Top Ten Countdown of My Favorite Thinkers

I have decided to reveal my intellectual preferences by doing a countdown of my 10 favorite thinkers. Given my educational background, this will be a very subjective list and limited to economics and adjacent disciplines. I will also attempt to motivate my choices, and  give an indication of what I like and don’t like about each individual (obviously, the pros will have to outweigh the cons). I haven’t decided the exact ranking yet, but I have a general idea about who will be included. Watch this space.

Wuhan: The Real Deal

Last week I visited Wuhan for the first time. For those who don’t know, Wuhan is the largest city in China’s Hubei province with a population of more than 10 million. So it’s up there with London, Paris, Istanbul, and Bangkok.

People sometimes ask me which cities I like the most. I think that’s an irrelevant question. What really matters is this: which cities provide the most value for money? The former question may cause lots of people to reply Paris, Venice or New York. The second – more interesting – question would (at least in my case) elicit responses such as Bangkok, Penang and – yes – Wuhan.

What then is so great about Wuhan? Well, first of all it is and has always been an economic center. This means that it has none of the sterile feel of cities that were designed from the top down, and none of the artificial geographical features of cities that are located according to the whim of an emperor or president rather than according to transportation convenience. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like Beijing: a communist reinterpretation of a centrally planned imperial city utterly devoid of natural advantages such as a coast or a river. Of course, Shanghai is a spontaneously evolved economic city, but then Shanghai is expensive for someone like me (someone with either no expense account or one that has been severely constrained by university administrators).

So if there is only one place you should visit in China, and if your subjective preferences are similar to mine, Wuhan is the place to go. It is neither north nor south, and neither west nor east. Indeed, it is the place where China’s main east-west and north-south railroad lines intersect. I was also told that it is the only place in China where they like food from all parts of the country. Having said that, I think that Hubei food represents Chinese food at its very best: lots of chilli and garlic but very little sugar or salt. It’s like a subtle and more varied version of Sichuan cuisine. Best of all: restaurants – and they are everywhere – have a fantastic size-to-price ratio. It’s the opposite of Tokyo: American portions at Thai prices, which is a lot better than the reverse combination.

It helps to know some Mandarin if you go to Wuhan. Mandarin is actually the local language, although the local accent is very strange. Not to worry: people will adjust immediately to standard Putonghua once they find out that you are from somewhere else (this is so different from Beijing where people seem to believe that they already speak with a standard accent; the fact is that most Beijingers also have a heavy local accent). And they are a talkative lot: I spent two or three hours talking to various taxi drivers, and they were the ones who got the conversation going.

Speaking of taxis, they illustrate the value-for-money aspect of Wuhan perfectly. A two-kilometer ride will set you back 6 renminbi (less than US$1) in Wuhan, compared with about 25 renminbi in Shanghai. Also, Wuhan cab drivers sometimes will round down (!) the fare, something that I had previously only encountered in Taiwan.  Another illustration of the price level is that it is possible to find an adequate (clean, air-conditioned etc.) hotel room for under US$30, and that you can get a simple but filling and tasty meal at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for about US$1.

What is there to see in Wuhan? Well, Wuhan has its own version of the Bund: a road along the Yangzi river which is lined with western banks and office buildings from the treaty port era. They come in a variety of styles, reflecting the simultaneous presence of British, French, German, American, Russian, and Japanese traders in the early 20th century. On one such building, an inscription read “First National City Bank of New York,” although it was now the branch office of some (probably mismanaged) Chinese bank.

Behind Wuhan’s Bund, there is a warren of narrow alleys that brings to mind the dense neighborhoods of Macau. Even further north is where Wuhan’s version of the ”new China” is located: skyscrapers, shopping malls, Carrefour, Walmart, and Starbucks. Proceeding north again, one gets to yet another city: this time gray, dilapidated, and rather drab.

