the carbon footprint of uk households 1990 2004 a socio economically disaggregated quasi multi regional input output model this paper presents a socio economically disaggregated framework for attributing co2 emissions to people s high level functional needs based around a quasi multi regional input output qmrio model the study in theory takes into account all co2 emissions that arise from energy used in production of goods and services to satisfy uk household demand whether the emissions occur in the uk or abroad results show that co2 emissions attributable to households were 15 above 1990 levels in 2004 and that although absolute decoupling occurred between household expenditure and co2 during the uk s switch from coal to gas in the early 1990s since then only slight relative decoupling is evident the proportion of co2 that arises outside uk borders in support of uk consumption is rising and reducing these emissions is particularly problematic in a global trading system investigation into the carbon footprint of different segments of the uk population shows wide variation the segment with the highest carbon footprint emits 64 more co2 than the segment with the lowest results show that recreation and leisure are responsible for over one quarter of co2 emissions in a typical uk household in 2004 we conclude that expanding lifestyle aspirations are significant factors in driving household co2 emissions but the study also emphasizes that attention must be paid to the infrastructures and institutions that result in considerable amounts of co2 being locked up in basic household activities through which people meet their everyday needs for subsistence protection and communication with family and friends the findings highlight the sheer scale of the challenge facing uk policy makers and suggest that policies should be targeted towards segments of society responsible for the highest carbon footprints

relating the environmental impact of consumption to household expenditures an input output analysis in this paper we evaluate the relationships between household expenditures and the environmental impact categories climate change acidification eutrophication and smog formation by combining household expenditures with environmentally extended input output analysis expenditure elasticities are examined with regression analysis and are compared and interpreted on the basis of insight at the product level with data from the netherlands in the year 2000 we find that environmental impact increases with increasing household expenditures although the degree to which the environmental impact increases differs per impact category climate change and eutrophication increase less than proportionally with increasing expenditures acidification increases nearly proportionally with increasing expenditures whereas smog formation increases more than proportionally it appears that the mix of necessities and luxuries to which an environmental impact is related is essential in explaining the relationship

prices and quantities unsustainable consumption and the global economy abstract the ecological unsustainability of current consumption patterns is now well documented one aspect of this problem which has not been sufficiently addressed is the growth of excess consumption driven by falling goods prices the index of department store prices have fallen substantially since the early 1990s in large part because global capital mobility and excess global labor supply has allowed firms to depress wages and avoid paying environmental costs consumers have responded by purchasing increasing numbers of these artificially cheap goods the example of apparel is discussed in some detail and data from other goods categories are presented these trends suggest that achieving sustainable consumption in the us is not only a technical issue but will also involve fundamental changes in the global political economy to eliminate the artificially low prices of imported goods

party system institutionalization and government formation in new democracies party systems provide the essential structure of the coalition bargaining environment stability in party systems ensures the presence of regularities that can be observed in government formation but most empirical research focuses on established democracies in new democracies party systems are less institutionalized which means that interactions between parties can be unpredictable and has significant implications for coalition formation this article presents the first study of coalition formation in new democracies that employs an empirical design comparable to that of the leading research on western europe the author uses a new data set of potential coalitions in central and eastern europe to examine three explanations for government formation that arise when party systems are weakly institutionalized the results show first that incumbency is a disadvantage for governments in new democracies when formation occurs postelection this disadvantage is due to high levels of electoral volatility caused by policy failure and clientelistic practices incumbents are advantaged when formation takes place midterm as weak party system institutionalization leads to an inchoate pattern of interaction between opposition parties which therefore fail to provide a viable alternative second the presence of former dominant parties influences government formation by stifling the development of programmatic competition instead programmatic competition is subjugated to contestation based on historical enmities and third established parties collude to exclude new parties from coalition formation a possible indicator that a party system is becoming more institutionalized the article provides new insights into the importance of routinized and stable political practices and institutions

the death and rebirth of a party system peru 1978 2001 this article evaluates structural institutional and actor centered explanations of the collapse of the peruvian party system around 1990 and its surprising partial recovery in 2001 it begins by describing the changes in the dependent variable the emergence collapse and partial resurrection of the 1980s peruvian party system the next section examines the argument that the large size and rapid growth of the informal sector undermined the party system and led to its collapse the author shows that the evidence does not support this argument the article then examines changes in the electoral system the author demonstrates that contrary to theoretical expectations the changes in the electoral system do not correlate with the observed changes in the party system the final section shows that performance failure by political elites including corruption in government was more important than social cleavages or electoral institutions in the collapse and partial recovery of the party system

marshallian industrial districts in italy the end of a model or adaptation to the global economy this paper discusses the marshallian industrial district as it was rediscovered and further developed by italian economists before tracing the main changes in the market and institutional context in the wake of globalization it then focuses on some of the main transformations that have taken place in the italian districts since the 1990s after highlighting the important role still played by the districts in the italian economy the paper develops a framework for the evolutionary processes of the marshallian industrial district that would allow reproduction of the district in a manner suited to the era of globalisation

