bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Banking on the Future
Authors: Murphy William
Published: January 2008

The present competitive and technological enrivonment, and future activities, in the retail banking sector are considered. A range of financial services, and the types of organisation, financial and non‐financial institutions, which might provide them, are focused upon, and it is concluded that customer care and services plus technology‐based activities are the most sought‐after requirements.
The Technical Environment of Banks and Its Implications
Authors: Cowan Nick
Published: January 2008

The use of information technology in banks from the earliest use of mainframe computers to the latest developments is summarised. In an environment in which government has encouraged competition, technology enables newcomers in the financial sector to compete with the banks while the banks become more dependent on technology to remain competitive. The effects of technology and competition are inseparable. The effect on employment, organisation and managerial and professional positions is examined and the importance of learning from the experience of manufacturing industries of the interaction between people and machines in a “socio‐technical” system is emphasised.
A Softly Softly Approach to Banking Technology
Authors: Rees Frank
Published: January 2008

Developments in the application of banking technology to retail customer service in Australia are examined. The latest technology must be “married” to customer requirements. Convenience, control and confidence‐in‐use are all important to the customer
Increasing Competition between Banks and Life Assurance Companies: A Clash of Giants or a Non‐Event?
Authors: Ashforth Terence
Published: January 2008

Like many other Western Countries, Australia's post‐war financial system was tightly controlled by government regulation. In a few short years, however, following a government appointed inquiry, most of the regulations have been swept away, making it possible, for example, for life assurance companies to enter the banking industry. At the same time, changes in official regulation of life assurance have made it easier for banks to retaliate by entering the life assurance business. The background to these developments are outlined and some of their effects on both banks and life offices are discussed.
Eight Keys to Improving Customer Loyalty and Retention Through Direct Marketing
Authors: Pottruck David S.
Published: January 2008

It is often more profitable for banks to focus direct marketing efforts on retaining existing customers and cultivating their loyalty than to attempt to attract new customers. A successful marketing programme aimed at customers has eight key components: research, segmentation, communication, consistent brand character, cross‐selling, relationship pricing, tracking and execution. In this article the author describes how these techniques work and offers examples of their successful application by financial institutions. He concludes by noting that a financial institution's existing customer base is one of its most valuable assets. Getting new customers usually involves winning them from a competitor, which requires superior salesmanship and superior products. Consequently, bank marketers are discovering that it often pays big dividends to use the above techniques to build a more profitable relationship with existing customers.
An Empirical Study of Major Segmentation Issues in Retail Banking
Authors: Laroche Michel , Taylor Thomas
Published: January 2008

Some major segmentation issues in retail banking are examined. It is found that primary institutions are associated with frequency of visits and that it is usually a low involvement decision oriented towards convenience. It is also shown that financial services consumption is a product driven decision‐making process, further suggesting that more emphasis be put on product and multi‐institution usage research.
Customer Service in Vilamoura
Authors: Wills Gordon
Published: January 2008

Foreign exchange facilities for tourists in the tourist resort of Vilamoura in Portugal are examined. The structure and all facilities are there but not the service — queue lengths and time taken to process transactions being the main problems.
Tracking Systems in Financial Services: The Integration Role in Marketing Planning
Authors: Martin John
Published: January 2008

The problem of multi‐branch and multi‐functional financial service organisations in obtaining timely and actionable information in a manner that can enhance co‐ordination among operational units and personnel is addressed. Tracking systems are proposed as a vehicle for improving organisational integration through both the process of managing the system and using the information. A tracking system can aid decision and functional levels to learn from each other and co‐ordinate service activities. An approach for developing and maintaining an effective tracking system is summarised, and its contribution to organisational integration discussed.
Advertising by Banks in Hong Kong: A Content Analysis
Authors: Hsu Dan‐lin , Ho Suk‐ching
Published: January 2008

Hong Kong is an international financial centre. The banking industry is thriving and at the same time keenly competitive. Advertising is assuming an important role in the bank's promotional programme. A content analysis of a number of advertisements placed by banks was performed from which it was concluded that banks have done a good job in tangibilising their services.
Customers' Perceptions of Service Quality in Financial Institutions
Authors: LeBlanc Gaston , Nguyen Nha
Published: January 2008

Increasing competition on international markets has led many companies to consider quality as a strategic tool capable of influencing market share and return on investment. Yet a review of the marketing literature reveals a serious lack of explanatory and empirical studies on the concept of quality and its related phenomena as it applies to the service sector. This article presents the results of an exploratory study on service quality in a financial institution setting, using data collected from 1,224 respondents. A set of six factors that explain perceived quality is identified, namely the degree of customer satisfaction, the contact personnel, the internal organisation, the physical environment and instruments, the corporate image, and the personnel/customer interaction during the service encounter.
Marketing Information Systems in the Major UK Banks
Authors: Mitchell James W. , Sparks Leigh
Published: January 2008

