bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Theory of Peasant Supply Response under Shortages
Authors: Bevan David , Collier Paul , Gunning Jan Willem , Bigsten Arne , Horsnell Paul
Published: October 2023

In this chapter we develop a simple theory of peasant supply response under conditions of rationing. The model presented here is simplified in two important respects. First, the stochastic nature of shortages gives rise to extremely complex multi-period dynamics. These are finessed in the present model and it appears unlikely that any model could fully incorporate them and retain analytic tractability. A more complex modelling of stochastic dynamics which generates the same results as the present model is given in Controlled Open Economies. Secondly, the aggregative structure of the model is kept extremely simple; the alternatives to the production of cash crops, namely leisure or the production of food, are treated as a single aggregate. We assume that food is produced only for own consumption. In Tanzania during our period this is not such an unrealistic assumption as might first appear. Dar es Salaam, the major urban centre, was largely fed by means of food imports rather than purchases from peasants. Hence, net sales of food by peasants in exchange for urban-supplied consumer goods were probably modest relative to non-food cash crops. In Controlled Open Economies, we discuss disaggregation of this model and demonstrate that the results presented here are robust, generalizing to all disaggregations which preserve the key assumption.
Time Series Tests of Aggregate Supply Response
Authors: Bevan David , Collier Paul , Gunning Jan Willem , Bigsten Arne , Horsnell Paul
Published: October 2023

This chapter uses time series data to estimate the elasticity of aggregate supply response to changes in availability. The theory developed in Chapter 9 predicts that the coefficient on availability should be significant, positive, and less than unity. The test of this hypothesis is complicated by the unusual and specific data required. Indeed, the central innovative feature of the analysis is the construction of two data sets each of which permits the elasticity to be estimated. Since the data sets are independent, the results constitute a check o:n each other. Section 10.2 discusses the measurement problems and their resolution and Section 10.3 presents the results.
An Analysis of the Effects of Public Service Provision
Authors: Bevan David , Collier Paul , Gunning Jan Willem , Bigsten Arne , Horsnell Paul
Published: October 2023

There are three ways, broadly, of tracking the impact of public expenditure. The first assumes that there is a rather direct relationship between the costs of providing a service and the effect it has. The second draws inferences from household behaviour as to the valuation users place on the service. The third uses statistical techniques to try to establish some empirical relation between the service and some variable of interest, such as the output of a crop. Investigations in this third category may be more or less successful in establishing the existence and magnitude of effects. It may be possible only to establish that there is (or is not) a relationship, without determining causality. It may be possible to establish a causal relationship and its associated quantitative dimension, without being able to place a value on this. Finally, it may be possible not only to measure the impact, but also to value it. The remainder of this introduction discusses each of these possibilities in turn.
Peasants and Governments
Authors: Bevan David , Collier Paul , Gunning Jan Willem , Bigsten Arne , Horsnell Paul
Published: October 2023

Governments affect peasants by delivering certain services and by altering the prices at which peasants trade, either by regulation or taxation. In this volume we have investigated instances of all three of these interventions. Part IV examined the effects of the provision of rural health, education, and water services, Part III the effects of price regulation, and Part II the effects of indirect taxation designed to stabilize crop prices. Broadly, the normative effects of these three interventions ranged from highly beneficial, in the case of some services, through greatly over-rated, in the case of price-stabilizing taxation, to highly detrimental in the case of price regulation. Perhaps the major overall conclusion to be drawn from our study is that governments are currently implementing policies whose effects span this wide range.
1925-1931: The Old World Restored and Found Wanting
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

In 1925 the central economic policy objective of the previous five years was achieved, and Britain returned to gold. This restoration of the old framework of policy was ill-matched to the new conditions of both the British and the world economy. The hope that the restoration of gold would restore pre-war normality was urealized, and with the onset of the world slump from 1929 the policy became increasingly fragile. In 1931 Britain was forced off gold, never to return.
1945—1951: Domestic Reconstruction: Building a New Jerusalem?
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

The first majority Labour government, elected in 1945, presided over six years of radical changes in British economic policy. These changes were partly a consequence of its own reformist initiatives; partly of the inescapable requirement to re-orientate the economy from a wartime to a peacetime basis; partly of an attempt to come to terms with a very different international economic context than that of the 1930s. The result of all these diverse forces was a reconstruction of the economy which laid the basis for much of the economic development of the next two decades, and for much of the pattern of economic policy that prevailed in these years.
1951—1973: The Long Boom
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

