bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Paradox of Narrowing Wage Differentials and Widening Wage Inequality in Mexico
Authors: González Diana Alarcón , McKinley Terry
Published: March 2003

This article examines the parallel phenomena of narrowing wage differentials among major groups of workers and widening wage inequality in general in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s. In trying to understand this paradox, it finds that a human‐capital model cannot explain wage determination in the 1990s. Although employees with higher skills and education have enjoyed increasingly higher relative returns to their human capital, much of the variance in wages is not attributable to differences in human capital or rates of return. Discriminatory wage policies have combined with policies of trade liberalization to markedly widen the wage gap between lower‐paid and higher‐paid workers.
Congo's Odious Debt: External Borrowing and Capital Flight in Zaire
Authors: Ndikumana Leonce , Boyce James
Published: March 2003

During the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo (or Zaire, as Mobutu renamed the country) accumulated a public external debt of roughly $14 billion. At the same time, Mobutu and his associates extracted wealth from the country. By 1990, real capital flight from Zaire amounted to $12 billion. With imputed interest earnings, the accumulated stock of Zairian flight capital was nearly $18 billion. Congo's successor governments may be able to repudiate liability for the Mobutu regime's debts on the basis of the doctrine of odious debt. Creditors could then seek to recover their losses by identifying and impounding flight capital which was extracted from the country.
Some Aspects of State–NGO Relationships in India in the Post‐Independence Era
Authors: Sen Siddhartha
Published: March 2003

This article discusses some aspects of state–NGO relationships in India at the central and local levels from 1947 onwards. It draws its analytical framework from studies which incorporate organizational complexities and characteristics, political, social, and economic realities, associational cultures of individual countries, and human agency in analysing state–NGO relationships. It examines the applicability to India of some propositions on state–NGO relationships which are found in the literature. The author argues that there are observable differences in state–NGO relationships in various localities; these are illustrated through a set of case studies of local state–NGO interactions in the context of housing and land policies for the urban poor. Despite these differences, however, the author argues that the relationship at the local level can be generally characterized by the hostility of politicians, party workers, local élites, lower level bureaucrats, and lower level employees of the state toward NGO activity.
Technological Maturity and Development without Research: The Challenge for Malaysian Manufacturing
Authors: Narayanan Suresh , Wah Lai Yew
Published: March 2003

Propelled largely by direct investment via multinationals, Malaysia’s manufacturing sector has grown rapidly and is changing its output‐mix. In 1992, the share of high‐tech products in Malaysian manufacturing exceeded that of Japan, Korea or Taiwan. However, this ‘maturity’ was acquired without a strong research base. This article provides a framework which looks at the role of research and development (R&D) in conferring technological maturity and assesses the progress Malaysian manufacturing has made in this regard. The authors find that while multinationals have transferred many aspects of production, they have been slow in transferring R&D expertise. Neither has indigenous innovation filled this gap. Consequently, the long‐term sustainability of the industrial transformation process in Malaysia is in jeopardy. The article concludes with suggestions for corrective policies.
Anecdotes, Situations, Histories — Varieties and Uses of Cases in Thinking about Ethics and Development Practice
Authors: Gasper Des
Published: March 2003

Referring to a wide variety of case studies, anecdotes and abstracted choice situations, this article considers the range and roles of different types of cases presented in trying to understand tensions, conflicts and choices in development. Since various purposes are legitimate and complementary (including sensitization, theorization, and informing decision‐making) so too are various styles and uses of cases: some real and some hypothetical, some thick (including a lot) and some thin (omitting a lot). While thick description can provide instructive and even inspiring exemplars, it is not invariably helpful in moral argument. The article synthesizes these ideas into a picture of distinct stages in work in ethics and practical reasoning.
‘The Problem with the Locals’: Partnership and Participation in Ethiopia
Authors: Harrison Elizabeth
Published: March 2003

This article examines the proliferation of development discourses about participation and partnership, focusing on natural resources management policy in Ethiopia. It argues that relationships between the state and donors and between donors themselves are contested and negotiated. The generation of policy is a value–laden process. However, because these institutions are not monolithic, the agency and positioning of those individuals charged with implementing participatory policy influence both practice and interpretation. This may go some way towards explaining the frequent gaps between policy and practice.
Hong Kong: From Worker to Manager
Authors: Harris Nigel
Published: March 2003

Review article on:

Made by Hong Kong. Edited by Suzanne Berger and Richard K. Lester

The Hong Kong Advantage. By Michael T. enright, Edit E. Scott and David Dodwell
Resolving Bank Failures in Uganda: Policy Lessons from Recent Bank Failures
Authors: Brownbridge Martin
Published: March 2003