In this article the authors present the results of recent research into the much neglected, but increasingly important, area of marketing information systems in banking. Interviews were conducted with most of the major UK banks, the results of which, combined with literature review, give insight into the penetration of marketing information systems in retail banking, and suggest ways forward for banks in their implementation of marketing information systems.
“SOCIAL ECONOMICS: A BRANCH OR NEW ROOTS?”
Authors: Showler Brian
Published: January 2008

The term or title ‘social economics’ is by no means a new one, the American J. M. Clark, for example, used it as the title of a book published in 1936, and indeed there has been Hagenbuch's Cambridge Economics Handbook of that title first published in 1958. There does, however, appear to be an increasing recognition of the need for the development of a new approach to economic and social policy and problems that could, for the want of a better expression be termed socioeconomic in character. The evidence for this suggestion can be gathered from the very rapid growth of economic literature in the last few years dedicated to methodological problems and doubts about the wisdom of current trends, developments and values in the main discipline of economics. This increase of “anti‐economics” literature, of course provides only a negative rationale, but it can be seen to be in itself broadly reflective of certain fundamental changes in the nature of the social and economic parameters in contemporary advanced industrial society. Changes, it will be argued, that require a different and more integrated kind of social science approach to problems and policies than has hitherto been developed.
THE HUMAN CAPITAL APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL DIFFERENTIALS
Authors: Fisher Malcolm R.
Published: January 2008

Contemporary resurgence of interest in human capital has both analytic and empirical origins. Analysis has increasingly emphasised the need to consider both stocks and flows; in principle, every good is a capital good and labour is no exception. Modern theories of consumer behaviour, with their stress on long‐term planning particularise this viewpoint. These same theories have suggested the relevance of income distribution data for the explanation of consumer behaviour, the data have lent support, and together they have suggested that the process is reciprocal. Consumer behaviour and analysis should help in the spelling out of theories capable of explaining evolving patterns in income distributions.
ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE OPTIMAL LEVEL OF POLLUTION
Authors: Pearce D.W.
Published: January 2008

“… economists do not see the problem of pollution as one of eliminating it, but of finding the “optimum” amount of pollution, allowing for the costs, as well as the benefits, of pollution abatement. To most scientists, by contrast, the problems of pollution are purely technical problems—i.e. how does one eliminate it; not how much should one reduce it? To listen to some scientists on the question of water pollution, for example, one gets the firm impression that they regard the proper objective of policy as being to eliminate pollution entirely, and the costs side of the story enters into it only insofar as it means that they have difficulty in achieving this objective”.
GROWTH, EXTERNALITIES AND SATISFACTIONS— A reply to Beckerman
Authors: Lecomber J. Richard C.
Published: January 2008

This paper has the limited purpose of commenting on some issues raised in Beckerman's paper ‘The desirability of economic growth’. Beckerman's paper is inspired by a desire to correct what he conceives to be the ‘exaggerated’ and ‘over simplified’ view of the so‐called anti‐growth school, particularly as presented by Mishan.
SOCIAL ECONOMICS FURTHER CONSIDERED
Authors: Davison R.B.
Published: January 2008

Not everyone will accept the validity of the statement made by G. Routh in the first number of the International Journal of Social Economics that:
On the Interpretation of Labour Market Earnings Dispersion: A Comment
Authors: Addison John T.
Published: January 2008

Competitive labour market theory predicts that within a local labour market there will be a tendency for labour of the same quality to obtain parity of earnings irrespective of the employment location. More strictly, the theory posits the equalisation of net advantages through time for homogeneous labour inputs. No plant may, according to the theory, set wages and other conditions of employment independent of the behaviour of its competitors. Wage levels within the market are, then, subject to the equalising forces of competition. Consequently, any differentials enjoyed by one plant over another for a well defined homogeneous labour input must either be transient or reflect efficiency unit (labour supply) differences. In the absence of labour quality differences, then, wage differentials would be a short run phenomenon to be explained by differences in final product demand and productivity variations against a background of short run inelasticity of labour supply. Such disequilibrating forces should, in the long run, tend to be counterbalanced by actual or potential mobility within the labour market which would restore wage equality.
Social Security Systems and Benefits and Migrants in the EEC
Authors: Fyfe John
Published: January 2008

