Democracy and growth in Africa: Implications of increasing electoral competitiveness

Estimating a 1975–2004 decadal panel data in an augmented production-function framework, the paper finds that indexes of electoral competitiveness exhibit U-shape relationships with GDP growth, implying quite different “intermediate” and “advanced”-level effects of reforms in Africa.     

Explaining the economic trajectories of civilizations: The systemic approach

A civilization constitutes a durable social system of complementary traits. Some of the complementarities of any given civilization are between elements of “material” life and ones commonly treated as integral to “culture.” Identifying the mechanisms responsible for a civilization's observed trajectory involves, therefore, causal relationships that cross the often-postulated “cultural–material” divide. Complementarities make it difficult to transplant institutions across civilizations on a piecemeal basis. They imply that reforms designed to jump-start an economy will fail unless they are comprehensive. Civilizational analysis can benefit, therefore, from attention to institutional complementarities, including ones involving both cultural and material variables.     

On the dynamic effects of using hired labor in the Kibbutz—theory and case studies

This study analyzes the effect of employing hired labor in the Kibbutz. The main motivations are the premises contained in the newly emerging “The Change” or “The New Kibbutz” approach. Using the traditional LMF model with heterogeneous labor, we show that, although using hired labor will improve the economic situation of the Kibbutz in the short-run, in the long-run Kibbutz membership will consist of only those types of labor to which the “Self Labor” principle applies.     

Alternate forecasts of the job content and skill requirements of the American economy in 1980

This paper analyzes the potential job content and skill requirements of the American economy in 1980 under three alternate economic futures. Detailed occupational manpower requirements are generated on the basis of a “Status Quo” economy, a “Social Welfare” economy, and a “Defense” economy in the near future. Occupational manpower requirements are then translated into a Job Family-Skill Content classification to determine how these alternate national priority choices may affect future requirements for specific jobs, skills, educational preparation, and vocational training. The results obtained indicate the job families and skill classifications most sensitive to changes in basic economic parameters, and also identify long run trends in manpower and educational requirements unaffected by shifting social priorities and patterns of federal expenditures. The implications of these findings for manpower and educational planning are briefly discussed.     

Limiting the system and reshaping lifestyles: Solving unemployment by social and technical innovations

We have become used to seeing crises in growth, unemployment, and inflation as purely economic problems that can be overcome by suitable economic and political means. One basic assumption of the following reflection however, is that the above might be only half the picture. To paraphrase a formula of Friedrich Engels, the concern is not “in the first and last instance” with questions of the “economic basis,” but with questions of the current images of human kind, social milieus and lifestyles. Solutions will thus tend to lie in social innovations and reorganization of the System insofar as they complement the new lifestyles.     

Influence of decision styles on use of decision models

This article discusses how the “decision style” of an administrator influences the adoption and use of particular decision models. Several “interactive” and “analytical” decision models often used to guide decision making are described and critiqued to point out their virtues and deficiencies. Propositions are suggested that contend that “systematic,” “judicial”, “speculative”, and “intuitive” styles have clear-cut preferences for a particular decision model. This model seems to be used, even when another would be more suitable. Effective decision makers are postulated to adapt their styles, or at least to see the benefits of different styles. Mixed-mode models are proposed that seem to simulate the behavior of successful decision makers.     

The impact of liberalization on bureaucratic corruption

Liberalization increases the number of goods available for consumption within a country. Since bureaucrats value variety, this raises the marginal utility of accepting a bribe. This “benefit effect” is counteracted by an increasing “cost effect” from corruption deterrence activities that arise due to greater international pressure to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can lead to a non-monotonic relation between liberalization and corruption. Moreover, pre-commitment to deterrence activities is shown to be more effective in controlling corruption. Empirical evidence supports the existence of a non-monotonic relation between economic openness and corruption among developing countries.     