In retrospect the period from the Korean War to the first OPEC crisis appears one of unprecedented success for economic policy. Output and output per head grew at rates previously unattainable, at least for such a sustained period. Unemployment averaged under 2 per cent, inflation under 5 per cent. This rosy picture must however be qualified in a number of ways. Whilst British growth was high by historic standards, it was low by the standards of most advanced capitalist countries (Table 9.1). Unemployment (judged from cyclical low to cyclical low) showed a rising trend, especially from 1968 (Table 9.5). Inflation, too, was clearly rising from the late 1960s (Table 9.6). Indeed, it can be argued that the boom was clearly running out of steam by the late 1960s, and only staggered on to be dealt a death-blow by OPEC l.
1973—1979: From Crisis to Crisis
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

The long boom was already breaking up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but the OPEC oil price rise (from $3.45 to $11.58 per barrel at the end of 1973) heralded the arrival of a wholly new phase in post-war British policy. Whilst the OPEC price rise was far from the only cause of the problems of the 1970s, its effects were serious and widespread. For Britain it meant a sharp deterioration in the trade balance (see Table 10.2) and hence a substantial deflationary pressure, which was reinforced by the effects on exports of similar effects in other oil-importing countries. In addition, the generality of oil use in the economy imparted a sharp upward twist to prices. This latter effect came on top of a pre-existing sudden upward movement in commodity prices in general, brought about by the simultaneous and rapid expansion of demand in the advanced industrial countries in the early 1970s. The resulting ‘stagflation’ posed economic policy-makers with unprecedented problems and turned the 1970s into a decade of crisis.
Demographic Transition: The Current Position
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

A population in the course of transition begins by seeing its rate of growth increase, gradually peak, and finally decrease until it reaches a new balance of low growth. In other words, in the absence of migratory exchanges with the outside world, it is possible, from the sequence of a given country’s growth alone, to deduce the pattern of transition already undergone, and to project a plausible future trajectory.
The Decline in Mortality
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

Until the mid-twentieth century, mortality trends played a primordial role in the demographic evolution of developed countries. In fact, it is the decline in mortality, more than the factor of fertility exceeding replacement level, that has long explained the phenomenon of population increase and the maintenance of relatively young age structures. Above all, it is the unexpected extension of the average length of human life which is the motivating factor behind the demographic transition and which is at the base of one of the most monumental changes experienced by the human race in the course of its history.
The Fertility Decline
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

Fertility, whilst much more the object of research than mortality, has rarely been analysed in its interrelations, over the long term, with the other elements of the demographic system. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the construction of as solid as possible a statistical basis for this kind of approach.
The Notion of the Cycle in Demography: Is Post-Transitional Fertility Cyclical?
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

Easterlin’s hypothesis refers specifically to the pattern subsequent to transition. It assumes that post-transitional fertility oscillates cyclically around a level which ultimately guarantees the replacement of generations. It is still too early to confirm with any certainty the validity of this assumption, as the final stage of transition has only been reached by a small number of countries and, relatively speaking, only very recently. Any attempt at generalization would thus appear premature. Nevertheless, there exist some 20 countries in which the net period reproduction rate has bordered on unity for almost half a century. A preliminary study is thus possible, from which a provisional typology of patterns of post-transitional fertility may be derived.
The Transitional Multiplier of Population
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

One of the characteristics of demographic trans1t10n is that it does not everywhere manifest the same rhythm and periodicity. Its temporal displacements and differences of scale are evident in the growing diversity of national population profiles. In the eighteenth century, all countries shared a com parable situation of high mortality, compensated to a greater or lesser degree by high fertility. Progressively, a differentiation emerged between the developed and less developed worlds, and, since the 1950s and especially the 1960s, the latter has itself split into two or three subgroups, each distinguished by given changes in fertility. This accentuation of demographic disparity has resulted in some new and complementary trends, but also in tensions and imbalances, number being one of the props of power.
Contemporary Transitions: The Strength of the Model
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

Demographic transitions in Europe arc sometimes thought an unsuitable source of lessons on demographic change in less developed countries. This view takes as its starting-point the relatively disadvantaged situation of the latter. The argument proceeds thus: following the introduction of Western medical techniques, Third World mortality declined very rapidly after the Second World War, thereby bringing about the demographic revolution, but without a parallel industrial revolution. Precipitated from without, and independent of economic level and the state of institutions (Davis 1967; Petersen 1969), mortality decline took place in societies which were not prepared for economic modernization and even less so for the changes in mental attitude demanded by family planning.
The Revolution in Mental Attitudes and Demographic Revolution
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

