The organization of industry in the P.R. China

The Chinese have let it be known since the death of Mao Zedong and the purge of the “Gang of Four” that they would in future draw on credits from foreign governments as well as other sources to finance imports of technology. According to western conjectures China’s capital requirements may be between US $ 25 and 50 bn or even a good deal higher. Many observers have taken the view that the Chinese have thereby put all their former development principles behind them. The author of the following article was in the P.R. China about the middle of this year at the invitation of the National Planning Commission. His assessment is that the P.R. China is far from embarking on an entirely new course in its development policy.     

A new departure in international commodities policies?

In the course of the last United Nations' World Trade Conference (UNCTAD) the Soviet Union, Ivory Coast and Bulgaria signed the agreement on the Common Fund for Commodities. The Fund, which was conceived as the cornerstone of a new international commodities policy, will thus come into effect in the near future, probably in the course of 1988. Will this leadt o a new departure for international commodities policies?     

Conditional Probabilistic Population Forecasting

Since policy-makers often prefer to think in terms of alternative scenarios, the question has arisen as to whether it is possible to make conditional population forecasts in a probabilistic context. This paper shows that it is both possible and useful to make these forecasts. We do this with two different kinds of examples. The first is the probabilistic analog of deterministic scenario analysis. Conditional probabilistic scenario analysis is essential for policy-makers because it allows them to answer "what if" type questions properly when outcomes are uncertain. The second is a new category that we call "future jump-off date forecasts". Future jump-off date forecasts are valuable because they show policy-makers the likelihood that crucial features of today's forecasts will also be present in forecasts made in the future.     

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