national industrial structure and the global system various forms of participation in the global system have been hypothesized to distort the structure of industrialization in developing countries influencing the relations between industrial capital labor and output we operationalize kuznets s 1965 theoretical definition of industrialization utilizing energy consumption per capita percent of the labor force employed in industry and percent of gdp accountedfor by industry to test several predictions about the effects of a country s involvement in the global system on the structure of its industrialization we first estimate a measurement model for 1970 that includes these three basic indicators as influenced by the latent variable of industrialization elaborations of the basic model allow us to measure the influence of the world system on the structure of industrialization types of goods imported and exported affect the structure of industrialization position in the world system and direct foreign investment have no net direct effects a marxist leninist regime has an independent influence on the structure of industrialization in some years we replicate the model using data from 196s 1980 and 1986

in search of smoking guns what makes income inequality vary over time in different countries we investigate the forces affecting the distribution of income by analyzing an unbalanced panel of information for 16 industrialized countries for the years 1966 through 1994 income inequality is measured with the gini coefficient of equivalent disposable income individuals are the unit of analysis the statistical analysis uses panel methods the results suggest that many factors affect the development of income inequality some factors are strictly economic a decreased industrial sector generally fosters inequality and some support is found for the view that increased trade of manufactured goods from developing countries is also a factor other forces are outside a strictly defined market sphere low inequality is found when a large proportion of the labor force belongs to a trade union and also when there is a large public sector in addition demographic circumstances are important since the proportion of the population under age 15 has a positive effect on inequality we find however no association between the unemployment rate and inequality

the new pattern of regional unemployment causes and policy significance in common with most oecd countries unemployment in britain has differed significantly between regions but the persistence of relative regional unemployment rates in britain has been until recently particularly striking however during the i990 93 recession the relative regional unemployment pattern changed significantly for the first time in seventy years our primary purpose here is to understand these recent changes and to examine what might be learned about the contribution of economic policies to the amelioration of both regional unemployment rate differentials and the amplitude of regional unemployment cycles finally we ask whether there are any policy lessons to be drawn from the recent cycles in regional unemployment patterns which might provide insight into the amplitude of macro economic cycles

differentiated contracts heterogeneous borrowers and the mortgage choice decisions previous analyses of mortgage choice assume that adjustable rate mortagages are standard contracts and estimate bivariate models the authors estimate a multinomial logit model that explicitly treats mortgages as differentiated contracts and provides insights on several important issues the impact of price variables differs significantly across alternative mortgage contracts borrower heterogeneity particularly mobility influences the type of contract chosen and borrowers respond to market conditions as expected when choosing between alternative mortgage contracts copyright 1995 by ohio state university press

household risk management and optimal mortgage choice the portfolio of the typical american household is quite unlike the diversie ed portfolio of liquid assets discussed in e nance textbooks the major asset in the portfolio is a house a relatively illiquid asset with an uncertain capital value the value of the house generally exceeds the net worth of the household which e nances its homeownership through a mortgage contract to create a leveraged position in residential real estate other e nancial assets and liabilities are typically far less important than the house and its associated mortgage contract the importance of housing in household wealth is illustrated in figure i this e gure plots the fraction of household assets in housing and in equities against the wealth percentile of the household poor households appear at the left of the e gure and wealthy households at the right data come from the 1989 and 1998 survey of consumer finances the e gure shows that middle class american families from roughly the fortieth to the eightieth percentile of the wealth distribution have more than half their assets in the form of housing even after the expansion of equity ownership during the 1990s equities are of negligible importance for these households 1

intergenerational transfers borrowing constraints and saving behavior evidence from the housing market abstract we examine the effects of intergenerational transfers on saving behavior by analyzing transfers targeted to first time home purchases transfer recipients have a shorter time to save for a down payment of 9 20 for each dollar of transfer received total savings falls by 29 40 cents and the down payment rises by 61 71 cents transfer recipients increase the value of the home purchased but by an amount that is much lower than possible if the transfer were fully leveraged in addition transfers appear to help households achieve certain down payment thresholds that give favorable mortgage terms

