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Economic Structure (economic + structure)
Selected AbstractsAccounting for Corruption: Economic Structure, Democracy, and TradeINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2000Wayne Sandholtz Though corruption poses fundamental challenges to both democratic governance and market economies, political science research has only recently begun to address corruption in a comparative context. In this article we explain variation in the perceived level of corruption (defined as the misuse of public office for private gain) across fifty countries. We propose a set of hypotheses that explain variation in corruption levels in terms of domestic political-economic structure, democratic norms, integration into the international economy, and Protestant religious affiliation. Levels of corruption, we propose, are higher: (1) the lower the average income level, (2) the greater the extent of state control of the economy, (3) the weaker are democratic norms and institutions, (4) the lower the degree of integration in the world economy, and (5) the lower the share of the population with Protestant religious affiliation. The data analysis broadly confirms our predictions: in the multivariate regression, each of the independent variables is significant in the direction we expect. [source] Communication and Context: Collective Tacit Knowledge and Practice in Japan's Workplace baCREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001Tim Ray In contrast to Schumpeter's "perennial gale of creative destruction" (Schumpeter 1976: 84), government,coordinated economic development in post,1945 Japan has owed more to informal (but binding) "rules of the game" (North 1990) that situate working, learning and innovation within the spaces delineated by tightly bounded company,as,family workplace organisations or ,ba' (which roughly means ,place' or ,interaction field'). Horizontal keiretsu groupings, together with fixed trading,patterns in supply and distribution chains, continue to support an interlocking ,steady state' economic structure in which new technologies tend to emerge from existing organisations. Shared experience within workplace ba generates tacit knowledge that is held in common by colleagues and retained as a potent tool for shaping future practice. It plays a vital role in facilitating ,friction free' communication amongst insiders, who can act as a group to ostracise and retaliate against agents who break their code. Long,term obligations link salaried male employees to their workplace ba. Consequently, autonomous boundary,spanning communities of practice, together with industry,university collaboration and other transient associations with outsiders, lack legitimacy. Cook and Brown's (1999) pluralist epistemology is used to compare Western interpretations of Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge (Gibbons et al 1994) with the privileged role that Japan's workplace ba accord to insider collective,tacit knowledge, which we tentatively call ,Mode 3' knowledge. [source] Capital Assistance for Small Firms: Some Implications for Regional Economic WelfareGEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2000Daniel Felsenstein This paper analyzes the role of finance capital in regional economic development. A cost-benefit approach is invoked in order to estimate the welfare impacts of a regional loan and guarantee program for small firms in Israel. Program-created employment is treated as a benefit and an employment account that separates net from gross employment, is presented. An estimate of net wage benefits is then derived. This involves adjusting wages across different earnings classes in order to account for the variation in opportunity costs of labor at different levels. The estimation of costs includes the opportunity costs of capital, administration, default, and tax-raising costs. Results point to substantial regional welfare effects. We stress the need to account for changing regional economic structure in this kind of evaluation framework. [source] Jobs, Houses, and Trees: Changing Regional Structure, Local Land-Use Patterns, and Forest Cover in Southern IndianaGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2003Darla K. Munroe Land-use and -cover change is a topic of increasing concern as interest in forest and agricultural land preservation grows. Urban and residential land use is quickly replacing extractive land use in southern Indiana. The interaction between land quality and urban growth pressures is also causing secondary forest growth and forest clearing to occur jointly in a complex spatial pattern. It is argued that similar processes fuel the abandonment of agricultural land leading to private forest regrowth, changes in topography and land quality, and declining real farm product prices. However, the impact of urban growth and development on forests depends more strongly on changes in both the residential housing and labor markets. Using location quotient analysis of aggregate employment patterns, and the relationship between regional labor market changes, the extent of private forest cover was examined from 1967 to 1998. Then an econometric model of land-use shares in forty southern Indiana counties was developed based on the net benefits to agriculture, forestland, and urban uses. To test the need to control explicitly for changes in residential demand and regional economic structure, a series of nested models was estimated. Some evidence was found that changing agricultural profitability is leading to private forest regrowth. It was also uncovered that the ratio of urban to forest land uses is better explained by incorporating measures of residential land value and industrial concentration than simply considering population density alone. [source] The Nexus of Market Society, Liberal