bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Externality and Institutions
Authors: Papandreou Andreas A
Published: November 2023

Debate over the important concept of externality has influenced economists' perception of the role of governing authorities and has become central to the appraisal of the economy-ecology connection. There are however many ambiguities in the characterization of this concept. The book examined ideas of externality and some of the ways that these have influenced econmics. The author provides a distinctive and non-technical survey of the various methodological approaches taken by economists to the issue of externalities. The difficult issue of defining or characterizing externality is traced to the inadequate treatment of institutions in economic analysis. A richer understanding of the economic function of institutions is critical to understanding certain limitations of mainstream economic theory, as well as the means to overcome them. The book's major theme is an exploration of institutional inefficiency and the implications of incorporating organizational costs into economic models.
Underlying Motivations
Authors: Papandreou Andreas A
Published: November 2023

Definition, define thyself. Dictionary entries are a far cry from what philosophers and mathematicians call definition. Dictionaries are for facilitating our negotiations in the language. and for that purpose it proves efficacious to resort only here and there to definition in the philosophers ’ and mathematicians ’ sense. Definition in the philosophers ’ and mathematicians ’ sense remains an important matter, however, deserving of a name. Such will be my sense of the word ... (Quine 1987: 43) In this chapter I wm try to illustrate the sources of the many meanings of externality in the literature. In section 2, I discuss two generic senses of externality which make no reference to specific institutions. These derive from two different connotations of the words external-internal, which seem to be present in most characterizations in the literature. Section 3 tries to bring out more clearly these two generic senses of externality, showing how they can be easily confused, and why there is good reason not to associate externality with a specific system, e.g. private-ownership economy. In sections 4 and 5, I discuss some of the difficulties, or problems, that existing characterizations of externality confront when they try to form a narrower view of extemality than general interdependence or general institutional failure (or market failure).
Notable Episodes of Great Instability
Authors: Kueh Y Y
Published: November 2023

In our analysis of national trends of agricultural instability (Chapter 3), and their regional variations (Chapter 4) from the 1930s to post-war periods (1952-8, 1970-7, and 1978-84), we frequently referred to specific instances of large-scale fluctuations in grain production since the early 1930s. They were all closely associated with a known weather disturbance of unusual magnitude. The most familiar cases can be tabulated as follows: 1931 The Yangzi and Huai River basin floods, embracing the Centre, East, and part of the North regions (South Henan).
An Excursion: Identifying the Non-Weather Factors in the Great Debacle of the Early 1960s
Authors: Kueh Y Y
Published: November 2023

In our previous analysis of the weather and grain-yield relationship (Chapter 8), we concluded that the weather was the main cause of the enormous grain-yield losses in 1960 and 1961. Measured against the possible trend values, grain yields were reduced by 18 and 16 per cent respectively for the two years. However, while in 1961 the losses seem to have been largely a matter of adverse weather, coupled with the sluggishness in recovery from the disastrous trough of the previous year, in 1960 only about 75 per cent of the total yield losses were attributable to the weather factor. We argued that the remaining 25 per cent loss reflected reduced sowing density as a consequence of excessive forced procurement by the State, which left Chinese peasants with no alternative but to dip into their seed and feedgrain reserves in other to survive.
IDE Countries in Perspective
Authors: Mitchell Stephen
Published: November 2023

The major aim of the ‘Country context’ chapter is to provide contextual background information and analysis related to the countries included in our study. This information is provided for the decade between the two waves of empirical IDE research: 1975/7-1986/7. The purpose of this information is to assist the readers of this book in the interpretation of the findings to be presented in the following chapters. Since the European Industrial Relations (IDE 1981b) volume of the original study appeared, several important changes have taken place in the country context of industrial democracy. Some general European trends could also be detected.
Factors Affecting Patterns of Influence Distribution in Organizations
Authors: Mitchell Stephen
Published: November 2023

Previous chapters have indicated how patterns of de jure participation (PS) and the distribution of influence (PO) in organizations have changed between 1977 and 1987. In this chapter we turn to the relationship between these two central variables (PS and PO). Though in detail the findings of the IDE I study, in this respect, were rather complex (see IDE 1981b: chs. 7 & 10) two salient ones stand out. First, institutional norms regulating patterns of participation in decision-making, though by no means explaining all the variance in patterns of influence in organizations, were found to have a more significant effect on the distribution of influence than any of the other independent variables examined, including a series of ‘contextual’ sociological, technological, structural, and economic factors.
Humane Modernization
Authors: Gershuny Jonathan
Published: November 2023