All of the above describes Hankou, which is one of three originally separate cities (the others being Wucheng and Hanyang). On the other side of the imposing Yangzi River (Changjiang) is Wucheng, which has a totally different character. Wucheng is home to two of China’s main universities: Wuhan University and the Huazhong University of Technology. I visited the campus of the latter, which resembled a separate city more than a regular campus. It’s enormous and houses about 50,000 students and a permanent population that I would guess is only slightly smaller. Since university salaries are low as well as standardized in China, some universities compete for faculty by offering on-campus fringe benefits. In the case of Huazhong, this includes subsidized housing, kindergartens, and restaurants, as well as the less tangible benefits of  lower noise levels and better air quality.

Another attraction in Wucheng is the East Lake, which is much larger than the average urban pond. In fact, I found out that the lake is actually larger than the entire territory of the Macau Special Administrative Region. And there is Wuhan’s most famous landmark: a pagoda dating back to the 3d century AD, but since reconstructed on numerous occasions.

This is not to say that Wuhan will be to everyone’s liking. For people who can’t stand pollution, congestion, or chaotic traffic, Wuhan is better avoided. And personally I wouldn’t want to live there, but that’s primarily because of my opposition to all kinds of government suppression of civil liberties.

Back in Taiwan

I have now returned to Taiwan (and to this blog), after having spent one and a half months in Europe. The highlights of my trip to Germany, Poland, and Sweden include my first attempt to pick cloudberries in a marsh near the arctic circle (I only found about twenty cloudberries), the realization that Flensburg has a pedestrian street that looks like Stroget (in Copenhagen) but is compatible with a much tighter budget, and a very long walk through Lodz which revealed a city with Viennese architecture on a grid that resembles Manhattan.

As a pedestrian, I have come to the conclusion that my favorite urban plan is a city where the design of the street pattern is a regular grid, but where the buildings that line the streets have irregular heights and a variety of architectural styles. While Lodz fulfills these criteria, I wouldn’t like to live there. Some neighborhoods are quite dilapidated, and there are also a few unbelievably ugly structures from the Stalinist era. But perhaps most of all, the tragic history of the city is all too apparent in the contrast between its Jewish architectural heritage and the current homogeneity of its Polish population. Also, it’s a gray city, and it’s not difficult to imagine what kind of emotions a rainy day in November would elicit.

Reading about the history of Lodz certainly puts natural calamities such as typhoon Morakot into perspective. This is not to deny that Morakot claimed the lives of more than 500 people and that large parts of southern Taiwan are still inaccessible. I visited a military compound last Saturday that now provides temporary shelter for several flooded villages. While the facilities were basic, I still think that they have done a good job here: each family has its own room and there are plenty of bathrooms as well as an enormous mess hall where the evacuees have their meals.

The fall semester starts next week, and I will be teaching two courses: Institutional Economics (MA level; Wed 6-9 pm) and Economics (compulsory MBA course; Thu 2-5 pm). My office hours are as follows: Wed 3-5 pm; Thu 11-12 and 1-2 pm. After twelve weeks of no classes, I’m actually looking forward to my lectures.

Summer Update

I have decided that this blog needs a summer break as much as I do, or perhaps it’s the other way around. I am however not abandoning this blog, and promise to return to blogging during the first week of September. But in July and August I want to concentrate on some other things. I will be in Europe (Sweden and Poland)  from July 15 to August 31. I do however promise to check my email almost every day.

I wish all blog visitors an enjoyable summer!

My Kind of Liberal

I came across an outstanding passage about what true liberalism should be about, although it’s not necessarily true of people who like to call themselves “liberals.” The following excerpt is from “I am a Liberal,” a blog post by Don Boudreaux, who is Professor of Economics at George Mason University:

“[T]he world is bigger than economics; economics does not explain everything. Human values are among the values that matter far beyond gains from trade and economic efficiency. … One of the great tenets of liberalism — the true sort of liberalism, not the dirigiste ignorance that today, in English-speaking countries, flatters itself unjustifiably with that term — is that no human being is less worthy just because he or she is outside of a particular group. Any randomly chosen stranger from Cairo or Cancun has as much claim on my sympathies and my respect and my regard as does any randomly chosen person from Charlottesville or Chicago. … For the true liberal, the human race is the human race. The struggle is to cast off as much as possible primitive sentiments about “us” being different from “them.” … [T]he liberal points out, as occasions permit, that what matters is that people be free to associate as much as possible as they voluntarily choose without being constrained by culture or force to associate on different terms with foreigners than with fellow citizens.”

