Reviews

DEPRIVATION IN THE OUTER CITY.

Barke, M. and Turnbull, G. 1992: Meadowell: The Biography of an “Estate with Problems”. Aldershot: Avebury, £32.00 cloth.

CHANGING BOUNDARIES OF RACE.

Jones, Trevor. 1993: Britain's Ethnic Minorities. PSI,

£15.

ENTERPRISE IN ARCADIA?

Curran, J. and Storey, D. (eds), 1993: Small Firms in Urban and Rural Locations, London and New York: Routledge, £40, hardback.

MAKING CONNECTIONS.

Turok, I. 1993: Loose connections? Foreign investment and local linkages in “Silicon Glen” Strathclyde Papers on Planning, 23. Centre for Planning, University of Strathclyde, 50 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XN. £4.00, paper.

COWLEY: THE END OF THE LINE?

Hayter, T. and Harvey, D. (eds) 1993: The Factory and the City: the Story of the Cowley Automobile Works in Oxford. London: Mansell, £40, hardback.

UPDATING SECTOR APPROACHES.

Geddes, M. and Benington, J. (eds) 1992: Restructuring the Local Economy. Harlow: Longman, £22.00, paper.

BORN AGAIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT?

Hodge, M. and Thompson, W. 1994: Beyond the Town Hall: Reinventing Local Government. Fabian Pamphlet, £3.90.     

China＇s Trade Acceleration and the Deepening of an East Asian Regional Production Network

China＇s recent surge in trade has been associated with its deepening but contrasting trade relations with its two groups of key trading partners. On the one hand, China＇ s trade surpluses with the USA and the EU have risen rapidly, reaching US$144bn and US$91bn in 2006, respectively. On the other hand, China is importing heavily from its Asian neighbors. This diverging pattern of trade relations between China and its main trading partners reflects the continuous expansion and intensification of a complex cross-border production network in Asia, particularly for consumer electronics. In the process of deepening manufacturing sharing, China serves as an essential export platform for firms headquartered in the more advanced economies. These firms export intermediate goods from the relatively more advanced Asian economies to their affiliates in China where these inputs are assembled and then shipped to key export markets, including primarily the USA and the EU. One apparent outcome of the growing processing and assembly trade is the increased interdependency among Asian economies, which are now more dependent on each other than ever. It has also led to substantial structural changes and technological upgrading in China＇ s traded goods.     

Sources of stagnation in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates the sources of economic stagnation in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1970s. Several policy variables are considered, as well as a set of ‘environmental’ variables which include climate, violence, export prices and other exogenous factors. The paper uses statistical analysis in an attempt to identify the relative importance of the policy variables and the ‘environmental’ variables, taken as groups. It also seeks to identify particular policy variables which seem to have been most significant in determining growth outcomes.The technique employed for investigation is reduced-form econometric estimation. In a preliminary analysis, the impact of the international trade environment on average economic performance in Africa during the period since independence is investigated. The results suggest an extremely close relationship between movements in export prices and average performance throughout the 20-year period.A second econometric exercise investigates the joint impacts of environmental and policy variables on growth in a cross-section of African states since 1970. The spirit of the approach is exploratory, and a relatively large number of variables are constructed and tested through multivariate analysis. A primary finding is that the environmental variables seem to have had more impact on growth as a group than the policy variables. This finding must be qualified, however, by the continuing lack of some important policy variables. Agricultural price data have not yet become available in sufficient quantity for cross-section analysis, nor have several important human resource variables and indices of the use of resources in the public domain.Among the policy variables which have been used for the analysis, those identified with retrenchment during periods of declining commodity prices seem most significant. Primary among these are the real effective exchange rate and some measures of effectiveness in foreign exchange reallocation during periods when imports must contract severely.In the final section of the paper, the cross-section results are used for a counterfactual analysis of the growth experiences of individual African states. Measures of growth opportunity cost are constructed which suggest the degree to which errors in management and uncontrollable circumstances have held states below their potential growth paths. The results suggest that some ‘success stories’ may owe much to good luck, while some ‘failures’ may well be due less to bad management than to adverse circumstances.     