party systems and electoral volatility in latin america a test of economic institutional and structural explanations three different theoretical explanations are tested for the exceptionally high level of electoral volatility found in contemporary latin america economic voting institutional characteristics of political regimes and party systems and the structure and organization of class cleavages a pooled cross sectional time series regression analysis is conducted on 58 congressional elections and 43 presidential elections in 16 latin american countries during the 1980s and 1990s institutional variables have the most consistent effect on volatility while the influence of economic performance is heavily contingent upon the type of election and whether the dependent variable is operationalized as incumbent vote change or aggregate electoral volatility the results demonstrate that electoral volatility is a function of short term economic perturbations the institutional fragilities of both democratic regimes and party systems and relatively fluid cleavage structures

institutions and legacies electoral volatility in the postcommunist world the postcommunist states of eastern europe and the former soviet union have witnessed levels of electoral volatility higher than both western europe and latin america levels that have deleterious

social changes in impressionable years and adult political attitudes evidence from jewish expulsions in nazi germany this study provides evidence that individuals who grew up during the 1930 s jewish expulsions are less likely to show interest and participate in politics the estimates imply that at the mean individuals in their impressionable ages at the time of the expulsions are about 13 less likely to be interested in politics and 26 less likely to participate in politics these results are not found for individuals who were older at the time of the expulsions nor for those growing up during world war wwii results are robust to fixed region and birth year characteristics various definitions of impressionable ages and composition bias induced by differential migration and mortality rates across regions and cohorts the estimates are also not driven by other regional differences in 1930 s political participation party support catholic share exposure and destruction during wwii urbanization and other regional characteristics we provide evidence that the adverse effects on political attitudes we find are explained by a model of political participation emphasizing the role of civic skills and socioeconomic status acquired at younger ages exposure to the expulsions when young is associated with lower adult volunteerism trust church attendance and socioeconomic status

electorally unstable by supply or demand an examination of the causes of electoral volatility in advanced industrial democracies the stability of voters partisan choices from election to election is a key feature of democratic politics but why it varies across advanced industrial democracies and elections is not well understood this study makes several key contributions to explaining electoral volatility firstly it is argued and demonstrated that strategic voting plays an independent role in inducing vote switching secondly the analysis shows that demand side factors such as socio economic cleavages and organizations do not predict voter stability whereas supply side factors such as the party system government performance and strategic incentives do thirdly earlier contradictory findings with respect to the role of the electoral system are clarified as its effects are shown to be indirect rather than direct and finally the importance of the temporal dimension to stability is demonstrated as the time since the previous election is found to have a positive effect on volatility the results are based on a comprehensive statistical analysis of 336 elections in 21 countries between 1950 2005 where the significance as well as the robustness of individual variables across different model specifications inform the conclusions

in search of a natural systems sustainability index abstract this research note proposes an index of sustainability to be attached to any natural system evaluated according to several indicators of sustainability the proposed index is is very operational and most of the indices proposed in the literature can be considered to be particular cases of is moreover the is propounded can be used to reach balances or compromises between an engineering solution of maximum aggregate sustainability and an ecological solution of most balanced sustainability of the system

opposition parties and the urban poor in african democracies africa s urban poor increasingly represent a key constituency for electoral mobilization opposition parties which are pivotal for democratic consolidation have nevertheless exhibited disparate success at obtaining votes from this constituency to explain why this study focuses on the case of zambia and draws on interviews with political elites as well as a survey of informal sector workers in lusaka instead of vote buying ethnic alignments or economic voting these data show that the urban poor s voting decisions are related to the strategies used by political parties to incorporate them into the political arena opposition parties that employ populist strategies are more likely to win support from the urban poor than parties reliant on alternative modes of mobilization the advantages of a populist strategy include greater differentiation from the myriad of purely personalistic parties in africa and greater congruence with the policy priorities of the urban poor including service delivery and jobs

public venture capital and party institutionalization funding of parties is common and controversial in new democracies nonetheless the nascent literature about the effects of money in new party systems largely sidesteps the issue of public funding

trust interlinking transactions and credit in the industrial district an essential feature of the industrial district is trust among individuals and firms within it this paper focuses mainly on trust based on investments in building up a good reputation that is a personal capital that can even substitute for collateral in obtaining credit informal credit often linked to other transactions and especially subcontracting is therefore an important way of financing economic development in the industrial district moreover the importance of trust as personal capital gives rise to a double financial intermediation in the industrial district this double intermediation constitutes a device to reduce information problems that are usually responsible for credit rationing c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

a comparison of the dynamics of industrial clustering in computing and biotechnology abstract this paper compares the dynamics of the process by which industrial clusters emerged in the us computing and biotechnology industries it examines whether new companies are attracted by industry strength in particular sectors or by the strength of the science base at particular locations in biotechnology it also compares the growth of incumbent firms in the two industries and asks whether growth is boosted by being within a cluster the paper finds that within computing there are some important cross sectoral effects on entry while in biotechnology these cross sectoral effects are more limited in biotechnology the science base plays an important role in promoting entry the growth of incumbent firms in both industries is promoted by strength in the company s own sector and cross sectoral effects and the role of the science base are negligible

industrial districts social cohesion and economic decline in italy the paper argues that the so called canonical view of the italian industrial district id depicts it as a system whose economic and social vitality requires the interaction between two major sub systems a community of people and a community of firms a range of circumstances including insufficient aggregate demand competition from low cost coun tries and technological change have determined inconsistencies between the rationales of these two sub systems as a result lead firms have emerged that substitute the id as coordinating instances in the pursuit of their goals they tend to prefer cost scrapping to quality enhancement thereby determining a competition that further undermines the id as a system the paper contends that this outcome is not the only possible one an alternative would require the regulatory as opposed to merely permissive action of pub lic actors in that it would have to change the incentive system that leads firms to choose short sighted strategies

