吴忠:财政为所当为

一个西部欠发达的地级市能够将多少财政收入用在民生上?"十一五"期间,吴忠市财政用于民生的支出共计180亿元,占同期财政一般预算支出的75%,最近两年甚至一度达到90%以上,笔者被深深触动了一下。这个比例确实不低!     

Explaining the Normality of Informal Employment in Ukraine: A Product of Exit or Exclusion?

This article evaluates critically the competing explanations for the persistence and growth of informal employment in contemporary societies. These interpret the normality of informality either through a structuralist lens as arising out of “exclusion” from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy or through a neo‐liberal and/or post‐structuralist lens as driven by the voluntary “exit” of workers out of formal institutions and into this alternative realm. To evaluate critically the validity of these competing explanations, this article reports a 2005/6 survey of informal employment in post‐socialist Ukraine. Analyzing the results of 600 face‐to‐face interviews, the finding is that either/or explanations need to be transcended. Informal employment is neither universally driven by exclusion nor exit. Instead, some participate mostly due to exclusion, others mostly for exit rationales, and some for a combination of the two, with different mixtures across different populations and types of informal employment. The outcome is a call to move towards more context‐bound understandings of the pervasiveness of informality through greater appreciation of the heterogeneity of this sphere and how both exit and exclusion are variously entwined in different settings.     

Australia and the Pacific Economy*

The industrialization and growth of East Asian countries has shifted the centre of world trade and economic activity towards the Pacific. There has already been a huge redirection of Australia's trade and external economic interests towards the region, based importantly on the emergence of Japan as a major economic power. Australia's future economic prospects will be significantly determined by how it manages its trade policy interests in the context of continuing East Asian industrialization. The most promising Australian trade policy approach is one which allies Australia's trading interests to those of East Asian countries in seeking to maintain an open non-discriminatory trade regime, supportive of the transformation of trade specialization necessary to the industrialization of resource-deficient countries, and which marries that objective to the liberalization of her own and Pacific country markets.     

Are Social Forums the Future of Social Movements?

Social Forums, modeled on the World Social Forums, are not social movements in the classic sense. They are not, and do not purport to be, the organizational form through which basic social change will be achieved, or can best be pursued. But they do bring together elements of many social movements, afford an opportunity for coalition‐building among them, frequently around urban issues, and thus make a significant contribution to achieving such change. Conceivably they may be the foundation for an international social movement for change, but if so it is likely to coalesce about a specifically political program. Some concrete suggestions are made which might enhance their effectiveness. Les Forums sociaux, sur le modèle des Forums sociaux mondiaux, ne sont pas des mouvements sociaux au sens traditionnel. Ils ne sont, ni ne sont censés être, la forme d’organisation permettant d’atteindre ou de mener au mieux un changement social fondamental. Cependant, ils réunissent des composantes de nombreux mouvements sociaux, leur offrent une possibilité de créer une coalition (souvent autour de problèmes urbains) et contribuent ainsi fortement à l’évolution visée. En théorie, ils peuvent servir de base à un mouvement social international en faveur d’un changement, quoique ayant alors tendance à s’unir sur un programme politique. Les suggestions concrètes qui sont formulées peuvent en améliorer l’efficacité.     

MEASURING THE BUSINESS STEALING,CANNIBALIZATION AND MARKET EXPANSION EFFECTS OF ENTRY IN THE U.S. MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITION MARKET*

Using a large and comprehensive theater level database covering over $18 billion in theater revenues over a five year period, I document the extent and nature of business stealing, revenue cannibalization and market expansion that occurred during the height of the 1990's boom in movie theater construction.