has dissolved the value rationality that underpinned early Puritan asceticism. Supervision is a common phenomenon in organizations, and supervision decisions are important organizational decisions. Wang Mijun's paper, building on previous research, discusses the impact of collusion on supervision decisions and organizational design, proving that collusion, information quality, and the characteristics of supervision technology are fundamental factors affecting supervision decisions and organizational design. Xu Zhangrun's article reviews Liang Shuming's ideas on constitution and constitutionalism, which not only have great academic and intellectual value but also hold significant practical implications for promoting China's democratic constitutional development. In recent decades, property rights theory has developed rapidly, with continuous innovation and a vast body of literature. The reviews by Phluebotn and Pejovich (1972) and De Alessi (1980) are considered classics but fail to cover further developments. The "Literature Review" section of this issue features an article by Xu Guangdong and Shi Hongxiu, which provides a new review of property rights theory in institutional economics from the perspective of intellectual history. This issue also published commentaries by 11 Ph.D. students from Peking University, Jilin University, and Renmin University, offering extensive reviews of the first four issues of China Social Sciences Review. The comments include praise, criticism, and encouragement, with insightful analyses and brilliant ideas across various aspects, such as academic and intellectual pursuits, theory and practice, concern for reality and knowledge frameworks, intellectuals and knowledge production, editorial objectives and section settings, peer review methods, and article selection. All of this converges on one point: for the cause of Chinese academia.