The role of the psychologist in culturally diverse Southern Africa∗

This paper attempts to make a contribution to the on‐going debate among psychologists in Southern Africa about the relevance of their discipline to the social problems of this region. It argues that the main focus of attention among psychologists in this region should be directed at the poverty and underdevelopment that characterize most Black areas in Southern Africa. The paper further argues that the main cause of this poverty and underdevelopment lies in cultural factors, which account for a ‘person‐environment mismatch’ between the Western‐oriented organizations found in the region and the traditional African culture that characterizes most Black members of these organizations. It describes the main differences between Western and traditional African culture and considers whether psychologists and other behavioural scientists interested in contributing towards a solution of this problem, should attempt to Westernize the Africans or to Africanize the organizations.     

Dealed out? Welfare to Work and Social Exclusion

"Social exclusion" has increasingly replaced the term "underclass" in social policy debates. Regardless of changes in terminology many of the assumptions that informed the underclass debate remain. These focus on the role of cultural values in transmitting dependent modes of behaviour that have a corrosive impact on the work ethic of the poor. This article begins by exploring the government's current conceptualisation of "social exclusion" as exclusion from paid employment and how this has shaped the appropriate policy response. Following from this, the article will present ethnographic research that examines the responses of a sample of residents on a South London estate to the economic insecurities that they face. These insecurities are intensified by an increasingly coercive welfare system that emphasises "supply side" measures as a panacea for social exclusion. As previous field studies have indicated, many have developed alternative solutions to economic marginality (MacDonald, 1994). At a situational level these may appear more attractive than the more formal routes currently offered. While broadly supportive of the promotion of education and training policies, many felt that these objectives are frequently compromised by more immediate concerns which are located in the respondent's perceptions of social exclusion. From this perspective, such notions may differ markedly from the rather limited version of "social exclusion" that is currently guiding the direction of welfare reform, suggesting the need for a broader definition of social exclusion that encompasses the standards and lifestyles of the surrounding community (Townsend, 1979).     

ECONOMIC REFORM WHEN THE CONSTITUTION MATTERS: INDONESIA'S CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND ARTICLE 33

Article 33 of Indonesia's Constitution requires the state to ‘control’ important branches of production and natural resources. The meaning of ‘control’ has been a matter of significant debate since Indonesia's independence: does it require the state to manage directly, or is regulation enough? The government has recently sought to break down government monopolies and attract private investment in key sectors. To this end it has enacted a raft of new statutes, but they have been challenged in Indonesia's new Constitutional Court. The Court has opted for the ‘direct manage ment’ interpretation of article 33, striking down statutes that implicitly interpret it as requiring government regulation only. This paper discusses these decisions and, more broadly, problems arising from judicial intervention in economic policy formation. It also considers how the government has sought to circumvent the decisions, and the possible consequences of state non-compliance for the Court's future.     

金融排斥:货币政策失效的另一种解释

至今为止,关于货币政策有效性的研究一直存在争议并受到学者和政策调控部门的持续关注。各种学派在理论上对货币政策有效与否的争论并没有阻碍学者们对现实货币政策有效性的探讨,大量研究都集中在货币传导机制本身及其影响因素上。本文从金融排斥角度解读货币政策可能失效的原因,并指出忽视金融排斥存在的货币政策可能导致的问题,从而赋予金融包容政策新的职能。     

Educational Attainment,Citizenship, and Black American Women in Elected and Appointed National Leadership Positions

This article examines the issue of American citizenship and how it is related to Black Americans, especially from the perspectives of educational attainment and national political leadership positions (focusing on the U.S. Senate, office of governor, and the U.S. Supreme Court). The article presents seven interrelated conceptual or theoretical perspectives of American citizenship (Three Citizenships; Gender; Equality; Race; Belonging; Military Service; and Protestant Christianity), and where Black Americans (especially Black women) fit in them. The article claims that while Black American women have made substantial progress in college degree attainment, they have done so at a very high financial cost. The article claims that compared with other groups in the society, the gains in educational attainment made by Black American women have not resulted in them being elected or selected to these national leadership positions. Among the factors presented for this exclusion of Black women are: lack of strong support from Black American male leaders and institutional support; ambition; first occupy public office within the states of the Union; they must become moderate politicians; perception that Black women have more privileges in the society than Black men and other groups; and negative media portrayal of Black female candidates. The article claims that despite being one of the oldest and most native groups in the United States, with over nine out of every 10 of them being native-born citizens, Black American women in particular tend to have the characteristics of non-citizens.     

