What happened after Bell spilled the acid?: Telecommunications history: a view through the literature

The article is an extensive review of the literature covering the history of telecommunications, primarily the telephone and telegraph. Much of the history itself is discussed in the process, including the politics of inventions, monopolies and anti-trust pressures, and industry interaction with government. The ignorance of many authors on the actual workings of the telephone is decried, and many sources for gaining an understanding of the technology are indicated.     

Matt Goldspan's trilogy

Matthew Goldspan was faced with a series of coincidental personnel issues that tested both his fairness and integrity. He had been a branch manager of a financial services operation for three years, where he oversaw thirty five employees. In one instance, a clerical employee protested salary differences she discovered; in another, his affirmative action record, as well as his right to make hiring decisions, was in question; and thirdly, he had to decide how to respond to theft by a temporary employee who happened to be the son of a prized member of his staff. In each case, employees were looking for Matt to demonstrate appropriate leadership and sound judgment.Jay Halfond is currently Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University, where he also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in social and ethical issues of management. He has published numerous articles, reviews, and cases on higher education administration and on ethical issues in management.     

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ECONOMIC POLICY REFORM?

The recent wave of democratization in developing countries andin formerly communist ones has sparked renewed interest in therelation between politics and economic adjustment. Adjustmentprograms, however well designed in a technical economic sense,are often politically difficult to launch and, once launched,to keep afloat. Success in implementing an adjustment programmay depend on a government's skill in generating political supportand holding off the opposition. This article explores the politicsof economic reform, drawing on country studies by politicalscientists and country specialists, the growing theoreticalliterature by economists, and the findings of a World Bank researchproject on the political economy of adjustment in new democracies.The article examines three broad clusters of variables: institutionalcharacteristics of the political system, aspects of the internaland external economy, and the design of the reform program.It also considers the relevance of political analysis for policymakersand for international financial institutions.      

Intrametropolitan migration: A simultaneous model of employment and residential location of white and black households

This study explores the relationship between the home and job location of the household within a metropolitan area. The model is an extension of the Alonso-Muth framework and allows the household to simultaneously choose its residential and employment location, monthly rent, number of rooms and the type of structure of the dwelling unit, so as to maximize its utility subject to the budget constraint.The data base is the Home Interview Survey conducted in 1965 by the (San Francisco) Bay Area Transportation Study Commission. The coefficients in the simultaneous model are estimated by two-stage least squares. The cross-section sample is stratified by tenure into renters and homeowners; by race into black and white households; and further by position in the life-cycle.The results of the location equations reveal that both the home and job location are responsive to each other which implies that the decentralization of jobs will result in the decentralization of residences for black households. The results of the housing equations imply that black and white households have almost identical elasticity of demand for housing. There is very slight evidence of price discrimination against black households. However, there is evidence that black households do face a geographical segregated market for rental housing.The results of this study argue that the decentralization of population is not due solely to rising incomes and will continue as long as industry decentralizes. Furthermore, governmental policies of increasing the income of central city residents, through subsidies to employers to locate in the central city will have a strong effect: inducing those residents to remain in or move into the central city. Thus, a policy that is meant to alleviate the plight of the city center may only result in strengthening the racial and income split between the suburb and the central city inhabitants.     

Productivity and Employment in the Information Economy: What Kaldor’s and Verdoorn’s Growth Laws Can Teach the US

During the last decade of the 20th century the US economy experienced the longest economic boom since World War II. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are seen as one of the main reasons for this development and it is still an open question how ICT will affect growth and employment in the future. To evaluate this process Kaldors growth laws, especially Verdoorns law are reconsidered. It will be discussed which changes in the Verdoorn-Coefficient (VC) and the employment threshold (ET) can be expected due to ICT. Induced technical progress and increasing returns to scale could make future economic growth to be less labor-intensive. A simple OLS estimation using data for the US non-farm sector indicates that the VC increased in the second half of the 1990s. Thus, more output growth is required to keep employment constant.The author gratefully acknowledges the most valuable comments from two anonymous referees and the participants of the Annual Meeting of the Austrian Economic Association (NOeG) at the Vienna University of Economics (WU), May 21–22, 2004. Any remaining errors are my own.