In 1998/99 four insolvent commercial banks were intervened and closed by the central bank in Uganda. One bank was closed promptly while the other three were all subject to some form of attempted open bank resolution before eventual closure. This article examines the lessons from this experience and concludes that, in general, prompt closure is preferable to open resolution. This is because the losses incurred by distressed banks are likely to be much greater than the estimates made by regulators or auditors prior to closure, while the prospects for recapitalisation by private sector shareholders are likely to be very limited at best. Open resolution entails serious dangers of moral hazard, which increase the eventual cost to depositors and taxpayers.
Marketing Reform? The Rise and Fall of Agricultural Liberalisation in Tanzania
Authors: Cooksey Brian
Published: March 2003

This article argues that the liberalisation of Tanzanian export agriculture from the early 1990s to the present has failed to take place to the extent claimed by the Tanzanian government and donor agencies. While internal food markets have largely been liberalised, donor–inspired attempts to liberalise export crop markets have been seriously undermined by the political–bureaucratic class. As in other countries undergoing adjustment under World Bank/IMF programmes, a combination of local vested interests and concerns with the ‘rigged rules and double standards’ of global commodity markets has led to a systematic but under–reported backlash against liberalisation. Tanzania's current status as a star HIPC/PRSP performer is belied by a growing rejection, whether principled or opportunistic, of the liberalisation project.
A nonhuman primate's expectations about object motion and destination: The importance of self‐propelled movement and animacy
Authors: Hauser Marc D.
Published: March 2003

Human infants have considerable understanding of why objects move and what causes them to take one trajectory over another. Here, we explore the possibility that this capacity is shared with other nonhumans and present results from preferential looking time tests with a New World monkey, the cotton‐top tamarin. Experiments examined whether individuals form different expectations about an object's potential capacity to change locations. Test objects were: 1) self‐propelled, moving, animate; 2) self‐propelled, moving, inanimate; 3) non‐self‐propelled, moving due to an external agent, inanimate; 4) non‐self‐propelled, motionless, inanimate. When category 1 objects, either a live mouse or frog, emerged from behind an occluder in a novel location, this did not affect looking time; subjects appeared to expect such changes. In contrast, when the other objects emerged in a novel location following occlusion from view, subjects looked longer than when the object emerged in the location seen prior to occlusion; such locational changes were apparently not expected. Some feature other than self‐propelled motion accounts for the tamarins’ looking time responses and at least one candidate feature is whether the object is animate or inanimate.
Computational evidence for the foundations of numerical competence
Authors: Simon Tony J.
Published: March 2003

INFANT is a computational model of Simon's (1997) ‘non‐numerical’ account of the foundations of numerical competence. It operationalizes the memory, individuation, object permanence and spatiotemporal representation competencies of that account into a simulation of the Simon, Hespos & Rochat (1995) study. Results demonstrate that infants’ responses can indeed be reproduced without numerical representations.
That’s the way the ball bounces: infants’ and adults’ perception of spatial and temporal contiguity in collisions involving bouncing balls
Authors: Oakes Lisa M. , Kannass Kathleen N.
Published: March 2003

Three experiments investigated the perception of collisions involving bouncing balls by 7‐ and 10‐month‐old infants and adults. In previous research, 10‐month‐old infants perceived the causality of launching collisions (events in which one object moves along a smooth horizontal trajectory toward a second object, apparently launching it into motion) in relatively simple event contexts. In more complex event contexts, infants failed to discriminate among the events or respond to changes in individual features. Experiments 1 and 2 of the present investigation revealed that 7‐ and 10‐month‐old infants attended to spatial and temporal contiguity, but not causality, in collisions involving the movement of bouncing balls. In Experiment 3, both spatiotemporal contiguity and general knowledge about movement trajectories influenced adults’ judgments of causality for these collisions. The present results add to a growing understanding of infants’ event perception as constructive and a function, in part, of the complexity of the event context.
Two‐year‐olds’ naîve predictions for horizontal trajectories
Authors: Hood Bruce M. , Santos Laurie , Fieselman Susan
Published: March 2003

Hood recently reported that preschool children overgeneralized the prediction that falling objects travel in a straight line in spite of extensive counter‐evidence that the object had been deviated to a non‐aligned box by a tube. This behaviour was interpreted as a naı^ve theory of gravity resulting from an overgeneralization derived from experience of falling objects. The current study set out to test whether there was also a significant tendency for 2‐year‐olds to predict that objects travel in a straight line in the horizontal plane. This was achieved by comparing search for an invisibly displaced object moving either vertically or horizontally. The findings confirmed a gravity bias for falling events but did not reveal a similar tendency in the horizontal condition. In the horizontal task, children were as likely to search at an incorrect non‐aligned box as an aligned incorrect box. This supports the interpretation of a naı^ve gravity bias present from at least 2 years of age.
Face preference at birth: the role of an orienting mechanism
Authors: Macchi Cassia Viola , Simion Francesca , Umiltaà Carlo
Published: March 2003