dependency revisited international markets business cycles and social spending in the developing world while increased exposure to the global economy is associated with increased welfare effort in the organization for economic cooperation and development oecd the opposite holds in the developing world these differences are typically explained with reference to domestic politics tradables unions and the like in the developing world are assumed to have less power or interests divergent to those in the oecd interests that militate against social spending i claim that such arguments can be complemented with a recognition that developed and developing nations have distinct patterns of integration into global markets while income shocks associated with international markets are quite modest in the oecd they are profound in developing nations in the oecd governments can respond to those shocks by borrowing on capital markets and spending countercyclically on social programs no such opportunity exists for most governments in the developing world most of which have limited access to capital markets in tough times more significant incentives to balance budgets and as a result cut social spending at the times it is most needed thus while internationally inspired volatility and income shocks seem not to threaten the underpinnings of the welfare state in rich nations it undercuts the capacity of governments in the developing world to smooth consumption and particularly consumption by the poor across the business cycle the author would like to thank steph haggard kristin bakke wongi choe tim jones and seminar participants at duke university penn state university washington university mit and the university of new mexico for their helpful comments nancy brune mark hallerberg and rolf strauch and nita rudra were very generous in providing their capital account oecd fiscal and potential labor power data respectively

the political impact of economic crisis in latin america in the 1980s research on the political implications of economic conditions is separated into two relatively distinct bodies of literature i bridge the theoretical gap between them by examining the effects of economic crisis on electoral outcomes in latin america from 1982 to 1990 an analysis of 21 competitive elections indicates that crisis conditions undermine support for incumbents and provoke high levels of electoral volatility but without necessarily fostering the growth of political extremism or the exhaustion of elite consensus associated with the breakdown of democracy the results also suggest that the relationship between economic conditions and electoral instability is mediated by party system structure rather than democratic age paradoxically the findings buttress prior research on electoral outcomes in the comparatively stable and homogeneous organization for economic cooperation and development oecd nations while undercutting theoretical frameworks elaborated with specific reference to the breakdown and consolidation of third world democracy

farm costs and food miles an assessment of the full cost of the uk weekly food basket changes in both farm production and food transport have resulted in the imposition of new levels of environmental costs this study analyses the full costs of foods in the average weekly uk food basket by calculating the costs arising at diverent stages from farms to consumers plates of the 12 commodities assessed livestock produce contributes the most costs per kg the external cost of uk agriculture up to the farm gate is estimated to be 1 51 bn yr i1 it is calculated that a switch to organic production could lead to avoided costs of 1 13 bn yr i1 agricultural and food produce accounts for 28 of goods transported on uk roads currently imposing estimated external costs of 2 35 bn yr i1 the contribution made by sea and air transport is currently trivial owing to low volumes however road transport to carry food from the shop to home is estimated to impose a further 1 28 bn yr i1 to total external costs subsidies not targeted at environmental improvements cost consumers 2 88 bn yr i1 thus the real cost of the per capita uk food basket 24 79 is calculated to be 2 91 more per person wk i1 11 8 if externalities and subsidies are included with farm externalities 81 p domestic road transport 76 p government subsidies 93 p and shopping transport 41 p contributing the most we assess a variety of scenarios for adoption of organic farming localised food systems and sustainable transport to indicate the substantial potential to reduce environmental costs in the uk food system 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

toward an economic model of the japanese firm i owe a great deal to professor moses abramovitz who suggested that i write this article i appreciate his constant encouragement and guidance which aided me throughout its preparation i am also indebted to three anonymous referees of the journal and to professors ryutaro komiya and michael riordan for their critical comments and helpful suggestions needless to say i am solely responsible for the views expressed in this paper

an evolutionary analysis of industrial districts the changing multiplicity of production know how nuclei this paper deals with the evolution of place based division of labour considering in particular the dynamics of differentiated pools of knowledge that can be embedded in local production systems such as industrial districts drawing on conceptual framework of marshallian industrial districts the paper develops a model that links knowledge dynamics to possible tendencies towards either industrial progress lock in transition or decline of such systems the model is complemented by a related new statistical method that allows us to analyse the evolution of the multiplicity of production know how nuclei inside industrial districts the methodology is applied to two cases the ceramics district of stoke on trent uk and the textile district of prato ita over the period 2005 2013

chinese institutional innovation and privatization from below one of the most distinctive features of china s transition to a market economy has been the role played by rural township and village enterprises tve s in the face of sustained rapid growth of tve s the share of total industrial output produced by state owned enterprises soe s has fallen below half despite steady state sector growth and the absence of significant privatization yet most tve s are collectives a form of publicly owned enterprise this feature seems to make them unique in no other transitional economy has public ownership played such a dynamic role china presents the unusual picture of an economy that has made a transition to a primarily market economy but in which publicly owned enterprises still produce the bulk of manufacturing output surprisingly also the collective ownership form does not have a precise legal definition in china leading to some uncertainty about ultimate property rights martin weitzman and chenggang xu 1993 point out that public ownership with vaguely defined ownership ought to represent a recipe for economic disaster to them tve success suggests instead advantages to the internal institutional form of tve s which are seen to facilitate cooperation through implicit contracts among community members locked into an ongoing relationship victor nee 1992 advances a similar interpretation arguing that long time community residents create forms of income sharing that may be optimal in the absence of an independent legal system an alternative perhaps complementary view is presented here the success of tve s i argue is due largely to a set of external conditions to which tve s are an effective adaptation tve s are responses to one of the most distinctive characteristics of the chinese transition as a whole the early creation of product markets which exist for a prolonged period without well developed markets for factors of production or assets tve s are a flexible and effective but basically ordinary adaptation to this environment