Consistent representative democracy

We study axioms which define “representative democracy” in an environment in which agents vote over a finite set of alternatives. We focus on a property that states that whether votes are aggregated directly or indirectly makes no difference. We call this property representative consistency. Representative consistency formalizes the idea that a voting rule should be immune to gerrymandering. We characterize the class of rules satisfying unanimity, anonymity, and representative consistency. We call these rules “partial priority rules.” A partial priority rule can be interpreted as a rule in which each agent can “veto” certain alternatives. We investigate the implications of imposing other axioms to the list specified above. We also study the partial priority rules in the context of specific economic models.     

A model of “coupled” technology transfer : A logistic curve approach

This article presents a mathematical model relating to the technology transfer problem. The origin of the problem stems from the existing trade-offs between the strategies of “technological progressiveness” and “static efficiency” employed by firms or countries defined as “leaders” and “followers,” respectively. The formulation of the model is based on the assumption that the technological development of a firm or a country follows a logistic growth curve when related to a specific technology. During the process of a “coupled” technology transfer, the development of the follower changes and its behavior is described by a first order nonhomogenous deferential equation. Different scenarios of the “coupled” technology transfer between the leader and the follower are being discussed.     

Can Japan succeed in “Chigyo-ka” (intelprise-formation)?

There are two aspects in today's information revolution that started in the late 1970s. The first is an aspect referred to as “the third industrial revolution,” which triggers the transition to the “21st century system of Industrialization.” The information revolution in this sense brings the creation of new “breakthrough industries (new multimedia industries).” And the second aspect of the information revolution possesses the characteristics of both a technological revolution and a social revolution and brings about the arrival of the third phase of the historical evolutionary process of the modern civilization, which proceeds through three phases, namely “militarization, industrialization, and then informatization.”If the bearers of modern industrialization are a “group of enterprises” that have been engaged in the race in order to gain “wealth” (generalized means of exchange/exploitation power), and if these enterprises' activities have been exercised in the world market where their products have been sold, then it is appropriate to call the bearers of informatization a “group of intelprises.” They will be engaged in the race to gain “wisdom” (generalized means of persuasion/induction power), then stages of their activities can be called a “global intelplace” where “sharables,” that is, information and knowledge, will be disseminated. And now, toward the 21st century, the third phase of modernization, which can be called the “informatization/intelprise formation” or the “wisdom game” (intellectualism), is about to begin.Japan's “ie society (a society based on the ie principle—literally, it means “house” but here it is interpreted as cultural principle for organizing a society), which has been going through the process of evolution on the Japan Archipelago, has developed a network-based organization with little stratification within its infrastructure. In this sense, Japanese society can be characterized as a “network-oriented society” in which intelprises and an intelplace in the broad sense have functioned as the essential components of the society since Middle Ages. In general, an intelplace and intelprises that operate actively within this framework serve as the flexible bases for different types of social relations and institutions, such as states and markets and eventually integrate these into the society to a certain extent. In fact, it took place quite regularly during the modernization “in the narrow sense,” or Westernization of Japanese society after the Meiji Restoration. There exist some problems, however. Some of the characteristics found in Japanese society may become obstacles to activities aimed at the sharing and promotion of information and knowledge in the global intelplace and Japanese participation in the “wisdom game.” Badly needed are serious efforts for Japanese intelprise-formation to reduce these obstacles as much as possible.     

Leaders in change : Solar energy owners and the implications for future adoption rates

Information on the characteristics of the initial wave of homeowners who installed solar energy systems is presented and then used to anticipate future solar market penetration patterns. Surveys of these adopters reveal high education and income levels; professional and executive occupations; economic, energy saving, and environmental concern as the principal purchase motivations; and high satisfaction levels. As a group, these individuals conform to the “early adopter” type identified in innovation diffusion research rather than the “innovator” type that would be expected at this early stage of commercialization. This characteristic, the influence of economic motivations, owners' high satisfaction levels, and the findings of other surveys indicate that widespread solar system adoption is probable if the initial high cost barrier can be reduced.     

A Primer on Logistic Growth and Substitution: The Mathematics of the Loglet Lab Software

This article describes the mathematics underlying the Loglet Lab software package for loglet analysis. “Loglet analysis” refers to the decomposition of growth and diffusion into S-shaped logistic components, roughly analogous to wavelet analysis, popular for signal processing and compression. The term “loglet” joins “logistic” and “wavelet.” Loglet analysis comprises two models: the first is the component logistic model, in which autonomous systems exhibit logistic growth. The second is the logistic substitution model, which models the effects of competitions within a market. An appendix describes the current status of the software.     

