A step change or a step back? the thames gateway and the re-birth of the urban development corporations

The delivery of the government's Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future proposals in the Thames Gateway area will be spearheaded by two new Urban Development Corporations (UDCs). During the 1980s and 1990s, UDCs were at the forefront of property-led regeneration in Britain and their impacts were extremely controversial. For some they represented a necessary institutional form that successfully facilitated and delivered regeneration to areas with chronic social and economic problems. For others they embodied a broader Thatcherite programme that marginalised local authorities and local communities from the heart of development planning. This paper examines their reintroduction and compares and contrasts the new agencies with those that existed in earlier decades. It argues that although the new UDCs will have broadly similar powers, the political contexts in which they are being established differ markedly. They are now expected to embed themselves into regional and national strategic development agendas and work in development partnerships with local authorities and local communities. The paper outlines the possible political and practical impacts that they will have and what their emergence tells us about the nature of Labour's broader modernisation agendas for local governance.     

Johannesburg's strategic plan for municipal service partnerships

While many local authorities have been slow to make the transition from traditional methods of service delivery to internationally proven alternative approaches, this is not the case for the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council, which is pioneering initiatives around municipal service partnerships (MSPs) in many different areas. This article traces the processes embarked upon by Johannesburg, with a view to examining how and why the private sector became involved in municipal service provision. Given that Johannesburg is the largest and perhaps the most important city in the country, it is expected that the lessons learned from the experiments with MSPs there will be profoundly important for similar efforts by local governments in other parts of the country.     

Regulation and facilitation of public‐private partnerships: The MSP policy framework

This article describes the Municipal Services Partnership (MSP) Policy developed by the Department of Constitutional Development (DCD) of the Ministry for Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development of South Africa to help local authorities respond to the great demand for improvement of municipal services. The MSP policy was developed by the DCD, utilising consultative policy making. It defines municipal services partnerships and typical contractual forms of MSPs, and also identifies gaps and constraints in existing South African law that can make implementation of MSPs unnecessarily difficult or more costly for local authorities and service consumers. The policy creates a framework for competitive procurement of MSP contracts and, finally, it describes the capacity needs of local authorities to deal effectively with MSP planning, procurement and implementation, and identifies new and expanded institutional roles at the local and national levels to support local authorities that wish to engage in MSPs     

The purpose of local industrial policy

It is argued that the local investment strategy proposed by Best in Local Economy 1 is incapable of creating jobs in the way that it claims, and that it tends to perpetuate and create divisions and inequalities within the workforce. Instead local investment strategies need to be centred, not on increasing productivity but on helping to strengthen the collective organisation of workers. Some ways are discussed in which local authorities might begin to do this but to carry this through consistently will require national planning of industries and compulsory powers over investment decisions by private firms.     

Social accounting in the local economy

High levels of unemployment have stimulated contemporary interest in social accounting. Decisions taken on the basis of private profitability, without regard for the wider economic and social consequences, may not be in the interests of the local community and the workforce. Traditionally such social consequences do not feature in accounting procedures for decision making or control purposes. But while local authorities are now showing more interest in social accounting, conceptual and practical problems must be addressed. This article highlights some of the major issues and calls for experimenting and publication of results to speed the development of useful techniques.     

Corridor or blind alley? The A1M Herts corridor consortium

Local authority intervention in the local economy has proliferated in recent years and is not, as much work suggests, confined to large Labour controlled authorities coping with inner city problems and/or declining heavy industry; a wide variety of economic development initiatives are being executed by councils across the political spectrum. This paper examines the notion of growth coalitions and attempts to shed some light on these aspects of neglected research and reasons for local authority intervention, exemplified by the A1M Herts Corridor Campaign, an economic development initiative to attract inward investment to an affluent county.     

Universities and Fundamental Research: Reflections on the Growth of University-Industry Partnerships

The recent rise in university–industry partnerships hasstimulated an important public-policy debate regarding how theserelationships affect fundamental research. In this paper, weexamine the antecedents and consequences of policies to promoteuniversity–industry alliances. Although the preliminaryevidence appears to suggest that these partnerships have nothad a deleterious effect on the quantity and quality of basicresearch, some legitimate concerns have been raised about theseactivities that require additional analysis. We conclude thatadditional research is needed to provide a more accurate assessmentof the optimal level of commercialization.     

