Trends in the housing status of black americans across selected metropolitan areas

This article examines housing data for a set of metropolitan areas and their central cities, and explores the major issues that arise when considering the impacts by race of federal housing assistance programs. Housing market conditions and characteristics vary widely by race across the areas covered-Birmingham, AL; Buffalo, NY; Cleveland, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Memphis, TN; Milwaukee, WI; Newport News, VA; Oklahoma City, OK; Providence, RI; Salt Lake City, UT; and San Jose, CA. Issues related to racial impacts of federal housing assistance emanate from two major policy goals-to help low-income households and to provide equal housing opportunity.     

Export processing and the economic development of the coastal metropolitan areas

This paper argues that the conventional export processing zone can be adapted to allow a manufacturer to operate as an export processing unit. Such a facility could be incorporated in the development efforts of the coastal cities, enabling them to implement export‐oriented growth strategies in an otherwise relatively protected economy. The new regional industrial development programme will be an added advantage in stimulating export production through bottom‐up regional efforts in the coastal regions.     

The role of services for manufacturing firm exports

Manufacturing firms have been increasingly focusing on services, a trend that is evident in their composition of bought-in input and in-house production. The services intensity of firms may affect their productivity and thereby their competitiveness abroad; services are also instrumental in connecting firms to foreign markets and can help them to differentiate their offerings from those of other firms. However, the relation between services and manufacturing exports has only been partially analysed in the previous literature. This study contributes to the field by discussing the role of services for firms and empirically testing a set of related conjectures. Export intensity is regressed on two services input parameters, applying a fractional model to a rich panel of firms in Sweden in the period 2001–2007. The microeconometric results suggest that, after controlling for covariates and heterogeneity, service inputs affect a firms’ export capabilities: raising the proportion of services in in-house production yields higher export intensity on average. Furthermore, buying-in more services is associated with higher export intensity for firms in some industries. Overall, the study provides new firm-level evidence of the role of services as inputs in manufacturing.     

The declining significance of race in America

Conclusion Wilson’s statement that exploitation in America cannot rely solely on a racial explanation is correct. But the evidence which he presents to write, that race is not significant in job market discrimination, is not adequate. In addition to this, and perhaps more serious, is the conceptual weakness of his argument. His thesis may even be somewhat illogical in its attempt to separate class and race in present day American society. As Blalock has stated earlier: “As long as minority membership remains among the defining criteria of class position it will indeed be difficult to separate the two phenomena emperically”.     

The declining relative economic status of black families

Data are presented on black family income and wealth that run counter to the claims that blacks have made substantial economic progress in recent years. The evidence reveals that not only has there been little in the way of real, sustained advances but that what few gains have been made are starting to erode.     

Lifecourse migration and redistribution of the elderly across U.S. regions and metropolitan areas

This analysis investigates the assertion that the baby-boom cohorts, by virtue of their large size and new lifecourse redistribution tendencies, are likely to initiate significant shifts in the distribution of the elderly population as these cohorts enter into the 65-and-older age categories. The author contends that cohorts' pre-elderly lifecourse migration patterns should be incorporated into studies of elderly population distribution shifts. 2 questions are addressed: will the new lifecourse migration patterns provide for a more deconcentrated redistribution of the baby-boom cohorts, both prior to and after their entry into the elderly age categories, than the lifecourse migration patterns followed by earlier cohorts; and will the new lifecourse distribution pattern lead, in the long run, to a significantly more deconcentrated distribution of the elderly population. The examination of these 2 questions focuses, largely, on redistribution across 9 broad regional and metropolitan area groupings defined on the basis of 3 census regions -- the North (combining the Northeast and Midwest census regions), the South, and the West -- and 3 categories of metropolitan status -- large metropolitan areas (those with 1980 populations exceeding 1 million), other metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan areas. The comparison of "new" versus "old" lifecourse migration patterns contrasts the census-based age-specific migration stream rates, registered over the 1975-80 period, with those registered over the 1965-70 period. Given the sharp and broad-based shift toward deconcentrated redistribution which characterized practically all segments of the population during the 1970s, it is assumed that the age-specific migration patterns observed over the 1975-80 period approximate the more deconcentrated redistribution tendencies which will be adopted by the baby-boom cohorts (and their successors) over the remainder of their lifecourse. The 1965-70 net migration rates point up the aggregate redistribution implications associated with the "old" lifecourse migration stream patterns. Among the rates for North large metropolitan areas, the only positive net migration is observed for the 25-29 age category; the greatest net outmigration rate is shown for the 65-69 age category. The rates for South nonmetropolitan areas are negative for all age categories under age 55, and most accentuated outmigration is shown during the young-adult years. The positive net migration exhibited for the older adult and post retirement ages reflects the low outmigration rates from nonmetropolitan areas during these ages and the slight peaking of immigration for these years. The results of this analysis imply that more attention should be devoted to migration, over the entirety of the lifecourse, in future studies of population redistribution.     

