The 'Webbing' of British Local Government

The use of information and communication technologies by governments to facilitate the exchange of information with the public, and, increasingly, the electronic delivery of services, is a topic of much debate and development throughout the world. At the end of 1995, there were about 40 local authority World Wide Web sites, most of which fell below the standards of design and content associated with the majority of commercial and academic sites. Now there are over 300 local authority sites—some better than many commercial or academic ones in terms of design and features. Is this simply a case of jumping on the digital bandwagon or is it something more? This article discusses the main findings from a research project aimed at exploring the 'Webbing' of local government in Britain.     

Saving Transitions

This article takes a systematic cross-national approach to identifyingsaving transitions— defined as sustained increases inthe saving rate of 5 percentage points or more—to studytheir determinants and to reexamine the question of causalitybetween growth and saving. Countries that undergo saving transitionsdo not necessarily experience sustained increases in their growthrates. In fact, growth rates typically return to their levelsbefore the transition within a decade. By contrast, countriesthat undergo growth transitions—arising from improvedterms of trade, increased domestic investment, or other sources—doend up with permanently higher saving rates. Hence saving transitionsdo not appear to be causal with respect to superior economicperformance.     

Developing Countries and a New Round of WTO Negotiations

This article summarizes some of the results and findings emergingfrom an ongoing World Bank research and capacity-building projectthat focuses on the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiatingagenda from a developing country perspective. Recent researchsuggests that the potential gains from further multilateralliberalization of trade remain very large. The payoffs associatedwith attempts to introduce substantive disciplines in the WTOon domestic regulatory regimes are much less certain. This suggeststhat the focus of current and future negotiations should beprimarily on the bread and butter of the multilateral tradingsystem—the progressive liberalization of barriers to tradein goods and services on a nondiscriminatory basis. In addition,priority should be given to ensuring that rules are consistentwith the development needs of poorer countries and to helpingdeveloping countries implement WTO obligations.      

Can Africa's Saving Collapse Be Reversed?

Private saving in Sub-Saharan Africa declined from more than11 percent of disposable income in the 1970s to less than 8percent in the 1980s and only partially recovered (to less than9 percent) in the 1990s. This article analyzes the determinantsof private saving in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking to explainthe region's dismal performance and identify policies that couldhelp to reverse the region's decline in saving. The analysisshows that in Sub-Saharan Africa causality runs from growthto investment (and perhaps to private saving), whereas a risein the saving rate Granger-causes an increase in investment.Foreign aid Granger-causes a reduction in both saving and investment,and investment also Granger-causes an increase in foreign aid.The empirical analysis of private saving in Sub-Saharan Africaand other regions over 1970–95 suggests that private savingin Africa can be explained by standard behavioral models. Accordingto these models private saving in Africa lags behind that inother regions (most notably, the high performing Asian economies)because of the region's lower per capita income, high young-agedependency ratio, and high dependence on aid. The combined effectsof these factors substantially outweigh Africa's advantage fromits lower public saving and higher government consumption. Finally,analysis of the experiences of Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Botswanaprovides further insight into the saving process in Sub-SaharanAfrica.     

Sites and Services--and Subsidies: The Economics of Low-Cost Housing in Developing Countries

Sites and services projects represent a major innovation inshelter policy in developing countries and have been sponsoredby international aid agencies for somewhat more than a decade.Such government projects deliver a package of shelter-relatedservices, the standards of which depend on the ability and willingnessto pay of intended beneficiaries. Typically, such projects representa sharp break with preexisting government shelter policies inthat they attempt, in principle, to focus directly on lower-incomegroups and to deliver shelter and services with small or nosubsidies. This article describes the background of the sitesand services concept; reviews recent evaluations of sites andservices projects; presents an analytical model of the sitesand services paradigm (which is used to examine how major projectoutcomes are influenced by project design); summarizes recentresearch on housing demand in developing countries (which isrelevant to designing appropriate sites and services projects);reviews planning assumptions used in World Bank sites and servicesprojects; compares these assumptions with empirical evidenceon willingness to pay for housing; and examines project experiencein light of contrasts between actual planning assumptions andempirical research on demand for shelter. The article concludeswith suggestions for ways to improve the project design processand reform housing sector policies to increase the efficacyof the sites and services paradigm.     

Change in market assessments of deposit-institution riskiness

Using the Goldfeld and Quandt switching regression method, this article investigates variability over 1975–1985 in the risk components of bank and saving and loan stock. We develop evidence that the market-beta, interest-sensitivity, and residual risk of deposit-institution stock vary significantly during this period. Reassessing previous event studies in light of these findings suggests that event-study methods tend to overreach their data. The Ohio State University University of Maryland     

Civil Liberties, Democracy, and the Performance of Government Projects

This article uses a cross-national data set on the performanceof government investment projects financed by the World Bankto examine the link between government efficacy and governance.It demonstrates a strong empirical link between civil libertiesand the performance of government of projects. Even after controllingfor other determinants of performance, countries with the strongestcivil liberties have projects with an economic rate of return8–22 percentage points higher than countries with theweakest civil liberties. The strong effect of civil libertiesholds true even when controlling for the level of democracy. The interrelationship among civil liberties, civil strife, andproject performance suggests that the possible mechanism ofcausation is from more civil liberties to increased citizenvoice to better projects. This result adds to the evidence forthe view that increasing citizen voice and public accountability—throughboth participation and better governance—can lead to greaterefficacy in government action.     