Higher education responsiveness through partnerships with industry: The case of a university of technology programme

ABSTRACT

In the context of mid-level skills shortages and the promotion of industry–education partnerships, this article examines the case of a longstanding partnership between the pulp and paper industry and a university of technology. The partnership resulted in the development of a focused qualification. We explore the experiences and understandings of academics and students in order to examine the benefits and pitfalls of such partnerships in addressing the needs of business, higher education and the students. The results show that while the university of technology has benefitted through work placements for their students and funding for industry-seconded lecturers, the partnership’s links are weakening. The programme is unattractive to high-achieving ‘matric’ graduates and is taken as a stepping-stone to other engineering fields. The article explores why this has developed. The curriculation of qualifications that are narrowly focused on one industry may limit articulation and portability of skills between different industries by graduates.     

Playing the defence card: Local authority responses to the 1992 regional policy consultation paper

After two decades or more of hope, the jubilation over the relaxing of the “cold war” is tempered in those localities dependent in some way on the defence industries. In June 1992, the UK government produced a consultation paper on the topic of regional industrial policy and this provided an opportunity for defence-related local authorities to “flag up” their problems. The review event offers a common reference activity around which to compare the occurrence and the nature of local reactions. This article investigates the responses from a large sample of these local authorities, exploring the arguments put forward, the representations made, and the strategies deployed. It also tries to account for the various attitudes and reports on the outcome of the review process. Amongst an array of interesting findings, the analysis reveals a range of response strategies by local authorities and a variety of attitudes to policy support.     

Cooperation between China and Tanzania on ICT: fish,fishing tackle or fishing skills?

Tanzania has ambitions of moving from a mere consumer of information and communication technologies to a designing and manufacturing base. This paper aims to assess the role of public–private partnerships with Chinese institutions in the achievement of this goal. Through an in-depth case study, this paper examines the contributions of three Chinese multinationals in terms of technology transfer and technological capacity building in local firms in Tanzania. The analysis contrasts the organisation of improvements on the manner of technology transfer and capacity building in these partnerships with prior Sino-Tanzanian partnership efforts in technology and industry. The Chinese multinationals had a labour localisation rate of 60% on average, with some training services provided to Tanzanian nationals and supply of services and equipment to Tanzanian firms. However, the overall level of technology transfer continues to be weak. Observed barriers to technology transfer include weak incentives for collaboration between Chinese and Tanzanian firms and low-level technology embedded in activities offshored by the Chinese multinationals to Tanzania.     

Impact of temporary trade barriers: Evidence from China

With a decrease in tariffs around the world, temporary trade barriers (TTBs) have increased dramatically to take their place. These TTBs are usually in the form of antidumping duties, countervailing duties and global safeguards. Recently, an increasing number of these TTBs have been targeted towards China. In this paper, I explore the impact of the US temporary trade barriers (TTBs) on Chinese exports. Using detailed product level data for the period 2002–2008, I find robust evidence of trade deflection i.e. the US trade barriers against China led to an increase in the growth of Chinese exports to other countries. However, I do not find any evidence of trade depression. The results are robust to a wide variety of specification and robustness tests. While I do not find any difference in the impact of TTBs across developed and developing countries, there is considerable heterogeneity in response to TTBs depending on the type of products involved. Specifically, I find that, while the US TTBs on non-steel products lead to an increase in Chinese exports of those products to third markets, there is a significant chilling effect in case of steel. Finally, most of the trade-deflection seems to be along the intensive margins i.e. an increase in exports to the existing third country markets rather than exports to new markets. If anything, the US TTBs on China seem to decrease Chinese exports to newer and more volatile markets.     