neoliberalism and lower class voting behavior in peru it is often assumed that lower classes will resist market oriented neoliberal reforms that impose economic austerity on popular sectors and exacerbate social inequalities however the peruvian cas

a review of recent multi region input output models used for consumption based emission and resource accounting abstract the interest in consumption based emission and resource accounting has grown significantly many studies juxtapose consumer emissions carbon footprint and producer territorial emissions of greenhouse gases in order to demonstrate the effects of trade on the national emission budget to this end a respectable number of studies have been undertaken worldwide in order to estimate emissions embedded in international trade of numerous countries and world regions input output approaches and increasingly multi region input output mrio models are commonly chosen as they provide an appropriate methodological framework for complete carbon footprint estimates at the national and supra national level with increasing processing capabilities of computers and a wider availability of economic accounts environmental accounts and trade data such models are now being implemented on a wide scale after a brief overview of salient single region input output studies i provide an in depth review of the most recent multi region input output models used for the purpose of consumption based environmental accounting the main methodological features and important results are described for around twenty studies covering the years 2007 to 2009 this is followed by a detailed review of studies dealing with uncertainty in mrio analysis an area which has not received a lot of attention so far i conclude that further research is mainly needed in two areas a improvements in data availability and quality and b improvements in the accuracy of mrio modelling

the firm as a nexus of treaties part 1 knowledge its acquisition sharing and or asymmetry the participatory generation of information rents and the theory of the firm masahiko aoki common knowledge and the co ordination of economic activities jacques cremer profit sharing information and employment matti pohjola part 2 vertical integration and the strategic management of the enterprise what is vertical integration michael h riordan vertical integration transaction costs and learning by using kurt lundgren the firm as a nexus of internal and external contracts torger reve part 3 issues of labour organization the viability of worker ownership an economic perspective on the political structure of the firm henry hansmann intellectual skill and the role of employees as constituent members of large firms in contemporary japan kazuo koike the implicit contract for corporate law firm associates ex post opportunism and ex ante bonding robert h mooking part 4 finance and the political structure of the firm capital structure as a mechanism of control a comparison of financial systems erik berglof long term contracts in financial markets hakan lindgren the principle of external accountability in competitive markets herbert gintis union militancy and plant designs kar ove moene can transaction cost economics explain trade associations marc schneiberg and j rogers hollingsworth

market reform programmatic de alignment and party system stability in latin america although democratic regimes in latin america since the early 1980s have been surprisingly durable party systems in much of the region continue to experience very high levels of electoral instability a critical juncture approach to institutional change suggests that variation in party system stability is related to the impact of market liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s on the programmatic alignment or dealignment of partisan competition market reforms that were adopted by conservative leaders and opposed by a major leftist rival aligned party systems programmatically allowing societal opposition to be channeled into institutionalized forms of competition that were highly stable in the postadjustment era by contrast bait and switch reforms adopted by populist or leftist leaders were programmatically dealigning for party systems leaving them vulnerable to highly destabilizing reactive sequences in the aftermath to the reform process including mass social protests the demise of historic conservati

willing consumers or locked in policies for a sustainable consumption postmodern explanations of consumer behaviour stress social and psychological factors to the neglect of explanations based on structural issues such as the working life conditions which favour a work and spend lifestyle the conditions of urban living or the effects of pervasive marketing this paper argues that consumers may not be so keen and willing but are rather locked in by circumstances some of these circumstances are deliberately created by other interests and a policy to limit consumption must look for adequate means over a large and varied field in the end shorter working hours may be an important key to a more sustainable future 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

workers rights in open economies global production and domestic institutions in the developing world previous large n research suggests that globalization could have either positive or negative consequences for labor rights in developing nations this article examines the ways in which domestic political institutions and interests conditions the effects of economic globalization it develops several hypotheses regarding the impact of domestic factors on labor rights outcomes and uses the case of costa rica to assess these hypotheses the result is that although segments of the costa rican economy and labor force have benefited from industrial upgrading in recent years the enclave nature of the export oriented economy and the historical repression of organized labor render difficult the achievement of some internationally recognized core labor rights the article concludes by discussing some of the issues for future research that are highlighted by the costa rican case

the design of an environmental index of sustainable food consumption a pilot study using supermarket data monitoring of the environmental impacts of consumption is necessary for the evaluation of current performance and to support the understanding of how initiatives for change can be implemented we discuss design issues and methodology for an environmentally sensitive shopper ess index to measure the environmental sustainability of food consumption at the household level the ess index is based on revealed consumer preferences and uses scanner data provided by the largest uk food retailer as a pilot illustration of the methodology we use the index to identify environmentally critical periods during the calendar year