It has been proposed that newborns’ preferential orienting to faces is solely controlled by a subcortically mediated orienting mechanism (i.e. Conspec). In contrast, preferential‐looking tasks show that face preference at birth manifests itself also with measures that index fixation duration. It is possible, however, that orienting and fixation duration are confounded and only orienting matters. The present study used a revised version of the preferential‐looking technique, in which the same stimulus (i.e. a facelike or a non‐facelike pattern) was simultaneously presented to both sides of the visual field. Results showed that longer total fixation times on the facelike stimuli resulted from the sum of a greater number of brief fixations, rather than from the sum of a small number of long fixations. These findings support the hypothesis that, for facelike patterns, the duration of infant’s fixation on the stimulus is determined by the nature of the pattern that impinges on the periphery of the visual field, more than by the nature of the pattern that is being looked at.
Social and object support for early symbolic play
Authors: Striano Tricia , Tomasello Michael , Rochat Philippe
Published: March 2003

In this study we sought to determine the degree to which 2‐ to 3‐year‐old children use objects symbolically in the relative absence of adult symbolic actions or linguistic descriptions, and how the nature of objects influences symbolic play. Results revealed a dramatic increase in children’s creative symbolic productions between 2 and 3 years of age, with the tendency to produce symbolic actions influenced to an equal degree by adult symbolic action models and verbal directions. Children of all ages were heavily influenced by the nature of the object to be used as a symbol, with the youngest children using only replica objects as symbols. In a second study, we examined children’s looks to an adult as they engaged in different kinds of activities with objects. The main finding was that children looked to the adult immediately after performing a symbolic action more often than if they performed an instrumental action. We argue for the essentially social nature of symbolic play, both in terms of how children learn to use objects as symbols and in terms of the reasons they do so.
Development of approach and inhibition in the first year: parallel findings from motor behavior, temperament ratings and directional cardiac response
Authors: Putnam Samuel P. , Stifter Cynthia A.
Published: March 2003

A group of 139 infants was observed at 6 and 12 months. Approach and inhibition were measured via latencies to touch low– and high–intensity objects, directional cardiac response to low– and high–intensity sounds and maternal ratings of positive and fearful emotionality. Inhibition showed considerable increases in all three domains from 6 to 12 months. Also reflecting increases in inhibitory processes, correlations between individual infants’ responses to low– and high–intensity sounds were significantly smaller at 12 than at 6 months. Limited cross–domain validity was obtained linking large cardiac decelerations, low latencies to reach for toys and high ratings of positive emotionality. These findings are consistent with previous reports documenting relatively greater gains in inhibition than approach during the second half of the first year. Modest cross–domain consistency indicates separate mechanisms may moderate approach and inhibition in the three different realms.
The Northridge Earthquake: Community‐based Approaches to Unmet Recovery Needs
Authors: Bolin Robert , Stanford Lois
Published: March 2003

The 1994 Northridge, California earthquake has proven to be one of the most costly disasters in United States history. Federal and state assistance programmes received some 681,000 applications from victims for various forms of relief. In spite of the flow of US$11 billion in federal assistance into Los Angeles and Ventura counties, many victims have failed to obtain adequate relief. These unmet needs relate to the vulnerability of particular class and ethnic groups. In response to unmet needs, a number of non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) have become involved in the recovery process. This paper, based on evidence collected from hundreds of in‐depth interviews with the people involved, examines the activities of several community‐based organisations (CBOs) and other NGOs as they have attempted to assist vulnerable people with unmet post‐disaster needs. We discuss two small ethnically diverse communities in Ventura County, on the periphery of the Los Angeles metropolitan region. The earthquake and resultant disaster declaration provided an opportunity for local government and NGOs to acquire federal resources not normally available for economic development. At the same time the earthquake created political openings in which longer‐term issues of community development could be addressed by various local stakeholders. A key issue in recovery has been the availability of affordable housing for those on low incomes, particularly Latinos, the elderly and farm workers. We discuss the successes and limitations of CBOs and NGOs as mechanisms for dealing with vulnerable populations, unmet needs and recovery issues in the two communities.
Hope Suspended: Morality, Politics and War in Central Africa
Authors: Fennell James
Published: March 2003

The Great Lakes tragedy from 1994—8 has demonstrated the impact of a new consensus in favour of conditional relief for the protection and assistance of disaster victims. This paper attempts to catalogue the failures of the international humanitarian community, African leaders and donor governments to act effectively in defence of humanitarian principles throughout the crisis. The paper places special emphasis on the events in eastern Zaire during 1996—7 that have, so far, received limited treatment, and, it contends, led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.