Re-examining the investment-uncertainty relationship in a real options model

The main purpose of this paper is to re-examine the investment-uncertainty relationship in a real options model, and demonstrates that the Sarkar (J Econ Dyn Control 24:219–225, 2000) model is a special case of our model. This paper uses a general dynamic process, which incorporates mean reversion and jumps in a firm’s project earnings. We further derive a quasi-analytical form solution for the critical investment value and investment probability of a firm’s projects. From the simulation results, we find that an increase in uncertainty can always lead to an increase in the probability of investment, and thus has a positive impact on investment. These results, which differ from the findings of Sarkar (J Econ Dyn Control 24:219–225, 2000), could be explained by the mean-reversion and jump effects on a firm’s earnings.     

The long-term future of the great barrier reef

Long-term participative regional planning is a relatively new and developing field in Australia. To conduct a futures project that seeks to address the serious matters of reef-related food production, jobs, recreation, cultural heritage and the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef with over 60 organizations participating, is not without its challenges. This futures project—the 25-year Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area Strategic Plan Development Project—has been described by the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) as having established a world model in participative regional planning for ecologically sustainable use of a natural resource. This article deals with the following questions: Why was the futures project needed? What was done? How was it achieved? What else needs to occur now and in the future? And, so what?     

Direct and indirect knowledge spillovers: the “social network” of open‐source projects

Knowledge spillovers are a central part of knowledge accumulation. The article focuses on spillovers that occur through the interaction between different researchers or developers who collaborate on different research projects. The article distinguishes between project spillovers and contributors’ spillovers and between direct and indirect spillovers. The article constructs a unique data set of open source software projects. The data identify the contributors who work on each project and thus enable us to construct a two‐mode network: a project network and a contributor network. The article demonstrates that the structure of these networks is associated with project success and that there is a positive association between project closeness centrality and project success. This suggests the existence of both direct and indirect project knowledge spillovers. We find no evidence for any association between contributor closeness centrality and project success, suggesting that contributor spillovers play a lesser role in project success.     

THE DEMAND FOR WATER IN RURAL AREAS: DETERMINANTS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Improving the adequacy and quality of water supplies is a priorityfor rural development in developing countries. So far, the strategiesof governments and international donors for tackling the problemhave been supply-driven; the fundamental importance of demandin the selection of appropriate policies has been virtuallyignored. The realization that effective policy and planningmust take into account what the rural clients want and are preparedto pay for was the impetus for the World Bank's multicountrystudy of households' demand for improved water services. This article summarizes the findings of the 1987–90 investigationof determinants of rural demand in selected regions of LatinAmerica, Africa, and South Asia. The research team used bothdirect (contingent valuation) surveys and indirect (revealedpreference) methods to estimate households' willingness to payfor different levels and types of improvement. The methodologyproduced some illuminating insights into how to decide whatlevel of service is appropriate for a particular community andhow the improved services should be paid for. The team identifiedfour broad categories of village situations, with appropriatepolicies ranging from the provision of house connections atfull cost at one extreme, to no improvement in traditional suppliesat the other extreme.      

Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing Causality with Subjective Data

Data from 121 diverse rural water projects provide strong statisticalfindings that increasing beneficiary participation directlycauses better project outcomes. Three possible econometric objectionsto these findings are addressed and answered. The subjectivenature of the data does not preclude valid, cardinal measuresof participation appropriate for statistical analysis. "Haloeffects"—changes in the measurement of one variable becauseof the observed state of another variable—do not seemto induce a strong upward bias in the measurement of participationor project performance. Reverse causation is unlikely: estimationusing instrumental variables, data on project timing, and documentationof case studies support the cause-effect relation between participationand better project performance.     

Dams and dissent: India's first modern environmental activist and his critique of the DVC project

The inner tensions plaguing the political philosophy of ecology in India were captured in the life and times of Kapil Bhattacharjee, South Asia's first modern environmental activist. In the 1950s he courageously fought against a highly popular project, the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), a huge multipurpose river valley project that included a number of dams, power stations and a barrage. It was being then vended as the harbinger of unforeseen prosperity in Eastern India. As a result, some even denounced Bhattacharjee as a traitor, particularly for opposing the Farakka barrage, which he considered as a fraud on the Indian public.The ambivalence towards him in his society was matched by his own ambivalence. Here was a person who defiantly initiated, virtually single-handedly, environmental activism as we know it in this part of the world. Yet, in other respects he showed remarkable self-censorship. Brought up in the heady atmosphere of the easy rationalism of the inter-war years and in the cold war atmosphere immediately after World War II, Bhattacharjee came close to admitting — and yet shield away from actually doing so — that rivers were not merely economic resources, but also civilisational boons. The sanctity of a river, particularly its right to be itself, was never acceptable to him, except as a popular belief. And though in later life he also became a distinguished human rights activist, he never was adequately sensitive to the way some of the tribes of India bore the major brunt of the DVC. The uprooting and destitution imposed on them do not figure at all in his writings on the subject.One possible explanation of these anomalies is in Bhattacharjee's basic commitment to the urban-industrial vision and to a theory of modern-science-based progress. Between them, they ensured that while he sometimes wrote movingly about traditional knowledge systems dealing with rivers and about the dangers of large-scale intervention in nature, saving the city of Calcutta and India's industrial base always had priority in his philosophy of environmentalism.     