Jobs are created by leisure. Some jobs involve the production of goods which enable the reduction of time spent in undesired menial work activities. Other jobs produce the leisure services used in the extra spare time thus liberated. This is the story of ‘progress’ that we have told in this book. More people have more of their basic wants satisfied using less of the society’s time, which in turn means that more time can be spent satisfying more of people’s more sophisticated wants. Both the increasing efficiency of provision for basic wants, and the growth in demand for the satisfaction of sophisticated wants, mean a requirement for more skilled labour. So there are more high-value-added jobs and fewer low value. This is clearly a line of economic growth that improves human living conditions.
Capabilities, Exclusion, and the Supply of Goods
Authors: Atkinson A b.
Published: November 2023

Among the many fields in which Amartya Sen has enriched our understanding is that of the analysis of poverty. Within this field, his contributions have been manifold. His article on the measurement of poverty (Sen 1976) spawned a whole literature on the design of new measures; his research on famine and hunger (Sen 1981; Dréze and Sen 1989) has been widely influential; and he has introduced the notion of ‘capabilities’ into the definition of poverty (Sen 1980, 1983, 1985). It is the last of these that is the starting point of the present paper.
Rationalizing Choice Probabilities using the Random Utility Model: A Necessary and Sufficient Condition
Authors: Deb Rajat
Published: November 2023

For choice to be rationalized as maximizing behaviour based on a preference ordering, the choice function needs to be consistent. The ‘resolution’ of this so-called integrability problem (Richter 1966) is plagued by the fact that in practice choice is often inconsistent. In the case of choice by an individual agent, psychologists have found that, when asked to choose from the same set, on different occasions the agent will often make different choices (see e.g. Suppes, et al. 1990). In the case of group choice, inconsistency can arise because of the well-known problem associated with the ‘voting paradox’. Faced with inconsistent choices, one may either give up traditional notions of rational behaviour by allowing for intransitive and even cyclic preferences, or model the inconsistency as random utility-maximizing behaviour.
The Entitlement Approach to Famine: An Assessment
Authors: Osmani Siddiq
Published: November 2023

Nothing excites intellectual curiosity more than the overturning of a time-honoured belief. This is specially so when that·overturning is accomplished by scholarly analysis, as distinct from Messianic rhetoric. So when as highly acclaimed a scholar as Amartya Sen challenged the popular belief that famine means shortage of food, it inevitably caused a stir. The famine that had killed two to three million people and brought starvation to millions more in Bengal in I 943 was not, he maintained, a result of shortage of food (Sen 1976, 1977). What’s more, he went on to argue, the Bengal famine was by no means unique in this regard. He showed that many contemporary famines in Asia and Africa shared this property of not being caused by reduced availability of food (Sen 1981b). Famine, he concluded, is a case of people not having enough food to eat, but not necessarily of there not being enough food to go around. From this emerged what has come to be known as the ‘entitlement approach’ to hunger and famine—an approach that focuses attention on people having or not having enough command over food, as distinct from there being or not being enough food to be eaten.
Household Vulnerability to Aggregate Shocks: Differing Fortunes of the Poor in Bangladesh and Indonesia
Authors: Ravallion Martin
Published: November 2023

Two themes-one substantive, one methodological—have been prominent in Amartya Sen’s recent writings on development. The substantive theme concerns social security in developing countries, and the role of public action in achieving it. The methodological theme is that, in exploring the first theme, much can be learnt from cross-country comparative analysis, drawing on the wide range of experiences—successes and failures—among developing countries.
Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism
Authors: Patnaik Prabhat
Published: November 2023

Prabhat Patnaik's starting point is the fundamental question of how we can explain the resilience and durability of capitalist economies - after all, the writings of most of the giants among economists have been permeated by a sense of the transitoriness of capitalism. His argument is that the existence of a periphery of less developed countries provides a buffer that allows (relatively) crisis-free and non-inflationary growth in the capitalist core. The analysis unifies two fields that are normally separate: models of growth and stabilization policy in advanced economies and the economics of open developing economies. Consequently, Patnaik embraces both a thorough analysis of modern fiscal, monetary, and inflation policy in advanced capitalist economies and the constraints that systematically hinder development in less developed countries. Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism uses macroeconomic principles to solve problems currently addressed with microeconomic tools, establishing macroeconomics as a framework for analysing phenomena as wide-ranging as migration, imperialist systems, technological change, and labour markets. In the tradition of Keynes, Harrod and Domar, Marx, and Kalecki, it offers an alternative path to the choice-theoretic models that have appeared to be the only modern analytical path.
A Critical Review of the Argument So Far
Authors: Patnaik Prabhat
Published: November 2023