One area in which differences are to be found between Britain and the other member EEC states is in respect of social security systems and benefits. Such differences may continue to exist as there is an absence of specific Community directions concerning the need for complete harmonisation in this field of social security. Nevertheless, there has been considerable movement towards a redressing of the differences despite the absence of formal requirement.
Equal Pay and Equality of Opportunity
Authors: Robinson Olive , Wallace John
Published: January 2008

Equal pay legislation has been on the statute book since May 1970 in the form of the Equal Pay Act, due to be fully effective at the end of 1975. In an earlier article the authors discussed problems to be expected in implementing the Equal Pay Act with particular reference to retail distribution. The present article first examines progress toward equal pay on the basis of recent statistics covering basic wage rates and earnings in a wide range of industries and occupations in Britain. Secondly it considers implications of further proposals to raise the status of women through measures intended “to make it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sex … in a wide range of activities and situations”, including employment. Finally, in the light of procedures and machinery designed for the enforcement of anti‐discrimination laws, it questions whether the two objectives of equal pay and equal opportunity for women are entirely consistent.
The Wage‐Income Ratio in France, 1949–1973
Authors: Benhayoun Gilbert
Published: January 2008

A recent analysis of wages has shown that within the productive structure of the French economy a two‐fold process of factor substitution is under way, namely the substition of capital for labour and of non‐manual for manual workers. By the logic of neo‐classical distribution theory, the relative price of manual labour should be increasing as its marginal productivity rises. But computations which we have carried out for the French economy between 1949 and 1973 yield the opposite result: the relative price of labour has fallen steadily over the period. The aim of this article is to attempt to explain how much of this decreasing trend is attributable to changes in the structure of the active population and how much is due to changes in the structure of the prices of labour. For this purpose, and following the work of Phelps Brown and Sheila Hopkins, we have calculated an index reflecting the relationship between the index of manual workers' wage rates and the index of national income per head of the occupied population. This relationship represents what is usually referred to as the “wage‐income ratio”. (WIR), with the difference that, in this case, it is limited to wage rates in the private sector. Changes in the index of the WIR can be regarded as reflecting changes in the relative index of a unit of labour if it is accepted that the index of income per head of the occupied population itself can be interpreted as an index of the price of productive factors. This hypothesis is accepted by Phelps Brown and S. Hopkins: “the wage‐income ratio gives us the rate of exchange of a unit of wage‐earners' work, not against quantities of produce but against quantities of other factors”.
Social Economics: An Innovative Practical Approach
Authors: Bendavid‐Val Avrom
Published: January 2008

We are in a difficult situation. We confront rampant and perhaps calamitous pollution and other forms of environmental disruption; dwindling resources; a hardship inflation coupled with persistently high unemployment; distrust of public and private institutions; and crime, poverty, malnutrition, anxiety, discontent, alienation, and despair in an unprecedented convergence. The old solutions do not work very well, and no one, including the experts, appears to know what to do about it. There is the distinct feeling that nothing quite like this has ever happened before, seemingly ushered in by relative peace and absolute prosperity, and that the forces at work under these conditions are not well enough understood to enable us to manage them.
Measuring Unemployment and Vacancies
Authors: Holden K. , Peel D.A.
Published: January 2008

Peston points out that the conventional measure of unemployment (the number of persons unemployed) is inadequate as a measure of the social and economic costs of unemployment. He outlines a new approach which consists of weighting the number of unemployed in, say, each occupation, by a relative wage rate. This paper takes up Peston's suggestion and extends it to other measures of the labour market. Attempts are then made to obtain numerical estimates of these measures and compare them with the more conventional measures.
Urban Deprived Youth and Labour Force in Peru and Developing Countries
Authors: Walter John P. , Leahy William H.
Published: January 2008

One of the most significant lessons of the development effort in the last decade is the discovery that social progress and rising levels of employment do not automatically emerge from economic progress. While growth in gross national product, increases in exports and investments and rising industrial output have occurred they have little meaning for the millions who continue to live at or near starvation in the developing countries of Latin America.
Institutional versus On‐The‐Job Training: Some Canadian Evidence
Authors: Newton Keith
Published: January 2008

The heavy commitment by many countries to training programmes as an integral component of manpower policies has prompted a considerable amount of research into these activities. In particular, the experience of Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States has furnished valuable information concerning the design, implementation, and performance of national training schemes. However, relatively little published evidence has emerged on the Canadian experience, despite the fact that Canada's training effort is large by international standards. The present article utilises Canadian data to address the question of the appropriate method of training. The analysis focuses upon the relative efficacy of two major types of federal government sponsored training carried out under the Canada Manpower Training Program: institutional (or “classroom”) training and on—the—job training (OJT).
Economic Analysis and Productive Efficiency in the Personal Social Services: The Differential Use of Manpower
Authors: Judge Ken
Published: January 2008

