No excuses: forecasting can be managed

Originally written for manufacturers, the forecasting concepts presented in this article are easily applied to a hospital or health care facility with a supply function or central distribution center. Forecasting can offer a method of managing the control of medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, or maintenance items. A statistical based forecasting approach with seasonality testing could be useful in analyzing patient census data, calculating trends, and then recommending staffing levels. Cost containment and efficiency of operations are priorities in any industry. Forecasting the demand of medical supplies and services in today's hectic health care environment can have a significant effect on both customer service and financial results. The bottom line is happy patients and healthy profits.     

Fiscal crisis and fiscal reform in developing countries

In recent years, policy-makers in developing countries haveresponded to crisis of macroeconomic instability with two setsof measures: conventional stabilisation policies and policiesof economic liberalisation. The fiscal implications of thisdouble agenda are set out, following three lines of enquiry.First, how can policies be kept consistent, when some liberalisationmeasures have large adverse fiscal consequences? Second, cana fiscal deficit be reduced without damaging the provision ofpublic services vital for growth and poverty alleviation? Finally,since lack of tax revenue is usually the binding constrainton government intervention, how can this most easily be relaxed?     

Economic trends and policies in India during the Emergency

After the Indian State of Emergency was declared (June 1975), the economic conjuncture improved markedly, particularly with respect to critical supplies of foodgrains and foreign exchange. However, a survey of available economic indicators and of new Emergency government policies suggests that much improvement results from fortuitous influences, rather than policies made possible by the declaration of the Emergency. It also suggests that the class character of the Indian State has not yet significantly altered. The relationship between the government and a class coalition of monopoly and agricultural bourgeoisie has not been affected by the political changes since mid-1975.     

Exploring Utopia (Limited) with a Companion

For economic development, the central importance of commerciallaw, private enterprise and public infrastructure are undeniable.Yet trying to transplant such in situations when they are foreigncan add political turmoil to economic stagnation. Drawing onThe Elgar Companion to Development Studies (2006), this dilemmais explored with implications for the appropriate definitionof ‘institutions’; the meaning of property rightsand the mechanisms of conflict resolution.     

Hans Singer's debts to Schumpeter and Keynes

This essay discusses Hans Singer's intellectual formation andthe influences on his early writings and on his post-1947 developmenteconomics. It asks what impact the unusual experience of studyingwith both Schumpeter and Keynes had upon his subsequent economicthinking and practice. It argues that the influence of boththese mentors was surprisingly small, compared with that ofSpiethoff and Clark. Singer repaid his debts to Schumpeter andKeynes, but by working in the new currency of development economics,some of which was his own coinage. His motivation for this vasteffort was derived from the social egalitarianism of figuressuch as William Beveridge, Archbishop Temple and R. H. Tawney,rather than the liberalism of Schumpeter and Keynes.     

The recession,the Third World and the base metals industries

The paper examines the medium-term prospects for supply and demand balance in five base metal industries of interest to Third World producer countries (lead, zinc, copper, nickel and aluminium). It argues that growth in demand for the five metals will be stagnant or sluggish in the medium-term and that existing capacity, plus additions already in the construction pipelines, will be adequate, or more than adequate to meet it. Nevertheless, the Third World's share of productive capacity is likely to go on increasing, as it has done throughout the recent recession. The reasons for this shift are examined, along with the future policy dilemmas it poses for Third World producers.     

John H. Dunning (1927–2009)

Abstract

The evolution of institutional arrangements in Chinese agriculture is looked at through the twin concepts of necessity and purpose. Nested agency relations are examined from the state planning apparatus down through levels of village officials and individual households. The emerging diversity of institutional arrangements must be understood as logical outcomes of the pragmatic evaluation of material and institutional conditions in the Chinese countryside. This diversity shows up in the domain of property regimes in land, and in the organization of production on the land.