Evidence on the Effects of Money Growth on Inflation with Regime Switching

Since the latter half of 2010, a new round of inflation has gradually been manifesting in China. The debate regarding whether excess money supply is responsible for this inflation has attracted scholars to investigate the effects of money growth on inflation. In this paper, we use correlation analysis to confirm the comovement between growth of monetary aggregates and inflation. We explore the asymmetric effects of monetary policy on inflation using the Markov regime‐switching model. The empirical results show that monetary policy can be more effective in curbing inflation in a high inflation state than in boosting the price level in a low inflation state. However, simply tightening the money supply might not be sufficient to suppress the price level. To this end, the Chinese Government should adopt other policies, such as supply stabilization policies, to help suppress the price level. Our study can help policy‐makers to determine the actual economic state and provides some policy implications for the current inflation.     

The right answers to the wrong question? An assessment of the microfoundations debate

Summary In this paper we discuss several conceptual features of the microfoundations debate. The recent revival of this debate, with its emphasis on specific characteristics of markets (partial economics), tends to shift attention away from more fundamental considerations about the workings of a market economy (the issue of coordination). In fact, the coordination issue has been neglected because Walrasian general equilibrium theory serves as a benchmark in the microfoundations debate and in this theory perfect coordination is simply assumed. In our view the debate has therefore mainly provided the right answers to the wrong question since the coordination issue is essential for the analysis of the economy as a whole.We would like to thank T. Cate, M.C.W. Janssen, L.H. Hoogduin, J. Pen and, especially, S.K. Kuipers for their comments on a previous version of this paper. The useful comments of an anonymous referee are also gratefully acknowledged. Of course, the usual disclaimer applies.     

Payment for Environmental Services： The Sloping Land Conversion Program in Ningxia Autonomous Region of China

China＇s Sloping Land Conversion Program has been implemented since 2002. It aims to achieve goals of ecological recovery and poverty alleviation, by retiring steeply sloping land from crop production and freeing surplus agricultural labor for off-farm activities. Given the huge investment that has been poured into it, and its ecological and social impacts, this government-initiated program has attracted significant academic attention and triggered a flood of debate. Since 2004, the debate has concentrated on the sustainability of the program. Although targets have been overachieved in some provinces, concern has still emerged regarding the livelihood of farmers after subsidies stop. The present paper analyzes the implementation of the Sloping Land Conversion Program in Ningxia Autonomous Region, with a focus on the required social capital for sustained participation o f farmers and the development of off-farm economic activities.     

Principles of a Pan-African economic ideology

Summary In this paper, an attempt has been made to integrate the politics of Pan-Africanism with its economic ideology. The basis and need for such an ideology has been explored. It has been argued here that the roots of underdevelopment in the Black World lie in the historical evolution of the world market economy; that continued participation in monopoly capitalism serves to reinforce the international inequality; and that the localization of economic activity by multinational firms within the Black World countries deepens internal inequality by suffocating the internal markets and impoverishing the indigenous class. It is argued further that the Absorption hypothesis, seeking wage employment in the “modern” sector for the army of unemployed being generated under international monopoly capitalism, is an hypothesis of the impossibility. The “modern” sector cannot expand fast enough nor adapt its techniques of production to absorb the unemployed.     

Reconsidering patents and economic development: A case study of the Turkish pharmaceutical industry

The role that patents play in Third World economic development has been a subject of growing debate during the last two decades. The empirical evidence, however, has been insufficient to allow a closer evaluation of the contending arguments.The objective of this article is to reconsider the main issues of the debate on patents on the basis of the relatively long experience of non-patentability, that is since 1961, in the Turkish pharmaceutical industry. It is argued here that there is no simple and straightforward relationship between patents and Third World industrialization, either in the way that the supporters of the systems have perceived or on the grounds that the critics have raised their objections.     