It is in fertility studies that this imbalance is strongest. Reading the innumerable works addressed to possible causes of secular fertility declines, one is impressed by the great confusion which exists on the subject. ‘The map of fertility [in France, in 1861] recalls no known economic, cultural or religious structure,’ write Le Bras and Todd (1981). Originally intended as a systematic approach which would at last sort out the historical circumstances leading to individual control of fertility, the massive Princeton study, ad dressed to 700 European geographic units covering six countries, certainly drew attention to the significance of cultural boundaries.
Economic Stagnation and Neo-Malthusianism: Two Falsely Opposed Models
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

Before embarking on an analysis of the data, it is well to review a number of theoretical issues which arise consistently in studies of economy and population. Theoretical presuppositions will be discussed and tested empirically wherever possible. Fortunately, the work of economic historians since Colin Clark and Simon Kuznets has resulted in considerable breakthroughs, including recent efforts to harmonize national accounting systems, particularly in less developed countries.
General Conclusion
Authors: Chesnais Jean-Claude
Published: October 2023

The analysis of long time series in international perspective makes it possible to place national history in a world context. But in the twentieth century, with the abolition of distances, everything that touches upon changes in human life has become not only increasingly international, but a-national. The same applies to modern population history: the nature of demographic upheavals has evolved in an almost identical manner from country to country.
The Birth of Intermediaries
Authors: Lesourne Jacques
Published: October 2023

Any market, even if its fundamental parameters are constant, remains in a situation of disequilibrium as long as convergence to a stable state has not been attained. Very often, this stable state is itself very sensitive to the particularities in agents’ behaviour. Hence the possibility of new actors appearing who will try to take advantage of market dynamics or statics for personal ends and in this way contribute to accelerating the convergence to a stable state or to slowing it down by destabilizing the market. This chapter will deal with the birth of two categories of this type of actor: recruitment agencies which contribute to improving the opera tion of the labour-market; speculators who, depending on the case, can reduce or raise the variability of market prices for durable goods.
Utility Charges and the Quality of Public Services
Authors: Kostoris Fiorella Padoa Schioppa , Powell John E
Published: October 2023

In setting public-utility charges, it is important to avoid on the one hand the Scylla of prices held excessively low for fear of competition, which would have to be avoided if it threatened to become destructive, and on the other the Charybdis of prices kept excessively high by the absence of competition. From an allocative point of view, charges for natural monopolies should as a rule cover average long-term costs. If the natural monopoly is non-contestable, the problem of pricing is the same, whether the services are provided by a public corporation or a regulated private company, whereas the market will achieve similar results if the monopoly is contestable. The relationship between prices and average costs of public utilities is less clear if public corporations in the market of the non-contestable natural monopoly are causing specific distortions due to government failures.
General Instruments of Industrial Policy
Authors: Kostoris Fiorella Padoa Schioppa , Powell John E
Published: October 2023

Despite its particularities, the problem of growth in the Mezzogiorno is part of the more general problem of Italian development. This has been tackled in many of our studies, some of which try to identify the lines along which the Italian economy has evolved while others endeavour to show the effects various public policy instruments have on it.
Public Employment, Unemployment Benefits, and Dirigistic Regulation of the Labour Market
Authors: Kostoris Fiorella Padoa Schioppa , Powell John E
Published: October 2023

It would be impossible to understand fully the strategic motivation behind Italian economic policy without examining the state’s constant commitment to tackle what is perceived as perhaps Italy’s greatest structural problem and one that is growing worse, namely unemployment. As we have already shown in Tables 7.5, 7.6, 8.2 and 8.3, it is so closely bound up with the problem of the Mezzogiorno that we have already had to discuss it at length when dealing with that strategic sector in Sections 7.3̄8.2.
Classical̄Keynesian Unemployment and Incomes Policy
Authors: Kostoris Fiorella Padoa Schioppa , Powell John E
Published: October 2023

As well as affecting the rate of wage increases and thus employment, changes in the level and structure of taxation also influence the supply of labour and, to a lesser extent, savings decisions. The analyses carried out for us by Quintieri and Rosati (1986a, 1986b, 1988, 1990) show that progressive taxes harm workers not only through their effects on the demand for labour, as we have seen, but also by causing a contraction in the volume of labour they supply. Conversely, a reduction in the progressivity of personal income tax accompanied by an increase in indirect taxation or wealth taxes is shown to induce individuals to increase the amount of labour they are willing to supply. For a given tax liability, it is therefore possible to identify different fiscal policies that encourage a rise in labour participation rates.
The Budget Deficit and the Public Debt
Authors: Kostoris Fiorella Padoa Schioppa , Powell John E
Published: October 2023

