In the past two decades, controversial evidence has been produced supporting the case for localprotectionism in China. This paper overviews the most important contributions and presents a newapproach which applies spatial econometrics on prefectural-level data. The main advantage of thismethod...

Building on the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, recent advances in biosemiotics haveresulted into a concise framework for the analysis of signs in living systems. This paper exploresthe potential for economics and shows how biosemiotics can integrate two differentresearch agendas, each of...

The aim of the paper is to study the relation between the demand for human rights and foreconomic prosperity. It analyzes the demand not, as it is often done in the literature, from the“voice” perspective (political activity), but rather looks at the “exit” perspective...

Recently, Kleidon suggested a restatement of the Gaia hypothesis based on Maximum Entropyapproaches to the Earth system. Refuting conceptions of Gaia as a homeostatic system,Gaia is seen as a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system which continuously moves awayfrom equilibrium, driven by maximum...

China’s rise drives a growing impact of China on economics. So far, this mainly works via theforce of example, but there is also an emerging role of Chinese thinking in economics. Thispaper raises the question how far Chinese perspectives can affect certain foundational principlesin economics,...

Recently, Aoki proposed the concept of substantive institutions which relates outcomes ofstrategic interaction with public representations of equilibrium states of games. I argue thatthe Aoki model can be grounded in theories of distributed cognition and performativity,which I put into the...

In recent years, diversity management has evolved from a perspective on human resourcesmanagement toward a conception of strategic management. This implies the need to adapt acentral management function, strategic controlling, in order to render the conception of diversitymanagement in...

In many analyses of the Chinese so-called economic miracle, cultural factors loom large. Thispaper offers a brief overview of recent economic approaches to culture and puts these into ananalytical framework that highlights the dynamic and creative aspects of culture. I argue thatChina is a model...

In his comprehensive critique of current economic approaches to social capital, Durlauf(2002) recommends a stronger reliance on methods of experimental economics and socialpsychology. This paper surveys different notions of social capital and submits an alternativeconceptual approach based on...

Neuroeconomics stays in the center of the ongoing naturalistic turn in economics. It portraysthe individual as a complex system of decision making mechanisms and modules. This resultsinto a conceptual tension with the standard economic notion of the unity of the actor that is asystemic property...