I think this passage is downright inspiring. I also think that Boudreaux has pinpointed the source of why I – and I hope many others – came to the conclusion that illiberalism — whether it calls itself cultural conservatism, social engineering, or communism — is incompatible with most of the things that are inspiring about the world, such as individual integrity, tolerance, a cosmopolitan outlook, or peaceful interactions with anonymous others.

The quotation does however allude to a dilemma for modern democracies. Such states are usually based on accidents of birth or heritage, and are not very representative of the small — but rapidly growing — number of people whose interpersonal networks and location trajectories pay no regard to political boundaries. Nor does it take into account that most people affected by certain policies — such as the foreign policy of the United States — have no influence on the outcome of the elections that in the end determine whether policy x or y will prevail. And unfortunately, a lot of people seem to accept the fiction that it is natural and desirable for the link between, say, Boston and Anchorage to be stronger and more “patriotic” than the link between, say, Detroit and Windsor or Copenhagen and Malmo. Fortunately, markets, science,  and civil society are eroding the “nation-centeredness” of social life to some extent. But will these countervailing pressures be enough to set us free from nationalism, patriotism, and ethnocentricity?

Can Asia Inspire the West?

I’m contributing a book chapter to a forthcoming book entitled “Current Issues in Economic Integration: Can Asia Inspire the West?”.  The book is currently being edited by Bernadette Andreosso-O’Callaghan and Bruna Zolin. My chapter is about the effects of high-speed rail accessibility on house prices in Taiwan. I don’t know if that can “inspire the west,” but perhaps indirectly it can. So far, the estimates imply that high population densities, high incomes, and a substantial portion of the labor force in knowledge services contribute to make high-speed rail potentially viable. Now, if it really is the best use of scarce resources is impossible to say, but at least we can say that an East Asian spatial structure is better suited to high-speed rail investments than a European structure (let alone a North American structure).

These are the chapter headings (with authors) for the new edited volume:

Introduction: The Current Economic Crisis and Economic Integration (Bernadette Andreosso-O-Callaghan and Bruna Zolin)

Part 1: Current Macroeconomic Issues

Inflation or Deflation: What Next? (Dino Martellato)

Economic Crisis: What are the Scenarios for the Chinese Economy and Currency? (John Ryan)

The Rise and Fall of “Chimerica”: China and the Collapse of the American Model (Guilhem Fabre)

The Impact of de facto Trade Integration in Eastern Asia on Exchange Rate Policies (Francoise Nicolas)

Land, Biofuels, and Food Security: Another “Impossible” Trinity Theorem? (Bernadette Andreosso-O’Callaghan and Bruna Zolin)

Part 2: Firm and Industry Level Issues

The Future of Family Business in Japan (Bruno Amann and Jacques Jaussaud)

Indian Multinationals: Which Competitive Advantages? (Giovanni Balcet)

Strategies of MNEs and the Chinese Institutional Response (Michael von Wuntsch)

A Critical Assessment of the “Equipment Hypothesis” – The Case of the Die and Moldmaking Industry in Ireland and Japan (Tomoko Oikawa)

Policy Support for SMEs – China and Europe (Esmeralda Gassie and Ju Hu)

High-speed Rail Accessibility and House Prices – Hedonic Estimates from Two Taiwanese Regions (David Emanuel Andersson and Oliver F. Shyr)

Conclusion – Can Asia Inspire the “West”? (Bernadette Andreosso-O’Callaghan and Bruna Zolin)

I would expect the book to be available “at a library near you” in 2010.