multi ownership of tourism accommodation complexes a critique of types relative merits and challenges arising across the western world there has been significant expansion in the multi ownership of tourism accommodation complexes in recent years despite this development this is believed to be the first study to attempt a holistic synthesis of the range of forms and structures that multi owned tourism accommodation mota complexes can assume a spectrum of mota types is developed based on the notion that mota complexes can exhibit varying degrees of ownership this synthesis of mota types lays the basis for an evaluation of the relative merits of different mota types a commentary is provided concerning the difficulty of quantifying mota growth and the nature of challenges that mota can present to a range of stakeholders

trade competition and domestic pollution a panel study 1980 2003 this research note examines whether trade competition abets regula tory races in the environmental area to analyze trade competition we develop a new measure structural equivalence which assesses competitive threats that a country faces from other countries whose firms export the same products to the same destination countries employing this new measure we analyze air pollution intensity sulfur diox ide or so2 and water pollution intensity biochemical oxygen demand or bod for a panel of 140 countries for the time period 1980 2003 we find that trade competi tion is a significant predictor of water pollution intensity among structurally equiva lent countries we then test separately whether trade competition abets upward and downward regulatory races we find that in the case of water pollution countries respond symmetrically to downward and upward races that is they follow their struc turally equivalent competitor countries both when they ratchet down their regula tions and when they ratchet up regulations in the case of air pollution however countries are responsive to downward policy changes only in competitor countries

booms and busts in the uk housing market the often volatile behaviour of uk house prices between 1957 and 1994 is analysed in an annual econometric model theory suggests that financial liberalisation of mortgage markets in the 1980s should have led to notable shifts in house price behaviour the evidence supports the predictions of theory suggesting shifts took place in wealth effects as in the consumption function and that real interest rates and income expectations became more important the presence of transactions costs suggests important nonlinearities in house price dynamics the paper also contains an explicit econometric treatment of expectations demography supply spillovers from the rented sector and of composition biases in the official house price index

credits and non interest rate determinants of loan demand a spanish case study this article uses bivariate probit analysis to model the potential relationship between the condition of being credit unconstrained and holding loans as well as to ascertain determinants of a household being credit unconstrained and likely holding consumer and real estate loans it documents that family size education permanent and transitory incomes among others affect spanish households desire and capacity to hold loans furthermore these factors were found to affect demands for real estate and consumer loans differently in general the above and other results from this research provide insights that would interest credit consumers credit suppliers and policy makers in spain

availability of mortgage loans in volatile real estate markets abstract this paper presents a default model for mortgages on single family houses implying a higher probability of negative equity and thus default in real estate markets with high price volatility mortgage lenders compensate for the increased default probability in volatile markets by demanding higher downpayments or increased creditworthiness of loan applicants thus making mortgage loans more difficult to obtain an empirical analysis finds greatly varying price volatility in single family real estate markets in a sample of 42 cities consistent with the implications of the model the empirical analysis finds that the fraction of low downpayment loans declines in volatile markets

testing a theoretical model of mortgage demand on uk data mortgage demand is a poorly understood and under researched aspect of the financial behaviour of households this paper tests empirically the basic results of brueckner s model of mortgage demand on uk mortgage market data the choice of mortgage instrument is used to identify impatient debt maximizers and patient borrowers who borrow at intermediate levels thus the research confirms the conditions under which households will use the largest possible mortgage and the circumstances under which savings are invested in the property a unique contribution of the work is the estimation of mortgage demand equations corrected for endogenous housing demand for a single housing finance system where borrowers face different opportunity costs of equity in their owner occupied property allowing a purer test of the theoretical model

the global rise of democracy a network account we examine the influence of an interstate network created by intergovernmental organizations igos on the global diffusion of democracy we propose that igos facilitate democracy s diffusion by transmitting information between member states and by interpreting that information according to prevailing norms in the world society where democracy is viewed as the legitimate form of government we employ a network autocorrelation model to track changes in democracy among all of the world s countries from 1815 to 2000 we find that democracy does diffuse through the igo network and that the influence of democratic countries is stronger than that of undemocratic countries evidence indicates that the igo network serves as a basis for normative diffusion this is an important contribution to sociological accounts of globalization which tend to emphasize diffusion divorced from network structure or diffusion dependent on the coercive influence of a small set of international organizations

