Henry George on Land Ownership: A Comment on Pullen

Did George alienate many by presenting his reform program as the institution of a new form of restricted land possession rather than as the retention of traditional ownership with a substantial land tax imposed? It seems doubtful, yet the distinction merits further exploration and the peculiar and hard‐to‐implement nature of the tax and the difficulty of reconciling it with George's distrust of government needs to be stressed. Ideally, George might have preferred complete government ownership of land but his policy proposals were pragmatically adapted to the realities of his own society. The extent of the egalitarianism and aid to the landless implied in his program is questioned.     

Commentary on workfare: Servitude or success formula?

In his article entitled “Workfare: Servitude or Success Formula?” Patrick J. Keleher Jr. discusses Project Chance, an Illinois public aid program under which refusal of an aid recipient to participate in job training and work internships can result in termination of public assistance. Despite that seemingly coercive aspect of Project Chance, Keleher defends the program as consistent with the basic moral rights of welfare recipients. In my commentary I present reasons why I am not convinced by Keleher's defense of Project Chance.     

The future of fund raising: developments in the 1980s

Those institutions that survive the "combined onslaught" of inflation, taxes and other stubborn foes that will continue to beset them in the decade to come can only be strengthened by their tribulations, the author claims. With the aid of his "crystal ball", he views what the 1980s have in store for philanthropy.     

Abraham de Moivre en zijn “Doctrine of Chances”

Summary ABRAHAM DE MOIVRE (1667 Vitry - 1754 London) was one of the foremost pioneers in the domain of the theory of probability. His principal contributions are laid down in his “Doctrine of Chances” (three editions, 1718, 1738, 1756). This classic work, almost forgotten, is now republished, as a splendid photographic reprint of the third (last) edition, by Chelsea Publishing Company of New York (1967). In this article we specially mention his original contributions respecting the problem of the duration of play, the theory and application of recurrent series, the theory of runs, and especially his extension of the value of BERNOULLI'S theorem by the aid of STIRLING'S theorem. In the last mentioned research DE MOIVRE obtained the equation for the curve of error, thus antedating LAPLACE by about 50 and GAUSS by 76 years. This important fact is discovered by KARL PEARSON in 1924.     

THE REVIVAL OF CULTURAL EXPLANATION IN ECONOMICS

Cultural explanations of economic change were largely dropped for a generation, as economists rejected their inconclusiveness and other social scientists labelled them as politically incorrect. Peter Bauer, however, expressed disquiet at the way deep influences like culture were being ignored in economic analysis. This paper discusses why high-profile attention has now turned back to culture. It does not find the expositions offered to be very persuasive but nevertheless agrees that Bauer's unease was understandable and describes other recent academic studies that are more promising.     

Books

Book Reviews in this Article From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays. Peter Bauer It's Getting Better All The Time: 100 Greatest Trends in the Last 100 Years. Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon Marshall's Tendencies: What Can Economists Know? John Sutton Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution. John Hoskyns The End of Shareholder Value. Allan Kennedy The Economics of Energy, Volumes I & II. Paul Stevens (ed.)     

e-服务质量对酒店在线预订消费者满意度影响研究

e-服务指消费者在线预订前信息搜寻、在线预订、预订后登记入住为止的全过程所接受的服务;其质量测量维度以Bauer(2006)的五大维度为基础,结合中国消费者心理确定为网站设计、娱乐性、易用性、可靠性、反应性五大维度。在此基础上,建立酒店在线预订消费者满意度(HECS)结构方程模型,检验e-服务质量对在线预订顾客满意度的影响具有非常重要的现实意义。本文研究表明,网站易用性、可靠性、反应性对消费者满意度的影响显著。     