My Workplace (NSYSU)

Lots of visitors remark that our campus is unusually attractive, being surrounded as it is by forested hills and the sea. We even have our own “university beach.” A picture of the beach:

Here is another picture that shows some NSYSU buildings in front:

 

 

And finally, here is a view from within the campus:

My Jonkoping and JIBS connections

I spend most of my time in southern Taiwan, but when I’m not here you would be more likely to find me in Jonkoping, Sweden, than anywhere else. There are several reasons for this; my parents live there, my son goes to school there, and the European cost of living makes me avoid places where I have to stay at hotels and eat out (unless I’m fully funded).

Now, my family connections would be sufficient to ensure my recurrent visits. But there is also JIBS – Jonkoping International Business School – which is an excellent resource. It happens to be our Swedish partner university; I’ve taught a total of 5 JIBS students at NSYSU. And it has one of the best economics departments in northern Europe, with a focus on empirical research in entrepreneurship, institutions, and regional economics.

This month, my school is hosting a visit by two JIBS economists, Daniel Wiberg and Anders Hogberg. They have been lecturing on Swedish economic history and Swedish financial institutions. From their lectures I learned that the largest Swedish firms have been engaging in systematic overinvestments over the past several decades (they use a method called marginal Q analysis). They also showed that all of the largest 50 firms were founded before 1970, and that a distinction between closely held A shares and openly traded B shares have enabled the leading business dynasties to endure for several generations (An A share is associated with 10 times as many votes as a B share). According to Daniel Wiberg, the empire-building of Sweden’s “financial nobility” have crowded out entrepreneurship and the service sector. More surprisingly, this has been a deliberate effect of the taxation policies and subsidy programs perpetrated by a succession of Social Democrat governments. In effect, the Social Democrats instituted corporatism in Sweden – powerful families such as the Wallenbergs were given various “empire-building” advantages in exchange for acquiescing in the government’s redistribution of incomes. There is thus a tiny group of very wealthy captains of industry at the top, and a large majority of people with roughly the same after-tax incomes working either in the public sector or for old multinational manufacturing corporations such as Ericsson, Atlas Copco, Electrolux etc. Two holding companies – controlled by the Wallenberg family and a major bank, respectively – control more than 60% of total market capitalization on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Wiberg’s conclusion is that the collusion between Sweden’s Social Democrats and the leading business empires have reduced opportunities for entrepreneurship and Schumpeterian creative destruction, resulting in an ossified industrial structure and lower economic growth after World War II. Interesting stuff.

Both Daniel Wiberg and Anders Hogberg are associated with Per-Olof Bjuggren, one of the leading Swedish economists with an interest in law and economics and new institutional economics. Now at least three of the faculty – and several Ph.D. students – at JIBS are engaged in institutional research. Per-Olof studied with Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz in the 1970s, and has recently been collaborating with Oliver Williamson and Dennis Mueller.

JIBS also offers students a truly outstanding library (at least from my point of view). Not only has it won architectural prizes, it is also Scandinavia’s leading library for both entrepreneurship theory and entrepreneurship studies. In fact, it’s the only library I have been to where I can count on finding books that are unavailable in even the best of Taiwan’s libraries (because of that library, I’ve had the opportunity to spend my summer break reading books by little known but highly readable economists such as Emily Chamlee-Wright or Virgil Storr).

So, all in all, I feel very privileged to divide my time between sweltering Kaohsiung and crisp Jonkoping.

Values in a Border Region – Part 2

The outline of my new book project is slowly taking shape. This is the latest version:

Title: Values in a Border Region: The Invisible Bridge?

 

Chapter 1: Border Regions of the World.

                                                                                                   

Border regions differ substantially in terms of cross-border differences, and there are several dimensions that may slow down cross-border integration processes. This chapter discusses and analyzes such differences. The chapter offers a brief introduction to the Øresund region as well as seven other comparable regions from around the world.  A gravity-type regression model is used to decompose the effect of time distance from the effects of various institutional barriers such as language or legal barriers on interactions such as trade (national data), migration (national), and scientific cooperation (functional urban region data). A model is also estimated for commuting patterns within the Øresund region in order to separate time distance, land price difference, and national boundary effects (reflecting cultural differences).

