Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the meanings associated with the high-frequency social address term baixing ('common people') in China's contemporary news media, through the analysis of a sizable corpus of data from China's online news portals, together with the results of qualitative research derived from participation in an online discussion forum. The findings of this project indicate that the term baixing is closely associated with discourses of insignificance, obedience, and powerlessness. This study sets out to make a contribution to current research on Chinese address terms through the use of a corpus-based methodology, by expanding the site of investigation beyond face-to-face encounters to a wider media public, and thereby to provide insights into the discourses of citizen identity in contemporary China.

Seit dreißig Jahren entwickelt sich das chinesische Fernsehen als zweigleisiges System: als staatliches Eigentum unter staatlicher Kontrolle einerseits und als kommerzialisiertes Unternehmen andererseits. Doch seine Kommerzialisierung ist nur teilweise erfolgreich: Das zweigleisige System hat auch negative Folgen, wie etwa die übermäßige Betonung des Entertainments innerhalb der Fernsehprogramme, die Widersprüche zwischen Ideologie und Markt usw. Dieser Artikel geht der Frage nach, wie man die Eigenschaften des chinesischen Fernsehens aus wirtschaftlicher und politischer Perspektive verstehen kann. Außerdem wird thematisiert, wie die Kommunistische Partei und der Staat in China das Fernsehen beeinflussen und regulieren, und ob in China im westlich-bürgerlichen Sinne von Medienfreiheit gesprochen werden kann.

Built on the theories about talent competition between rent-seeking and entrepreneurship, and the theories about constitutional environment and rent-seeking, this dissertation explores empirically the effects of a country's constitutional settings on entrepreneurship, in terms of the quantity of entrepreneurs and the quality of their performance. Both the de facto and de jure constitutional environments are studied. In particular, with respect to the de facto constitutional environment, I considered the property rights protection, decentralization, and the factors suggested by the "selectorate theory". In relation to the de jure constitutional environment, I focused on six aspects including electoral rules, form of government, federalism, property rights protection, judicial independence and antidiscrimination provisions. Three indexes were constructed to measure the de jure property rights protection, judicial independence and antidiscrimination provisions, using the data set provided by the Comparative Constitution Project.The empirical study first shows that the quantity of entrepreneurs is inversely correlated with the quality of entrepreneurship in a country. If entrepreneurship does serve as the engine of economic growth, it is perhaps the quality, rather than quantity, that matters. This study then demonstrates that the de facto property rights protection is associated negatively with the quantity of entrepreneurs, but positively with the quality of entrepreneurship. The effects of the two key factors of the selectorate theory, the size of the winning coalition and the ratio of this size to the size of the selectorate, also appear to be compatible with what the theory is to predict. On the other hand, neither fiscal nor political decentralization is found to significantly affect entrepreneurship. Among the de jure constitutional features, two have significant influence on entrepreneurship. First, the constitutional design of judicial independence has a negative effect on the quantity of entrepreneurs, but a positive one on the quality of their performance. Second, majoritarian electoral rules, compared with non-majoritarian rules, have a negative effect on the quality of entrepreneurship. In contrast, the presumed effects of the other three formal constitutional attributes, federalism, presidentialism and property rights protection, cannot be ascertained.Apart from the cross-country study, I also conducted a detailed research on China. Entrepreneurship in China is a case of entrepreneurial development in an authoritarian state lack of secure property rights and the rule of law, hence afflicted with profuse rent-seeking activities. Under these circumstances, entrepreneurship hinges on both the rent-seeking and the entrepreneurial abilities. Drawing on the private enterprise surveys, I found that, in China, the politically connected were systematically advantaged in terms of bank finance, entry to regulated industries and judicial treatment, when they plunged into the business world. The Chinese case also indicates that, when entrepreneurs cannot trust the commitment made by the state in the constitution, they will be eager to scoop profits as soon as possible and exit swiftly with accumulated wealth.Finally, this dissertation concludes by suggesting that a healthy development of entrepreneurship should be sustainable rather than aiming merely at quick money and instant success. It should allow all talented people to reach their full potentials, rather than keep the politically disconnected away from resources needed to make the best use of their potentials. Above all, it wants a constitutional environment with reliable property rights and equal access to opportunities, neither of which is seen in today's China.

ABSTRACTWe study an extension of job market signalling by introducing another dimension of private information. When two dimensions of attribute are intertwined in parameterizing preferences, the single crossing property no longer holds globally. In seeking the equilibrium prediction, the intuitive criterion and then the more stringent perfect sequentiality refinement are applied. The result depends on the extent to which the second characteristic affects the ability of education to signal. If the effect is mild, the equilibrium acquired is comparable to the separating outcome of the unidimensional benchmark. Otherwise, pooling must occur. This demonstrates that the problem of information transmission is more acute in a multidimensional environment.

This study analyses patient questions in prenatal genetic counselling (PGC) in a Hong Kong hospital. The focus is on the kinds of questions asked by the patients and the sequential environments in which the questions are asked. The ten patients in the study are pregnant women at or above 38 years of age, four local Cantonese-speaking Chinese, and six of Filipina or Thai origin. The PGC is conducted by a nurse who communicates with the Chinese patients in Cantonese and with the non-Chinese patients in English. Two broad types of questions, medical and administrative, in line with the purpose of PGC, are found in both groups. While both groups share a concern on the accuracy of the test, the Chinese group asks more questions on medical details beyond the issue of accuracy. With regard to sequential environments, questions may be either 'occasioned' by the nurse's prior talk or 'self-motivated'; both may occur in the positions for minimal responses in extended information delivery sequences. Self-motivated questions also occur as a second or later component in the patient's extended turn. While the two groups of patients ask questions from either of the sequential positions, a qualitative difference lies in the turn design of the self-motivated questions.