The argument presented over the last three chapters has two distinct strands. First, in a capitalist economy where organised workers and organised capital both seek to enforce ex anteclaims upon output which are rigidly sustained, the stability of the system at high rates of growth is achieved at the expense of the unorganised workers who also nourish capital and who lack the ability to enforce any rigid ex anteclaims by virtue of their lack of organisation. These workers are typically located in the outlying regions so that social stability in the metropolis is not threatened. Second, any parametric shift which raises either the ex antewage-share in the metropolis or the ex anteclaims for surplus value (such as the need for higher shares of in novation and sales-promoting expenditure) gets resolved through a lowering of the real wages relative to productivity of the unorganised workers via an adverse terms-of-trade shift against the commodities which they produce. This together with shifts in consumer demand away from these commodities in the metropolis is the cause of uneven development on the global scale.
The Limitations of Enforced Diffusion
Authors: Patnaik Prabhat
Published: November 2023

The question of State intervention to promote development in the periphery has not so far been considered, except with reference to the neo-mercantilist strategy which, we argued, constituted a special case. The possibilities of ‘voluntary’ and ‘automatic’ diffusion of activities from the core to the periphery were discussed in earlier chapters. This chapter examines the limitations of an ‘enforced’ diffusion of activities away from the core through the conscious intervention of the Third World State in the form of the usual import-substituting industrialisation strategy. It focuses on the problems of the so-called ‘mixed economies’.The problems oIThird World socialist economies, though in some ways overlapping, need to be discussed separately, but except for a few brief comments in the next chapter that is beyond the scope of this book.
Beveridge and Old Age
Authors: Macnicol John
Published: November 2023

In most accounts of the making of the Beveridge Report, the saga of retirement pensions has received relatively little attention. Generally, Bever idge’s task has been seen as unproblematic and essentially managerial-to merge and universalize the two existing schemes of non-contributory (1908) and contributory (1925) old age pensions into one new system, to co ordinate this with other parts of the reorganized social security plan, and to bring pensions up to a level of notional ‘subsistence’.
Condemned to Deprivation? Beveridge’s Responsibility for the Invisibility of Poverty
Authors: Veit-Wilson1 John
Published: November 2023

The question this chapter asks is, how far can the Beveridge Committee’s adoption of the concept of ‘minimum subsistence’ to justify the recommendations in its Report (Beveridge 1942, which I shall refer to as SIAS) for the levels of adequate social security benefits, be seen as responsible for condemning the poor in Britain to blame for their deprivation? The Report, which was largely written by William Beveridge himself, stated: The fourth fundamental principle is adequacy of benefit in amount and time.
Beveridge Fifty Years On: Second Youth or Early Retirement?
Authors: Klosse Saskia , Jaspers Teun , Westerveld Mies
Published: November 2023

In this paper the fiftieth anniversary of the Beveridge Report has been seized upon as an occasion to rethink the foundation upon which our social security system has been built. In a nutshell, the system in the Netherlands rests on two pillars. The first pillar reflects ideas taken from Beveridge, the other from Bismarck. Although cast in different moulds, no choice has been made in favour of the one or the other. Because of this duality, one may best characterize the Dutch system as a mixed system, or as a Bismarck building with a Beveridge fayade.
The Deterioration of the Swedish Pension Model
Authors: Eriksen Tor , Palmer Edward
Published: November 2023

As Swedish social insurance passed its 100th anniversary in 1991 it did so in the midst of heated debate and demands for radical change. Old age and disability, work injury and sickness, and medical care insurance are all under fire. Will the stonn blow over? Or are we in the dawn of a new era for Swedish social insurance? It is our thesis that Swedish social insurance in general and the pension system in particular are in the midst of a fundamental change.
Introduction
Authors: Charkham Jonathan P
Published: November 2023

The way business Is run matters to us all, wherever we live. We need the goods and services it produces, the employment it provides. The wealth it creates is the source of help for the sick and needy, of education for youth, and dignity for old age. Its prosperity nourishes the spirit of mankind. This book is about the system by which companies are directed and controlled that operate In five countries, Germany, Japan, France, the USA, and the UK; the ugly but popular name for these systems is corporate governance. The book’s aim is to shed light on the underlying principles and the way in which each system conforms to them.
Germany
Authors: Charkham Jonathan P
Published: November 2023

To understand the system-corporate governance-by which companies are run in Germany as in any country means studying both its structure and its dynamics, that Is to say, not just the legal framework and institutions but also personal relationships. Looking at the formal framework tells only a fraction of the story: the attitudes people have and their patterns of behaviour are just as important. To attempt to describe these, however, means leaving behind the comfortable clarity of the law and making an excursion into the misty world of unmeasurable generalizations. The people of Germany are as varied and diverse in character as those of any other nation, so any generalization is bound to be more true of some than others.
Introduction
Authors: Geroski Paul A
Published: November 2023