The tax-reform hypotheses formulated so far may not appear sufficiently draconian to tackle the imbalances in Italy’s public finances. This is not in fact true; as explained above, since the sphere of direct and indirect public intervention in the Italian economy has to be reduced, we believe it is inappropriate to think of increasing the overall tax burden in order to achieve the perennial objective laid down in every policy document from the so-called Amato Plan1 to the latest Finance Bill, namely to eliminate the primary budget deficit (i.e. the budget deficit net of interest payments on the public debt).
1945-1951: Socialism and the Supply Side
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

Labour came into power in 1945 with a clear programme of major economic and social reforms, many of which had been developed in the 1930s, especially in For Socialism and Peace (1934) and Labour ‘s Immediate Programme (1937). These embraced a broad commitment to economic planning, especially focused on a National Investment Board, and a major expansion of the nationalized sector. By these means Labour aimed at providing greater economic and social security on the basis of full employment, greater industrial efficiency, and the creation of a welfare state. The 1945 manifesto Let us Face the Future broadly followed the ideas of the 1930s, but also reflected the legacy of war. On the one hand the war gave new urgency to some objectives, e.g. housing; on the other it had created a comprehensive system of economic controls which seemed to fit Labour ‘s commitment to planning.
1961-1970 New Frontiers and National Champions
Authors: Tomlinson Jim
Published: October 2023

The election of the Labour Government in 1964 marked a significant shift in British economic policy, and in the succeeding six years industrial policy probably had its highest political profile in post-war Britain. But this new departure had at least some of its origins in an earlier shift in policy perceptions which need to be taken into account in looking at Labour ‘s policies. In his assessment of policy from 1951 to 1964 Brittan (1964) called his chapter on the early 1960s ‘The Great Reappraisal ‘, and argued that this reappraisal began in 1960, ‘The year in which everything really happened but which no one really re members ‘ and that ‘It was about this time that the first papers were written on the conditions of long-term growth and that interest blossomed in French planning methods, and in the Common Market ‘ (204, 207). As the quotations indicate, 1960 began the process by which the rhetoric of growth was to frame discussion of the economy, and the related theme that planning was to be the route to faster growth.
The Proximate Determinants of Fertility
Authors: Lockwood Matthew
Published: October 2023

In Chapter i we saw that the available evidence for Rufiji, and the Coast Region of which it is a part, pointed to stagnation of fertility up to around 1950, and a rise thereafter. In the attempt to understand this pattern, the first step must be to identify the immediate or proximate biosocial component causes producing it.
Households and Life Cycles in Mng’aru: Norms and Patterns
Authors: Lockwood Matthew
Published: October 2023

In order to understand how demographic events and the evolution of households may affect people’s patterns of work, we need accounts of the life cycle of the household and of individual lifecourses. The first step is to grasp what a household in Rufiji is, and how it relates to the organization of labour, consumption, accumulation, and residence, and to the development of families. There are two ways of looking at this. The first is in terms of norms, or social ideals of what a proper household is like, or what a normal life cycle is. The second is the varied pattern of actual life cycles and household structures.
Price Rigidity
Authors: Andersen Torben M
Published: October 2023

This book grew out of lecture notes from a course given at the Department of Economics, University of Aarhus. The aim of the book is to provide an overview and evaluation of recent attempts to provide a better foundation for Keynesian macroeconomics by explaining why prices do not adjust instantaneously and fully to changes in market conditions. The text provides a comprehensive introduction to theories of price rigidity and integrates existing results from the literature with new results. Rather than collecting conclusions, the text is set up so as to provide the reader with the intuition and the mechanics needed to evaluate the role of different assumptions for price adjustment. To focus on the economics of the problem, mathematical rigour is kept to a minimum and the models worked through in the text should therefore be regarded as examples. Hence specific parametrizations of the models are usually made to avoid cluttering the exposition with mathematical technicalities. The mathematical skills needed to read the text are thus modest, and the book should be accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
Asynchronization
Authors: Andersen Torben M
Published: October 2023

It is by now a standard result that predetermination of nominal prices leaves room for real effects of nominal shocks which are unanticipated given the information going into price formation (see Chapter 1). As an example, consider a monopolist firm which at time t - n has to quote a price for period t; i.e. we have an n-period contract.
Price-Wage Interactions
Authors: Andersen Torben M
Published: October 2023