neoliberalism and the transformation of populism in latin america the peruvian case latin american populism is generally associated with the developmental stage of import substitution industrialization it is thus widely presumed to have been eclipsed by the debt crisis of the 1980s and the free market reforms of the neoliberal era however the leadership of alberto fujimori in peru suggests that new forms of populism may be emerging despite the fiscal constraints of neoliberal austerity this new variant of populism thrives in a context where economic crisis and social dislocation undermine traditional representative institutions enabling personalist leaders to establish unmediated relationships with heterogeneous atomized masses political support can be cultivated through populist attacks on entrenched political elites or institutions along with targeted but highly visible poverty alleviation programs this new form of populist autocracy complements the efforts of neoliberal technocrats to circumvent the representative institutions that are integral to democratic accountability the peruvian case thus demonstrates that populism has been transformed rather than eclipsed during the neoliberal era and that it should be decoupled theoretically from any particular phase or model of economic development

prospects for the eurozone for wim duisenberg the euro s perceived independence from the nation state was a path breaking achievement to be proud of and to cherish little more than a decade later and three years into the deepest economic crisis europe has known since the great depression duisenberg s elation rings strangely anachronistic since what the nationless euro seems to have achieved above all is to undermine whatever mutual confidence at the heart of our community there may have been at the start this special issue takes stock of the euro crisis so far it is concerned with the in depth analysis of its main causes policy proposals for a recovery from the crisis and reform strategies for the reconstruction of a more viable and egalitarian eurozone in the future this introduction provides an overview of both core features of the euro crisis and related debates as well as individual contributions to this special issue section 1 examines the origins of the euro crisis section 2 reviews key policy developments in the evolution of the crisis from its onset in may 2010 to the adoption of outright monetary transactions omts by the european central bank ecb in september 2012 and section 3 provides an overview of the contributions to the special issue

missing carbon reductions exploring rebound and backfire effects in uk households households are expected to play a pivotal role in reducing the uk s greenhouse gas ghg emissions and the uk government is encouraging specific household actions to help meet its targets however due to the rebound effect only a portion of the ghg emission reductions estimated by simple engineering calculations are generally achieved in practice for example replacing short car journeys by walking or cycling reduces consumption of motor fuels but this frees up money that may be spent on for example purchasing extra clothes or flying on vacation alternatively the money may be put into savings since all of these options lead to ghg emissions total ghg savings may be less than anticipated indeed in some instances emissions may increase a phenomenon known as backfire we estimate that the rebound effect for a combination of three abatement actions by uk households is approximately 34 targeting re spending on goods and services with a low ghg intensity reduces this to a minimum of around 12 while re spending on goods and services with a high ghg intensity leads to backfire our study highlights the importance of shifting consumption to lower ghg intensive categories and investing in low carbon investments

exit voice and the evolution of industrial districts the case of the post world war ii economic development of prato in this paper the hirschmanian exit voice approach is applied to the development of industrial districts the analysis of the post world war ii evolution of the prato district helps to make explicit how the industrial district competitive advantage can be reproduced over time during periods of regular development in addition the exit voice polarity helps in understanding also the specific difficulties that industrial districts face in responding to major changes in their external circumstances in particular the case examined sheds light on the role that conscious collective action has in permitting the successful adjustment of a local system

the crisis of german and japanese capitalism stalled on the road to the liberal market model german and japanese opinion leaders demand a decisive move toward the liberal market model yet their governments have been slow to act why can t germany and japan reform to unravel this puzzle we must understand how the german and japanese models of capitalism bind the potential winners from liberal reform such as competitive manufacturing exporters to the potential losers such as workers and protected service industries competitive exporters are reluctant to embrace reforms that might undermine valued relationships with workers financial institutions and other business partners moreover they cannot forge a strong reform coalition because they must work through industry associations and political parties that represent both competitive and protected sectors as a result germany and japan proceed cautiously with reform they package delicate compromises often compensating the potential losers they design reforms to preserve core institutions and they seek novel ways to build on the strengths

the japanese crisis a case of strategic failure this paper provides an alternative insight into japan s current economic problems we concentrate upon the role played by the economy s central actors namely japan s transnational corporations since the early 1980 s japan s transnationals have become dominant players in the global economy and now have a higher rate of physical investment in new overseas greenfield sites than their competitors this has had detrimental consequences for japan s domestic economy particularly for small firms who operate in keiretsu networks this has led to concerns about the hollowing out of japan s domestic industry raising the possibility of long term industrial decline and strategic failure

environmentally sustainable household consumption from aggregate environmental pressures to priority fields of action unsustainable consumption patterns of the north or rather of the global affluent consumers class have been identified by agenda 21 as one of the key driving forces behind the unsustainable development however neither accounting based on the system of national accounts sna nor household economics provide the proper instruments to assess the environmental impact of household decision making eco efficiency assessments as familiar in the business sector provide no appropriate tool for households as an alternative an environmental space based assessment scheme is suggested covering the major pressures on the environment caused by household decisions the methodology is used twice once to analyse the environmental relevance of the main activity clusters of household consumption and once to identify the dominant acts of consumption within each cluster the latter provide the basis for deriving environmental performance indicators a rough analysis of household influence potentials permits to identify housing eating and mobility as the three priority fields for action for minimising the environmental impact of households extending the influence analysis actor matrixes are derived allocating influence and thus responsibility for environmental pressures to different groups of economic agents