a generalized valuation model for fixed rate residential mortgages this paper uses option pricing techniques to rationally price mortgage instruments subject to both default and prepayment risk attention is given to terminations due to purely financial consideration of the mortgage contract itself as well as to personally induced terminations explicit inclusion of default in the mortgage valuation procedure also permits the valuation of insurance against such default qualitatively it is found that default differs significantly in the behavior from either prepayment or nonfinancial termination quantitatively however there is significant substitution between prepayment and default so that the addition of a default feature to the contract has only a modest impact on mortgage values unless there is substantial price volatility in the housing market or a high loan to value ratio copyright 1992 by ohio state university press

an econometric analysis of choice of mortgage design in the united kingdom the research seks to better understand the choice of mortgage design by households in the united kingdom family expenditures survey data is used to test the various hypotheses on the determinants of the choice between an endowment and a repayment mortgage a bivariate probit model with sample selection is estimated to detect any likely selectivity bias arising out of tenure choice the theoretical modelling reflects the behaviour of liquidity constrained households comparing comparative periodic mortgage costs and households concerned with the oppurtunity cost of equity in a property actual choices appear to reflect the impact of nominal interest rates income and cash flow considerations there is little direct evidence that the choice of mortgage repayment vehicle is motivated by portfolio design there is some tentative evidence of supply side pressure on endowment mortgage take up

inequality in the world polity the structure of international organization recent research reveals strong effects of involvement in international organizations on state policies but much of this research downplays inequality in world political participation and there is only a limited understanding of what explains world polity ties using data on memberships in intergovernmental and international non governmental organizations igos and ingos for 1960 through 2000 this study analyzes inequality in the world polity igo ties are fairly evenly distributed but the level of inequality in ingo ties is as high as the level of world income inequality since 1960 inequality in ties to igos decreased sharply but inequality in ties to ingos remained more stable a conflict centered model of the world polity is developed here that explains world political participation as a function of material and symbolic conflict rich core western states and societies have significantly more ties to the world polity than do others powerful states dominate igos less now than they did in 1960 but rich core western societies have grown more dominant in the ingo field

a model of mortgage default in this paper we solve a dynamic model of households mortgage decisions incorporating labor income house price inflation and interest rate risk using a zero profit condition for mortgage lenders we solve for equilibrium mortgage rates given borrower characteristics and optimal decisions the model quantifies the effects of adjustable versus fixed mortgage rates loan to value ratios and mortgage affordability measures on mortgage premia and default mortgage selection by heterogeneous borrowers helps explain the higher default rates on adjustable rate mortgages during the recent u s housing downturn and the variation in mortgage premia with the level of interest rates

the importance of nongovernmental organizations ngos in global governance and value creation an international business research agenda the emergence of organized civil society and of nongovernmental organizations ngos as organizational manifestations of broader social movements has dramatically altered the global political economic landscape the increasing global reach of ngos challenges established international business ib research and highlights opportunities for broadening and adapting extant paradigms in the field in this article we introduce the concept of ngos and contrast them with their private sector firm and public sector government counterparts within the context of ib we discuss factors giving rise to ngos as important organizational entities that participate in global value creation and governance and identify limits to their efficacy and viability we identify important questions raised by incorporating ngos into our conceptualization of global context and we challenge three basic tenets of ib theory the definition and dynamics of an institutional field the relevance centrality of a firm government i e two sector bargaining model and the pre eminence of the firm as the global organization of interest within the field we conclude by offering suggested research directions that should serve as catalysts for this new and potentially rich area of future ib research

stochastic house appreciation and optimal mortgage lending w e characterize the optimal mortgage contract in a continuous time setting with stochastic growth in house price and income costly foreclosure and a risky borrower who requires incentives to repay his debt we show that many features of subprime loans can be consistent with properties of the optimal contract and that when house prices decline mortgage modification can create value for borrowers and lenders our model provides a number of empirical predictions that relate the features of mortgage contracts originated in a housing boom and the extent of their modification in a slump to location and borrowers characteristics jel g20 g21 g33

mortgage lending in boston interpreting hmda data the home mortgage disclosure act was enacted to monitor minority and low income access to the mortgage market the data collected for this purpose show that minorities are more than twice as likely to be denied a mortgage as whites yet variables correlated with both race and creditworthiness were omitted from these data making any conclusion about race s role in mortgage lending impossible the federal reserve bank of boston collected additional variables important to the mortgage lending decision and found that race continued to play an important though significantly diminished role in the decision to grant a mortgage copyright 1996 by american economic association