The adjustment of wages is often stressed as important for macroeconomic adjustment, and ad hoc models typically feature rigid nominal or real wages. A voluminous literature has recently addressed the issue of (real) wage adjustment. Hence there is a need to analyse both the interaction between wage- and price-setting and its implications for nominal rigidities, as well as to consider the importance of real wage rigidity for price adjustment. A feature of wage-setting is that wages are often set contingent on prices; that is, wages are indexed to prices. Is it optimal to index wages fully to prices to avoid nominal shocks having real effects, and how does indexation affect price formation? To analyse the interaction between wage and price determination, we need a model that explicitly distinguishes between product and labour markets. To this end we shall supplement the model of monopolistic competition (cf. Section 3.6) with a model of wage formation.
Analytical Framework
Authors: Albala-Bertrand J M
Published: October 2023

The main purpose in presenting an explicit and fairly detailed analytical framework is to provide this subject with a badly needed conceptual structure so as to do away with the loose and often misleading jargon which permeates the field. At the same time, this introduces the lay reader to both the subject and our approach to it. The main features of the framework are: first, the integrative concept of disaster situation, which puts the analysis in the correct perspective; secondly, the distinction between direct and indirect impact effects, which is an essential foundation for a political-economy approach; thirdly, the distinction between endogenous and exogenous mechanisms of response, which is at the centre of our criticism of current views on disasters; and fourthly, the holist concept of systemic processes of response, which together with our logical areas of response makes quite a useful analytical tool.
Effects of Disaster Situations on Macroeconomic Variables
Authors: Albala-Bertrand J M
Published: October 2023

This chapter analyses the short- and medium-term effects of disaster situations on macroeconomic variables for a sample mainly of developing countries affected by large natural disasters between 1960 and 1979. Macroeconomic variables as measured by aggregate statistics per annum provide little insight into the particular economic processes from which they derive. Therefore, at this stage, we do not expect to show how such economic processes are affected by disaster situations but rather how these situations affect annual macro economic performance. In other words, the point here is both to establish some post-disaster performance rules for subsequent analysis and to estimate the wisdom of received opinions. The chapter concludes by showing that our findings are largely in opposition to accepted views.
Vulnerability
Authors: Albala-Bertrand J M
Published: October 2023

The occurence and severity of effects resulting from disaster impacts depend on a variety of intermediations between impacts and effects (see especially Chapter 1, sects. 3.3 and 4.2). These intermediations are the main focus of vulnerability studies. Physical scientists tend to favour a technological approach to resistance to natural events whereas social scientists tend to give priority to societal processes to explain vulnerability. This original difference in outlook has become less absolute over time, but the mainstream approach is still essentially technological and metropolitan (Hewitt 1983, Dreze and Sen 1991). One important reason why this is so is because of the strong political content of the social outlook. This could disqualify international agencies from operating in most cases of disaster in the Third World. But these agencies largely ignore societal aspects because of their ‘modernizing’ development orientation. Development is regarded as a process of acculturation resulting from the destruction of inefficient or backward forms of production.
Rationality As Consistency
Authors: Walsh Vivian
Published: October 2023

Can one distil a concept of rationality from the idea of consistent choice or action? This, if it could be done, might be supposed to give economic theory a minimalist and formal concept of ration ality which would provide a firm axiomatic foundation. This approach has in fact been popular with economists and (even be fore the later axiomatic developments) can arguably be said to have inspired thinkers like Robbins, as well as Hicks and Allen.
Surplus, Class, And Conflict In Reproduction Models
Authors: Walsh Vivian
Published: October 2023

In this chapter I wish to consider some properties of very simplified examples of reproduction models. Although these models are of present-day construction (and can be made very formal when presented in full dress) nevertheless their preoccupation with the generation and extraction of a net product or surplus, and with the accumulation of capital, make them strikingly similar to the work of the original eighteenth- and nineteenth-century classical politi cal economists.
Industry and Finance, 1923-1943: From Siamese Twin ship to Separation
Authors: Zamagni Vera
Published: October 2023

There are a variety of indices of industrial production available for the 20-year period of Fascism, 1923-43, with one often contradicting another, and it is virtually impossible to choose one as being more reliable than the others, as there are no recent studies covering this area. There are three series of overall figures for manufacturing industry, three for the gas and electricity industries, and one for the building industry: some of them do not, however, cover the entire period of Fascism. They are presented together in Table 9.1, and have enabled me to construct the following overall picture of developments.
Mapai, Mapam, and the Arab Problem in 1948
Authors: Morris Benny
Published: October 2023

The first Israeli–Arab war, in 1948, resulted in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. In great measure, that problem was a product of Jewish military and political actions. To facilitate understanding of these actions, and the attitudes and policies that underlay them, it is worth examining the evolution of attitudes to ‘the Arab problem’ and to the emerging refugee problem in the political parties of the Yishuv in the course of 1948.