Preferences, and Democratic Peace: Interdisciplinary Theory and EvidenceINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2003Michael Mousseau Drawing on literature from Anthropology, Economics, Political Science and Sociology, an interdisciplinary theory is presented that links the rise of contractual forms of exchange within a society with the proliferation of liberal values, democratic legitimacy, and peace among democratic nations. The theory accommodates old facts and yields a large number of new and testable ones, including the fact that the peace among democracies is limited to market-oriented states, and that market democracies,but not the other democracies,perceive common interests. Previous research confirms the first hypothesis; examination herein of UN roll call votes confirms the latter: the market democracies agree on global issues. The theory and evidence demonstrate that (a) the peace among democratic states may be a function of common interests derived from common economic structure; (b) all of the empirical research into the democratic peace is underspecified, as no study has considered an interaction of democracy with economic structure; (c) interests can be treated endogenously in social research; and (d) several of the premier puzzles in global politics are causally related,including the peace among democracies and the association of democratic stability and liberal political culture with market-oriented economic development. [source] Europeanization and Globalization: The Missing LinkJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 5 2001Marjoleine Hennis European integration theory is currently dominated by a debate about the role of domestic changes, state-society relations, and policy networks within Europe. This article seeks to contribute to this debate by dealing with what is understood as a generally poor conceptualization of the interaction between globalization and Europeanization. A framework is offered which takes account of the impact of globalization on the underlying economic structure and on European regulation. It is argued that only such a comprehensive approach can provide a greater insight into the development of European integration. These issues are addressed through the analysis of the common agricultural policy (CAP). [source] Energy Efficiency and Structural Change in the Netherlands, 1980,1995JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2000Dematerialization, Economic Structure on National Energy Consumption, Influence of Energy Efficiency Summary International agreement has been reached to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. One important way of decoupling CO2 emissions from economic growth is by introducing technical measures to improve energy efficiency. In this article, we assess the influence of developments in energy efficiency and economic structure on the total primary energy consumption in the Netherlands over the period 1980, 1995. We find a distinct decoupling of the economic growth and energy consumption of 1.5% per year in the 15-year analysis period. We measure (technical) changes in energy efficiency by changes in the energy consumption per physical unit of production or activity. The aggregate rate of (technical) energy-efficiency improvement was 1.4% per year over the period 1980,1995. The use of physical production indicators makes it possible to measure energy-efficiency developments without detailed surveys at a very low level of aggregation. When we look at economic structural changes over this period, we find that (i) no substantial shift took place at the level of the economic sectors that we distinguish; (ii) the most energy intensive subsectors grew much faster than the total economy; and (iii) at the subsector level, on average, a sizable decoupling of physical production and value added occurred. We conclude that structural changes, that is, changes in the composition of the economy, did not lead to a net decrease in the energy intensity of the Netherlands over the period 1980,1995. [source] Urban, Suburban, and Exurban Sprawl in the Rocky Mountain West: Evidence from Regional Adjustment Models,JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2005John I. Carruthers Three interrelated questions motivate the research. How does the proliferation of urban, suburban, and exurban sprawl in the Rocky Mountain West relate to the population and employment growth process? Are population and employment endogenously determined there? And what does this imply for the sustainability of economic development in the region? Through a series of regional adjustment models, the empirical analysis links population and employment growth in the Rocky Mountain West to explicit spatial outcomes and delivers substantive evidence of endogeneity between the two. The results suggest that the long-term prosperity of the region depends on the preservation of the high quality of life it offers, and that greater intergovernmental coordination, careful infrastructure planning, and attention to the character of its economic structure may help to accomplish this. Future research should focus on looking deeper into certain explanatory variables used in this analysis and on developing a better picture of what the spatial equilibrium that regional adjustment models emulate may look like. [source] Regional Cluster Policies: Learning by Comparing?KYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 3 2002Jan Hospers This paper deals with an intriguing paradox that can be observed in today's regional economic policy making: whereas unique local factors are increasingly seen as the determinants of regional economic success, simultaneously more and more governments try to copy policy experiences that proved to be successful in a particular region. A good example here is the use of ,best practices' in the field