policy positions issue importance and party competition in new democracies this article examines the dynamics of vote redistribution after new party entry in the context of east european democracies contrary to the dominant institutional and sociological approaches the author focuses on the strategic policy choices of the new contestants the author argues that a new party s choice about where to place itself in relation to existing parties and which issues to emphasize can determine its electoral success or failure aggregate and individual level analyses confirm this argument the findings underline the importance of policy based party competition in the region as a broader theoretical contribution the study underscores the relevance of issue importance and not just party issue positions in political competition

a transnational fast fashion industrial district an analysis of the chinese businesses in prato after world war ii prato in italy became known for the extraordinary development of its textile industry the development was extraordinary due to its size and because it was based on small firms the study of which contributed to the redis covery of the marshallian industrial district in recent decades prato has become increasingly known for the rise of the largest agglomeration in italy of chinese immigrants businesses specialised in fast fashion clothing despite the attention devoted to this phenomenon how and why the chinese in prato were so successful remains somewhat of a mystery this paper explores the case of the chinese in prato considering first their influx into the district as subcontractors and then their transformation into final producers of pronto moda the paper focuses on the causes of these immigrants exceptional development and on the possible consequences of this evolution for the future of prato in the new global economy

post the washington consensus economic governance and industrial strategies for the twenty first century recent events in the global economy have led to a growing dissatisfaction with the neo liberal economic paradigm that has dominated economic policy over the last 30 years and the increasing concentration of and abuse of economic power within the corporate sector that has ensued however amidst calls for a new approach to economic management there is a danger that a new policy framework may overlook underlying economic governance structures that exist and may evolve within the economy such oversight has implications for development this paper seeks to demonstrate that the long run efficacy of industrial strategy depends upon designing appropriate economic governance structures that serve the wider public interest it does so by exploring past experiences of industrial strategy drawing lessons from the usa the uk japan the third italy and the emerging and transition economies we also offer some suggestions for ways forward

the architecture and dynamics of industrial ecosystems diversification and innovative industrial renewal in emilia romagna the paper aims at advancing our understanding of the architecture and diversification dynamics of industrial ecosystems and identifying policies for the innovative industrial renewal of mature economies industrial ecosystems are here defined as multi tiered production systems involving heterogeneous agents operating in sectoral value chains and contributing to the capability domains of the ecosystem and its participants with closely complementary but dissimilar sets of resources and capabilities the geographical boundaries of the industrial ecosystem are shaped by the evolving interdependencies linking organisations within the ecosystem and by the new linkages consolidating beyond that thus the industrial ecosystem is a structured production space centred mainly on its productive organisations as well as other institutions intermediaries and demand side actors purposefully involved in co value creation processes along various types of diversification and innovative industrial renewal trajectories drawing on a five year research programme in the emilia romagna industrial ecosystem a number of case studies are introduced to highlight these trajectories and the underpinning structural learning dynamics the paper concludes by identifying a number of policy implications focusing on strategies for enhancing the structural readiness of the industrial ecosystem and promoting smart diversification and innovative industrial renewal policies jel classifications d20 o25 o30

tracing distant environmental impacts of agricultural products from a consumer perspective globally trade flows of agricultural products are increasing while value is typically added along the whole production chain certain environmental impacts such as land and water use biomass appropriation and soil degradation are intrinsically linked to where the primary products originate from when taking a consumer oriented approach on environmental problems bilateral trade statistics can help in providing a clearer picture about the location of impacts caused by consumption elsewhere however in today s increasingly globalized world consumer goods are often imported from countries other than where the primary product originated from for instance soybeans are transported from brazil to the netherlands where they are processed into soy oil which is shipped to austria where it is consumed utilizing bilateral trade matrices and matrix algebra we present a method that allows to clearly link consumption patterns to the origin of primary products in this the method can help to provide information about consumption related distant environmental impacts we employ the case of land and water use linked to austria s soy product consumption to demonstrate the approach s relevance finally we outline some possible applications of this method to show its potential in enhancing understanding for informed consumer based environmental decision making

party system competition and private sector development in africa abstractdemocratic transitions by many african countries have generated much analysis of the organisational features of political parties or their role in voter mobilisation during elections yet scholars have largely overlooked how parties negotiate economic policymaking or interact with the private sector in countries that are incipient democracies and emerging markets this article argues that the stability or fragmentation of the party system affects patterns of private sector development and shapes linkages between the state business and labour it compares mozambique and zambia to demonstrate how variations in party system characteristics influence the relationship between economic and political interests

from formlessness to structure the institutionalization of competitive party systems in africa giovanni sartori once described african party systems as formless our contribution challenges this view in an era of resurgent multipartism that swept through the subcontinent in the early 1990s and continues until today the article brings together contemporary research on african party systems with the wider disciplinary literature on party system institutionalization using a data set including all continuous election sequences in africa from 1950 to 2008 we find that africa has some of the most volatile party systems ever recorded and yet tremendous diversity across regimes we test the relative impact of political institutions economic performance the history of party system development and social cleavage structure on party system institutionalization in africa we find that its party systems have been shaped by a set of factors unique to the subcontinent but some of the general global patterns of party system development hold true in africa as well

