Feature: Taking Africa Seriously: A Case for Enhanced Resource Flow to Facilitate Development and Reduce Poverty

Despite considerable improvements in the policy environmentin many African countries in the last two decades, it is stilldifficult for the rest of the world to take Africa seriously.Not taking Africa seriously affects the growth and developmentoutcomes. Investors do not show much optimism about the region'sfuture, hence the relatively slow flow of private capital intothe region. Capable Africans also show little enthusiasm aboutthe future, hence the flight of financial wealth and human capitalout of the region. In the last decade, African countries havestepped up the campaign to make their reform efforts appearmore credible, adopting more cooperative approaches and greaterinterest in governance issues within a more global and regionalframework. This article seeks to show why the current effortsat broader reform need to be considered more seriously by therest of the world.     

Telecommunications in the Information Age. Singleton,Loy A. Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1983, 239 pp. $19.95

Abstract

A telephone survey was conducted among a national probability sample of 330 adults to determine consumer attitudes toward the use of subliminal stimulation techniques in a self-improvement product. Additionally, those most favorable toward the product concept were profiled. The study found consumers to be skeptical toward the use of subliminal messages for the purpose of self-improvement and concerned about being influenced to do something they did not want to do. Those consumers most favorable toward the subliminal technique had prior experience with computers and video equipment, were less educated, and had some family problems. Comparisons are made with prior studies of consumer attitudes toward subliminal advertising.     

Stock market wealth effects in an estimated DSGE model for Hong Kong

This paper develops and estimates an open-economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of the Hong Kong economy. The model features short-run price rigidities generated by monopolistic competition and staggered reoptimization. We devote special attention to asset prices and wealth effects, which we believe to be important. For this reason we adopt a perpetual-youth approach. Model parameters and unobserved components are estimated with a Bayesian maximum likelihood procedure, conditional on prior information concerning the values of parameters. The estimations identify substantial wealth effects and indicate that the nominal interest rate responds to unexpected movements in stock prices.     

Water allocation under alternative water supply conditions

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for estimating the marginal value of water to alternative users. The framework developed employs input-output and linear programming methods and is applied to a rural area of South Carolina. Pricing water resources according to their value of marginal product will lead to efficient allocation of the water and maximum Gross Regional Product under alternative water supply conditions.