A New Approach to Identifying Structural Development in Economic Systems: The Case of the Queensland Economy

Recently, some economists have come to view economic development as a process of ongoing structural change which has self-organisational features. What is required is evidence concerning the self-organisational character of economic development. In other words, is economic growth associated with growth in the complexity of its structure and with a parallel rise in organisational interdependence? An extended version of qualitative input-output analysis, termed Minimal Flow Analysis (MFA), is used in this paper to analyse the structural linkages and changes that have occurred in the Queensland economy over the last two decades. The MFA evidence confirms that there has been a steady increase in the complexity of the Queensland economy. Economic coordination has occurred, to an increasing extent, through market intermediation. From a self-organisational perspective, it is clear that the Queensland economy has followed a rapid and coherent developmental path, marked by the emergence of bonded structures in its core and increasing complexity on its periphery.     

Why do global long‐term scenarios for agriculture differ? An overview of the AgMIP Global Economic Model Intercomparison

Recent studies assessing plausible futures for agricultural markets and global food security have had contradictory outcomes. To advance our understanding of the sources of the differences, 10 global economic models that produce long‐term scenarios were asked to compare a reference scenario with alternate socioeconomic, climate change, and bioenergy scenarios using a common set of key drivers. Several key conclusions emerge from this exercise: First, for a comparison of scenario results to be meaningful, a careful analysis of the interpretation of the relevant model variables is essential. For instance, the use of “real world commodity prices” differs widely across models, and comparing the prices without accounting for their different meanings can lead to misleading results. Second, results suggest that, once some key assumptions are harmonized, the variability in general trends across models declines but remains important. For example, given the common assumptions of the reference scenario, models show average annual rates of changes of real global producer prices for agricultural products on average ranging between ?0.4% and +0.7% between the 2005 base year and 2050. This compares to an average decline of real agricultural prices of 4% p.a. between the 1960s and the 2000s. Several other common trends are shown, for example, relating to key global growth areas for agricultural production and consumption. Third, differences in basic model parameters such as income and price elasticities, sometimes hidden in the way market behavior is modeled, result in significant differences in the details. Fourth, the analysis shows that agro‐economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require better data and analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross‐fertilize analyses at different scales.     

Wage Cyclicality Under Different Regimes of Industrial Relations

We analyze the effect of collective wage agreements and of works councils on the cyclicality of real wages. Using employer–employee data for western Germany (1995–2004), we find that wage adjustments to positive and negative shocks are generally not symmetric. Wage growth increases in all industrial relations regimes when unemployment is falling, but this inverse relationship is weaker when unemployment is rising. Moreover, in plants with individual‐level bargaining, wages do not adjust at all to rising unemployment. Works councils increase wage growth only in firms covered by sectoral agreements, but they do not affect the cyclicality of wages.     

Die Armen zahlen mehr — ein vernachlässigtes Problem der Verbraucherpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland?

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, daß es auch in der BRD etliche empirische Indizien gibt, welche für die aus den USA bakannte These «die Armen zahlen mehr» sprechen. Nach einer kurzen Erläuterung dieser These sowie der sie stützenden Einzelhypothesen und der Erörterung der dafür sprechenden empirischen Indizien in der BRD, wird schließlich die Frage aufgeworfen, ob die Verbraucherpolitik in der BRD nicht stärker auf die besonderen Probleme sozial schwacher Konsumenten ausgerichtet werden soll, um damit zugleich in Übereinstimmung mit sozialpolitischen Zielsetzungen deren Lebenslage zu verbessern.

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The poor pay more — an ignored problem of consumer policy in the Federal Republic of Germany

The aim of this article is to focus the attention of consumer research and consumer policy in West Germany on the special disadvantages of low-income consumers. These disadvantages are well known in U. S. consumer and poverty research since the pioneering study in this field by Caplovitz (The Poor Pay More) but seem to be still largely ignored in West Germany.Surveying the available empirical knowledge on income differences and consumer behaviour in West Germany, four main factors can be identified which cause low-income consumers to pay more for the same goods (T₁), or to get goods of lower quality, i.e., less value for the same amount of money (T₂), than better-off middle-class consumers do.Firstly, in West Germany as in other western countries, low-income consumers, especially low-educated consumers, seem to be less informed than better educated middle-class consumers about market conditions, shopping opportunities, prices, and quality of goods. So they may have a greater risk of uneconomical buying. Remarkably, low-income consumers do not utilize the consumer's advice bureau or consumer information offered by the Stiftung Warentest to the extent that middle-class consumers do.Secondly, low-income consumers more frequently than middle-class consumers shop for food and daily necessities in small stores in their neighbourhood, more often buying in small quantities. Shopping in this way, goods are more expensive than by buying larger quantities in supermarkets or discount-stores. Interviews with low-income consumers in Munich (Studiengruppe für Sozialforschung, 1974) showed that this particular shopping behaviour is not mainly due to the lack of market information or to a preference by low-income consumers for personal contacts at shopping, as is sometimes maintained, but rather stems from budget restrictions which prevent large-scale buying, and from transportation problems facing low-income consumers without an automobile, especially in urban low-income areas and in rural settlements without discount-stores or the like.Thirdly, there is some evidence to suggest that low-income consumers in West Germany more frequently buy on instalment credit, which is supposed to be more costly than cash-payments or banking credits preferred by middle-class consumers.Fourthly, there is some empirical evidence in West Germany that low-income consumers, mostly low-educated, in contrast to middle-class consumers largely lack consumer know-how and shopping sophistication. So it can be assumed that low-income consumers are more frequently caught in unplanned and unfavourable purchases by persuasion of salesmen or pedlars. Presumably they also, more often than middle-class consumers, abstarin from taking action when dissatisfied. It is worth nothing, though, that the latest empirical findings in West Germany do not support the widespread view that low-income consumers do less household planning and budgeting and therefore more frequently do uneconomical shopping than middle-class consumers. Indeed, in the incidence of household planning in the country there seems to be no significant differences by income level. As strict household planning in West Germany is generally rare, in this respect one may only presume that many poor consumers pay more than would be necessary by careful income spending (T₃).Referring to these findings, the recommendation is made that public consumer policy in the Federal Republic of Germany to an increasing extent should face up to the disadvantages of low-income consumers and attempt to contribute to the reduction of real-income poverty. As scientific knowledge on this issue is still very sparse in West Germany, the article closes with a demand for further research in the field.

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Hermann Scherl ist wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Institut für Staats-und Versicherungswissenschaft der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (D — 8520 Erlangen, Kochstraße 4).     

The impact of 1992 on product liability in Europe

MNCs with plans for marketing within the EC after 1992 may want to prepare now for developments stemming from a directive calling for a tough stand on product liability within the European Community.     

XIII. Soziologie und Kultur,Politik und Geschichte

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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XIII. Soziologie und Kultur, Politik und Geschichte