At the crossroads of “futurism” and “prospective”: Towards a Canadian synthesis?

North American “future studies” and the French concept of “prospective” have been integrated to provide the basis for an attempted “Canadian Synthesis” in the approach developed by the Montreal-based think-tank, the Gamma Institute. In this paper the founding president of Gamma outlines the four stages of the approach in a conceptual framework entitled the “Chronospace” and illustrates its applicability by referring to some of Gamma's projects in the last 12 years.     

Topological games at Princeton, a mathematical memoir

The games of the title are “Nash” (or Hex), “Milnor” (or Y), “Shapley” (or Projective Plane) and “Gale” (or Bridg-It) all of which were discovered (or re-discovered) in Princeton in 1948–1949. After giving the basic topological connections, I will discuss more recent ramifications related to computational complexity theory. A recurrent theme will be non-constructive proofs, or how we can know something can be done without having the slightest idea of how to do it.     

On the value of human resources

One challenge for planners is to discover conditions under which a society has a positive and growing “net worth” in terms of its human resources and to bring about and maintain those conditions. We discuss the utility and validity of the concept of people as “assets” or “liabilities”, the structure and cultural contexts for a proposed model of the dynamics of value that account for opportunity costs; and links between information technologies and human resources management, including planned development of these resources.     

Health benefits of tunneling through the Chinese environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)

In this paper, we first add to what is a growing literature on the existence and nature of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model for developing countries, by testing for the existence of an EKC for China using a panel data set of city-specific, annual ambient levels of SO₂ pollution. We find some support for both the typical inverted-U-shaped relationship and an N-shaped, cubic configuration. More significantly, we then explore the possibility of China's “tunneling” through the EKC, by using newer, cleaner technologies, and thereby avoiding some of the environmental degradation that had often accompanied economic growth. Specifically, we estimate and economically value the health benefits realizable to Chinese cities from successful efforts to “tunnel” under the EKC over the next generation.     

Regional, national, and spatially explicit scenarios of demographic and economic change based on SRES

We report here spatially explicit scenario interpretations for population and economic activity (GDP) for the time period 1990 to 2100 based on three scenarios (A2, B1, and B2) from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). At the highest degree of spatial detail, the scenario indicators are calculated at a 0.5 by 0.5 degree resolution. All three scenarios follow the qualitative scenario characteristics, as outlined in the original SRES scenarios. Two scenarios (B1 and B2) also follow (with minor adjustments due to scenario improvements) the original SRES quantifications at the level of 4 and 11 world regions respectively. The quantification of the original SRES A2 scenario has been revised to reflect recent changing perceptions on the demographic outlook of world population growth. In this revised “high population growth” scenario, A2r world population reaches some 12 billion by 2100 (as opposed to some 15 billion in the original SRES A2 scenario) and is characterized by a “delayed fertility transition” that is also mirrored in a delayed (economic) development catch-up, resulting in an initially stagnating and subsequently only very slow reduction in income disparities. The spatially explicit scenario interpretation proceeds via two steps. Through a combination of decomposition and optimization methods, world regional scenario results are first disaggregated to the level of 185 countries. In a subsequent second step, national results are further disaggregated to a grid cell level, taking urbanization and regional (rural–urban) income disparities explicitly into account. A distinguishing feature of the spatially explicit scenario results reported here is that both methodologies, as well as numerical assumptions underlying the “downscaling” exercise, are scenario-dependent, leading to distinctly different spatial patterns of population and economic activities across the three scenarios examined.     

Optimal redistricting under geographical constraints: Why “pack and crack” does not work

We show that optimal partisan redistricting with geographical constraints is a computationally intractable (NP-complete) problem. In particular, even when voter's preferences are deterministic, a solution is generally not obtained by concentrating opponent's supporters in “unwinnable” districts (“packing”) and spreading one's own supporters evenly among the other districts in order to produce many slight marginal wins (“cracking”).