The paper argues that the new orthodoxy of developmental relief, as adopted by UN and NGO humanitarian agencies in the Great Lakes, has acted more in support of the geopolitical and economic agendas of Northern governments and African leaders than in defence of disaster victims. The paper points out that the evidence of the Great Lakes tragedy suggests that the adoption of these approaches has sanctioned the abandonment of ideas about universal rights of protection for non‐combatants at the moment when they are most at risk, with catastrophic results for those most vulnerable to abuse.
Women, Health and Humanitarian Aid in Conflict
Authors: Palmer Celia A. , Zwi Anthony B.
Published: March 2003

The burden of political conflict on civilian populations has increased significantly over the last few decades. Increasingly, the provision of resources and services to these populations is coming under scrutiny; we highlight here the limited attention to gender in their provision. Women and men have different exposures to situations that affect health and access to health‐care and have differential power to influence decisions regarding the provision of health services. We argue that the role of women in planning is central to the provision of effective, efficient and sensitive health‐care to conflict‐affected populations.
Burma: The Political Economy of Violence
Authors: Brown Catherine
Published: March 2003

Protracted conflict and violence in Burma have been conducive to the growth of the opium industry, Burma’s single financial success in recent years of economic crisis and authoritarian rule. This in turn has fed violence and subsequent humanitarian crisis. This paper argues that the underlying political economy of the conflict has been overlooked, while conflict itself has been treated as a peripheral factor in questions of ‘development’, and further that the opium dynamic is a vital factor in continued violence and vulnerability for non‐combatants in the region. A political economy approach, identifying the beneficiaries of violence, will offer a more holistic and effective approach to the protracted crisis.
Public Nutrition from an Approach to a Discipline: Concern’s Nutrition Case Studies in Complex Emergencies
Authors: Borrel Annalies , Salama Peter
Published: March 2003

The Public Nutrition approach, like that of Public Health, is context specific. It places an emphasis on populations rather than individuals and is inter‐disciplinary in nature. Both approaches seek to understand the complex aetiology of a clinical outcome such as malnutrition within the widest possible framework. Public Nutrition uses the UNICEF conceptual framework and adapts and expands it. The authors of this article argue – through the examination of a number of case studies taken from the work of Concern Worldwide (hereafter referred to as Concern) in southern Sudan, Rwanda, Angola, Tanzania and DRC – that there are two critical constituents of the Public Nutrition approach. These are: a contextual analysis (including the use of surveillance information for programme design and advocacy) and community involvement at all stages of the project cycle. Some of the key obstacles to the adoption of the Public Nutrition approach are identified by illustrating two practical programme settings. For the Public Nutrition approach to be more widely used, the authors recommend a number of key strategies including the further dissemination of case studies and the clarification of the scope and boundaries of the approach. These strategies will enable Public Nutrition to evolve both as a practical programme framework as well as an academic discipline.
The Management of Severe Malnutrition in Burundi: An NGO’s Perspective of the Practical Constraints to Effective Emergency and Medium‐term Programmes
Authors: Fournier Anne‐Sophie , Mason Frances , Peacocke Barnaby , Prudhon Claudine
Published: March 2003

The NGO, Action contre la Faim (ACF), has been operating in Burundi since 1994, where the situation has dramatically hampered humanitarian programmes. These include poor security resulting in an inability to maintain 24‐hour care for the severely malnourished and poor access to the beneficiaries, all within a politically and economically unstable context. However, ACF has been able to capitalise on lessons learnt and reflect on ways to move forward, which have included the improvement of their capacities in the treatment of severe malnutrition and the integration within broader disciplines and national structures.

The protocols for the treatment of severe malnutrition currently used in Burundi have been developed as a result of the research of ACF over the past five years. Other aspects of the nutrition programme remain to be further developed. These include, for example, an improved capacity to care for severely malnourished adolescents and adults; and also a better knowledge of the beneficiaries to allow for stronger links between the provision of treatment and support for their longer‐term food security.
The Urban Poor in Dhaka City: Their Struggles and Coping Strategies during the Floods of 1998
Authors: Rashid Sabina Faiz
Published: March 2003

