Soviet agricultural prices,rent and land cadastrest

Progress toward decentralized agriculture in which entrepreneurial initiative of Soviet farm managers could be given fuller range is impeded by the double function of Soviet agricultural prices: as factors affecting input and output decisions and as extractors of land rent. Claims that the Soviet land cadastre inhibits the setting of uniform marginal-cost prices are here examined and found wanting. The real culprits are special interest opposition, ignorance of the potential role of prices, and inability to achieve the necessary complementary reforms, which can be traced to shortcomings in Soviet agricultural economic research and education.     

A Quantitative Exploration on the Determinants of (De-)Industrialisation: The case of Greece

The aim of this paper is to explore the main determinants of (de-) industrialisation, taking Greece as a case study. Industrialisation in postwar Greece measured in terms of manufacturing industry's share of output was not impressive. It reached its peak (20.2% of GDP) in the mid 1970s and, since then, it followed a declining path. Relevant theory relates the evolution of industry to macro and micro variables, stressing the role of structural change or 'trading up' within manufacturing. The regression results underline that the reasons behind the unimpressive Greek industrialisation performance, compared with advanced capitalist economies, are to be found in the low GDP per capita, the deep and long economic recession and the unfavourable manufacturing trade conditions. The preponderance of traditional, low technology, consumer goods sectors over high technology industries is also found to affect negatively the share of manufacturing, but its statistical significance is relatively small. The implications for industrialisation policies are that macro-variables should preferably be used, since micro-tools are not likely to be particularly effective.     

Managed Mental Health Care: Stakeholder Effects and Policy Implications

ABSTRACT: During the past several years, healthcare delivery in the United States has shifted from a primarily fee-for-service system toward managed care. Mental health care has been affected disproportionately by this trend. The existing literature on managed mental health care is abundant, but narrowly focused. The purpose of this study is to take a broader public-policy approach, considering simultaneously the effects on system stakeholders: patients, providers, employers, insurers, and society.     

An application of DPSIR framework to identify issues of pollinator loss

This paper is an attempt to apply the Driving forces–Pressures–State–Impact–Responses (DPSIR) framework to identify the issues of pollinator loss. The linkages between the significant pressures on insect pollinators, their underlying socio-economic driving forces and responses, with the focus on Europe, are addressed in the study. A review of literature revealed the shortage of empirical studies that prove direct links between policy responses and specific pressures on the pollinators. Based on written evidence and expert judgement, land use practices and the use of agrochemicals were regarded as the most significant pressures on different functional groups of pollinators. As demonstrated in the study, agricultural and rural development policy has been the key driving force of these pressures. The application of the DPSIR framework proved to be useful in identifying the pathway of human pressures on pollinators. The study also concludes that there is further need for specific empirical research on the effects and effectiveness of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measures (agri-environment measures in particular) to support farming practices that facilitate the protection of the environment and the prevention of pollinator loss.     

Contract culture and target fetishism: The distortive effects of output measures in local regeneration programmes

Performance management in TECs¹ and urban initiatives has developed in the 1990s into a “contract culture” characterised by heavy reliance on quantitative indicators as the basis for funding arrangements. These indicators may have perverse effects. Firstly, they may distort the design of local policy at the level of strategic planning and SRB (Single Regeneration Budget) bid-writing. Secondly, their use in contracts between TECs, City Challenge companies, SRB partnerships and their delivery agencies may distort policy implementation. An instructive parallel may be drawn between this “indicator distortion” and the distortions induced by planning targets in the former Soviet Union.     

How U.S. Farm Programs and Crop Revenue Insurance Affect Returns to Farm Land

A simulation model incorporating price and yield variability is used to examine the impact of government farm program and crop revenue coverage (CRC) insurance payments on the probability distribution of returns to land. Results indicate that Marketing Loan Program payments have the greatest impact on both the mean and standard deviation of returns. Agricultural Market Transition Act payments shift the distribution of returns without changing the variability, creating a reduction in relative risk. Market loss assistance payments increase the mean, reduce variability, and increase skewness. When combined, farm programs substantially increase the value that risk-averse producers place on the residual returns to land and substantially reduce the certainty equivalent value of CRC.     

Bank-led restructuring in Poland: the conciliation process in action1

Poland's 1993 Enterprise and Bank Restructuring Programme (EBRP) tried to force state-owned commercial banks to build institutional capacity and resolve their problem loans. The outcome of its innovative bank-led workout (‘conciliation’) process, documented in this study of 62 firms, is decidedly mixed. The EBRP forced banks to confront their problems, helped them to build instituional capacity in their workout units, and furthered the difficult task of weeding out and closing clearly unviable firms. Yet it had limited power to promote needed restructuring or privatization in firms. The conciliation agreements were relatively unsophisticated and include few tangible requirements for operational or management change. The first two years of implementation saw a slowdown (over earlier years) in the rate of layoffs, a decline in average operating profitablility, and very little real privatization. The main impact of conciliation appears to have been to reduce debt service and thereby give firms ‘breathing room’.     

The development of company law in India: The case of the Companies Act 1956

The influence of social and cultural context, including imperial influences, and politics on the promulgation of the Companies Act 1956 in post independence India, focusing in particular on accounting regulations incorporated in the Act, is explored using a framework based on the work of McKinnon [McKinnon JL. The historical development of the operational form of corporate reporting regulation in Japan. New York: Garland; 1986]. Within the framework, the promulgation of the Companies Act 1956 is analysed into three phases: source, diffusion and reaction with all phases being influenced by the social and cultural context of India and political processes. In particular, the importance of the role of the government and the socio-economic and cultural context of India is indicated in both the need for, and in the process of, change to the Companies Act 1956.