Efficiency has not been the most familiar concept in the vocabulary of the personal social services in recent years. Some of the more obvious reasons for this having been the post‐Seebohm emphasis on expansion; the lack of clarity about service outputs and objectives; and the relative failure of the economics profession, with only a few exceptions, to concern itself with developments in this area in contrast with, say, the National Health Service. However, now that the post‐oil crisis economic recession has reduced prospects for growth in the personal and other social and public services almost to zero, in the short to medium term, the efficient use of resources assumes greater importance. This is in complete contrast to recent experience when, during the years of rapid expansion, efficiency was, inevitably, a poor second to the objective of maximising inputs. That is not to suggest that resources were deliberately wasted, but the development of new services in a growing number of areas, often on an ad hoc basis, meant that some inefficiency was unavoidable. Now the economic climate has changed and it is vital that the recession is used as a period of consolidation. Existing practices need to be rigorously examined in the search for more cost‐effective methods of achieving objectives. If this can be done at all successfully it will provide managers in the social services with much greater flexibility to meet the increasing pressures of future demands and conflicting priorities, and might even prevent that blunt instrument, the pro rata cut, being over employed. Of course, even the most efficient authority may not be able to avoid some cuts in service provision, but these will be most easily kept to a minimum by identifying areas where genuine savings can be made.
NOTE: The Costs and Benefits of Growth
Authors: Parish D.J.
Published: January 2008

Pearce, in a previous article criticises Beckerman's work on the extension of externalities theory into the field of economic growth. The object of this note is neither to defend Beckerman's paper, nor to dispute Pearce's contention that there are situations in which the benefits of growth are outweighed by the costs. Rather, it is to dispute the notion that: “The error (of Beckerman's analysis) lies in the use of a partial analysis…” An effort is made to resuscitate partialism in a manner which is sufficiently flexible to take account of Pearce's criticisms.
The Demand for Higher Education in Taiwan: A Case Study 1950–1969
Authors: Kondonassis A.J. , Tseng S.C.
Published: January 2008

Introduction Since 1949, when the Chinese Communists took over the mainland China and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan, many changes have taken place in almost every respect on the island. Among the changes, the development of higher education has been one of the most noticeable. In 1945, when the island was first restored to the Nationalist Chinese from the Japanese, there were only four institutions of higher learning. All were publicly supported. Private colleges and universities had not been established prior to 1945 due to the suppressive colonial policy of the Japanese in Taiwan. In addition, students of native origin, with very few exceptions, were barred from entering law school or pursuing the social sciences. As a consequence, most of the students went into areas such as agriculture, engineering and medicine.
Social Quality of Life Indicators for Small Metropolitan Areas in America
Authors: Liu Ben‐chieh
Published: January 2008

The American society is undoubtedly in a great transition period towards a post‐industrial state. While wholeheartedly celebrating the bi‐centennial birthday, uncertainty and confusion still pervade the United States, and a discontent with the quality of life seems to have been growing concomitantly with the technological know how and material wealth among people in America. These phenomena have developed as a result of conflicting values: “operative values” in the industrial state and the “declared values” important in the founding of the nation. While the former is characterised by the indefinite economic persuasion, the latter is highlighted by concerns with equality, justice and freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
Depression Unemployment Union Wage Rigidity and Employment Subsidies
Authors: Burton John
Published: January 2008

As the contemporary recession has unfolded in the United Kingdom, increasing reliance has been placed by the government on measures of employment subsidisation to contain the accompanying rise in unemployment. Employment subsidy programmes of varying natures have also been introduced in a large number of other Western countries, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Finland, Sweden and Ireland.
Institutional Skill Training among American Manpower Programmes: Lessons from the Experiences
Authors: Magnum Garth , Walsh John
Published: January 2008

Institutional skill training—training in institutions organised for that purpose rather than on‐the‐job—was the first of the manpower programmes of the 1960s to be mandated by Congress and applied on a nationwide basis. Its overall goal has been to improve the skills, employability and income of the unemployed and under‐employed through the provision of vocational and related instruction in a formal classroom or laboratory setting. A corollary purpose of the programme has been to meet the needs of employers for workers in demand and/or “skills shortage” occupations. It differs from traditional vocational education in that its objective is to train workers for immediate employment in occupations which are currently in demand. Traditional vocational education, on the other hand, has a much broader objective: to prepare the student for a lifetime of work in a dynamic labour market. Institutional skill training, as it evolved in the sixties, is short‐term and intensive; traditional vocational education is longer in length and adapted to the less immediate needs of secondary and post‐secondary level students.
Cost‐Benefit Analysis and the Location of Government Training Centres
Authors: Hughes James J.
Published: January 2008