The focus of such an examination must inevitably be on the only two parties that counted for much in the decision-making processes during that war—Mapai (mifleget poalei eretz yisrael, the Land of Israel Workers Party) and Mapam (mifleget poalim meuhedet, the United Workers Party).
Haifa’s Arabs: Displacement and Concentration, July 1948
Authors: Morris Benny
Published: October 2023

Before 1948, Haifa had had a population of 140,000—about half Arab and half Jewish. During the first months of the war, thousands of prosperous and middle-class Arab families fled the city. Tens of thousands more fled Haifa during and immediately after the Haganah conquest of the city’s Arab neighbourhoods in April 1948. By July, only some 3,500 of the city’s original Arab inhabitants remained.

During that summer, Haifa’s remaining Arab inhabitants lived in political limbo. Although the city was part of Israel, by virtue of the United Nations General Assembly Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947 and in consequence of the Haganah’s victory of 21–2 April 1948, a lack of clarity prevailed because of the continued presence in the town and its environs—the triangle bounded by Atlit, Ramat David, and Kurdani—of substantial British forces in this last enclave of the Mandate.
The Case of Abu Ghosh and Beit Naqquba, Al Fureidis and Jisr Zarka in 1948—or Why Four Villages Remained
Authors: Morris Benny
Published: October 2023

In the course of December 1947–August 1949, the great majority of the Arabs living within the territory that in the first Israeli–Arab war became Israel went into exile and became refugees. Most of these refugees were created during the bitter fighting of April-June and July 1948. Those who remained behind, becoming Israel’s Arab minority, were concentrated almost exclusively in the areas that fell to Israeli forces towards the end of the war, in October-November, or were transferred to Israeli sovereignty through the Israel–Jordan General Armistice Agreement of April 1949, at war’s end—the central and upper Galilee, the northern Negev (beduins), and the western foothills of Samaria (Umm al Fahm and Wadi Ara, At Taiyiba Baqa al Gharbiya, Kafr Qasim).
The Transfer of Al Majdal’s Remainng Arabs to Gaza, 1950
Authors: Morris Benny
Published: October 2023

The Arab town of Majdal, next to the site of the Second Millennium BC Philistine port of Ashkelon or Ascalon on the Mediterranean coast between Jaffa and Gaza, had a population of about 10,000 at the start of the 1948 war. By October, thousands more—refugees from other parts of Palestine—lived in its streets, groves, and public buildings. During Operation Yoav, which began on 15 October, the IDF repeatedly shelled and bombed the town and, on 4 November, conquered it. Majdal’s Egyptian army garrison, and much of the population, had fled the town already on 30 October.
The Family as a Political Issue
Authors: Gauthier Anne Hèléne
Published: October 2023

The decline in family size is only one aspect of the deep transformation which the family has undergone since the 1960s. Increases in divorce, lone-parenthood, birth outside wedlock, pre-marital cohabitation, and in the proportion of economically active mothers, have changed the reality of families. The traditional breadwinner and housewife model is no longer dominant, and has been joined by a constellation of other models of families. For governments, these transformations have represented a major challenge. New legislation had to be adopted with regard to working mothers, lone-parents, and non-married cohabitants, and new measures had to be introduced in order to better support the new families.
Public and Private Intergenerational Transfers: Evidence and a Simple Model
Authors: Cremer Helmuth , Kessler Denis , Pestieau Pierre
Published: October 2023

When observing the structure of intergenerational transfers, one cannot help being struck by their variety. A list of a few of the more important ones will illustrate the point: parents’ attention to their children, public education, mandatory public pensions, private annuities, bequests and donations in cash and kind, and filial attention to ageing parents. A taxonomy of these transfers could be established on the basis of three criteria: the direction of the transfers (upwards or downwards); the content of the transfer; and the sector through which the transfer is effected (private or public, i.e. through the family or the state). There are many unanswered questions concerning the structure of upward and downward transfers within families.
Stabilization: Finding a Way Back
Authors: Heymann Daniel , Leijonhufvud Axel
Published: October 2023

