Perspectives on the Sources of Heterogeneity in Indian Industry

This paper examines technical efficiency variation across four industrial sectors in India using a stochastic production frontier technique. The results obtained are comparable to technical efficiency distribution patterns obtained in other countries. Heterogeneity in firm-level efficiency is examined against internal, firm-level and external, industry and location characteristics. The results suggest that managerial effectiveness significantly influences efficiency and that there are considerable benefits deriving from location within established industrial clusters for particular industries. The methodology and findings indicate that the study of industry-specific technical efficiency patterns is a useful analytic tool for tracking firm response to ongoing liberalization.     

Including the community in local regeneration? The case of greater pollok social inclusion partnership

This paper seeks to evaluate critically the extent to which there is community involvement in the construction and delivery of urban policy under New Labour, through a case study of the Greater Pollok Social Inclusion Partnership. The paper concentrates on the Scottish experience, but its lessons resonate more widely. Its key finding is that, for all the rhetoric of New Labour and community involvement, the degree to which it has occurred in practice is little different to the level of involvement under Conservative urban policy initiatives. The paper argues that the processes of community consultation and participation during the early stages of the Greater Pollok Social Inclusion Partnership were woefully inadequate. At best it was tokenistic, and at worst, local people were being 'exploited' to legitimise the policy process.     

Sample selection bias with multiple selection rules: An application to student aid grants

This paper extends the sample selection bias correction procedure, developed by James J. Heckman, to the case of multiple selection rules. Estimators are presented for independent selection rules and a consistent estimator for the variance-covariance matrix is derived. The methodology is applied to the problem of estimating the financial aid available to U.S. highschool students for college education. In order to be observed in receipt of financial aid, a student has to be both enrolled in college and to have had an expected value of aid in excess of the costs of applying. Both of these sources of selection bias were found to be important.     

The Chicago School Lessons from the Thirties for the Eighties

The influential Chicago School of Professors Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Ronald Coase, Gary Becker and others largely grew out of the work of Henry Simons in the 1930s. Chris Tame, Secretary of the Libertarian Alliance and a graduate in American Studies, examines the origins of Chicago economics and shows their importance for the 1980s.