exploring methods and practicalities of conducting sector wide energy consumption accounting in the tourist accommodation industry abstract sector wide environmental accounting is an important mechanism for determining areas of poor environmental performance that need to be targeted to reduce resource consumption and the production of waste output however to date little attention has been paid to the practicalities of conducting sector wide environmental accounting in fragmented service oriented industry sectors that comprise a diversity of small to medium sized enterprises smes this study explores such practicalities through a series of independent energy audits conducted in the australian tourist accommodation industry three distinct energy consumption accounting techniques are reviewed in the light of findings made from 35 energy audits and more than 200 telephone and face to face interviews held with various accommodation sector representatives the three sector wide energy consumption accounting methods reviewed are the floor area method the multiple regression method and the mandatory reporting method in light of different business structures different in house environmental accounting practices and other major factors affecting resource consumption mandatory reporting is found to be the most efficient and effective method to facilitate its use it is recommended that a governments consider requiring commercial resource consumption or waste production figures to be made generally accessible b businesses are required to collect energy consumption data over several years to provide the basis for calculating relatively accurate models that capture the factors driving energy consumption and c standardised accounting spreadsheets are developed to facilitate data collection for different types of enterprises

regional housing price cycles a spatio temporal analysis using us state level data kuethe t h and pede v o regional housing price cycles a spatio temporal analysis using us state level data regional studies a study is presented of the effects of macroeconomic shocks on housing prices in the western united states using quarterly state level data from 1988 1 to 2007 4 the study contributes to the existing literature by explicitly incorporating locational spillovers through a spatial econometric adaptation of vector autoregression spvar the results suggest these spillovers may granger cause housing price movements in a large number of cases spvar provides additional insights through impulse response functions that demonstrate the effects of macroeconomic events in different neighbouring locations in addition it is demonstrated that including spatial information leads to significantly lower mean square forecast errors kuethe t h et pede v o la variation cyclique regionale du prix du logement une analyse geographico temporelle des donnees sur les etats aux e u regional s

the rise and fall of the arm an econometric analysis of mortgage choice this paper estimates an empirical model of the choice between adjustable and fixe d rate mortgages using a large national database compiled by the nat ional association of realtors the explanatory variables in the probi t choice equation include borrower characteristics regional dummies the frm rate and the frm arm rate differential since the intrerest rate on the mortgage not chosen is unobserved this rate must be est imated in a way that eliminates selectivity bias simulation of the e stimated choice equation provides insight into the origin of the arm revolution copyright 1988 by mit press

are the economy and the environment decoupling a comparative international study 1960 20051 ecological modernization theory posits that even though economic development harms the environment the magnitude of the harmful link decreases over the course of development in contrast the treadmill of production theory argues that the strong relationship between environmental harms and economic development will remain constant or possibly increase through time to evaluate these competing propositions interactions between economic development and time are used in cross national panel analyses of three measures of carbon dioxide emissions the results vary across the three outcomes as well as between developed and less developed countries providing mixed support for both theoretical perspectives the authors conclude by discussing how both theories could benefit from engaging contemporary research concerning changes within the transnational organization of production and the structure of international trade and how these global shifts influence environment economic development relationships

an agency theory perspective on the owner manager relationship in tourism based condominiums abstract this paper draws on field study data to provide an examination of the condominium owner manager relationship in the australian tourism context although there has been considerable growth in tourism accommodation owned through strata title no research examining the somewhat idiosyncratic relationship between unit owners and resident managers has been found in the literature the peculiar nature of the relationship underlines its significance as a context in which to apply the agency theoretical model as australian condominium resident unit managers provide letting and caretaker services for condominium unit owners it appears that the relationship can be justifiably viewed as a principal agent exchange mills p k j business res 20 1990 31 the study specifically focuses on strata title condominiums located in major tourism regions this sub sector of the condominium management industry was chosen for study because it exhibits several key attributes distinguishing it from the non tourist based condominium sector for example two different parties represent the principal resident owners and investor owners also a significant proportion of a resident manager s work relates to the management of short term holiday unit letting in light of the particular agency relationship dynamics arising in large tourist based condominium governance several suggestions concerning the legal environment of the industry are provided