Bangladesh experienced one of the worst floods in recorded history in 1998. This paper focuses on the needs and coping strategies of the urban poor in Dhaka City, which had been very badly affected. The city's roads were completely under water, and most areas were water‐logged with drainage and sewage systems blocked. Rising water levels compelled many slum dwellers to move to temporary shelters and relief camps. Women and children were the worst affected. The lack of sanitation facilities and privacy forced women and children to defecate in their own homes. There was an acute scarcity of safe drinking‐water, and food prices rose dramatically. Diarrhoea, fever and colds were the most common illnesses affecting the poor. The floods left many of them unemployed, and in some families, the result was increased tension and incidents of domestic violence. In some areas, members felt pressured to repay micro‐credit loans. Most NGOs, however, suspended loan repayments. During this period, a committee was set up to co‐ordinate and work towards addressing some of the main post‐flood problems.
Disaster Mitigation and Preparedness: The Case of NGOs in the Philippines
Authors: Luna Emmanuel M.
Published: March 2003

The Philippines is very vulnerable to natural disasters because of its natural setting, as well as its socio‐economic, political and environmental context ‐ especially its widespread poverty. The Philippines has a well‐established institutional and legal framework for disaster management, including built‐in mechanisms for participation of the people and NGOs in decision‐making and programme implementation. The nature and extent of collaboration with government in disaster preparedness and mitigation issues varies greatly according to their roots, either in past confrontation and political struggles or traditional charity activities. The growing NGO involvement in disaster management has been influenced by this history. Some agencies work well with local government and there is an increasing trend for collaborative work in disaster mitigation and preparedness. Some NGOs, however, retain critical positions. These organisations tend to engage more in advocacy and legal support for communities facing increased risk because of development projects and environmental destruction. Entry points into disaster mitigation and preparedness vary as well. Development‐oriented agencies are drawn into these issues when the community members with whom they work face disaster. Relief organisations, too, realise the need for community mobilisation, and are thus drawn towards development roles.
Hypothèses de salariés non membres et financement externe pour les firmes autogérées
Authors: Jouvet Pierre‐André
Published: March 2003

Among the various questions raised by theoretical studies on self‐managed firms, the author considers two key issues dealing with job rigidity in these enterprises and with their ability to get external financing: should the employment of non‐member workers in these firms be encouraged or not? Should the external financing of these firms be deregulated or not? These two questions are related to an important part of the literature on self‐managed firms which is dedicated to their so‐called perverse behaviours and to the stability of this type of production organization. The theoretical models help to understand the difficulties experienced by this type of organization and to see how and why the constraints on employment of non‐member workers and on the external financing possibilities can have positive effects on self‐managed firms. Among these results, those coming from the analysis of the choice of structures and production techniques help to understand the development of self‐managed firms in industries which require high level production techniques and high human skills.
Impact model for socially low tariffs in Zairian river transport
Authors: Kelvin Alex
Published: March 2003

This article models the sequence of the effects of low tariffs in public river transport for goods. Within 10 years of deregulation, the public corporation had lost 83 per cent of its river traffic. The reasons for the inefficiency are made clear. The effects of low tariffs are examined, such as service rationing, overcharges, overcapacity and high budget claims, cost enhancement, and cross‐subsidizing. The underlying objective is to formulate and apply an assessment method for transport policy that blends theories of rents and contestability in order to show how and why good intentions to boost demand by low tariffs in Zairian river transport produced very different results. Although illustrations are given for one mode of transport in one country, they are believed to be of much wider significance—to over 80 countries liberalizing their economies, including China, developing and east European countries. The National Transportation Authority (NTA, or Onatra) is a public corporation operating seaports, the Matadi–Kinshasa railway and an extensive network of river transportation 8,060 km long in the western half of Zaire. In the 1980s, it held monopolies on seaports and river ports, and shared the monopoly with the National Railway Authority (SNCZ) over the railways and the transport of mineral exports. The market in river transport appeared to be oligopolistic but it was dominated by the NTA. Since the NTA was one of the largest state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), its experience is significant for many other SOEs and for the whole national economy. Ways to overcome inefficiencies are suggested, such as ending multiple public monopolies and cross‐subsidies, privatization and deregulation.
A model of the free‐entry producer cooperative
Authors: Kamshad Kimya M.
Published: March 2003

One of the most frequent criticisms of the Illyrian model of the labour‐managed firm is that it does not take into account key institutional factors which are likely in practice to eliminate the perverse short‐run supply and degeneration results well known in the literature. This paper presents a new model of the labour‐managed firm, incorporating several of the most significant institutional factors actually in evidence in Western cooperative sectors. The free‐entry producer cooperative model includes differing member and nonmember compensation methods, free access to membership, and special capital financing and shutdown rules. The new model’s results differ from Ward’s Illyrian firm model in a number of ways: first, capital is always variable for these firms, so the perverse short‐run supply response does not apply; second, free‐entry producer cooperatives do not degenerate into capitalist firms as Illyrian firms do; and third, such cooperatives will always have higher survival rates than both Illyrian and conventional firms.
Management and employee buy‐outs from the Austrian public sector
Authors: Wieser Oliver , Wright Mike , Robbie Ken
Published: March 2003