 

Factors with potential effects on actual cross-border integration:

 

Geography: Time distance, natural barriers/limitation of feasible route choices (water, mountains). Øresund: short time distance between Copenhagen and Malmö – but only one route.

 

Language: Is the same or a similar language spoken? Is one of the languages spoken as a second language on one side, or is there a joint second language such as English? Is the majority language on one side a minority language on the other side?

 

Politics: Are there institutional differences that raise transaction costs associated with business ventures (e.g. different legal systems and/or business regulations). Are there barriers to trade, migration or capital flows?

 

Level of economic development: Are differences good or bad for integration? (Differences may reflect complementarity but may also give rise to political tensions). Note that similar levels may also allow for complementarity and, anyway, integration may in all cases cause emergent agglomeration economies. Øresund: similar levels of development on both sides; some cross-border clusters but also some clusters that are confined to one side of the sound (relative trade-off: comparative advantages versus transaction costs).

 

Religion: The religious affiliations of a population may reflect their informal institutions. Øresund: similar mixture of Lutheranism, agnosticism, and atheism; large Muslim minority.

 

In general: Values are seen as reflecting religion (starting point), economic development (evolution of values), and politics (evolution of values). Values tend to be less dependent on language and geography.

 

Eight case studies (ten-page introduction about Øresund; three-page introductions about each of the other seven regions)

 

Commuting maps should be included here. Three maps from a French article (Basel, Geneva, Luxembourg) are useful and a similar map could be constructed with the help of commuting data for the Øresund region.

 

Chapter 2:  Values, Preferences, and Individual Behavior (What comes first – Economics or Culture?)

 

In this chapter individual behavior is analyzed as a rule-based activity, where the decision rules can be modeled according to psychological findings (Simon and Gigerenzer), or according to economic theories of expected utility maximization with institutional constraints.

 

Values tend to form early and mostly remain more or less the same for life. Preferences are much more fickle, and refer to ordinary market exchanges and consumption of relatively non-durable goods and services. Preferences tend to be altered by a variety of factors such as learning processes, momentary psychological states, and life-cycle effects.

 

Values form part of the institutional structure if they are shared among a group of people. When a majority or substantial subset of a population has a value in common it becomes an informal institution. When several values tend to occur in combination, we speak of a value system.

 

There are two main theoretical approaches to understanding the formation of values. The “thin” approach is to understand shared values as institutional side constraints. The thick approach is to investigate how institutions are formed and transmitted within a population. Values are then institutions that create both intersubjective utility-shaping structures as well as constraints on human interaction.

 

In economics, there are three approaches that illuminate different aspects of the role of value systems in society:

 

1.           The intersubjective approach emphasizes realistic foundations over common neoclassical assumptions such as independent and stable individual preferences or competitive markets. Experimental psychology and models of innovation and imitation processes then become important building blocks for understanding individual value formation and group interdependencies. Psychologists such as Herbert Simon and Gerd Gigerenzer have stressed the importance of satisficing behavior, lexicographic choice and the role of intuition, while institutional-evolutionary economists from Thorstein Veblen to Geoffrey Hodgson have stressed expressive (other-directed) consumer behavior as well as the contrasts between inert, imitative, and innovative behavior. While this approach has mainly been concerned with the abstract concepts of individual choice and preference, it is but a short step to extend this approach to value systems.

2.           A second approach takes orthodox neoclassical economics as a starting point, but relaxes certain key assumptions to come to grips with imperfect knowledge and positive transaction costs. Institutions are then understood as constraints on individual behavior that enable individuals to cope with uncertainty when interacting with others. This approach is closely associated with new institutional economists such as Ronald Coase, the early Douglass North, and Oliver Williamson.