SOCIAL ANALYSES OF ACCOUNTING INSTITUTIONS: ECONOMIC VALUE,ACCOUNTING REPRESENTATION AND THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The paper is a commentary on Bryer's article “A Marxist Critique of the FASB's Conceptual Framework”; the commentary is divided into three main sections. The first section begins by addressing the changing relationships between accounting and economics and, more specifically, the ideas of economic value and accounting representation (often called “representational faithfulness”, see Bryer, p. 582) that underlie Bryer's concerns with the FASB project. The second section considers the role of the FASB conceptual framework project in order to address the different ways that the “impact” of the FASB's Conceptual Framework project upon accounting practices can be considered. Several of the existing studies of this project that consider its purpose in social and political terms are reviewed. This is not to suggest that the FASB's work has had @9pno@2p effects, but rather that its consequences might be thought of in institutional and political terms. In the final section some of the specifics of Bryer's Marxist analysis are addressed. In particular the relationship between Marxian analysis and accounting change is considered.     

Understanding social closure in its cultural context: accounting practitioners in France (1920–1939)

This article tries to show how the result of a process of social closure and the achievement of a professional project are heavily dependent on the cultural context in which they are embedded. The concepts of field and of capital developed by Pierre Bourdieu help to understand the failure, before the Second World War, of the project to institutionalise the accounting profession in France. The accountants’ inability to solidify hierarchies internal to the professional field and the unfavourable insertion of this field in the overall hierarchy of social fields will be used as key-arguments to account for this failure.     

Half a Century of Development Economics: A Review Based on the Handbook of Development Economics

The Handbook of Development Economics provides an unmatchedperspective on the past half century of research in the field.This article reviews some of the significant findings of theHandbook and identifies areas of development economics not coveredthere. It describes the evolution of the field, beginning withthe postwar Indian Congress consensus, which emphasized stateplanning. That paradigm was complemented in the 1970s by thedual economy paradigm and the work of the Latin American structuralists.As the costs of protectionism came to be recognized, many economiesadopted an outward orientation with respect to both trade andforeign investment. This outward orientation later formed partof a new consensus on macroeconomic management, sometimes referredto as the Washington consensus. This consensus— more accuratelydubbed the One World consensus— is now widely acceptedthroughout the world, as developing and industrial countriesalike have embraced its emphasis on fiscal discipline, tax reform,outward orientation, privatization of state enterprises, deregulation,and the safeguarding of property rights. Despite SO years ofresearch, large gaps in the understanding of development remain.Adopting Sen's framework of beings and doings and focusing oncollective action and the roles played by individuals may helpto fill some of these gaps.     

高储蓄率下养老金与个税缴纳激励联动的应用探索

中国基本养老保险存在的主要问题是基金缺口过大,个人账户"空账"问题突出.将养老金与个税缴纳激励联动可以让积极缴纳税收者、税收贡献大者获得更多的社会保障福利支持,中国养老金制度不健全是高储蓄率现状的主要原因之一,而养老金部分积累制在中国应用的主要障碍是来源不足;国际上在解决该问题上所提出的通过个税减免或优惠来激励个人缴纳养老金的方案,在中国有一定的借鉴意史,但要结合中国国情,从而提出养老金制度建设和税收激励联动体系设计的新思路.     

Insights on Development from the Economics of Happiness

The literature on the economics of happiness in developed economiesfinds discrepancies between reported measures of well-beingand income measures. One is the so-called Easterlin paradox:that average happiness levels do not increase as countries growwealthier. This article explores how that paradox—andsurvey research on reported well-being in general—canprovide insights into the gaps between standard measures ofeconomic development and individual assessments of welfare.Analysis of research on reported well-being in Latin Americaand Russia finds notable discrepancies between respondents’assessments of their own well-being and income- or expenditure-basedmeasures. Accepting a wide margin for error in both types ofmeasures, the article posits that taking such discrepanciesinto account may improve the understanding of development outcomesby providing a broader view on well-being than do income- orexpenditure-based measures alone. It suggests particular areaswhere research on reported well-being has the most potentialto contribute. Yet the article also notes that some interpretationsof happiness research—psychologists’ set point theory,in particular—may be quite limited in their applicationto development questions and cautions against the direct translationof results of happiness surveys into policy recommendations.