The coastal metropolitan corn trade in later seventeenth-century England

Exploiting hitherto unexamined London port book data, this article shows that during the last quarter of the seventeenth century the coastal metropolitan corn import trade was twice the size that historians relying on the work of Gras have assumed it to have been. More significantly, it demonstrates that Gras's failure to examine the capital's grain trade other than in terms of aggregate corn imports has disguised the nature and extent of its contribution to the development of the London economy. By the 1680s, the coastal trade comprised two distinct strands of roughly equal size: one providing food and drink for the London population, the other fuelling the overland trade of the capital. It is argued that the former was unnecessary for the provision of the city other than in barren years, but that the latter may have been indispensable for the development of the overland transport infrastructure of the metropolitan region at the height of the late seventeenth-century commercial revolution. Thanks largely to the agency of southern English mariners commanding large coasters, London's demand for fodder crops after the mid-1670s drew most of the coast stretching from Berwick to Whitehaven into the orbit of the metropolitan corn market.     

美国经济放缓对东南亚经济的冲击

美国经济正处在衰退的边缘，伴随着美国高科技产业的疲软和对外贸易量的急剧萎缩，东南亚国家似乎又被重新笼罩在经济危机的阴影之下。那么，东南亚国家受到此次美国经济下滑的影响到底有多大？东南亚国家应该采取什么样的对策来摆脱困境？这是本文将要阐述的内容。     

Regional convergence under declining population: The case of Japan

Using regional data from Japan, we examine how population growth affected regional convergence in Japan, where population decline has become conspicuous in several regions. The basic equation in the analysis allows two distinct features that previous studies rarely explored. First, we allow the coefficient of initial per capita output to change when the growth rate of population is lower than a threshold value. Second, we allow the growth rate of population to have ambiguous effects on the growth rate of per capita output. Our estimation results confirm the convergence hypothesis in Japan. However, we find that the declining speed of convergence was more conspicuous in the regions that had negative population growth. We also find that the decline in population growth, which was irrelevant for regional economic growth before 1995, came to have harmful impacts on regional economic growth after 1995. We believe this occurred because in societies with declining populations, economies of agglomeration had more significantly disappeared in poorer regions than in richer regions.     

Identifying employment-creating sectors in South Africa: the role of services industries

This paper explores scenarios for employment creation, with an emphasis on services. It considers whether the government's current policies for the formal services sector will achieve its 2014 target of halving unemployment. New employment has mainly been found in the formal and non-formal services, and future employment will probably come from such sectors as business services, trade, finance and tourism. As at 2004, about 480 000 new jobs were needed annually to halve unemployment from 26.2 per cent to 13 per cent by 2014. This would require at least twice the average annual job creation since 1994. Two scenarios are considered: the first under current conditions with similar rates of growth; the second with substantial improvements in policy, especially the promotion of trade in services. The first scenario leaves the economy with the same rate of unemployment in 2014. The second sees a reduction in unemployment of 20 per cent.     

