Management Philosophy of the Greater London Authority

On 5 May 2000, Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London and Britain's first directly elected executive head of an administration. Returned as an independent, he had no backing from a party machine and inherited a weak administrative apparatus. Nevertheless, key strategies on transport, economic development, and land planning have been put in place in full or in their main outlines. A series of radical developments in management and policy have been carried through, while retaining high ratings in the opinion polls and rising approval from the business community. A popular explanation for this is the 'pragmatism' shown by the Livingstone administration. This article seeks to explain in greater depth its managerial/economic approach and to show that, while internally consistent, it is not readily understandable in terms of either the traditional right or the traditional left of the political spectrum.     

"Complicated" right bundle branch block

Isolated right bundle branch block is generally regarded as a benign finding in the absence of underlying structural heart disease. The presence of "electrocardiographically-complicated" right bundle branch block should alert the medical director to occult heart disease, which might impact on long-term survival.     

Literacy and labour market outcomes: self-assessment versus test score measures

This paper looks at the determinants of literacy and the relation between literacy and labour market outcomes while focusing on comparisons of self-assessment versus test score measures of literacy. The test score measure performs considerably better than the self-assessments when literacy is treated as an outcome variable in terms of the overall fit of the model and the specific coefficient estimates, with the self-assessments sometimes actually generating wrongly signed parameters. The test score measure also performs much better as an explanatory variable in the employment models, with the self-assessment variable generating significant underestimates of the effects of literacy on the probability of being employed. Finally, the test score is also superior in the income models, although the self-assessment measure is at least a reasonably good performer in this regard, suggesting that the main results reported in much of the existing literature (based on such measures) should perhaps be taken as good representations of the true underlying relationships.     

Organization and Management in an Anglo-French Consortium: The Case of Transmanche-Link

This paper presents the results of a comparative organizational assessment of the behaviour and organization of the British and French managers who constructed the Channel Tunnel. In the context of a common adhocratic organization, a principal components analysis of the survey results differentiates the British and French respondents on five dimensions: fonceur /procedural; competitive/collegial; involved/distanced; individualistic/supportive; and stress. These quantitative results are supported by qualitative data from interviews and open-ended questions. A preliminary explanation of the results in terms of a configurational analysis of the differences between the British and French managers surveyed is then offered. The paper argues that an organizational assessment methodology is compatible with societal approaches which attempt to understand nationally distinctive configurations of organization and management.     

Frank H. Knight's Criticism of Henry George

A bstract .   The ferocity of Knight's comments on Henry George may come as a surprise to those who are not familiar with his criticisms of other economists and philosophers. But, in fact, his criticisms of George are not due to specifically Knightian insights on George's approach, but rather reflect the different philosophical framework from which neoclassical economists like Knight think. At the core of Knight's disagreements with George is his neoclassical theory of rent, as the Georgist critics of Knight understand. The article reviews the philosophical, economic, and ethical ideas that underlay Knight's neoclassicism, and hence inform his criticism of George.     

The effects of climatic variation on rice production in Sri Lanka

We study the responsiveness of rice production to climatic variation using a recent pseudo-panel data set from Sri Lanka. Output per farm is modelled as a non-linear function of temperature and rainfall (and other standard controls) using fixed effects regressions. We find that both climatic variables have concave, non-monotonic effects upon production, and that output is close to maximized at current climatic values. This implies that variations in growing conditions are likely to have negative effects upon production. Random simulations are used to model these impacts under various climate change scenarios, and we find that increasing temperatures will adversely affect rice production much more than varying rainfall, although the effects of a small ceteris paribus rise in temperature are positive. As rice production is a key component in economic output for Sri Lanka and other developing countries, our results have implications for food policy and poverty management in the future.     

Earnings dynamics in Canada: an econometric analysis

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of earnings dynamics in the Canadian labour market based on earnings data based drawn from tax returns between 1982 and 1994. Individuals' movements up and down quintiles of the earnings distribution are analysed using a hazard model approach. This represents one of the first studies for any country which models mobility across the entire distribution of earnings, including the middle and upper ranges as well as the lower ranges. The effects on transitions between quintiles are analyzed for the following variables: elapsed time spent in a given quintile (i.e., duration dependence effects), age, sex, geographical region, area size of residence, family status, language and overall macroeconomic conditions. One principal finding is that the conditional probability of transiting up or down the earnings distribution depends negatively on the elapsed time that an individual has spent in a given quintile. The earnings mobility patterns appear to be cyclical and exhibit some tendency of reversion to the mean, whereby the conditional probability of upward (downward) mobility is higher for those individuals presently situated in the lower (higher) quintiles.     

INDONESIA'S RESOURCES BOOM IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: POLICY DILEMMAS AND OPTIONS FOR CONTINUED STRONG GROWTH

In the decade to 2011, developments in the Chinese economy gave the world its biggest ever resources boom and set the scene for a resources deflation. The boom generated high incomes and investment in global resources, especially coal. It boosted Indonesian growth and diverted the policy focus from the productivity-raising reforms that are necessary for broad-based growth. Arbitrary interventions reduced the gains from the boom, especially in commodities other than coal, but also diminished the size of the boom and therefore the economic adjustment challenge that faces Indonesia now. Indonesia handled the Dutch disease and related challenges better than some countries and worse than others. Australia and Indonesia are now the world's largest coal exporters, so this comparison receives attention here. The end of the boom can create opportunities for a return to broad-based development, so long as policy settings are favourable to productivity growth and improved economy-wide competitiveness. The fuel-subsidy reforms are a good start.