income inequality development and dependence a reconsideration we reconsider the role of foreign investment in income inequality in light of recent critiques that question the results of quantitative cross national research on foreign capital penetration we analyze an unbalanced cross national data set in which countries contribute different numbers of observations with a maximum of 88 countries and 488 observations dated from 1967 to 1994 random effects regression models that control for unmeasured country heterogeneity are used to investigate effects of foreign capital penetration on inequality measured as the gini coefficient against the background of an internal developmental model of inequality we adapt firebaugh s 1992 1996 critique of the literature on the effect of foreign investment on economic growth to the study of income inequality and find that the stock of foreign direct investment has an effect on inequality that is independent of the mechanisms identified by firebaugh we explore tsai s 1995 claim that the effect of foreign capital penetration is spurious and find that foreign stock has a significant positive effect on inequality net of region specific differences an alternative interpretation of the findings of the foreign investment inequality literature is discussed in light of the discovery of an inverted u shaped relationship between income inequality and foreign investment stock per capita we conclude that thinking on the relationship between income inequality and investment dependence should be revised in light of an investment development path relating the inflow and outflow of foreign capital to economic development

gender the welfare state and public employment a comparative study of seven industrialized countries using data from the luxembourg income study lis the authors explore the influence of government employment on the gender gap in earnings in seven countries they address four questions on the effects of public sector employment on the gender gap in earnings 1 do governments offer jobs that are comparatively high paying 2 does public employment benefit some workers such as low paid workers more than others 3 are public sector employment advantages explained by differences in worker characteristics and the occupational mix 4 what is the effect of public employment its extent and its pay structure on gender gaps in wages the results indicate marked variation across liberal conservative and social democratic welfare states but reveal a number of uniformities as well in most of the seven countries in the sample public sector workers earn more on average than do workers in the private sector and most earnings advantages are concentrated on the low end of the earnings distribution the effect of public employment on the overall gender gap in wages is limited in most countries the authors discuss the implications of these results for theory and research on gender and the welfare state

inertia and change in the constellation of international governmental organizations 1981 1992 hardly anyone expects public institutions to die yet a census reveals that fully one third of the international governmental organizations igos in existence in 1981 had in fact become defunct by 1992 most eastern bloc and many regional developing country organizations vanished or became inactive during this period a slightly larger number of new organizations was born not governments but other igos spawned most of the new offspring wealthy democratic countries increased their igo memberships while poor unstable countries increasingly dropped out this bifurcation was accompanied by greater reliance by all on a set of core universal membership institutions dominated by western values functionalism organizational ecology and realism each partly help us to understand these trends but leave important dynamics unexplained

choice of mortgage instrument liquidity constraints and the demand for housing debt in the uk the research uses microdata to estimate reduced form mortgage demand equations based on truncated regressions dissagregated by choice of mortgage instrument the choice is between a standard annuity mortgage and a balloon type mortgage the endowment the estimates are used to indicate the differential impact of credit market rationing and financial liberalization on households the results indicate significant variations in mortgage demand by choice of mortgage instrument econometric testing demonstrates that the choice between an endowment and a repayment mortgage can be used as an exogenous indicator of liquidity and portfolio positions and different user costs of owner occupation

opposites attract the effect of the federal income tax code on community composition abstract if houses in two homogeneous but dissimilar communities are reorganized as a single heterogeneous community property tax payments are shifted from owners of small houses to owners of large houses we consider three aspects of the federal income tax code which causes this shifting to raise aggregate property values in the heterogeneous community first the property tax is deductible and the tax rate structure is progressive second some families do not itemize third the restriction on saving in tax deferring assets suggests the use of different interest rates to capitalize future property taxes because of these aspects heterogeneous communities are established provided the different family types desire similar levels of public service

regional differences in mortgage demand and mortgage instrument choice in the uk koblyakova a hutchison n and tiwari p regional differences in mortgage demand and mortgage instrument choice in the uk regional studies this paper presents empirical evidence of regional variations in mortgage choice decisions within the uk s mortgage sector utilizing british household panel survey bhps data for the years 2001 2007 and 2008 the paper suggests that a household s decision to choose a variable rate mortgage is more likely to occur in areas with lower incomes and affordability rates such as northern england scotland and wales since variable rate mortgages are more sensitive to income and monetary policy shocks the disproportional distribution of variable contracts within the mortgage sector may have a differential impact on the regions