信息在秦皇岛港煤运中的重要作用

在科学技术日新月异、商品经济迅速发展、市场竞争日趋激烈的今天,信息是加强管理、搞活经济、取得最佳经济效益的最重要的战略资源.信息对企业的生存和发展至关重要.     

Farmer education and farm efficiency in Nepal: The role of schooling,extension services,and cognitive skills

This study uses data from Nepal to ascertain the relation between education and farmer efficiency. It finds a positive effect of education on efficiency for three major crops, but only with the recently introduced wheat crop is the effect statistically significant at standard levels. The data provide no evidence that education's effects should be attributed, even in part, to family background correlates or to a measure of ability. Among the cognitive outcomes of education, numeracy is found to affect productivity in wheat production (as well as the propensity to be growing wheat at all). Measures of farmer modernity and agricultural knowledge are not found to be correlated with farm efficiency. Calculations from the results suggest that a one-standard- deviation improvement in the numeracy test score has a present value that is high relative to the probable cost of effecting such an improvement.     

社区文化在城乡一体化建设中的作用研究

随着五年计划的实行与发展,我国经济正朝着积极健康迅速的方向发展。在现代社会,城市文化仍然占据主导地位,这导致了越来越多的人奔向城市,成为城市的新居民。那么如何正确地引导人们和谐健康地生活成为当今急需解决的问题。城市的主体是社区,社区文化是城市文化建设的重要组成部分。在社区文化的建设中存在很多问题:人口素质差异、价值取向、邻里交流等等。文章对怎样建设社区文化才能更好地改善这些问题,提升人民的幸福归属感进行了研究。     

The generation of technologies in rural areas

Technologies are at present generated in the framework of a system of paradigms which originated in the developed world, which is not adequate for the developing countries. This article proposes a research methodology that, while generating technologies appropriate for rural areas, contributes at the same time to the building of a new system of paradigms adequate for the needs and conditions of developing societies. The final aim of the methodology, which presupposes local participation, is to define a ‘technological space’ which is the set of requirements and constraints that the technology has to satisfy. Any technology which fits that space is appropriate, whether locally produced or imported.     

Inequality in metropolitan industrial revenue bond programs

Industrial revenue bonds (IRBs) have become an increasingly popular, though expensive and controversial, tool of economic development at the state and local levels. That controversy has focused on the economic impact of IRBs: Whether or not they meet the intended goals of creating jobs and stabilizing the tax base of local communities, and whether the benefits are worth the costs. Though IRBs are often justified, at least in part, as a particularly useful program for older, urban, minority communities, little research has been done on the participation of racial minorities and women in IRB programs. This article examines Chicago’s IRB program and finds that minorities have not participated equitably. Racial minorities and women are underutilized in many firms receiving this form of publicly subsidized financial assistance, and minority-owned businesses receive a disproportionately small share of the loans. Policy recommendations are offered to assure equitable participation of racial minorities and women in IRB programs.     

The role of land-based strategies in rural livelihoods: The contribution of arable production,animal husbandry and natural resource harvesting in communal areas in South Africa

The majority of South Africa's rural population resides in the former homelands. Although cash from urban and government sources is the mainstay of the rural economy in many areas, the multiple and diverse livelihood base of rural households is not widely recognised. This diversity includes the land-based strategies of arable farming, livestock husbandry and consumption and trade in natural resources. This article examines recent and emerging literature from a livelihood perspective in terms of the role and value of each of these three land-based livelihood sectors. We conclude that the contribution of land-based activities to rural livelihoods is important in both financial and social terms, and is probably greater than previously appreciated within the whole gamut of livelihood strategies adopted by rural households, including transfers from formal employment and state pensions. We examine the policy implications of this for land and agrarian reform in South Africa.     

农村五保供养制度的历史演变

农村五保供养是具有显著中国特色的弱势群体保障制度。文章梳理了农村五保供养从集体供养的互助共济到被正式纳入国家救助体系的历史演变,在一定程度上可把农村五保供养制度视为中国农村社会保障的发展见证。