of regional cluster policy. Cluster programs are becoming like ,mantras' for policy makers who want to stimulate regional economic development. Given this paradox, in the present paper we address the question what lessons can be drawn from comparing success stories of regional clustering. To answer this question, we combine insights from regional economics and comparative public policy. To start, we discuss the literature that has led to the popularity of the cluster concept as a learning device among policy makers. After that, we identify the preconditions (,contingencies') that affect whether these cluster policy initiatives can be transferred from one place to another. We find that some of the contingent influences, especially those related to the degree of uniqueness of an area's economic structure and culture, hamper the possibility of ,learning by comparing' in regional cluster policy. It may even be argued that exactly those regional specificities explain the success of cluster,based policy efforts. Thus, we have to draw the rather pessimistic conclusion that the possibilities of lesson,drawing in regional cluster policy are limited. In our view, at best ,best practices' should be seen as inspiration sources rather than as recipes for successful regional economic development. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the CURE 3,Conference on Outstanding Regions in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, November 22,24, 2000. We would like to thank Arnoud Lagendijk, an anonymous referee and the editors for valuable comments. [source] Returns to Education during the Reform of State-owned Enterprises in Hunan, People's Republic of ChinaLABOUR, Issue 3 2002Xiaoyu Huang The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of education on personal earnings during the reform of state-owned enterprises, comparing 1995 with 1998 in Hunan, China, using the Mincerian earnings equation method. The results show that the rates of return to education increased, indicating that human capital has been better rewarded as the reforms of the Chinese economic structure have progressed. Moreover, the findings show that primary education receives the highest returns, followed by tertiary education. Middle school education obtains the lowest rewards, reflecting the effects of the reform of state-owned enterprises on middle school graduates on whom the unemployment impact of this change has been the greatest. [source] COALITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES MANAGEMENTNATURAL RESOURCE MODELING, Issue 3 2008MARKO LINDROOS Abstract We show that with symmetric agents, noncooperation is the only stable coalition structure in a fishery with more than two countries. In the case of asymmetric fishing nations, partial or full cooperation may be stable even if the number of countries exceeds two. These are important results for recent fisheries economics papers that have not allowed for coalition formation. As an example how of one can use the model, we study the problem of new entrants into Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs). We show that depending on the economic structure of the fishery, new entrants may make cooperation more difficult or easier. [source] Ordnungspolitik auf illegalen Märkten: Der Drogen- und WaffenmarktPERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 1 2002Hanno Beck In this paper, the economic structure of illegal markets with special reference to the markets for illegal drugs and arms is analyzed. Analytical tools of System Dynamics are employed to emphasize the dynamic aspects of these markets. The results of our analysis enable us to evaluate state intervention in the illegal markets for drugs and arms. It seems possible to mitigate the drugs problem by supplying drugs to heavily addicted people on the basis of health care measures. However, a similar policy seems not to exist for the illegal arms trade. This shows that each illegal market requires a deeper understanding before it can be fought effectively. [source] The Path Not Taken: Leonard White and the Macrodynamics of Administrative DevelopmentPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Alasdair Roberts Leonard White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (New York: Macmillan, 1948). Leonard White, The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801,1829 (New York: Macmillan, 1951). Leonard White, The Jacksonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1829,1861 (New York: Macmillan, 1954). Leonard White, The Republican Era, 1869,1901: A Study in Administrative History (New York, Macmillan, 1958). This is a review of four books by Leonard White: The Federalists (1948), The Jeffersonians (1951), The Jacksonians (1954), and The Republican Era (1958). In these books, White develops an approach to the study of administrative development that accounts for a broad range of considerations, including political and economic structure, the organization of the international order, popular culture, the stock of available communication and organizational technologies, and executive talent. White also offers an early argument about the significance of path dependence in institutional evolution. White's approach is largely concerned with the macrodynamics of administrative development. It has been neglected within the field of public administration over the last half century. A literature that builds on White's work would improve the field's ability to explain and anticipate failures in state building and administrative reform. [source] Cooperative Credit in Spain: An Analysis of Credit Sections of CooperativesANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2001Ricardo Server Izquierdo The long history and deep-rooted tradition of co-operative credit in Spain (credit co-operatives and credit sections of co-operatives) and the lack of detailed studies of the latter suggest the need to reflect on them and highlight their potential. This study examines the ways in which the credit sections can access the financial markets, describes their financial and economic structure and the sources of their income and expenditure and analyses their competitiveness in terms of efficiency. [source] Dynamische Steifigkeit und Dämpfung von PfahlgruppenBAUTECHNIK, Issue 2 2009Hamid Sadegh-Azar Dr.