This book is about the causes and consequences of innovative activity. In particular, it addresses four questions which have long attracted the interest of economists: Does the structure of product markets affect the pace of innovative activity? What are the effects of innovative activity on market structure? How large a contribution does innovative activity make to productivity growth? And how does innovative activity affect corporate performance? These are important questions because they help to inform a wide range of public and business policy choices. In the area of competition policy, the Schumpeterian debate about the effect of monopoly on innovation has raised the possibility that antitrust actions designed to reduce static misallocations of resources may undermine dynamic efficiency, reducing welfare in the long run. This same issue arises in the design of industrial and technology policies, where policy-makers have tried to reconfigure market structures to stimulate innovativeness, experimenting with ‘national champions’, using procurement policies to strengthen certain client firms and tinkering with the structure of patent laws. Lying behind these initiatives is a widely held feeling that firm size is a source of competitive strength, that large firms are more able and, therefore, more likely to innovate.
The SPRU Innovations Database
Authors: Geroski Paul A
Published: November 2023

The traditional methodology of those interested in studying the causes and consequences of innovative activity is the case-study, and the tools typically used by students of innovation and technological change are those of the historian and not those of the statistician. There is much to be said for this approach, as there is for good case-study work in general. The problems with it, however, are lack of generalizability and selectivity: single cases are too small a sample to support generalizations about many phenomena of interest, and they are, in any case, unlikely to be randomly chosen (most case-studies are under taken because some special feature of the case interests the investigator). The degree to which these problems should be regarded as a set of serious drawbacks to case-study work is not, however, entirely clear. After all, if every innovation is, in some sense, unique, then each case is not so much a sample as it is the population.
The Processes of Distilling: A Basic Outline
Authors: Weir Ronald
Published: November 2023

The production of potable spirit involves four operations: malting, mashing, fermenting, distilling.

Distillers convert cereal grain into alcohol. Today, the major raw material is grain, usually barley in Scotland. In the past a very wide range of raw materials might be used: anything which contained either starch or sugar could be distilled. Barley is chosen for its high starch content and the ease with which it germinates to enable the first process, malting, to occur.
The Rise of Big Business
Authors: Hasiilmoto Juro
Published: November 2023

With the outbreak of the First World War, the European nations were transformed into large-scale purchasers of commodities, particularly munitions. The principal supplier for this increased European demand for imports was the United States. Consequently, the US economy boomed, which in tum prompted a rapid growth in imports from Asian countries, headed by Japan (Hashimoto 1984). This situation led to the increase in foreign demand for Japanese products. At the same time, imports into Japan from Europe were interdicted and the Japanese domestic market became secluded from international competition. This isolation effect created a sheltered environment within which big business, which had been at a position of comparative disadvantage, could grow.
Mass Retailing: A Last Chance for the Family Firm in France, 1945-90?
Authors: Chadeau Emmanuel
Published: November 2023

The emergence of mass retailing was a comparatively late development in France. At the end of the 1940s it accounted for only 8 per cent of retailing, and 7 per cent of food products. Forty years later, the figures were about 45 and 55 per cent respectively, while the volume of domestic final consumption had increased fourfold.1 At the beginning of the process, organized retailing prevailed only in Paris or in provincial cities where large department stores had been established between the reign of Napoleon III (1852-70) and the outbreak of the First World War, and in some less urbanized districts in the provinces, where pioneers had created a few chains of food shops (especially between 1890 and 1920), or set up co operatives accessible to affiliated semi-independent shopkeepers (be tween 1925 and 1939). But at the end of the 1980s 22.5 per cent of retailing was controlled by chains of supermarkets and hypermarkets ( ‘giant stores ‘) located for the most part in the suburbs and at main crossroads, while city-centre retailing experienced a major transformation.2 This tremendous change emerged from two processes: on the one hand a real revolution in consumption habits; and on the other an ‘Americani zation ‘ of the French ‘way of life ‘.
Christofle: A Family Firm
Authors: Vayer Marc De Ferrie Re Le
Published: November 2023

Since its foundation in 1845, Christofle, the firm of silversmiths, has been managed successively by five generations of Charles Christofle ‘s descend ants.1 This enterprise, with its obvious familial character, is representative of a kind of company which is often viewed as being typically French, i.e. one specializing in luxury production.2 In this chapter we will explore the way in which the family managed Christofle. Consequently, we will study the origins of capital at the time of the firm ‘s foundation and examine the mechanisms by which funds were raised for its further development. This point is a crucial one, especially as the family-even in a broad sense-did not hold a majority of the capital before the 1940s. Another key element to understand is the capital structure and the importance of the various alliances among the different shareholders. It is apparent that successive generations of shareholder proved to be very faithful to the company.
Standard Motors 1945-55 and the Post-war Malaise of British Management
Authors: Tiratsoo Nick
Published: November 2023