Teaching undergraduate econometrics with GRETL

This paper reviews GRETL, a software package for econometrics. Mainly it discusses GRETL's merits as an aid in teaching undergraduate econometrics. This discussion is in two parts. First one author, an instructor, reviews the teaching of undergraduate econometrics with GRETL. Then the second author, a student, discusses the experience of being introduced to GRETL as part of the introductory course and of putting it to work as part of his employment. The paper briefly discusses GRETL as a research tool. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MIGRATION, GLOBALISATION AND THE SPIRIT OF PETER BAUER

Lord Bauer understood that the human freedom of movement plays a vital role in development. Today, internal and cross-border migration generates hard-currency remittances that raise living standards and capital investment in the country of origin, promotes greater trade and investment ties between destination and origin countries, and raises a country's stock of human and physical capital when migrants return with new skills and investment funds. Immigration can also stimulate political and social reform when migrants return or foreign-born immigrants arrive with new ideas and experiences. Relaxing the pervasive controls on the international movement of people remains a huge piece of unfinished business on the market-driven development agenda.     

A perspective on pharmacy training and practice.

The role of the pharmacist is expanding. Pharmacists are being employed now as drug information sources. Physicians are using pharmacists to aid in the proper dosing of aminoglycosides and chemotherapy agents. Many physicians inquire about the proper method to prescribe certain drugs. Nurses and other health personnel rely on the pharmacist to help in special areas of treatment, such as code blue services or patient counseling. As advances in medical treatments are made, each health professional must accept his or her increased responsibility to work with other health professionals to offer the most current and precise medical therapy available. I believe the profession of pharmacy will accept this increased responsibility to serve those in need.     

Why Development Programmes Fail: William Easterly and the Political Economy of Intervention

Throughout his considerable body of work, William Easterly has identified several critical problems with foreign aid and economic development programmes. In particular, he argues that many working in areas of development act as ‘planners’, who believe they can implement effective policies but who in fact lack the necessary knowledge. Moreover, Easterly claims that these agents face perverse incentives that lead to suboptimal development outcomes. This article explores the theoretical roots of Easterly's critiques and relates them to the work of two Nobel prize‐winning economists, F.A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan. It explores the broader applicability of Easterly's criticisms by applying a similar framework to military activity.     

Donors and domestic politics: Political influences on foreign aid effort

The vast majority of scholarship on foreign aid looks at either the effectiveness of foreign aid or why particular countries receive aid from particular donors. This paper takes a different approach: what are the domestic sources of support for foreign aid? Specifically, how does the donor's domestic political and economic environment influence ‘aid effort’? This paper uses a time-series cross-sectional data set to analyze the influence of changes in political and economic variables. As governments become more conservative, their aid effort is likely to fall. Domestic political variables appear to influence aid effort, but only for aid to low income countries and multilaterals while aid effort to middle income countries in unaffected. This suggests that models solely emphasizing donor economic and international strategic interests as determinants of donor aid policy may be mis-specified. These results also suggest sources of aid volatility that might influence recipient growth prospects.     

Does Monetary Aid Catalyse New Business Creation? Analysing the Impact of Global Aid Flows on Formal and Informal Entrepreneurship

Official development aid – monetary transfers to developing countries to promote social and economic development – reached more than $140 billion in 2016. However, traditional forms of government bilateral aid continue to decline, while private aid is rising. Nevertheless, the impact of this aid, including its potential to stimulate economic development through new business formation, remains uncertain. In this study, we examine the impact of three sources of monetary aid flows on formal and informal entrepreneurship. Drawing from the international political economy literature we argue that bilateral aid and private aid are associated with higher levels of informal entrepreneurship, while multilateral aid is accompanied by lower levels. Moreover, we show that bilateral and private aid are linked with lower levels of formal entrepreneurship, while multilateral aid has no impact. The analyses of a panel of 313 observations from 49 countries provide robust support for these arguments.     