the classical soviet type economy nature of the system and implications for reform i t is increasingly apparent that the traditional soviet type command economy is a catastrophic failure despite the touted statistical gains of real socialism during the last 40 years we now understand that these gains were largely a statistical illusion fostered by mismeasurement faulty methodology systemic incentives for exaggeration and ideologically and politically motivated distortion winiecki 1988 ericson 1990 moreover the economic system of real socialism in each of these states has imposed large negative social political ecological and personal externalities significant economic reform is now generally accepted as an imperative i am however convinced that successful economic reform of the soviet type economy will require a more comprehensive attack than hitherto attempted to understand the immense difficulties facing radical reform in the soviet union and eastern europe one needs to perceive the soviet type economy as a coherent whole a true system with its own inherent logic necessary components and natural interaction of those components it like any other economic system is as much an organism as a mechanism tending to counteract forces impinging frorn outside and to equilibrate the natural forces and tendencies that arise within it the logic and natural equilibrium of a command economy differ qualitatively and significantly from that of a largely private enterprise market economy hence reforms of a soviet type economy that are consistent with the basic nature of the system survive without altering the qualitative characteristics of

the consumer price index conceptual issues and practical suggestions a national academy of sciences panel recently made a number of recommendations to the bls for improving the consumer price index while also suggesting some cautions to be observed when considering the adoption of new concepts and techniques this paper discusses the panel s analyses in four areas should a cost of living index be the measurement objective of the cpi should the index attempt to capture the effect on living costs from changes in environmental conditions how can hedonic techniques be best applied for measuring quality changes should the bls attempt to measure the consumer surpluses accompanying the introduction of new goods

industrial districts district effect and firm size the italian evidence the paper analyses the transformations that occurred in the italian industrial districts ids by empirically estimating the role of the district effect on firm performance over recent decades given their ability to manage upper level and size related business practices medium sized firms emerge as local players best able to exploit their embeddedness in the districtual system and leverage districtual assets however these effects are only present in firms belonging to the industrial specialization of the district an additional result of the empirical analysis shows that the leading role of medium sized firms is critical in younger districts where medium sized firms lead the renewal of the id and its adaptation to the changes of the competitive environment as most italian ids are specialized in traditional sectors this evidence contributes to understanding the mechanisms connecting the competitiveness of the traditional industry and its localised organizational structure the paper also provides a discussion of the future of ids including the relevance of the evolutionary stage of the district on the performance of affiliated firms and their reproducibility over time

the ecological fallacy revisited aggregate versus individual level findings on economics and elections and sociotropic voting several aggregate level studies have found a relationship between macroeconomic conditions and election outcomes operating in intuitively plausible directions more recent survey based studies however have been unable to detect any comparable relationship operating at the individual voter level this persistent discrepancy is puzzling one recently proposed explanation for it is that voters actually behave in an altruistic or sociotropic fashion responding to economic events only as they affect the general welfare rather than in terms of self interested pocketbook considerations it is argued here that the discrepancies between the macro and micro level studies are a statistical artifact arising from the fact that observable changes in individual welfare actually consist of two unobservable components a government induced and politically relevant component and an exogenous component caused by life cycle and other politically irrelevant factors it is shown that because of this individual level cross sectional estimates of the effects of welfare changes on voting are badly biased and are essentially unrelated to the true values of the behavioral parameters of interest they will generally be considerable underestimates and may even be of the wrong sign an aggregate level time series analysis on the other hand will often yield reasonably good if somewhat attenuated estimates of the underlying individual level effects of interest thus in this case individual behavior is best investigated with aggregate rather than individual level data it is also shown that the evidence for sociotropic voting is artifactual in the sense that the various findings and evidence which ostensibly show sociotropic behavior are all perfectly compatible with the null hypothesis of self interested pocketbook voting

unstable politics fiscal space and electoral volatility in the indian states what explains variations in electoral volatility the authors argue that fiscal space availability of financial resources to enact policy initiatives and provide public programs possessed by govern

political parties and uncertainty in developing democracies this article lays out a theoretical framework for understanding the effects of political uncertainty on party development and strategies of mobilization and competition defining uncertainty as the imprecision with which political actors are able to predict future interactions the authors identify three types of political uncertainty regime uncertainty economic uncertainty and institutional uncertainty they argue that political uncertainty is particularly high among developing democracies contributing to puzzling empirical patterns of party development and competition in these contexts taking into account the role of uncertainty in the strategic decision making of party elites will help scholars better understand the differences between parties in advanced and developing democracies but it can also help scholars understand the less dramatic differences between parties even within advanced democracies the authors theoretical framework can be applied broadly since uncertainty informs the strategic

district magnitude economic performance and party system fragmentation in five latin american countries this article makes a fresh start in the attempt to explain the number of parties in party systems it develops a simultaneous equations model to differentiate between the psychological and mechanical effects of district magnitude on party system fragmentation both effects are statistically significant and approximately equal however neither effect is very large in comparison to underlying patterns of politicization which are argued to be reflections of the number of political cleavages in society these cleavages predispose each party system to converge toward a country specific effective number of parties within 5 elections regardless of the initial level of fragmentation barring outside disturbances major devaluations may act as such disturbances but the evidence so far is inconclusive the analysis is based on new data from 62 elections in argentina bolivia colombia peru and venezuela supplemented by 30 additional elections in brazil chile costa rica ecuador mexico and uruguay for th