In 1945 many informed commentators expected great things of Standard Motors. Indeed, the company was often rated the most progressive of the ‘big six ‘ car manufacturers, with an innovative and dynamic managing director in John Black, a modern plant at its Coventry headquarters, and a highly promising production strategy. Within ten years, however, all this early optimism had evaporated. Standard was now known to be in trouble, a situation that eventually led to its take-over by Leyland.1 How had defeat been snatched so quickly from the jaws of victory? According to the historian Paul Thompson, Standard ‘s problems (like those of other Coventry firms) originated on the shop-floor.2 In the post war period, Thompson argues, managers and workers throughout the Midlands city colluded in maintaining a factory culture which was highly antipathetic to technical innovation. Local trade unions were especially culpable here, he insists, because they continued to reinforce the neo Luddite views of their members, rather than adopt the more enlightened, modernizing strategies allegedly being pursued by equivalent organizations in countries such as Italy. The consequences at Standard and else where in Coventry were inevitable. As Thompson graphically puts it, those employed in the local car factories ‘helped to dig the pit for their own burial ‘.3
Big Business in Britain and France, 1890-1990
Authors: Cassis Youssef
Published: November 2023

In the last few decades, the role of the large enterprise has been one of the central issues in business history.1 Perhaps surprisingly, the debate has taken a similar turn in Britain and France. In both countries it has often been assumed that the emergence and development of large enterprises took place later than in other industrialized countries, in particular the United States and Germany. This may seem surprising since for a long time the French suffered from a ‘British complex ‘, their concern about a lack of large enterprises deriving from comparisons made with Britain rather than with Germany. And the British did not think they had much in common with the French in terms of business development, preferring comparisons with the Americans and the Germans.2
Globalization and Labour Standards
Authors: Sengenberger Werner , Wilkinson Frank
Published: November 2023

Markets and productive systems progressively move beyond national boundaries. The increasing importance of multinational enterprises, cross-national strategic alliances, transnational subcontracting and sourcing of production and services, and regional economic integration signal the trend towards an internationalized economy. By contrast, labour institutions and labour market regulation remain at the national or sub-national level and it is there that pay, employment rules, working conditions, occupational health and safety, and social security are determined.
Lessons of Exchange Rate Targeting
Authors: Artis Mike
Published: November 2023

A wide variety of exchange rate targeting practices have been operated in the last decade and a half. This fact, together with the range of outcomes we can observe, ought to enable us to draw some conclusions about best practice for particular circumstances and objectives. The chapter is structured as follows. In the section immediately following, we discuss the numerous forms exchange rate targeting may take and the variety of objectives and motivations lying behind these alternatives. Then, in section 2, we turn to discuss three recent episodes of exchange rate targeting. These correspond to: the Plaza Accord episode; UK practice with respect to exchange rate targeting in the 1980s; and the ERM experience. In section 3, we attempt to draw some conclusions. It is fashionable to argue that experience suggests that only two alternatives are viable—freely flexible exchange rates or completely fixed exchange rates (as in monetary union). Our argument will be that this dichotomy is too stark and that intermediate positions are possible. However, the force behind the dichotomy is the respect that must be given to speculative capital movements. Any claims to detect sustainable intermediate positions must incorporate some means of coping with speculative pressures.
A Programme For Reform
Authors: Smith John Grieve
Published: November 2023

The Bretton Woods agreement created both a new set of international financial institutions and for the first time a formal framework of rules governing exchange rates and international payments. The agreement, largely a creation of Maynard Keynes and Harry White, was originally conceived as part of a wide-ranging vision of how the postwar economic system might work, including a liberal regime for trade and tariffs, and measures to stabilize commodity prices. It was designed to overcome both the problems experienced in the interwar period with the breakup of the Gold Standard and the rise of mass unemployment, and those emerging from the Second World War, in particular restrictions on trade and payments and the dollar shortage. The rules were intended first to encourage a speedy, but orderly, dismantling of wartime restrictions on imports and movement to currency convertibility, and then to establish, as a permanent regime, a liberal system of trade and payments and fixed exchange rates which would be compatible with the pursuit of full employment. The operation of the international payment system was to be supervised by the International Monetary Fund controlled by the leading Allied Powers with a system of weighted voting ensuring a dominant voice for the USA.
A Postscript
Authors: Hutton Will
Published: November 2023

It is plain that the current international financial and trading system creates such enormous concentrations of private power, volatility of market behaviour, and economic illogicalities that remedies are required. But it is equally plain that the current system has developed because there is neither a global hegemony who could police a more disciplined order nor sufficient political will to delegate authority to a supranational authority which might do it instead. To echo the First World War song, we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.
Morality and Incentives
Authors: Harsanyi John C
Published: November 2023

