Neutrality of planning procedures

A planning procedure is said to be neutral if every Pareto optimum, which is preferred or indifferent by every agent to the initial situation, can be reached by the procedure. We give sufficient conditions which imply the neutrality property of a large class of dynamical systems which includes, in particular, a planning procedure defined by Drèze, de la Vallée Poussin and Malinvaud.     

Services Policy Reform and Economic Growth in Transition Economies

Major changes have occurred in the structure of former centrally planned economies, including a sharp rise in the share of services in GDP, employment, and international transactions. However, large differences exist across transition economies with respect to services intensity and services policy reforms. We find that reforms in policies toward financial and infrastructure services, including telecommunications, power, and transport, are highly correlated with inward FDI. Controlling for regressors commonly used in the growth literature, we find that measures of services policy reform are statistically significant explanatory variables for the post-1990 economic performance of transition economies. These findings suggest services policies should be considered more generally in empirical analyses of economic growth. JEL no. F14, F43, O14, O40     

Subective poverty line definitions

Summary In this paper we will deal with definitions ofsubjective poverty lines. To measure a poverty threshold value in terms of household income, which separates the poor from the non-poor, we take into account the opinions of all people in society. Three subjective methods will be discussed and compared,viz., the Leyden Poverty Line (LPL), the Subjective Poverty Line (SPL) and the Centre for Social Policy Poverty Line (CSP). In the empirical part of the paper we compute the average poverty line and a few corresponding characteristics for each definition.     

Restructuring Japanese business through Kyosei: Capitalizing on international strategic alliances at the consumer level

Japan of the post-bubble era is the object of much reflection and speculation pertaining to risutora or restructuring of the economy. This study provides a novel, analytical perspective on the fundamental issues involved in the shift of momentum that characterizes Japanese business and economic restructuring. After examining the economic and corporate dimensions of the transitional forces that shape Japan's restructuring process, this study focuses on two powerful, yet often ignored, agents of change: the emergence of a new class of collaborative mandates, kyosei, and the rise of consumer power. The study further emphasizes the importance of planning and managing corporate-level restructuring activities with the interests of end users in mind, by empirically demonstrating the significance of strategic alliances, as a corporate restructuring option, on consumers. The results show that consumers' impression of alliances with Japanese firms have a strong effect on future attitudes toward each partnering brand. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.