3.           A third approach is more concerned with macro-phenomena and the evolutionary competition among different institutional packages. Different institutions give rise to different levels of procreation, survival, and technological progress. Only those cultures that have happened to evolve “institutional packages” that enable societies to both ensure a sufficient supply of food and shelter as well as to resist the encroachments of other cultures will endure. Both military conquest and imitation of institutions that are perceived as being successful elsewhere influence the relative success and dissemination of specific cultural, economic and political institutions. Important theorists in this field include Jared Diamond, Friedrich Hayek, and Douglass North (in the later stages of their respective careers).

 

In the social sciences outside of economics, there are four approaches – with implications for values system analysis – that have been especially influential:

 

1.           The Marxian approach, where values and culture is seem as a non-autonomous “superstructure” to (i.e. a reflection of) the prevailing economic organization of society.

2.           The culture-first approach of Max Weber and Morishima: the cultural and religious institutions of society determine attitudes to accumulation, wealth creation, and innovation. In this scheme, it is the relative “productivity” of values with economic consequences that determine long-term economic success.

3.           Inglehart’s  theory of modernization and postmodernization processes. Inglehart claims that while different societies have different cultural starting points, these values are not unchanging. Instead, they co-evolve with the economic evolution of society. In other words, culture and economic development are interdependent factors.

4.           The “varieties of capitalism” approach that sees distinct economic systems as a reflection of the contrasting values of different societies. While industrialized market economies are more productive than pre-industrial or centrally planned societies, different types of societies will develop slightly different institutions as a reflection of different values. Gert Hofsteede’s “cultural dimensions” are associated with this approach.

 

Typology of goods/services

Publicness/Speed of change	Fast change	Slow change
Individual or household-specific	Preference-based consumption; satisficing or constraint- based decisions	Decisions based on perceived risk and net present value calculations.
Public or shared by large groups of people	Fashions; imitation and diffusion models	Value systems and other institutions

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Value Demography and the Cohort Replacement Hypothesis.

 

This chapter concerns the relatively slow pace at which social value systems change. Are these changes a consequence of economic development or of other evolutionary factors? Does every new generation carry a value structure to be part of a long term substitution process, during which the values of older generations are replaced by the values of younger cohorts?

 

This chapter gives a brief introduction to Inglehart’s cohort replacement theory as well as a few empirical illustrations from the World Values Survey. In addition, demographic processes are discussed such as the effects of fertility and mortality rates as well as inter-cultural migration. What are the impacts of values on demographic behavior? Are the high birth rates of Muslim societies persistent during migration processes? Do women adapt to local values after migration to Scandinavia?

 

Chapter 4: Denmark and Sweden: An Avant-garde Region of Global Values?

 

In Inglehart’s studies there are ample examples of a special position in the value diagrams for Scandinavia and the Netherlands. It seems as if northern Europe has a value structure that is distinct from other postindustrial regions of the world. How and why?

 

Inglehart’s diagrams show Scandinavia, North America, the Netherlands, and Switzerland leading the transition toward postmodern and postmaterialist values. This is consistent with their being the most postindustrial regions of the world in terms of industrial specialization, knowledge production, and innovation propensity. There is however a marked difference regarding a second dimension associated with industrialization (the choice between “rational-legal” and “traditional” authorities) where Scandinavia (especially Sweden) is most similar to mainland China, Japan, and eastern Germany. In Inglehart’s scheme, industrialization substituted faith in Government and Science for faith in God and Family. However, this tendency was much more pronounced in northern Europe and Confucian Asia than in Catholic Europe and North America. And while the transition from industrial to post-industrial society is associated with skepticism toward all forms of authority (and a greater role for individual as compared with collective authority choice), this tendency is also less pronounced in Scandinavia in general and Sweden in particular.

 

An interesting hypothesis is the importance of “secular faiths” in Scandinavia and especially Sweden;

 

Hypothesis 1: Faith in the creation of the perfect Welfare State (1930-1980) and Faith in the creation of the perfect Environmental State (1980-)

Hypothesis 2: Faith in Family and/or God tends to be associated with non-socialists and non-environmentalists (assuming that other political ideologies are weaker/vaguer in Scandinavia).