The historiography of French economic growth in the nineteenth century

There has been a long-standing debate about French nineteenth-century economic growth. After 1945 the ‘retardation—stagnation’ thesis dominated. From the 1960s ‘revisionists’ painted a more optimistic view. Recently, ‘anti-revisionism’ has revived gloomy ideas. New research has been primarily responsible for changes of view. National income estimates, and later cliometric studies, bolstered the revisionist argument. Work on the ‘great depression’ stimulated anti-revisionism. Scholars have also been influenced by the economic and political state of France at the time they were writing and the debate has been somewhat politicized. The article ends by surveying the ‘moderate revisionism’ which now prevails.     

Spatial and Racial Patterning of Real Estate Broker Listings in New York City

It has been well documented that Black homeseekers face discrimination in the housing market in the form of racial steering and other institutional policies and practices that are critical in limiting housing access. Less is known about the mechanisms that operate on the other side of real estate transactions to perpetuate racially segregated neighborhoods. We investigated whether White and Black brokers face segregation in the housing market. That is, to what extent do White and Black brokers differentially market property listings in neighborhoods of varying racial composition? Using real estate listings extracted from the websites of two of the largest New York City real estate brokerages, we examined whether Black and White brokers market properties primarily in Black and White neighborhoods, respectively; and whether, controlling for gender and experience level, Black brokers had a lower average price per square foot than White brokers. Results showed that Black brokers overwhelmingly marketed properties in Black neighborhoods, with fewer listings in White areas. Black brokers also marketed properties with an average price per square foot that was $197 lower than White brokers. Black brokers who worked in offices in Black neighborhoods had the lowest asking price of all brokers. Taken together, Black and White real estate brokers control a bifurcated market in NYC, perpetuating residential segregation and Black–White income and wealth disparities.     

Right-to-work legislation and the economic position of black workers

Recent empirical analysis of state right-to-work legislation indicates that a negative wage effect may result as a consequence of banning union shop contracts. It has been previously shown that industrial unionism tends to improve the relative wage position of black workers. Thus, it is hypothesized that if state right-to-work laws weaken the economic power of unions to raise wages, black workers will experience a disproportionate decline in their relative wage position. Black workers in right-to-work states would therefore experience a reduction in their relative economic position unless a strong positive relative employment effect occurs in response to the decline in wages. Using a cross-sectional regression model this article examines the relative employment effect due to right-to-work legislation. The results indicate that black workers experience a statistically significant decline in their relative employment rate within right-to-work states. When this finding is coupled with the hypothesized negative wage effect, it is concluded that right-to-work legislation results in a worsening of the net economic position of black workers.     

The Newcastle employment bond: investing in local communities

Concern with social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal has often focused on economic regeneration and new ways of stimulating employment or self-employment in local economies. One recent initiative has been to raise private money through a bond with the social aim of creating local employment. This paper explores the Newcastle Employment Bond, its structure, the philosophy behind it and the motivations and expectations of the people and organisations who invested in it. The paper asks whether the Bond can be seen as a model of 'Third Way' thinking, providing an alternative to state funding of social exclusion and employment initiatives or reliance on purely profit-oriented economic regeneration.     

Neo-liberalism in low-income housing policy – problem or panacea?

The provision of decent, affordable and well-located housing for low-income communities has been an intractable problem, especially for developing countries. A recurrent issue in the discourse of this problem relates to the appropriate role of the state on one hand and the private sector on the other. The debate has been given renewed urgency in the current context of a growing critique of ‘neoliberalism’. Through rigorous literature review, this paper intends to review the successes and failures of neo-liberalism and explore the intricate linkages between neo-liberal housing policy and low-income housing provision. The raison d’être for the paper is that, despite the growing disenchantment with neo-liberal housing policy, the empirical basis of this criticism has not been established convincingly, and neither have that of potential alternative policies. This paper therefore fills a critical gap in the low-income housing policy literature.     