Can Development Aid Help Promote Foreign Direct Investment? Evidence from Central Asia

There is a continuing debate on the effectiveness of development aid. One less obvious angle on this issue is the question of the likely impact of aid on foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper tests whether aid had any impact on incoming FDI in Central Asian economies during the period 1993–2008. A simple panel model suggests that (a) aid had a moderate complementary effect on inward FDI, (b) there was a crowding‐out effect such that domestic investment reduced FDI stocks, (c) natural resources were a key attraction for private capital, and (d) increases in development aid offset the crowding‐out effect of domestic capital on FDI. It is argued that donors should target aid to enhance the climate for inward investment.     

建立贫困大学生教育援助体系的思考

贫困大学生资助工作是高校学生管理工作中一个重要组成部分,其工作成效直接影响贫困大学生的成长与成才。本文从贫困大学生教育援助要实现的经济援助、思想政治素质、文化素养和心理素质等4个方面的目标,提出了教育援助的内容与途径,搭建了贫困大学生教育援助体系。     

和谐视域下的大学生就业援助体系探索与构建

厘清大学生就业援助对象、援助目标和实施主体是构建大学生就业援助体系的前提和依据。高校大学生就业援助是社会援助体系建设的重要组成部分。大学生就业援助体系应从政府、公共服务机构、高校、企事业单位和就业援助对象自身等五个层面来构建,确保大学生就业援助工作的系统性和完整性,实现大学生充分就业。     

Cultural values and public policy: The case of international development aid

This paper investigates whether the quantity and character of aggregate expenditures on foreign aid by donor governments are related to the cultural values held by the people of the donor countries. In particular, we study whether any association exists between three measures of donors’ foreign aid expenditures and two dimensions of culture. We find that the shares of national income governments spend on aid, the proportion of total aid provided in the form of grants, and the proportion of aid directed to humanitarian relief are all related in statistically significant and quantitatively important ways to the location of the cultural values of people in the donor countries on two continua, one from “traditional” to “rational” beliefs about social organization and authority, and the other from “survival” to “self-expression” as the focus of individual aspirations. These results contribute to our understanding of the political economy of aid, and to a growing literature on how culture shapes economic policies, institutions, and performance.     

Multilateral development aid for Africa

Inequities and inefficiencies in development aid arise from donor–recipient motivational conflicts, agency problems, and institutional deficiencies. Recent thinking on reforming official aid recommends technocratic solutions including recipient ownership, selectivity, budgetary grants, and multilateralization of aid management. Locating persistent policy failure in Africa primarily in its political institutions, this paper explores three alternative models of multilateral aid for reconciling need and effectiveness. They are the European Union's (EU's) model of regional aid, the International Development Association's (IDA's) model of concessional loans, and a synthesis model (S-model). Implications are drawn for redesigning aid to Africa that would adequately account for the peculiarities of the world's most prominent development challenge.     

On the simultaneity problem in the aid and growth debate

This paper shows that foreign aid has a significant positive average effect on real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth if, and only if, the quantitatively large negative reverse causal effect of per capita GDP growth on foreign aid is adjusted for in the growth regression. Instrumental variables estimates show that a 1 percentage point increase in GDP per capita growth decreased foreign aid by over 4%. Adjusting for this quantitatively large, negative reverse causal effect of economic growth on foreign aid shows that a 1% increase in foreign aid increased real per capita GDP growth by around 0.1 percentage points. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of foreign aid on the recipient country’s economic growth

We introduce an infinite-horizon endogenous growth framework for studying the effects of foreign aid on the economic growth in a recipient country. Aid is used to partially finance the recipient’s public investment. We point out that the same rule of aid may have very different outcomes, depending on the recipient’s circumstances in terms of development level, domestic investment, efficiency in the use of aid and in public investment, etc. Foreign aid may promote growth in the recipient country, but the global dynamics of equilibrium are complex (because of the non-monotonicity and steady state multiplicity). The economy may converge to a steady state or grow without bounds. Moreover, there are rooms for the divergence and a two-period cycle. We characterize conditions under which each scenario takes place. Our analysis contributes to the debate on the nexus between aid and economic growth and in particular on the conditionality of aid effects.