In recent years Adrian Ziderman has applied the tools of cost‐benefit analysis to the evaluation of government training and his latest paper analyses the regional location of Government Training Centres (GTCs). Although he is kind enough to suggest that his paper was stimulated by an earlier paper of my own, he has nevertheless been severe in his criticism of me. He claims that I eschew the cost‐benefit approach because I find it wanting. Furthermore, he argues that the alternative criteria that I suggest for evaluating the regional location of GTC capacity are seriously deficient and give rise to policy recommendations which must be “treated with caution”. Here I attempt to meet Ziderman's criticisms of my earlier paper and in passing I comment very briefly upon the paper by Nicholas Adnett which is also critical of the main policy implications of my analysis.
Research into Attitudes to Inflation and Incomes Policy
Authors: Behrend Hilde
Published: January 2008

This paper presents a brief review of research evidence dealing with the individual's perceptions of inflation and incomes policy which was collected by means of national sample surveys and which may be of interest to social economists. The implications of the findings for discussions of inflation and incomes policies are also examined. The evidence has been fully documented elsewhere. The research explored some of the social/psychological factors involved in attitudes to inflation which might account for their apparently intractable nature. This territory in the no‐man's area between economics and psychology seemed to have been neglected because the study of inflation was looked upon as primarily the domain of economists while the study of attitudes, learning and thought processes was considered to be that of psychologists.
Is Quiet a Luxury Good?
Authors: Harris Anthony H.
Published: January 2008

The purpose of this article is to examine the proposition that the benefits from environmental improvements accrue disproportionately to the rich.
The Economics of the Welfare State in Britain
Authors: Gabor André
Published: January 2008

Britain provides an impressive array of completely or partly subsidised services, certain selections of which are often referred to under the name of the Welfare State. Whether this identification is correct or not is a question which I propose to discuss a little later; for a start let us look at the more material side of what government publications describe as the Social Services.
Neo‐Marxian Social Accounting
Authors: Gabor André
Published: January 2008

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a recent Russian publication which appears to be of interest both to students of Marxian theory and to observers of economic development in the USSR.
An Essay on the Mathematical Theory of Freedom
Authors: Dennis  , Gabor André
Published: January 2008

That part of human behaviour which is not rigidly determined by external constraints can be considered as a sequence of more or less free choices. One can talk of a choice only if it is one of several alternatives, and of a free choice only in so far as it is not determined by conditions over which the individuals have no control. Moreover, we recognise an alternative only if it is actually elected by at least a fraction of a population. This leads to the concept of statistical freedom. Postulates are formulated which must be satisfied by any numerical measures of statistical freedom, and certain mathematical expressions are proposed which are shown to conform to these postulates. Statistical freedom has two fundamental features, which appear as factors in its numerical measure: diversity and independence. The measures of diversity and independence are derived in the first place front a certain model of society, but once they are obtained, the model is discarded, and the statistical coefficients are justified by their mathematical properties. Safeguards against arbitrary manipulation of statistical material are discussed, and the potential use of the new measures is illustrated by application to the problem of choice of profession.
Technology and Employment: The Prospects to 1990
Authors: Thornton Peter , Wheelock Verner
Published: January 2008

There is no doubt that the application of microelectronic devices in processes and products can result in significant increases in labour productivity. There is considerably less agreement, however, on the implications of this for future employment prospects. The predictions which have been made concerning the impact of the microprocessor and its related technology on the economy and employment cover the entire range, from economic expansion and job creation at one extreme, to recession and large‐scale persistent unemployment at the other. A large number of these forecasts, however, are based on a limited analysis of the technological, economic, demographic and social factors involved and exhibit a general lack of awareness of certain basic historical trends in the labour market.
The Structure of Labour Markets, Minority Workers and Equal Employment Opportunity Legislation
Authors: Jain H.C. , Sloane P.J.
Published: January 2008