This paper seeks to extend our understanding of the nature and effects of privatization to the case of Austria, a relatively small economy in which management buy‐outs have been a numerically important but neglected part of the privatization programme. The study reviews the development of privatization in Austria and sets management and employee buy‐outs within this context. The paper identifies 35 privatization buy‐outs, analysing their form and industrial distribution. Evidence from detailed interviews with the 22 largest is used to analyse the effects of buy‐out on corporate change, the role of insiders and performance. Comparisons are made with the UK, where management and employee buy‐outs have also been an important part of the privatization programme.
Realizing Critical Geographies of the University
Authors: Roberts Susan M.
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that current changes underway in the daily lives of faculty at US research universities need to be understood contextually. A critical contextualization is a first step in realizing critical geographies of and in the university. This argument is elaborated in a consideration of three situations the author has faced: teaching undergraduate economic geography in an era of globalization; the professionalization of graduate students, and universities' indifference to the fuller lives of (in this case) faculty.
Institutionalising Future Geographies of Financial Inclusion: National Legitimacy Versus Local Autonomy in the British Credit Union Movement
Authors: Fuller Duncan , Jonas Andrew E G
Published: March 2003

In Great Britain, financial infrastructure withdrawal and community economic decline have focused attention on the capacity of locally “alternative” financial institutions to combat social and financial exclusion. This paper examines one such institution, the residential or “community” credit union, which provides a low‐cost source of credit for members drawn from a common bond area usually based upon place of residence and/or work. Although community credit unions have traditionally been seen as providing individuals and communities with the opportunity to access credit and savings facilities in areas where there has been contraction in bank and building society provision (the financial “mainstream”), ongoing attempts exist to move away from the traditional role of community credit unions. This transition has set up three main challenges for the British credit union movement, discussed in this paper as follows: (1) a struggle over the attempt to redefine the “model” credit union within the national credit union movement; (2) the changing regulatory context for credit union development, including attempts to embrace credit unions within New Labour policies on social exclusion; and (3) a “local” challenge, including the incorporation of credit unions into community economic development initiatives. The paper considers how these challenges feed into wider understandings about the social relations, categorisation and autonomy of locally “alternative” financial institutions. We argue that future research on geographies of financial inclusion focusing on “alternative” institutions and their relationship to the financial mainstream needs to pay close critical attention to potential contradictions and tensions operating at different, yet intersecting spatial scales.
Neoliberal Urbanization in Europe: Large–Scale Urban Development Projects and the New Urban Policy
Authors: Swyngedouw Erik , Moulaert Frank , Rodriguez Arantxa
Published: March 2003

This paper summarizes the theoretical insights drawn from a study of thirteen large–scale urban development projects (UDPs) in twelve European Union countries. The project focused on the way in which globalization and liberalization articulate with the emergence of new forms of governance, on the formation of a new scalar gestalt of governing and on the relationship between large–scale urban development and political, social and economic power relations in the city. Among the most important conclusions, we found that:

•Large–scale UDPs have increasingly been used as a vehicle to establish exceptionality measures in planning and policy procedures. This is part of a neoliberal “New Urban Policy” approach and its selective “middle — and upper–class” democracy. It is associated with new forms of “governing” urban interventions, characterized by less democratic and more elite–driven priorities.

•Local democratic participation mechanisms are not respected or are applied in a very “formalist” way, resulting in a new choreography of elite power. However, grassroots movements occasionally manage to turn the course of events in favor of local participation and of modest social returns for deprived social groups.

•The UDPs are poorly integrated at best into the wider urban process and planning system. As a consequence, their impact on a city as a whole and on the areas where the projects are located remains ambiguous.

•Most UDPs accentuate socioeconomic polarization through the working of real–estate markets (price rises and displacement of social or low–income housing), changes in the priorities of public budgets that are increasingly redirected from social objectives to investments in the built environment and the restructuring of the labor market.

•The UDPs reflect and embody a series of processes that are associated with changing spatial scales of governance; these changes, in turn, reflect a shifting geometry of power in the governing of urbanization.
Cultures of Knowledge: Investigating Intellectual Property Rights and Relations in the Pacific
Authors: Parry Bronwyn
Published: March 2003