evidence on the demand for mortgage debt by owner occupants abstract this paper explores the relationship between household mortgage debt burdens and housing consumption periodic income nonhousing wealth the income tax position of the household expected mobility and other micro level characteristics that proxy for household risk preferences and life cycle effects we use 1985 and 1989 american housing survey data to estimate mortgage debt level equations simultaneous with house value equations controlling for the contemporaneous nature of these two choices we find that larger debt levels are positively associated with greater value residences and with the level of household income numerous household level demographic characteristics are also systematically related to mortgage demand of particular interest are our findings that the use of mortgage debt is affected significantly by the rate of tax savings on mortgage interest deductions and by the expected mobility of the household

consumption down payments and liquidity constraints one frequently cited explanation for the empirical failure of the orthodox life cycle permanent income hypothesis lc pih is the presence of binding liquidity constraints households inability to borrow and lend at the same interest rate or to borrow the desired quantity can distort household consumption profiles depressing consumption during periods when constraints bind whether or not liquidity constraints bind has important implications for the sensitivity of consumption to fluctuations in income the neutrality of government debt and the structure of taxation despite the potential importance of liquidity constraints in understanding macroeconomic behavior there has been comparatively little research into the effect of specific constraints on consumption one area of consumer behavior where liquidity constraints arguably may be important is in housing decisions and mortgage markets households wishing to own a first home must accumulate a down payment in order to qualify for a mortgage loan currently for conventional mortgages in the united states most lending institutions require between s percent and 20 percent of the purchase price of the home put down in advance of the purchase 2 without access to private gifts or loans many

property tax capitalization in a model with tax deferred assets standard deductions and the taxation of nominal interest previous property tax capitalization studies assume that families itemize that they save in taxable assets and that real interest income is taxed however many families do not itemize many families invest in tax deferred assets and nominal interest income is taxed as a consequence prior studies likely misspecify the property tax capitalization equation for roughly ninety percent of their samples taking federal tax provisions into account increases the precision of our estimated capitalization rate in addition our results suggest that biases in prior studies likely contribute to the variety of capitalization estimates in the literature

the paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality welfare state institutions inequality and poverty in the western countries the structure of welfare state institutions 2 a trade off exists between the degree of low income targeting and the size of redistributive budgets 3 outcomes of market based distribution are often more unequal than those of earnings related social insurance programs we argue that social insurance institutions are of central importance for redistributive outcomes using new data our comparative analyses of the effects of different institutional types of welfare states on poverty and inequality indicate that institutional differences lead to unexpected outcomes and generate the paradox of redistribution the more we target benefits at the poor and the more concerned we are with creating equality via equal public transfers to all the less likely we are to reduce poverty and inequality social scientists and social reformers have long debated how the welfare state and social policies should be designed so as to best reduce poverty and inequality this debate involves two different issues one question concerns whether social policies should be targeted or universal that is should they be organized for the poor only or should the welfare state include all citizens in the context of nontargeted programs another question concerns the level of benefits should benefits be equal for all or should they be related to previous earnings and in

supply driven mortgage choice variable mortgage contracts dominate the uk mortgage market the dominance of the variable rate mortgage contracts has important consequences for the transmission mechanism of monetary policy decisions and systemic risks this raises an obvious concern that a mortgage market such as that in the uk where the major proportion of mortgage debt is either at a variable or fixed for less than two years rate is vulnerable to alterations in the interest rate regime theoretically mortgage choice is determined by demand and supply factors so far most of the existing literature has focused on the demand side perspective and what is limited is consideration of supply side factors in empirical investigation on mortgage choice decisions this paper uniquely explores whether supply side factors may partially explain observed ex post mortgage type decisions empirical results detect that lenders profit motives and mortgage funding pricing issues may have assisted in preferences toward variable rate contracts sec

demographic change and the housing market evidence from a comparison of scotland and england this paper examines the impact of demographic change on the housing market more specifically a difference in differences methodology is used to explore the effect of population decline and population ageing on house prices in scotland and england wales the analysis suggests that population decline and population ageing put downward pressure on prices therefore the long run trend of rising real house prices can not be assumed to continue into the future particularly in scotland