-Ing. Geotechnik; Bodenmechanik Abstract In diesem Beitrag werden die dynamische Steifigkeit und Dämpfung von Pfahlgruppen und ihre Auswirkung auf die Auslegung und Wirtschaftlichkeit der Pfahlgründung selbst und der Bauwerke darauf untersucht. Die Berechungen werden mit der sogenannten "Thin-Layer-Method", einer sehr leistungsfähigen Berechnungsmethode im Frequenzbereich, durchgeführt (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) Dynamic stiffness and damping properties of pile groups. The dynamic stiffness and damping properties of pile-groups have been investigated in this paper. Also, the substantial influence of these properties on an economic structure and foundation design is demonstrated. The analysis has been carried out using the "Thin-Layer-Method", which is a very efficient and powerful analysis procedure in frequency domain. [source] External Dependent Economy and Structural Real Estate Bubbles in ChinaCHINA AND WORLD ECONOMY, Issue 1 2008Lijian Sun E44; F32; F41; G11 Abstract This study explores the relationship between external dependent economic structure, surplus monetary liquidity and real estate bubbles in China. Employing monthly data from 28 Chinese provinces over the period 2004-2005, we test whether real estate bubbles are caused by structural surplus monetary liquidity, controlling other possible factors. Our empirical findings show that the growth of private savings in the banking sector, as an index of surplus monetary liquidity, ferments real estate bubbles regardless of the different development level across the 28 provinces. [source] Minting in Vandal North Africa: coins of the Vandal period in the Coin Cabinet of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches MuseumEARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 3 2008Guido M. Berndt This paper offers a re-examination of some problems regarding the coinage of Vandal North Africa. The coinage of this barbarian successor state is one of the first non-imperial coinages in the Mediterranean world of the fifth and sixth centuries. Based on the fine collection in the Coin Cabinet of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, this article questions the chronology of the various issues and monetary relations between the denominations under the Vandal kings, especially after the reign of Gunthamund (484,96). The Vandals needed and created a solid financial system. In terms of political, administrative and economic structures they tried to integrate their realm into the changing world of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. [source] Globalization, Governance, and the Political-Economy of Public Policy Reform in East AsiaGOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2001Mark Beeson In the wake of the crisis that developed in East Asia during 1997, perceptions of the region have been transformed. Critics claim that East Asian political practices and economic structures must be reformed if the region is to prosper in an era of globalization. In short, the region must adopt a different sort of public policy, one associated with an influential agenda of "good governance." This paper critically assesses this discourse and the predominately "Western" assumptions that underpin it. It is argued that, not only is this reformist agenda likely to be resisted by powerful vested interests, but the institutional infrastructure to support such a style of governance is inadequately developed in East Asia. [source] Exogenous Shocks or Endogenous Constructions?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2007Crises, The Meanings of Wars This symposium addresses the role of wars and crises as mechanisms of international change. Over the past two decades, the international system has undergone a number of remarkable transformations, from the end of the Cold War to the emergence of an ongoing "War on Terror," and from the collapse of statist development models to the emergence of a contested,if evolving,neoliberal "Washington Consensus." This volatility exceeds any underlying shifts in economic structures or the distribution of capabilities, and raises important questions regarding the roles of agency, uncertainty, and ideas in advancing change. In this introduction we examine the role of wars and economic crises as socially constructed openings for change. We attempt three things: to critique materialist approaches in the security and political economy issue areas, to outline the distinctive contribution that an agent-centered constructivist understanding of such events offers, and to offer a framework for the study of such events, one which highlights an expanded range of elite-mass interactions. [source] MIND THE GAP: UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE NEW EU REGIONSJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 1 2008Anna Maria Ferragina Abstract The paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on regional unemployment during transition in Central and Eastern Europe. The focus is on optimal speed of transition (OST) models and on comparison of them with the neo-classical tradition. In the typical neo-classical models, spatial differences essentially arise as a consequence of supply side constraints and institutional rigidities. Slow-growth, high-unemployment regions are those with backward economic structures and constraints on factors mobility contribute to