A central issue of public policy in relation to employment behaviour, particularly in the United States and Britain since the 1960s, has been the question of how to deal with discrimination against minority groups. The latter may be taken to include women, coloured employees, immigrants, foreign workers, the young and the elderly, but in this paper we concentrate on race and sex discrimination which have tended to receive most attention from both academics and policy‐makers. Further, attention is focused on the USA and Britain, partly because there is more evidence on the workings of equal opportunity legislation in the USA than in any other country, and partly for the reason that developments in Britain appear to mirror those in the USA. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the precise extent of discrimination at the macro‐level, on account of variations in personal characteristics and establishment variables, detailed analysis of the operation of local labour markets and individual enterprises and establishments then becomes crucial. Here a feature of recent empirical work has been the emphasis placed on the internal labour market (ILM) and the related concept of the dual labour market (DLM). This is, in fact, highly relevant to equal opportunity legislation not only because it is at the level of the individual organisation or unit of employment that the laws are to be applied but also because, as will be outlined below, the legislation appears to have certain features which are consistent with a dualist interpretation of the operation of the labour market and the emphasis on equality of training and promotion opportunities is most appropriate and significant in the context of a well‐developed internal labour market.
The Need for Anti‐Discrimination Policies in the Labour Market
Authors: Pettman Barrie O.
Published: January 2008

It will be argued here that the need for anti‐discrimination policies in the labour market — while patently obvious to the present audience — can also be reinforced via an analytical approach, which we have elsewhere described as a “socio‐economic systems” approach. Briefly, such an approach leads to the conclusion that in most areas of social economics (including discrimination) we should be concerned with the study of the structure and processes of the dynamic field of societal relations within a complex and interdependent environment of many systems (social, economic, legal, political, historical, psychological, technological and natural). Consequently, we need to study these environmental systems, the elements of the structure, the process of adaptation of these structural elements to their environment, the accommodation and conflict generated by these processes, the societal relations stemming from these reactions and the feedback mechanisms whereby the open and dynamic system constantly adjusts (Figure 1).
On the History of Social Economics: the British Contribution
Authors: Lutz M.A.
Published: January 2008

Social economics[l] is a small but growing school of thought in the United States. At first sight it appears as if “social economists” are a rather heterogeneous group defying satisfactory description. Yet we believe that there is a unity of focus: a deep concern with human needs rather than just a description of human preferences being co‐ordinated. We define “needs” as “necessary” wants and immediately the question imposes itself: necessary for what? Our answer is human life with its higher or lower qualities. Social economics seeks not only to enable and maintain life, but also to “enlarge” it and fulfil it. As a direct result values are hierarchical, from the lower (survival) values to the highest (ethical, aesthetic) values. Such is implicit in the generally acknowledged human‐values‐orientation of the field, since values can be seen as need satisfiers.
Economic Synthesis
Authors: Ischboldin Boris , Sharp John A.
Published: January 2008

The New Economic Society was formed in 1973 to promote the aims of the School of Economic Synthesis. Economic synthesis, since its early formation in the 1930s, has sought to integrate historical economics with social and neo‐classical economics. As the academic movement toward economic synthesis broadened, a more formal organisation became necessary. The New Economic Society (International School of Economic Synthesis) is an interdisciplinary association open to economists and others who are interested in developing a more social and humanistic economics, and a more realistic and scientific understanding of modern developed and less developed societies. The membership includes persons from numerous academic disciplines in many countries; formal chapters of the Society exist in the United Kingdom, Germany, India and Israel. At present, the membership is developing on an informal basis and no dues are requested. Membership information may be obtained from the following persons.
Social Indicators: Meaning, Methods & Applications
Authors: Horn R.V.
Published: January 2008

The term “social indicator” has become familiar in recent years in reference to the quantitative measurement of social phenomena. International organisations within the United Nations family and OECD have devoted special programmes to their development, and the term is frequently used by planners, politicians and the press. It has received the accolade of scientific respectability by having a special journal to its name, research programmes of the US National Science Foundation and the United Nations University, annual volumes under its title published by statistical offices of many countries and bibliographies devoted to the literature on the subject.
The Economist's Quandary: Ethical Values
Authors: Conway O'Brien John
Published: January 2008

The purpose of this article is to suggest a solution to the quandary from which the economist appears unable or unwilling to extricate himself. The quandary is his own production. On the one hand, the economist is jealous of his position as scientist, a disinterested pursuer of the truth, and on the other hand, he has an irresistible urge to use his knowledge as an economist for the purpose of relieving society, and, indeed, civilisation of its social ills. To suggest how social ills may be cured is to define goals to be reached. To choose goals is to make value judgements. There is no quandary where the economist as economist simply makes value judgments and still adopts the posture of the scientist. Such dualism, however, incurs the displeasure of those of a critical turn of mind. It actually brings forth censure and suggestions that value judgments should be openly made.
The Artist's Perception of the Typical Businessman: Selfish, Greedy, Conniving and Thoroughly Amoral
Authors: O'Neil R.F.
Published: January 2008