Although often presented as inherently normative, Euro‐American systems of intellectual property rights (IPRs) law are, like earlier systems of biological classification, best understood as particular, culturally defined systems for codifying knowledge employed to discipline objects, phenomena and social relations. Despite their partiality, such systems have successfully colonised new domains, recently underpinning a new uniform global regime for the protection of IPRs (GATT/WTO TRIPs). In this paper I reveal the central role that global institutions now play in accelerating the universalisation of specific “cultures of regulation”: acting as powerful vectors for the transmission of particular types of knowledge and arbiters of the “normative” bases of global regulatory regimes. Recent empirical evidence from the Pacific illustrates how the TRIPs regime facilitates the commodification and appropriation of intellectual, cultural and biological resources in that region and highlights the development of alternative sui generis systems of IPR protection that challenge the normativity and hegemony of this regime. The article serves as an entry point for further research into the geography of knowledge systems—the way in which the colonisation of certain regulatory systems and forms facilitates the pursuit of particular interests or sustains relations of domination.
Mapping the European Urban Left: The Barcelona Experience
Authors: McNeill Donald
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the transition in Barcelona's city council's urban policy during 20 years of uninterrupted political control. It focuses particularly on several trends within Pasqual Maragall's period in office (1982–1997) and argues that issues of leadership, extramunicipal policy and electoral rationality are fundamental to understanding the full complexity of this transition. The paper seeks to locate the Barcelona experience in a comparative context and calls for a greater sensitivity to the contemporary political geography of the European urban left.
The theory and practice of frontier development: Vietnam's contribution
Authors: De Koninck Rodolphe
Published: March 2003

This paper presents examples of agricultural expansion and frontier development throughout world history. Following a preliminary appraisal of the immense literature devoted to the topic, some key ideas and interpretations concerning the foundations, processes and consequences of frontier development are presented. These are drawn from a broad spectrum of European, American and Asian experiences and refer to geopolitical, demographic and ethnic issues. A brief survey of Vietnam's own historical and contemporary experience both confirms and enriches these interpretations while raising questions about the intensity of the process and the country's capacity to maintain it in high gear.
Changing rules of the game: local responses to decollectivisation in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam
Authors: Scott Steffanie
Published: March 2003

This paper documents the uneven experiences of decollectivisation, using Thai Nguyen province as a setting for an exploration of divergent outcomes of, and local responses to, land allocation. Ethnicity, blood relations and settlement history are identified as emerging axes of differentiation in new patterns of vulnerability regarding access to land. This trend is evidenced by the phenomenon of farmers who migrated to the region during the collectivisation period and were subsequently left landless as longer term residents from other ethnic groups reclaimed their ancestral lands.
Taiwan's Industrial Policy in the 1980s: An Appraisal
Authors: Smith Heather
Published: March 2003

In the early 1980s, Taiwan embarked on a development programme designed to shift the economy away from reliance on labour‐intensive industries towards the development of technology‐intensive products and industries. While continuing to pursue ongoing trade liberalization, the government simultaneously adopted a sectoral policy of identifying and promoting “strategic industries” in order to further industrial development and restructure industry. This assessment suggests that the success of this strategy has at best been debatable.
Does School Quality Matter? Evidence from the Hong Kong Experience
Authors: Lui Hon‐Kwong , Suen Wing
Published: March 2003

This paper analyses the differential returns to education and to language ability of natives and Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. The large difference in quality between Hong Kong schools and Chinese schools provides a natural experiment for evaluating the effect of school quality on students' performance in the labor market. We show that the rate of return to schooling is more than three times higher among local‐born workers than among Chinese immigrants to Hong Kong. Our analysis also suggests that English language education is one important component of the success of the Hong Kong education system.
Child Labour in the Philippines: Determinants and Effects
Authors: Sakellariou Chris , Lall Ashish
Published: March 2003

This paper analyses the supply‐side socioeconomic determinants of child labour in the Philippines using data from the National Household Survey and the Labour Force Survey of the Philippines. The research methodology is that of a sequential probit model which assumes that household decisions are made in a hierarchical manner. Using this model, the impact of various household and economic characteristics on the probability of child labour is estimated. The findings highlight specific populations that should be targeted, for example, single working mothers in urban areas and poor households in rural areas. Working towards elimination of child labour will involve a multi‐angled policy approach with policies complementing each other.
Measuring the Impact of Doi Moi on Vietnam’s Gross Domestic Product
Authors: Nghiep Le Thanh , Quy Le Huu
Published: March 2003

In 1986 a wide range of policy measures, known as Doi Moi, was introduced to promote Vietnam's transition to a market economy. This paper represents the first attempt to measure the effect of Doi Moi on Vietnam's GDP. In the paper the level of GDP actually reached is compared with the level that would have been reached had the policy not been implemented, i.e. without the improvements in productivity and the increases in investment ratio that can be directly attributed to Doi Moi. Cross‐time changes in GDP were depicted by a production function of capital stock, economically active labour force and technical progress. It was found that, after a time lag, Doi Moi appeared to have a significant positive effect on productivity, which by 1998 accounted for a 42% increase in GDP.
After the “Crisis” in Social Psychology: The Development of the Transactional Model of Science
Authors: Kim Uichol
Published: March 2003