making differences persistent. However, such explanations leave the question unanswered of how unemployment differences arise in the first place. Economic transition provides an excellent testing ground to answer this question. Pre-figuring an empirical law, the OST literature finds that the high degree of labour turnover of high unemployment regions is associated with a high rate of industrial restructuring and, consequently, that low unemployment may be achieved by implementing transition more gradually. Moreover, international trade, foreign direct investment and various agglomeration factors help explain the success of capital cities compared to peripheral towns and rural areas in achieving low unemployment. The evidence of the empirical literature on supply side factors suggests that wage flexibility in Central and Eastern Europe is not lower than in other EU countries, while labour mobility seems to reinforce rather than change the spatial pattern of unemployment. [source] Technical efficiency and embodied technical change in the Indonesian pulp and paper industryJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2006Michiel Van Dijk Abstract In this paper the dynamics of technological change and technical efficiency in the Indonesian pulp and paper industry are analysed. The industry is characterised by rapid growth of output and capacity, with some mills investing heavily in state-of-the-art machinery after 1984. Using stochastic frontier analysis, we distinguish between technological advances of best practice mills and the rate of technological inefficiency. We use a newly constructed micro-level dataset describing the complete population of Indonesian paper mills and paper machines from 1975 to 1997. We find an increasing divergence in technical efficiency over time, indicating that most plants have been not able to keep up with the technological leaders in the industry. Several of the plants operating the latest technologies have lower levels of efficiency than mills operating more outdated equipment. These outcomes qualify the common understanding of dualistic economic structures in developing countries, composed of less efficient traditional and more efficient modern capital intensive establishments. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Roles of Vitamins E and C on Neurodegenerative Diseases and Cognitive PerformanceNUTRITION REVIEWS, Issue 10 2002Antonio Martin Demographic changes, together with improvements in nutrition, general health, and life expectancy, will greatly change the social and economic structures of most industrialized and developing countries in the next 50 years. Extended life expectancy has increased the number of chronic illnesses and disabilities, including cognitive impairments. Inflammatory processes and vascular dysfunctions appear to play important roles in the pathogenesis of age-associated pathologies including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. A large body of evidence shows that both vitamins E and C are important for the central nervous system and that a decrease in their concentrations causes structural and functional damage to the cells. Several studies reveal a link between diets rich in fruits and vegetables containing generous amounts of vitamins E and C and lower incidence of certain chronic diseases. [source] Output and Productivity Performance of Hong Kong and Singapore's Transport and Communications Sector, 1990 to 2005,ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 1 2009Boon L. Lee C430; D290; L910; L960; O570 This paper uses the industry of origin approach to analyze value added and labor productivity outcomes arising from progressive liberalization of government and from statutory board control of transport and communications in Singapore. The paper compares these outcomes with those from the market-orientated, more privatized transport and communications sector in Hong Kong, for the benchmark year 2004 and a review period from 1990 to 2005. The study is among the first to carefully compare labor productivity in specific sectors between the two countries. Although Singapore generally recorded higher levels of labor productivity, there was some catch-up by Hong Kong in the later part of the review period. There was also substantial variation in labor productivity performance within sectoral branches in the two sectors. The study suggests there is some evidence that the different political,economic structures and policy approaches to deregulation and liberalization played a role in determining productivity performance in the transport and communications sectors in Singapore and Hong Kong. The analysis infers a potential, increasing focus on privatization as the driving force for further liberalization of the transport and communications sector in Singapore. [source] ARTICLES: REPRODUCTIVE TOURISM AND THE QUEST FOR GLOBAL GENDER JUSTICEBIOETHICS, Issue 7 2010ANNE DONCHIN ABSTRACT Reproductive tourism is a manifestation of a larger, more inclusive trend toward globalization of capitalist cultural and material economies. This paper discusses the development of cross-border assisted reproduction within the globalized economy, transnational and local structural processes that influence the trade, social relations intersecting it, and implications for the healthcare systems affected. I focus on prevailing gender structures embedded in the cross-border trade and their intersection with other social and economic structures that reflect and impact globalization. I apply a social connection model of responsibility for unjust outcomes and consider strategies to counter structural injustices embedded in this industry. The concluding section discusses policy reforms and proposals for collaborative action to preclude further injustices and extend full human rights to all. [source] | ||||||||||||||||