 

Chapter 5: Value Change and the Political Lag

 

Are the political parties responsive to changing values or will the long-term evolution of values generate a “silent revolution” of politics in democracies? What are the interdependencies between value systems and political systems?

 

Hypothesis 1: Politics is a “lagging variable”: it changes, but it will reflect the average values of older cohorts.

Hypothesis 2: The political system influences values by providing a “default” orientation point – existing policies have an intrinsic advantage because they represent the “normal,” “no-change” situation (see psychological theories).

 

Chapter 6: The Emancipation of Women: Gender Differences and Gender Convergence

 

Earlier value studies have shown that many important choices are associated with important remaining gender differences, for example in entertainment preferences and in the choice of education and occupation, while many other values are converging.

 

In general, Swedes and Danes are less committed to the social preservation of gender roles (see Hofsteede’s Masculinity Index for various countries). However, there are still systematic gender differences associated with individual work and leisure choices.

 

Also, women tend to have more postmodern values than men, other things being equal. This has been a consistent finding, both in earlier Swedish and Danish surveys and in the World Values Survey.

 

This chapter provides a general description of gender differences in Denmark and Sweden, with a comparison between the 1992 and 2009 surveys. Rankings of masculine/neutral/feminine values use the following index:  (p1-p2)/(p1+p2)*100, which results in an index with a range from ‑100 to +100

 

Chapter 7: Religious Faith, Agnosticism and Atheism: The Decline of Organized Religion in Scandinavia

 

Most recent value studies have shown that the populations of northern Europe in general and specifically Denmark and Sweden are increasingly secular – in contrast to North America. Is this true also of the young generation of Danes and Swedes? Will the trend toward a non-religious society continue? What are the consequences?

 

A relevant starting point is the institutional difference in religious structure: a marketplace of religions in North America and religious monopolies or oligopolies in Europe. Stark and Fiske have studied American religious trends and have found “product differentiation” and religious divergence to be increasingly apparent within the US, with gains for total “lifestyle packages” (e.g. Mormonism); no religion (secularization), and new religions (e.g. New Age) at the expense of low-commitment, low-service traditional churches (Episcopalians, Lutherans etc.) Catholics have partly avoided the fate of other mainstream religions by means of internal segmentation with different levels of commitment and service.

 

There is also the question of the welfare state crowding out the philanthropic function of churches (as well as crowding out non-religious philanthropy).

 

Chapter 8: Diagnosing Extremist Values

 

The Copenhagen-Malmo region is experiencing increasing ethnic segregation and extremist behavior in civil society and the political system. Similar tendencies have been observed in other border regions. Are extremist values retained by a portion of the young generation?

 

The chapter discusses and analyzes factors that may be related to intolerance of “out-groups.” The “out-groups” are also analyzed in terms of their socio-economic characteristics. One important aspect is the spatial distributions within the Øresund region. Does intolerance tend to be directed at all groups, or are there “clusters” of intolerance that are associated with various background variables? (For example: general intolerance, drug intolerance, religious intolerance, sexual intolerance etc.)

 

In this chapter, an intolerance index will be applied: (12 – number of groups not liked)/12*100. This index ranges from 100 – every group accepted –  to 0 – no group accepted. Comparisons are made between genders, educational programs, socio-economic backgrounds, municipalities, immigration background, and countries (S/DK). Comparisons regarding specific out-groups are also carried out.

 

A logit equation should be estimated to explain the importance of different variables in determining (and predicting) the probability of out-group intolerance.

 

Chapter 9: Education and Work: The Changing Money-Happiness Trade-off

 

The older generations in industrial society tended to prefer monetary returns in terms of wages and salaries to jobs promising creativity, communication and self-control. Recent value studies have indicated that the choice of education and work increasingly favor creative and interesting jobs at the expense of monetary returns.

 

It should also be noted that monetary returns to educational investments in Denmark and Sweden are among the lowest in the western world. Do low monetary incentives matter less when other job attributes are deemed to be more important?