Stabilization programmes have to fit the type of inflation they confront. If the inflation is moderate, policy-makers usually rely on a gradual correction of monetary policies to bring about the desired disinflation. This need not involve any major changes in other instruments. One attempts to minimize the disruption of the plans of individual agents. High inflations, in contrast, are attacked with far more comprehensive policy ‘packages’ that aim to force a sudden change in modes of behaviour that the inflation has induced. These programmes typically announce large-scale policy reforms with significant distributive consequences. They never lack for political drama, therefore.
The Foundations of the CAP: Agricultural Policy in Western Europe in the 1950s
Authors: Fennell Rosemary
Published: October 2023

When the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was devised it was regarded as a major and exciting innovation in the field of agricultural policy. In one sense this was true in that it represented the first successful attempt to create a single policy for an economic sector, implemented in a unified manner over the territory of a number of independent States, and which governed their relationships not only with each other but also with the rest of the world. Despite the novelty of the achievement, it should come as no surprise to find that the CAP was a child of its time and should be seen in the context of agricultural policy in Western Europe in the 1950s. The basic problems which had produced the main elements of post-war agricultural policy did not disappear or change with the advent of the CAP and, as a result, the aims of the new policy and the instruments used to achieve them remained much the same.
Income Levels: Perception of the Problem and Policy Responses
Authors: Fennell Rosemary
Published: October 2023

In the review of agricultural policy in the 1950s in Chapter I, mention was made of the way in which concern with farmers’ incomes came to dominate policy objectives and instruments. In general, the ‘income problem’ was perceived as the situation in which per capita incomes in farming lagged behind those earned in other sectors of the economy. Thus attention was concentrated very largely on the return to labour rather than to the other factors of production. The analyses of the problem tended to be vague and the remedies put in place were usually not well targeted.
Statistical Evidence on Incomes
Authors: Fennell Rosemary
Published: October 2023

Chapter 4 outlined the various policy issues which have arisen down the years in relation to income. The point was made that the ‘income problem’ was perceived very largely in sectoral terms, i.e. that incomes in farming were not keeping pace with those in other activities. Far less attention was paid to differences within the agricultural sector itself. In the present chapter both the macro- and micro aspects of income are considered. The measurement of income in farming is by its very nature complicated and the choice of a particular measure is dependent on what one is attempting to demonstrate. Three types of statistics are used here: the Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA) which provide macro-data on the sector; the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN);I and the Total Income of Agricultural Households (TIAH). Only a small selection of the available data is used and whenever possible reliance has been placed on material which permits examination of income trends over time. In some cases this has meant the use of rather dated statistics. This does not lessen their validity as illustrations of issues which have existed over the lifetime of the CAP.
Broadening the Policy Horizon
Authors: Fennell Rosemary
Published: October 2023

Earlier chapters have recorded the attempts made over the lifetime of the CAP to reshape it. To a large extent, these efforts concentrated on weakening the level of price and market support so as to discourage surplus production, periodic attempts to dispose of surpluses already accumulated, and the promotion of improvements to the structural framework within which farming takes place. An overriding conclusion must be that these efforts were always too little, too late, and that the dominance of price and market policy was never challenged once the Mansholt Plan of 1968 failed in its objective to reverse the importance of market and structural support. A further conclusion must be that the continued dominance of price support made it inevitable that the inequity of the distribution of the benefits of the policy by farm size, farm type, and region would remain.
Comment
Authors: Neusser Klaus
Published: October 2023

This paper is, and I think sees itself, as part of the research programme laid out by Lucas (1977) in his programmatic article ‘Understanding Business Cycles ‘. The programme underlies the belief that, although each business cycle is unique with respect to length, amplitude, and coherences, the recurrent fluctuations of aggregate variables in capitalist economies are essentially of the same character across time and across countries. This belief makes the business cycle a worthwhile object for economic research. In this respect the paper by Hassler, Lundvik, Soderlind, and Persson provides an excellent account of the Swedish case. The amount and quality of the data and the long time span of 130 years makes this paper extremely useful not only for those economists working in the real-business-cycle tradition but also for economists interested in business cycles in general.
The Financial System and Its Regulations
Authors: Ueda Kazuo
Published: October 2023

It is well known that much of Japan’s financial system and methods of financial administration took shape in the inter-war period or during the Second World War. The aims of this chapter are to review the various existing analyses on this subject, and to offer a number of viewpoints for a better and more consistent understanding of the system as a whole. One central theme of this chapter is an analysis of the mechanism for the provision of long-term capital. A system of long-term capital provision has been built up during the post-war period on a framework of funding from long-term credit banks and government financial institutions, with capital provision made to these institutions from the Trust Fund Bureau and other commercial banks.
Corporate Governance
Authors: Okazaki Tetsuji
Published: October 2023