One of the basic concepts of economic theory is that of personal preferences, assumed to govern our everyday behaviour. As is well known, if a person’s preferences satisfy certain rationality requirements then they can be repre sented by an ordinal utility function. If they satisfy some even stronger rationality requirements (in choosing between alternative lotteries) such as the von Neumann-Morgenstern (= vN-M) axioms (see von Neumann and Morgenstern 1953), then they can be represented also by vN-M utility functions. The latter have the nature of cardinal utility functions because they permit meaningful comparisons, not only between the relevant person’s utility levels in different situations, but also between his various utility differences in moving from one situation to another. In what follows, I shall assume that people’s preferences satisfy the vN-M axioms.
Economic Analysis and the Structure of Good: Transferring Utility Theory from Preferences to Betterness
Authors: Broome John
Published: November 2023

What can economics do for ethics? No doubt several things, but one of them is this: it can contribute a method for analysing the structure of good.

Philosophers sometimes speak about ‘The Good’ rather grandly, using capital letters, and that can make it seem mysterious. But what I mean by ‘the structure of good’ is not at all mysterious. We very commonly discuss which things are better or worse than others. We say that sun is generally better than rain; we wonder whether it would be better to move to a new job or stay in this one; we debate about which is the best way of coping with the sufferings of refugees. Betterness and worseness are common topics of our ordinary conversation.
Stand Alone and Unanimity Tests: A Re-Examination of Fair Division
Authors: Moulin Herve
Published: November 2023

Problems of Fair Division address a fundamental challenge of distributive justice. A given set of resources (the traditional story is manna dropped from heaven; see below the discussion of real-life examples) must be distributed among a given set of agents. Those agents have equal rights on the resources (these are the common property of the group) but different preferences. Thus an equal split of the resources, although a fair outcome, is generally not efficient (Pareto optimal). The challenge is to define an efficient solution that, despite giving unequal shares, fulfils our intuition of fairness.
On a Mechanism for Implementing Egalitarianism with Responsibility
Authors: Roemer John E
Published: November 2023

In modem philosophical theories of egalitarianism, the issue of responsi bility plays an important role. A prevalent view is that egalitarians should not recommend complete equality of outcome, or even maximin, but rather that policy which equalizes outcomes in so far as those outcomes are the consequences of traits and environmental factors beyond a person’s control, allowing differences in outcomes, however, to the extent that outcomes are the consequences of traits for which persons are deemed responsible. This view is represented most clearly in the work of Arneson (1989), Cohen (1989), and Dworkin (1981).
Commitment and Choice: An Essay on the Rationality of Plans
Authors: Gauthier David
Published: November 2023

Human beings are planning animals. In his recent book, Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reason, Michael Bratman (1987: 2-3) explains plans as arising from ‘two very general needs we need ways for deliberation and rational reflection to influence action beyond the present; and we need sources of support for co-ordination, both intrapersonal and interpersonal. Our capa cities as planners help us meet these needs.’ Another recent writer, Allan Gibbard (1990: 57) relates plans to the human capacity to be moved by words. ‘Humans plan together; they make agreements, they exhort. Their language facilitates both complex co-ordination among individuals and complex individual plans-and if words lacked all power to move us, none of this would be possible.Gibbard speaks of this motivation as normat ive-’motivation of a particular, linguistically infused kind that evolved because of the advantages of coordination and planning through language’ (Gibbard 1990: 57).
Diffusion of the Systemic Approach in Japan: Gauge and Industrial Standards
Authors: Baba Yasunori , Kuroda, Shoichi , Yoshiki Hiroshi
Published: November 2023

Some researchers in the West generalize that manufacturing has evolved through a series of epochs. These include: the invention of maching tools and the English system of manufacture (1800), special-purpose tools and the interchangeability of components in the American system of manufacture (1850), and scientific management and the engineering of work in the Taylor system (1900)-all relating to the material world of mechanization; statistical process control and the dynamic world (1930), information processing and the era of numerical control, as well as emergent intelligent systems-making the intellectual leap from mechanization to information processing (Jaikumar 1988). In parallel with the changes in machines and quality of human labour, each epoch is characterized by a fundamental shift in the organization of work and the nature of the firm. Jaikumar clarifies: ‘Each of the six epochs focused on a particular aspect-accuracy, precision, reproducibility, stability, adaptability, and versatility ‘; and thus the history of Western manufacturing is portrayed as the evolution from an art to a science.
Production Technology and Productivity Growth in the Japanese Electrical Machinery Industry
Authors: Suzuki Kazuyuki
Published: November 2023