Public–private partnerships in metropolitan government: perspectives on governance,value for money and the roles of selected stakeholders

This paper discusses the nature of public–private partnerships (PPPs) and their governance, with specific reference to the types of risks involved and how these are managed. The paper investigates whether there is any regime responsible for providing resources and enforcing contracts and service standards to make metropolitan governments efficient, effective and economical in designing, managing and exercising control over PPP ventures. In this context, the roles of selected stakeholders are discussed. The basic assumption of this paper is that metropolitan government could improve local economic growth through PPPs when the nature and governance of PPPs and the legalities underpinning them are thoroughly understood.     

Defence in a peripheral region: The case of Devon and Cornwall

This article summarises the results of a number of recent surveys concerning the defence industry in Devon and Cornwall. The importance of defence to the two counties is highlighted and some of the implications of defence cutbacks are discussed. Various policy options for local authorities are assessed within the context of the findings of the surveys.     

外商投资零售企业的竞争优势分析

我国行政编制下的各级地方政府是经济运行中的特殊利益主体。在经济转型过程中,受不同的经济体制运行要求的影响,地方政府间竞争的内涵与方式动态地演变。地方政府间竞争对我国在改革中实现经济较快增长、保持社会稳定发挥了巨大的作用,担当了市场化渐进的中间过渡角色,也     

Les entreprises rurales et développement régional en République populaire de Chine. Partie 1 : le contexte institutionnel et les réformes économiques

This paper tries to analyse the consequences of the economic reforms on local economies in China. It shows that the two main reforms —the household responsibility system and the decentralisation— gave the districts the potential in experiencing an important development, but meanwhile, that the power gained by local authorities has provoked the appearance of new risks and uncertainties. The non-recognition of the property rights, and the local authorities’ position of control can explain this ambiguity, because these authorities are the ones that give access (or not) to production factors. The risks are also due to a different conception of the enterprise, which is not only a location for production and profit, but also for redistribution. Finally, this central position of local authorities explains the cellular nature of the Chinese economy and implies to resort to a territorial and network analysis.     

对制造业人工成本管理的方法及对策研究

一些人认为人工成本低廉是我国制造业的产品竞争优势所在。但通过投入与产出的分析会发现,我国的制造业往往工资率较低与单位产品人工成本较高并存,存在着人工成本投入效率较低这一严峻问题。加强制造业人工成本管理仍然是提高我国制造业产品竞争力的关键。文章首先从我国制造     

Masakhane case studies

The Masakhane Campaign in South Africa has received a fair amount of criticism, largely because its high media profile has not been accompanied by delivery and improvement of services at the local level. Contrary to this generally negative perception, there are a number of local authorities that have greatly improved the situation in their areas through pragmatic strategies and programmes under the banner of Masakhane. This article presents information on the current status of the campaign in a sample of local authorities, and attempts to interpret this information so as to ascertain those factors that influence on the success or failure of local authorities as service providers.     

Contraction of the coal industry and the local economy

The coal industry has contracted significantly during the 1980s. Further decline will take place in the 1990s as a result of the privatization of the electricity supply industry (ESI), the relaxation of planning regulations on opencast mining, and increasing productivity in the pits.

This article looks at the actual and anticipated impact on local economies of this decline and considers the policy implications for those local authorities most affected by the future restructuring of the energy sector.     

Fashion centres: An approach to sector intervention

The clothing and textile industry is a major employer in many areas. It consists of a large number of small firms characterised by very poor working conditions. The need to sustain employment in the industry and improve conditions has led to several local authorities adopting a sector approach to intervention. This paper looks at the development of one particular measure, the establishment of fashion centres.     

对口援疆政策实施效果及满意度分析——基于15个地州的调查数据

本文借助配额抽样资料,从受援地居民对当地政府工作的满意度以及援疆政策落实情况的满意度两个维度对中央实施的全面对口支援政策的实施效果进行了实证分析.结果表明：受援地居民对当地政府的政策执行力的满意度较高,但对其管理理念和廉政建设的满意度较低,对其服务意识、管理理念和执法行为的满意度一般;且受援地居民认为,产业援疆实效偏低,教育援强实效较好,医疗援疆实效最高;人才援疆政策没有落到实处.因此,本文认为应健全对口援疆政策实施的监管机制、实效评价机制以及人才援疆机制,搭建劳动力培训平台等,以切实提高对口援疆的实效.