condominium developments in maturing destinations potentials and problems of long term sustainability since the emergence of mass tourism destinations are constantly faced with the challenge of providing an adequate supply of suitable accommodation the introduction of condominium style accommodation seemed to be the answer to the problem of meeting the increasing tourism demand at some popular destinations although in some destinations investment in property development has increasingly become a supply driven activity however the resulting complexities brought about by the many stakeholders involved in managing the condominiums including strata title legislation investment incentives and long term maintenance of condominium developments have introduced previously unforeseen problems to destinations reaching maturity this study investigates the impacts of the growth of condominium developments and their potential for inhibiting destination rejuvenation the study was conducted on australia s gold coast a classic example of a mass tourism resort where ironically the growth of condominium style accommodation was a major factor in attracting large numbers of tourists but may in fact prevent successful rejuvenation in the future

the effect of state foreclosure laws on loan losses evidence from the mortgage insurance industry this paper analyzes the effect of three major provisions of state foreclosure laws procedure redemption period and provision for deficiency judgment on loan losses as reflected in the claims paid by private mortgage insurers and the fha it also explores the significance of the incentive conflict between the lender and the insurer in terms of the presence or absence of a coinsurance relationship and the existence of a deficiency judgment the results demonstrate that foreclosure laws have a significant effect on loan losses and that the existence of a deficiency judgment affects the incentive conflict between lender and insurer copyright 1990 by ohio state university press

sovereignty relinquished explaining commitment to the international human rights covenants 1966 1999 this article examines whether the content of the international human rights covenants and the costs associated with their ratification influence the decision of countries to join the author evaluates three theoretical perspectives rationalism world polity institutionalism and the clash of civilizations with data for more than 130 countries between 1966 and 1999 rationalists contend that treaty ratification is tightly coupled with internal sovereignty arrangements human rights practices and ideological commitments all of which become more important as treaty enforcement strengthens world polity institutionalists expect ratification to be loosely coupled with a country s conduct or its political ideological or cultural commitments although this gap narrows as compliance is more effectively enforced a civilizations approach predicts tight coupling between ratification and cultural values regardless of the mechanisms in place for enforcing compliance results lend partial support to rationalism a

global networks and domestic policy convergence a network explanation of policy changes national economies are embedded in complex networks such as trade capital flows and intergovernmental organizations igo s these globalization forces impose differential impacts on national economies depending on a country s network positions this article addresses the policy convergence divergence debate by focusing on how networks at the international level affect domestic fiscal monetary and regulatory policies the author presents two hypotheses first similarity in network positions induces convergence in domestic economic policies as a result of peer competitive pressure second proximity in network positions facilitates policy learning and emulation which result in policy convergence the empirical analysis applies a latent space model for relational dyadic data and indicates that position similarity in the network of exports induces convergence in fiscal and regulatory policies position similarity in the network of transnational portfolio investments induces convergence in fiscal policies and position proximity in igo networks is consistently associated with policy convergence in fiscal monetary and regulatory policies

who governs socially oriented voluntary sustainability standards not the producers of certified products summary voluntary sustainability standards setting organizations vsssos create standards to improve the social and or environmental impacts of globalized production networks vsssos are often assumed to have multi stakeholder governance structures that include the producers of certified products e g farmers artisans and workers this article argues that including producers in governance is desirable however analysis of 33 vsssos constitutions shows two thirds do not even imply intention to include producers at most 25 ensure producers have votes seats and 18 give producers veto power the discussion examines what is lost when vsssos do not bring traditionally marginalized voices to global economic governance

trade globalization since 1795 waves of integration in the world system the term globalization as used by social scientists and in popular discourse has many meanings we contend that it is important to distinguish between globalization as a contemporary political ideology and what we call structural globalization the increasing worldwide density of large scale interaction networks relative to the density of smaller networks we study one type of economic globalization over the past two centuries the trajectory of international trade as a proportion of global production is trade globalization a recent phenomenon a long term upward trend or a cyclical process using an improved measure of trade globalization we find that there have been three waves since 1795 we discuss the possible causes of these pulsations of global integration and their implications for the early decades of the twenty first century

the relation between financial and housing wealth evidence from dutch households abstract we analyze households joint investment decisions for financial wealth and homes we use a bivariate censored regression model with endogenous switching fixed costs or transaction costs are captured by an unobserved nonzero censoring threshold the model allows for spillover effects of a binding threshold for one asset on the demand for the other asset we find that tenure choice affects the level of financial wealth our results do not support the view that people first accumulate financial wealth before acquiring homes this can be due to the absence of down payment constraints in the netherlands