The attack on the institution of business is acelerating at a more furious pace. In this post‐Watergate era the momentum of the assault is being fuelled by the almost daily revelations of corporate misdeeds. America's growing anti‐business mood may culminate in more government controls being imposed on the economy and possibly the nationalisation of some industries. Clearly, the implications for the social, political, and economic system are most serious. The problem is compounded by the artist, especially the writers of fiction. Both current novelists and those of previous eras have presented a consistently negative image of the typical businessman. Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol paint portraits of very ugly businessmen. Indeed, that same portrait is replicated by virtually every artist to the present day.
Economic Synthesis: A Review of the Work of Boris Ischboldin
Authors: Sharp John A.
Published: January 2008

The aim of “economic synthesis” is to develop the economic science by integrating (a) institutional and “pure” theory and (b) genetic economic history and economic theory.
On Being Responsibly out of One's Sociological Depth
Authors: Kelley James R.
Published: January 2008

My discussion has assumptions and a tone which I should delineate at the outset. My first assumption is that all education is at least indirectly moral education and that while moral development should not be the explicit focus of our teaching, it is certainly a byproduct of what and how we teach. My second assumption is that the conceptual structures and methodologies of the social sciences embody a “value slant” and they do this inevitably. Broady (1974, p. 62) makes good sense when he suggests that the sociologist does best not by striving to be neutral but to be fair and impartial. This involves a difficult and ever maturing “detachment‐in‐commitment” which I think is an appropriate meaning for what Max Weber called the vocation of the social scientist. My third assumption is that the student expectation that the social sciences critically illuminate their world is legitimate. Sociological concepts devoid of historical specificity are also devoid of significant meaning, for they then become, at best, purely formal, and, at worst, pretentious abstractions. The question “Knowledge for what?” is not anti‐intellectual but rooted in the deepest and most responsible respect for truth. Even the academic search for truth does not entail a privileged indifference to the human process as a whole (Williams, 1977, p. 156).
Structural Changes in United States Foreign Trade in the 1970s
Authors: Kitching Beverly
Published: January 2008

Some United States businessmen in the 1970s were advising that generous loans continue to be made to the Soviet Union so that the Russians could buy the products of American firms. The loans are made by the United States Department of Agriculture and the American Export‐Import Bank. These official agencies are, of course, funded by the United States government and ultimately by the American taxpayers. The argument of the businessmen is that if the United States does not make these loans, other countries—notably the United Kingdom, France and Japan—who have had considerable experience in dealing with the Soviet Union, will advance the credits and take away business from America.
The Federal Reserve System Furnished the Money for World War II
Authors: Kitching Beverly
Published: January 2008

Columnist Eliot Janeway recently wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the federal government always needs money. “But large or small, these money needs can be met only by some combination of taxing or borrowing.” There is a third auxiliary way of making sure that enough money is available for both business and government, that involves neither taxing nor borrowing. This method was used to help win World War II.
A Yearning for Synthesis: Organic Thought since 1945
Authors: Haag John
Published: January 2008

Few thoughtful men or women will deny, as we enter the last two decades of the twentieth century, that ours is truly an Age of Anxiety. Even in an America still uniquely stable and prosperous relative to much of the rest of the world, the general mood is no longer an optimistic one. For many of us the future appears clouded at best, perhaps laden with catastrophes. Clearly all of us are witnesses to, and in some cases participants in, a great turning point in human affairs. We thus find ourselves living in the end of one epoch while at the same time the rough outlines of a new civilisation come into view. Such momentous transformations of the social structure, economy and political landscape are invariably accompanied by, and often preceded by, major shifts of intellectual commitment. In other words, as our world has changed drastically in the twentieth century, basic patterns of thought and philosophical orientation have either reflected, or in some cases even helped to initiate, these changes. In the brief space allotted to us, we will attempt to present a sketch of the most important of these shifts in thought, always keeping in mind that because of the fact that we find ourselvesin media res, these observations can be little more than fragmentary perceptions of a reality that has itself not yet been finalised.
Kriterien einer soziologischen Führertypologie
Authors: Stemmler Johannes
Published: January 2008

Die Vielzahl der von Sozialpsychologen und Soziologen unternommenen Führertypologien läßt sich deutlich auf zwei Grundauffassungen zurückführen. Die eine Richtung forscht nach gemeinsamen, allen Führern eigenen Merkmalen und ist der Auffassung, daß Führertum angeboren ist und nicht erlernt werden kann. Die Vertreter dieser Theorie Kommen meist von der Sozialpsychologie. Sie betrachten das Führertum als im Führer selbst begründet und versuchen, die für den Führer charakteristischen Grundzüge (traits) herauszustellen. Die von der “Trait”—Theorie als typisch bezeichneten Eigenschaften sind aber so zahlreich, daß eine Untersuchung von Charles Bird, die sich über zwanzig solcher Analysen erstreckte, nicht weniger als 79 derartiger “Führerqualitaten” feststellen konnte.
Industrial Training in Canada: An International Perspective
Authors: Weiermair Klaus
Published: January 2008