This paper reviews the literature on the “crisis” in social psychology. Although the symptoms of the crisis are various, the basic problem can be identified as the inappropriate emulation of the natural sciences model. Within this approach, psychologists attempted to discover objective, abstract, universal laws of human behavior, but have largely failed to do so. The second part of this paper analyzes misconceptions that many psychologists have about objectivity and scientific methods and outlines an alternative perspective. In the third part of the paper, a comparative analysis of physical, biological, and human sciences are provided. In the final section, an alternative scientific paradigm – the transactional model, is presented. In this approach, human consciousness, agency, and creativity, both at the individual and collective level, are considered as key constructs in explaining psychological functioning. Subjective elements such as human consciousness and agency and the influences of context and meaning are explicitly integrated in the research model in search of dynamic and emergent properties of human functioning.
The Effects of Linguistic Voice on Evaluations and Attributions of Ingroup And Outgroup Members
Authors: Platow Michael J. , Brodie Michelle
Published: March 2003

This current study investigated the effects of English language active and passive voice on evaluations and attributions of responsibility toward an ingroup member or an outgroup member who behaved in either a positive or a negative manner. Prior theoretical and empirical analyses suggested that passive voice transformations would have the effect of: (1) reducing the saliency of the logical subject of a sentence relative to the logical object, thereby (2) reducing attributions of responsibility toward the logical subject. Results indicated that, regardless of group membership, attributions of responsibility for positive behavior, but not negative behavior, were reduced when described in the passive voice compared to the active voice. A passive voice transformation also had the effect of reducing the extremity of ingroup evaluations relative to outgroup evaluations for both positive and negative behaviors. We discuss the implications of these data with reference to social‐linguistic analyses of masking and influence.
Personality, Self‐Disclosure and Friendship Between Chinese University Roommates
Authors: Wong Shalina C.H. , Harris Bond Michael
Published: March 2003

The present study examined the relations among personality perceptions, self‐disclosing behavior, and friendship strength between Chinese roommates. These variables are rarely measured together and, when jointly assessed, allow for the disentanglment of personality factors from the social behavior of self‐disclosure, making it possible to assess the role of self‐disclosure behavior in the nexus of personality perceptions relating to friendship. One hundred and thirty‐one university students rated their own and their roommate’s personality, their self‐disclosing behavior, and the strength of their friendship six months after being assigned to room together. It was found that self‐ratings on the personality dimension of application were related both to one’s friendship ratings and one’s self‐disclosing behavior, suggesting that personality variation is responsible for some of the well‐established (Collins and Miller, 1994) links between self‐disclosure and friendship strength. After controlling for self‐rated application, it was found that both the respondent’s and the roommate’s self‐disclosing behavior contributed separately to increasing the respondent’s friendship ratings, as has also been found in Western research. Surprisingly, respondent self‐disclosure was unrelated to how respondents perceived their roommates. However, the perceived roommate qualities of helpfulness and intellect were associated with the respondent’s friendship ratings, suggesting that other, unmeasured social behaviors are being exchanged between roommates to enhance their friendship. Future research should examine these other behavioral mediators of friendship, so that we can develop a behavioral topology for this important social relationship and link these behaviors to dimensions of interpersonal perception.
Managing Attitudes Toward High Achievers: The Influence 0f Group Discussion
Authors: Carr Stuart C. , Purcell Ian P. , Bolitho Floyd H. , Moss Nathan D. , Brew Susan E.
Published: March 2003

For a variety of cultural, contextual, and interpersonal reasons, individual achievement often meets with potentially demotivating resistance from the group. In groups of between three and seven members, 397 psychology and social work students, in East and Northern Australian cities (Newcastle and Darwin), indicated their attitudes toward high achievers before, during, and after a group consensus task. In each location, and at both individual and group levels of analysis, initially slightly pro‐achiever attitudes, following discussion of the issues, became polarized. Such changes, across diverse settings and groups, indicate that group discussion may be a robust tool, both for empowering teams and encouraging support for individual initiative.
The Asian Financial Crisis: An East Asian Perspective
Authors: Estanislao Jesus P. , Manzano George N. , Pasadilla Gloria O.
Published: March 2003

Two views dominate the academic discussion of the root cause of the Asian crisis: the ‘panic‐illiquidity’ view and the ‘moral hazard‐structural’ view. This paper traces the factors that contributed to the build‐up of financial vulnerabilities across the affected economies and compares these two accounts of the crisis. The paper argues that the two views are complementary in that policy prescriptions derived from one that disregard the prescriptions from the other would be incomplete. It summarises the medium and long‐term post‐crisis policy directions at the national, regional and international levels.