Sub-Saharan Africa thirty years hence

By the year 2015, Sub-Saharan Africa's population will probably rise from a 1985 level of about 460 million to about 1.1 billion. Today Africa's population is growing at a rate of roughly 3% a year, with exceptionally high growth rates in some countries. The leaders of Africa, and those who wish to help Africa, confront difficult and urgent problems of drought, political and military conflict, accumulated debt, lower commodity prices, and other factors of immediate and important concern. Africa has given education a high priority and should be as well known for its success in increasing school enrollment as it is for its relative failures in other areas. A projected population of 1.1 billion people and a fertility rate down to 30/1000 by the year 2015 suggests that the number of children old enough to enter primary school will be of the order of 30 million a year at this time. The working-age population will grow from 235 million now to perhaps 600 million in 30 years. The urban population has been growing at about 6% a year--twice the pace of population increase. All of these situations will have an effect on environment, water, and health. Coping with Africa's burgeoning population in terms of children in school, the demand on health systems, the need for jobs, achieving an adequate diet, the provision of basic urban services, and all the rest, is an extraordinary challenge. While the government's role is critical, success at the sectoral level almost always means cost recovery, administration decentralized to the community or to the private sector, and program implementation that does not burden the budget.     

Applying Ethics to the Tourism Industry

The world's largest industry has received little ethical attention, yet it raises questions of consumer fairness, marketing and environmental and cultural integrity. The author has recently gained an MSc in Tourism Studies from the University of Surrey, and is currently working as an independent consultant in the tourism and leisure sector.     

End-of-life care in nursing homes: the high cost of staff turnover

Nursing home staff turnover results in high cost--both economic and personal--and has a negative impact on the quality of care provided to residents at the end of life. Reducing staff turnover in nursing homes would benefit both the cost to the U.S. health care system, and, most importantly, the care residents receive in the vulnerable period leading to death. There is rising pressure on nursing homes to improve their palliative and end-of-life care practices and reduce transfers to hospital for situations and conditions that can be safely managed on site. Nursing care staff deserve an investment in the specific training necessary for them to give the highest quality care to dying residents. This training should be multifaceted and include the physiological, psychological, spiritual, interpersonal, and cultural (including ethnic) aspects of dying. Empowerment with these necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes will not only result in better care for residents but likely also will reduce the burnout and frustration staff experience in caring for residents near death.     

Picking the winner? Empirical evidence on the targeting of R&D subsidies to start-ups

This paper investigates the allocation of R&D subsidies given to start-ups. Considering the coexistence of various R&D project schemes, we take an aggregate view and analyze the determinants of the receipt of (any) R&D subsidies within the first three business years of the start-ups. We argue that policymakers and funding authorities follow a strategy of ??picking the winner??. Analyzing start-ups in the East German state of Thuringia, we conduct logistic regressions and find ambiguous support. R&D subsidies are given to start-ups with innovative business ideas, especially academic spin-offs. Although the ambitions and patent stock of the founder(s) do not decide the receipt of R&D subsidies, team start-ups and the initial capital of a start-up tend to affect this decision positively. Hence, we cannot exclude a ??picking the winner?? strategy in targeting R&D subsidies to start-ups. More generally, however, the problems of policy targeting question the massive subsidization of private R&D.     

Personality and Saving Behavior Among Older Adults

This study investigates how psychological characteristics influence saving behavior within a sample of 1,380 U.S. preretirees aged 50–70 from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using the 3M Model of Motivation and Personality as a theoretical basis, structural equation model results revealed that financial self‐efficacy (FSE) directly explains saving behavior and is central to understanding the link between other psychological characteristics and the saving behavior of older adults. Through higher FSE, increased positive affect and reduced negative affect indirectly supported saving behavior. Moreover, the results revealed personality traits indirectly explained saving behavior. Conscientiousness and extroversion indirectly supported saving behavior; whereas openness to experience and neuroticism indirectly undermined saving behavior. This study connects broad personality traits with saving behavior, which provides information about how older adults' psychological composition is related to their saving practices.