It is often pointed out that the major source of the international competitiveness of the Japanese processing and assembling industry is its outstanding production technology. Recently, Made in America, a report by the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, concluded that the main disadvantage of the US manufacturing industry compared with its Japanese counter parts was that US firms tend to neglect the continuous improvement of production technology (Dertouzos et al. 1989: ch. 5, esp. 74-7).
Technological Progress in Japanese Environmental Problems
Authors: Miyagawa Tsutomu
Published: November 2023

Technological developments in pollution control or environmental improvement are rarely dealt with in textbook economics, though many people benefit a great deal from them. Textbook economics shows that standard technical progress not only contributes to corporate profits, but also increases overall the social benefits arising from the externalities of new knowledge. In addition to the externality of standard new technology, technological developments for pollution control or environmental improvement result in another externality, in the sense that such developments provide public goods such as clean air, clean water, or a calm environment. While they bring larger social profits than standard technical progress, however, the corporate profits do not change as a result of such progress. Technologies for pollution control and environmental improvement seem to be similar to defence technologies in that the difference between social benefits and private benefits is too large.
The Role of the Japanese Higher Education System in Relation to Industry
Authors: Yamamoto Shinichi
Published: November 2023

It has been widely said that the Japanese education system has played a pivotal role in the development of Japan ‘s economy and industry (Monbusho 1990; US Department of Education 1987; Cummings 1991). Universities have been training future engineers and researchers who go on to work for industry, and they have also been creating and introducing (from Western countries) new technology and knowledge which is then transferred to the industrial sector. Furthermore, Japanese higher education has the important function of identifying highly qualified manpower through its demanding entrance examination system, in which school leavers must demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities. In this chapter I want to provide an overview of the role of higher education in relation to industry, referring to some problems that stem from the character of the Japanese education system.
France: The Idiosyncrasies of Volontarisme
Authors: Dormois Jean-Pierre
Published: November 2023

The French ordinarily claim precedence in inventing the concept of industrial policy. The roots of dirigisme, the control by the political authority of the development of the national economy, can be traced back to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XI V’s eminent minister. Henceforth national economics, the idea that ‘national economic strength is measured by productive capacity and that productive capacity can be increased by state aid’ (Clough 1939: 324) permeated French political and economic life. The imperative for the active involvement of the state in the deployment of industrial potential may have originated with the mercantilist theories of Mont chrestien and Richelieu.
Russia: A Comparative Economic Systems Interpretation
Authors: Davis Christopher Mark
Published: November 2023

The industrial policies of the Russian Empire and its successor states during the twentieth century have been of considerable importance to Europe for several reasons.1 First, until the 1990s Russia/USSR consistently occupied an extreme position in the spectrum of industrial policies associated with maxima] state intervention. The success of these policies has varied over time, as have foreign perceptions. For many years, Soviet ideology and theories concerning industrial ownership, structure, priorities, and labour relations exerted powerful influences on debates and practices in Western Europe. Second, industrial polices appeared to have played a key role in transforming the backward Tsarist economy into a powerful, modem one capable of producing advanced civilian machinery and weapons. One result was that the USSR became a major market for European industrial exports.
Family Policy and Political Economy
Authors: Shirley Ian , Pool Peggy Koopman-Boyden Ian , John St.
Published: November 2023

In the early twentieth century, New Zealand commentators wrote of a ‘theory of fair wages ... sufficient to give the worker a decent living according to the colonial standard’ (Le Rossignol and Stewart, 1910: 239). Since the average ‘worker’ of the time was male and since ‘normal needs’ encompassed domestic responsibilities, the ‘fair wage’ was soon defined as being a family wage sufficient to support a wife and two or three children. With the election of the first Labour government in 1935, the family wage was enshrined in legislation. Government established base wage rates for adult male workers to enable a man ‘to maintain a wife, and three children in a fair and reasonable standard of comfort’ (Woods, 1963).
Families and Social Services
Authors: Shirley Ian , Pool Peggy Koopman-Boyden Ian , John St.
Published: November 2023

Responsiveness to family change requires more than attention to income, workplace adaptations, and family ]aw. It also requires a wider range of supports for improved quality of life (health care, child care, and housing) and special help for families and children with special needs (Supplemental Security Income, child welfare, and nutrition). The programmes grouped in this chapter make little claim for coherence, but they do constitute a significant and distinctive component of family policy. Historically, these programmes were in the province of state and local government and private agencies but since the mid-l960s have increasingly involved the federal government, usually though not always working through or sharing with the lower tiers.
Introduction: Technology Management as a Focus for Public Policy
Authors: Cannell William
Published: November 2023