from global imbalances to global reorganisations the world feels itself to be in transition but to what is unclear will the liberal market model retain its normative primacy once some semblance of normality is restored or will other varieties of capitalism with a bigger role of the state acquire more legitimacy the answer depends partly on one s explanation for the current crisis this essay argues first that global imbalances had too important a role to ignore in contrast to a mainstream view that focuses on mistakes in monetary policy and financial regulation it argues second that in light of global dynamics the crisis is likely to become worse by early 2010 which on the face of it makes significant reorganisations of capitalism more likely the third section lays out what should be done to reconfigure capitalism at national and international levels the final section discusses the political economy of policy reforms in terms of the difficult translation from what should be done to what can be done the broad conclusion is that in five years from now the liberal market model will have been restored to normative primacy and we must have more globalization will again be the elite rallying cry but the crisis will have left behind sufficient doubts about factual propositions and value priorities that political parties and economists advocating alternatives will have more scope than they have had for the past three decades

food miles do uk consumers actually care abstract the food miles concept originating in the uk and given much prominence in the news media has been used to imply that importing food from distant countries is inherently more wasteful than growing and consuming local produce what impact is this potential non tariff barrier having on consumer buying behaviour in uk supermarkets revealed preference surveys in four supermarkets show only 5 6 of 251 consumers nominated country of origin as one of the reasons for choosing a fresh food item they had just purchased furthermore only 3 6 indicated that they had consciously chosen british products for the reason that such produce was less harmful for the environment in contrast stated preference surveys in the street found that 21 5 indicated that food miles or the long distance it travels would stop them buying new zealand products what people say may differ substantially from what they actually do in regard to food miles

what explains the proliferation of antidumping laws a recent phenomenon is the rapid spread of antidumping ad laws mainly amongst developing countries i e china india mexico between 1980 and 2003 the number of countries in the world with an ad law more than doubled going from 36 to 97 countries this proliferation of trade protection laws amongst developing countries is likely to have substantial implications for trade as recently shown by vandenbussche and zanardi 2007 the purpose of this paper is to use a duration analysis to investigate the determinants leading a country to adopt an ad law we also analyze the related question of what explains the heterogeneity between countries that can be observed in terms of the time between adoption and their first use of the ad law we find strong evidence that retaliatory motives are at the heart of the proliferation decision as countries that were targeted by ad actions of traditioal users in the past i e us eu are much more likely to adopt an ad law also our evidence suggests that past trade liberalization substantially increases the probability of a country to adopt an ad law in addition we find that the size of the chemicals sector and the extent of steel imports are positively correlated with the probability to adopt the amount of inward fdi on the other hand has a clear negative effect on the probability to adopt while short term macroeconomic factors like gdp growth and exchange rate volatility seem to matter less for adoption asymmetric regional shocks and the development level of a country seem to raise the probability of starting to use an ad law our results are robust to several specifications of duration models

learning unlearning and forgetting processes in industrial districts this paper proposes a conceptual framework on knowledge accumulation and depletion in industrial districts ids the framework introduces three types of endogenous cognitive processes namely learning forgetting and unlearning affected by internal and external dynamics such processes determine the reconfiguration of the id cognitive structure based on the expansion and contraction of local knowledge we apply the framework to three empirical cases the stoke on trent ceramic id the prato textile id and the macerata fermo footwear ids the empirical analysis describes the reconfiguration of the id cognitive structure in relation to different cross boundary relations such as the introduction of a new policy technological change and internationalisation the results inform us that the contraction of some productive specialisations through forgetting may not be just the prelude of decline but rather a condition fostering the exploration of new learning opportunities within paths of manufacturing recovery

capabilities and habitat in industrial renewal the case of uk textiles the paper develops an ecological approach to explore conditions for industrial renewal in the uk textiles and apparel sector and the possibilities for policy the authors argue that the material legacy of deindustrialisation conditions the opportunities for survivor firms and creates specific sub sectoral industrial ecologies literature from economics business studies development and ecological studies is used to outline a framework that allows different possible relations between firm capability and local habitat two subsectors carpets and apparel are used to explore the notion of interaction between firm capability and ecology though the context of deindustrialisation is similar in some respects the specific conditions provide quite distinctive opportunities for renewal in carpets relatively larger firms have more successfully co evolved with retailers through various kinds of mutuality in apparel a workshop sector of mainly small and micro firms frequently struggles with predatory behaviour by much larger retailers the implication of this analysis is that industrial policy needs to be grounded in analysis of the capabilities habitat interplay focusing on areas where conditions are favourable or can be improved through supporting firm capabilities and modifying supply chain behaviours the concepts and analysis are relevant for considering other industries and contexts where industrial renewal depends on producer firms and the ecology in which they operate

the populist road to market reform policy and electoral coalitions in mexico and argentina governing parties face two fundamental tasks they must pursue policies effectively and they must win elections their national coalitions therefore generally include two types of constituencies those that are important for policy making and those that make it possible to win elections in effect governing parties must bring together a policy coalition and an electoral coalition this distinction sheds light on how the transitional costs of major economic policy shifts can be made sustainable in electoral terms it also provides a starting point for analysis of how two of latin america s most important labor based parties the peronist party in argentina and the partido revolucionario institucional pri in mexico maintained electoral dominance while pursuing free market reforms that adversely affected key social constituencies peronism and the pri are conceived of as having encompassed historically two distinctive and regionally based subcoalitions a metropolitan coalition that gave support to the parties development strategies and a peripheral coalition that carried the burden of generating electoral majorities this framework permits a reconceptualization of the historic coalitional dynamics of peronism and the pri and sheds light on the current process of coalitional change and economic reform