Since the 1980s remarkable progress has been made in research into Japan’s corporate system, both within Japan and overseas. Developments in theoretical economics have contributed to this. Tools have been developed for handling the basic elements of corporate organizations such as information and incentives, and a recognized framework for the economic analysis of private-sector firms has been created. Firms are seen as ‘coalitional associations of various stakeholders, including management, employees, banks, shareholders and business affiliates’, or as ‘legal entities functioning as a focus of complex, long-term contractual relations between human resources, capital and business affiliates’ (Aoki 1984). The way the different stakeholders in the ‘coalitional association’ participate in the firm’s decision-making and benefit from its proceeds is what forms the firm’s individual features. In recent years increasing interest has been shown in the similarities and differences in corporate governance structure between different countries, and this too may be put down to these developments in the theoretical framework for the study of firms. This approach allows a better understanding of characteristics of Japanese firms that previously were recognized only as cultural peculiarities, and also provides a basis for international comparisons, so I would like to use it in this chapter.
The Evolution of the Civil Service before World War II
Authors: Muramatsu Michio , Pempel T J
Published: October 2023

The bureaucracy was one of the few Japanese institutions that did not undergo massive alterations during the Allied Occupation following World War IL As a consequence, there is far greater continuity between the postwar civil service and its prewar antecedents than is seen among other institutions. Furthermore, the prewar civil service played a major role in the overall economic planning and development of Japan as a modern nation. However, little scholarly work has been done to establish the continuities (and differences) between the prewar and postwar civil services or their specific roles in national economic advancement.
The Japanese Bureaucracy and Economic Development: Are There Lessons for Russia and the Reforming Socialist Economies?
Authors: Thornton Judith
Published: October 2023

If there is a single important lesson for economic development in the Japanese experience, it is that institutions matter. The changes we associate with economic modernization—technological innovation, structural change, accumulation of physical capital, acquisition of new skills—all are undertaken within the framework of a set of institutions that can impede or promote underlying economic processes. Institutions influence the costs and risks of committing resources to production. They determine who makes decisions, with what information, and subject to what incentives.
Government, Population, and Poverty: A Win-Win Tale
Authors: Birdsall Nancy
Published: October 2023

Traditional concern that rapid population growth slows development in poor countries has been reinforced in recent years by a growing awareness of the fragility of the natural environment in poor countries and its apparent vulnerability to the stresses associated with increasing population size, whether in a growing or a stagnating economy. But reinforced concern has not led to any consensus about whether governments should intervene aggressively to reduce population growth rates. At least some careful analysts remain sceptical that rapid population growth in and of itself is a fundamental cause of either slower economic growth or of natural resource problems in developing countries.1 Others, even if confident that rapid population growth is a problem, worry that government intervention will threaten the sanctity of individual and family decision making in the sensitive arena of reproduction, and question whether the future and uncertain benefits of a smaller population would outweigh immediate welfare costs-in terms of human pain and suffering-of strong policies to reduce fertility. Such fundamental questioning is be hind the international opprobrium China has suffered because its birth control policies have brought such human pain.
Changing Gender Roles and Below-Replacement Fertility hi Japan
Authors: Tsuya Noriko O , Mason Karen Oppenheim
Published: October 2023

Like many industrialized countries, Japan has experienced two fertility transitions, the first an initial decline from historically high to replacement levels of childbearing, which occurred shortly after World War II, and the second a more recent decline from replacement to very low levels of fertility (total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.54 in 1990). In this chapter, we are concerned with explaining the second fertility transition. Why, despite the disturbing implications of very low fertility for Japan’s labour needs and problems of population ageing, are couples having so few babies in Japan? Recent demographic analysis has shown that, unlike fertility transitions in many countries in the West, Japan’s second fertility transition is almost entirely the product of nuptiality change and, in particular, of very low proportions of Japanese women marrying in their early to mid-twenties. An explanation of Japan’s second fertility transition must therefore focus on why so few women are marrying during their early adult years. One possibility is that changes in the structure of economic opportunities is leading young Japanese women to reject or postpone their assumption of traditional family roles. Another possibility, proposed by Richard Easterlin (1980), is that young men’s relative economic fortunes are declining, thereby leading them to postpone marriage. Yet another possibility is that the rise of so-called post-materialist values underlies low marriage rates, values that make marriage less attractive to both women and men. Our aim is to explore these explanations for recent declines in marriage to understand better what is driving Japan’s fertility to such low levels.