Towards a European urban policy

In the face of some opposition from those who plead subsidiarity as the central plank of European policies, the emergence of an urban dimension to European policies has been significant in the last five years. Now, reinforced by a research base, with the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions providing a political route to influence, and with a modest programme of experimentation in urban projects in progress, the “urban” appears genuinely fixed on the political agenda of Europe. From a UK perspective the substance of the programmes is limited; small in scale and following many of the lines established within City Challenge or the Urban Partnerships, the new European urban initiatives are substantively modest and marginal. Much more important is the symbolic importance of a European urban perspective. This gives impetus to the policy debate at both European and national levels with the Commission's Community Initiative directing attention not simply to growing polarisation, marginalisation and exclusion in cities, but also to issues of urban fiscal crisis — the interaction of heavy expenditure needs with inadequate tax or grant base. Increasingly fierce competition between cities for investment and growth, with both Brussels and nation states involved as regulators and/or co-competitors is certain to exacerbate inter urban differentials and to reinforce the salience of questions of social exclusion and urban fiscal crisis.     

The Stability and Growth Pact: The appropriate fiscal framework for EMU

Developments in fiscal policies since the start of Economic and Monetary Union have time and again raised the question of whether the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) provides an appropriate framework for fiscal policy coordination. Critics have argued that the SGP, in particular the set of rules specifying the application of the 3% deficit reference value of the Maastricht Treaty, is too rigid as it could force countries to restrain fiscal policies in difficult times and exacerbate cyclical volatility. Moreover, the SGP has been accused of inhibiting growth by limiting useful public expenditure (e.g. on investment). Supporters argue that the SGP provides a constructive, and indeed indispensable, framework for fiscal policies in Monetary Union. It is credited with securing stable and sustainable public finances within adequate bounds of flexibility. In the current dire state of public finances in many Member States and at the euro area level, this debate has reached a new peak.I would like to thank Philipp C. Rother for his valuable contributions.     

Black-White Inequality in Reading and Math Across K-12 Schooling: A Synthetic Cohort Perspective

While much has been written on the racial gap in achievement, few national studies have assessed the gap’s trajectory over K-12 schooling. The reason for this is understandable—most national data sets do not contain respondent information for this entire educational period. I utilize survey data from three national data sets containing White and Black students to document the trajectory of reading and math inequality between school entry and the end of high school. An attempt to clarify these observed patterns is made by assessing changes in the score distributions of these students across grade level, and examining how Black score distributions would fare if held to the White score distributions. Findings suggest that efforts to equalize achievement disparities must not only focus on “bringing the bottom up”, but also on keeping the top Black achievers on pace with the top White achievers across grade level.     

The property tax as a coordinating device: Financing Indiana’s Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835-1842

In 1836, the state of Indiana set out to build a Mammoth system of canals, railroads, and turnpikes following a decade of intense debate in which sectional rivalries prevented any state action. This paper investigates the role played by the adoption of an ad valorem property tax in ameliorating the sectional rivalries and coordinating the costs of financing the transportation system with the taxes levied to finance it. It also traces the rise and fall of land values in the state between 1835 and 1842, estimating the effect of internal improvement projects on land values.     

Negative nominal interest rates: history and current proposals

Given the renewed interest in negative interest rates on base money—or equivalently ‘taxing money’—as a means for overcoming the zero bound on short-term nominal interest rates, this article reviews the history of negative nominal interest rates starting from the ‘taxing money’ proposal of Silvio Gesell up to current proposals that received popular attention in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007/2008. It is demonstrated that ‘taxing money’ proposals have a long intellectual history and that instead of being the conjecture of a monetary crank, they are a serious policy proposal. In a second step, the article points out that besides the more popular debate on a Gesell tax as a means to remove the zero bound on nominal interest rates, there is a class of neoclassical search models that advocates a negative tax on money as efficiency enhancing. This strand of the literature has so far been largely ignored by the policy debate on negative interest rates.