 

Chapter 10: Should I Go or Should I Stay: The Urban-Rural and the National-Global Trade-offs

 

Nothing seems to be as dominant as the migration to highly urbanized areas. This would favor conurbations like the Copenhagen-Malmö region with its population of almost three million. Another emerging tendency is a desire to combine an urban job with a semi-rural residential location. Is this desire different when viewed from a short-term and a long-term perspective? Most value systems studies have also shown an increasing tendency to look upon the leading global metropolitan regions as a network of accessible labor markets. Will global differences in economic returns lead to a “brain drain” from the Øresund region to more remunerative positions in global metropolises such as London or New York.

 

Chapter 11: Housing Preferences and the Future of Land-use Planning

 

Swedes and Danes spend a large share of their income on housing. This is especially true of the largest metropolitan regions. There is also a general tendency for housing to be income-elastic. But the choice of housing involves a number of unavoidable trade-offs, particularly concerning housing attributes such as lot size, floor area, workplace accessibility, leisure accessibility, and socio-economic neighborhood character. What do young people prioritize? Do they give priority to the same factors regardless of time horizon? Has environmental concerns given rise to new housing preferences?

 

The preferred type of housing has profound implications for the economic viability of alternative land-use plans. Both property developers and municipalities may therefore benefit from being well-informed about the desires of the young.

 

Chapter 12: Homo Ludens and the Importance of Being Entertained

 

One of the most rapidly growing sectors of postmodern society is the sector generating experiences, entertainment and the arts. The young generation of today have more generous income and time constraints in their pursuit of satisfying leisure activities. The entertainment sector is therefore one of the most income-elastic. What are the leisure pursuits of the future?   What are the trade-offs?

 

Chapter 13: The New Nature Worshippers: Health, Environment, and Sustainability

 

One of the most visible changes in recent years has been the increasing priority given to quality-of-life attributes such as health, environmental quality, and ecological sustainability. This is apparent from politics, the mass media, marketing, and popular entertainment. What does this imply about the political and economic life of the future? What does it imply about housing, leisure, and lifestyle choices? And what are the differences between different parts of the region and different socio-economic and ethnic groups?

 

Chapter 14: Cross-sound Interaction Before and After the Bridge

 

This chapter compares how the bridge has affected actual behaviour patterns and attitudes by comparing the responses from 1992 with 2009. Is Øresund substantially more integrated today than 15 or 20 years ago?

 

Chapter 15: Øresund Values: Long-run Convergence or Stable Contrasts?

 

Summary and conclusions

 

Appendix:  Statistical Methods and Data

My Only Comment on the Economic Crisis

I don’t think it has escaped anyone’s attention that the current economic crisis is the topic for bloggers at present. I have for this and other reasons avoided long disquisitions on the stimulus package, business cycles etc. The other main reason is that I’m not primarily intersted in macroeconomic problems. This does however not imply that I have no opinions about it. I have both a theoretical understanding and a self-centered opinion.

My theoretical understanding is shaped by the most persuasive account that I have encountered; it is Roger Koppl’s theory of the interplay of institutions and expectations and how it impacts macroeconomic phenomena such as currency rates and stock market indices.  But I have not written or done any empirical research in this field. Thus, while I believe more in Koppl’s account than in alternative theories, I’m not as confident in my beliefs as I am in fields to which I have devoted substantial amounts of time.

My narrowly  self-centered judgment of the crisis is that it is good. Of course, this is an insensitive thing to say when so many people have recently lost their jobs. So from an altruistic point of view I don’t enjoy the crisis. Nevertheless, for college faculty in Taiwan the crisis is good news: fixed salaries, falling prices, and increasing demand for education (controlling for  countervailing demographic variables).

This is also the reason why academics should avoid boom towns. In fact, the best choice is probably a good university in the rural part of a lagging region that is mired in a deep depression. The only exception is for people who are more interested in private-sector consulting than in their actual job description – in that case, aim for a dynamic metropolis in a booming economy.