Technology management, in our definition, is the set of activities undertaken by firms to create, access, and mobilize technology in support of their business aims. It has become increasing relevant to policy-makers as they have come to recognize the complexity of innovation processes and the central role of the firm in driving technological change.
Labor Market Consequences of Retrenchment for Civil Servants in Ghana
Authors: Yunger Stephen
Published: November 2023

During the past decade, inefficiencies in the public sector have drawn the attention of development economists working to understand the causes of Africa’s worsening economic performance. Governments and state-owned enterprises have not been able to provide the services and goods they were created to provide in an efficient, cost-effective manner. One important cause of these inefficiencies is the public sector’s employment practices. Driven in part by the widely held notion that the public sectors should lead their countries’ development efforts, and in part by political patronage, African governments and their agencies increased staffing levels at a rapid pace after independence; most continue to do so. At first, these practices cause fiscal problems as the wage bill increases and fiscal deficits grow. But that is only the first manifestation of excessive employment. The problems run much deeper in Africa. Once governments reach the limit of what they can finance through tax revenue, aid, and the inflation tax, they are forced to cut back other expenditures to make wage payments. Typically, capital spending goes first.
Market Liberalization and the Role of Food Aid in Mozambique
Authors: Dorosh Paul , Ninno, Carlo del , Sahn David E
Published: November 2023

Momentous changes swept Mozambique from 1987 to 1993. Major economic reforms were enacted, liberalizing markets after more than a decade of pervasive state controls. A severe drought struck in 1991 and 1992, decimating harvests and threatening widespread famine. Most important, a settlement of the long civil war was finally reached in late 1992, bringing hope of peace and improved welfare to the country’s large rural population.
Sugar Refining in Bristol
Authors: Morgan Kenneth
Published: November 2023

From the seventeenth century onwards, Bristol’s economy was inextricably interwoven with her Atlantic outlook and with her role as a consumption centre, and sugar refining was the major industry that linked these two vital aspects of her commercial development. Sugar first appeared as an import at Bristol in the reign of Edward IV.2 At that time it was still a luxury commodity, cultivated around the Mediterranean, that had not yet replaced honey as a sweetener in the Western European diet Modest quantities of sugar arrived at Bristol’s wharves and quays throughout the medieval, Tudor, and early Stuart periods.
Introduction: Japan’s ‘Miracle’ in Perspective
Authors: Gourvish Terry
Published: November 2023

The significance in business and economic history of Japan’s startling rise in international competitiveness since the mid-1950s has not only given business historians much food for thought but has also served to expand considerably the amount of English-language writing on modern Japan.’ Such work increased enormously from the 1960s, and included ‘miracle’ identifiers such as Hewins, Stone, Khan, and Vogel, who used Japan to make criticisms of Britain and the United States.
The Links between Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction, and Social Development: Theory and Policy
Authors: Taylor Lance , Mehrotra Santosh , Delamonica Enrique
Published: November 2023

The overview of ten country experiences in Chapter 2 showed that while all had achieved high levels of health and educational indicators, their poverty-reduction outcomes were diverse. Even more varied was their income growth. While some had dramatically transformed their economies in terms of the structure of output and employment, in many cases there had been little evidence of a ‘Great Transformation—even over a relatively long 30-to 40-year period of analysis.
A Second Comeback or a Final Farewell? The Volvo Trajectory, 1973-1994
Authors: Berggren Christian
Published: November 2023

The year of the first oil crisis, 1973, marked the end of an era for the Western automobile producers, and for the Swedish car makers Volvo and Saab in particular. During the 1950s and 1960s, they had enjoyed rapid growth and prospered in spite of being small-scale producers together accounting for only 1 per cent of global car production. Operating in a small open economy, Volvo and Saab were severely affected by the sudden transition to a low growth market. In 1974, Volvo announced its first deal in a strategy for continued expansion: the acquisition of the DAF company in the Netherlands. The same year, Volvo also inaugurated two new plants in Sweden, Kalmar and Skovde, both designed according to socio-technical principles, by means of which Volvo hoped to solve its severe personnel problems and safeguard future worker recruitment. These two events, the acquisition in the Netherlands and the high-profile departure from a Fordist plant design in Sweden, highlight two themes which continued to shape Volvo’s agenda into the 1980s and 1990s. The company’s struggle to survive as an independent automobile maker in a small, open economy has shaped its strategic orientation. Its efforts to respond to Swedish labour market pressures formed the basis for a distinctive production model.
Lada: Viability of Fordism?
Authors: Chanaron Jean-Jacques
Published: November 2023

This chapter examines three hypotheses about the trajectory of Avtovaz, the Russian manufacturer of automobiles and derived commercial vehicles (exported under the Lada brand), before arriving at a fourth more general hypothesis.