In the following description and comparison of the nature, role, content and economic importance of industrial‐type training across a number of industrialised countries, an attempt is made to relate empirical material on industrial training available from a number of international and national organisations to a unifying theoretical framework. The latter is not only justified as an analytical prerequisite for international comparisons but should provide us also with a more proper perspective in evaluating our own present situation of industrial training in Canada. The article will, therefore, proceed as follows: the next section develops a theoretical framework for the analysis and inter‐country comparison of industrial training, then we provide an overview of the nature and extent of industrial training in a number of industrialised countries and finally we discuss relevant implications for training policies in Canada.
Malthusian Paradigm and the Issue of Compulsion in Family Planning
Authors: Pethe Vasant P.
Published: January 2008

Use of the Malthusian Paradigm for Justification of Compulsory Family Planning One of the most important issues in the contemporary debate concerning population policy has been the question of compulsion in family planning (or more specifically, compulsory sterilisation) for the quantitative control of population. The present‐day demographic scene in the Third World is characterised as one of “population explosion”. It is argued that despite the spread of family planning and the recent trends towards decline in fertility among two‐thirds of the populations of the developing countries, the burden of the population problem in terms of the requirements on the eve of the 21st century is not going to be light, considering the limited and fast depleting resources of this slender globe. Hence, pressures have been mounting from various quarters towards more and more stringent measures converging on coercion to control the family size and population growth in the low‐income countries. For example, during the Emergency in India (1975–77), it was felt by the then Government (under the prime ministership of Mrs Indira Gandhi), the ruling Congress Party and some groups and individuals that the time had come to put the population problems of the country on a war footing and adopt drastic measures such as compulsory sterilisation to meet the hydra‐headed scourge of over‐population. In fact, the Government of Maharashtra, a state within the Union of India, went a step further and pioneered for the first time in history a bill on the compulsory sterilisation of eligible persons, for introduction in the State Legislative Assembly which passed a revised version of this bill (1976). To support and justify compulsion in family planning, various arguments — scientific and pseudo‐scientific — are usually made. At the head of all the arguments is most distinctly the Malthusian — or rather the neo‐Malthusian — argument. The novelty of the Malthusian argument made is that it is advanced this time to present a justification, not for the mere control of population by some voluntary means, but for a strict regulation of the size of each family in society through the instrumentality of physical force having the sanction of the law of the land and having penal provisions for the defaulters. It is the major concern of this essay to examine whether and how far the Malthusian paradigm is relevant, adequate and correct, vis‐à‐vis the issue of compulsion in family planning. What exactly is the basis of the neo‐Malthusian position on compulsion? Would Malthus, if he were amongst us, have supported compulsory family planning for the reasons which generally go under the caption of Malthusianism? Is the issue of compulsion in family planning so narrow as to be capable of being fully tackled by the Malthusian paradigm? These are some of the important questions which are sought to be explored in the short space available for this article.
Toward a Third Revolution in Economic Thinking:
Authors: Rugina Anghel N.
Published: January 2008

Pantaleoni used to say that there are two categories of economists—those who can, in the sense of being able to produce original work, and those who cannot. A more meaningful and more useful distinction can be made between those who reason about the given problems in terms of stable equilibrium (most of them classicists) and those who do their thinking in terms of unstable equilibrium (actually stable disequilibrium) and sheer disequilibrium (most of them modern and contemporary scientists).
Forecasting Cigarette Consumption: The Causal Model Approach
Authors: Witt Stephen F. , Pass Christopher L.
Published: January 2008

The “causal model” approach to business forecasting attempts to discover, mainly on the basis of economic knowledge, those variables which appear to have influenced the forecast variable in the past, and then estimates by econometric methods the quantitative relationship between the causal and forecast variables. Future values of the forecast variable are then obtained by using forecasts of the causal variables in conjunction with the estimated relationship.
What is the Alternative for the East? Neither Orthodox Marxism nor Capitalism but “Literal Socialism”
Authors: Rugina Anghel N.
Published: January 2008

Whenever capitalism in the West appears to be dragging with unresolved problems, then quite a few people, including professional economists, begin to think that perhaps socialism is a better alternative. Conversely, in the East even a larger number of people, including economists (who are not activists), seriously believe that in view of their shortages and meagre incomes capitalism would be a better alternative.