Unemployment: Subsidies and Minimum Wages

The author outlines the 1981 'Youth Workers Scheme' he devised, and contends it was both successful and cheap. Minimum wages and wages councils are pernicious, the first ensuring that young people are priced out of hobs and the second leading to the suppression of competition.     

Road pricing

Summary Under conditions of congestion, the social costs of motoring will exceed the private costs. The formula is: Social Cost=Private Cost (1+the elasticity of cost with respect to traffic flow). Thus the optimum tax under these conditions is equal to this elasticity coefficient×100 per cent of the private cost. A fluid-dynamic model, borrowed from physics, is used to develop a simple formula for the elasticity ofvelocity with respect to traffic flow. By postulating a relationship between cost and speed, this elasticity is convertedinto an estimate of the elasticity coefficient. And so one can obtain, for any specified speed, a value of this coefficient and cost; the product of these two then gives an estimate of the difference between social and private cost. In practice one cannot determine the speed independently; it emerges from the demand-supply interactions and so one must also postulate a demand function; but data problems are severe on the demand side. Lastly, some developments are considered — including network models and dynamic demand models. Lecture delivered in the Faculty of Economics of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, on 21st May 1968. The author is Professor of Econometrics and Social Statistics at the University of Birmingham, and Advisor on Research, Graduate Centre for Management Studies.     

Public involvement in health genomics: the reality behind the policies

Public involvement is increasingly becoming the norm as stakeholders recognize the need to inform, consult and engage the public. However, there is limited understanding about the meaning and implications of public involvement, in particular elements like the levels of public involvement, the goals of the involvement, the type of public to be involved, the methods of involving the public and the need to assess effectiveness. We conducted a systematic review of policy documents/guidelines published between 1998 and 2009, by governments, health professionals and the public regarding public involvement in the area of human genomics. Documents were identified using the HUMGEN database and organizational web sites. A total of 70 documents were retrieved addressing public involvement and human genomics. The review revealed that 22 documents mentioned the active process of partnership and collaboration, whereas 27 mentioned consultation and 29 mentioned education. The most common goals were building trust and respect, followed by education, governance and lastly, understanding risks and benefits. We found that less than a third of the documents defined who the public is, and when mechanisms for public involvement were mentioned, they were rarely placed into a context. Few documents drew attention to evaluation. It is reassuring to see that there has been an emphasis placed on public involvement in the area of health and genomics. The findings underscore the gaps existing in the actual policy documents/guidelines and the need to clarify the goals, the methods, who is the public, what mechanism are appropriate and the need for evaluation when addressing public involvement in health genomics.     

Heterogeneity in asset allocation decisions: Empirical evidence from Switzerland

We analyze the heterogeneity in asset allocation decisions of different investor groups in response to changes in the macroeconomic environment. Using a new data set that includes the monthly portfolio holdings of private, commercial, and institutional investors deposited with Swiss banks, we estimate the relationship between equity and bond holdings and common business cycle indicators. Regression analysis indicates that private investors do not systematically move from stocks into bonds by selling stocks to institutional investors and purchasing bonds from them in adverse macroeconomic states. A VAR-error correction framework including cointegration and error correction restrictions suggests that the investment behavior of commercial investors leads and private investors follow in their investment decisions only slowly over time. The asset allocation decisions of institutional investors are not affected by the actions of private and commercial investors. Our results refute a principle of “institutional irrelevance”.     

Measuring Ethnic Community Involvement: Development and Initial Testing of an Index*

This paper builds on the work of Chaganti and Greene, who distinguish between ethnic minority entrepreneurs/small business owners who are very involved with their ethnic community and those who are not. We extend their work by developing an Index of Ethnic Community Involvement based not only on personal but also business characteristics. We utilize a large sample size (698 interviews with entrepreneurs), drawn from five ethnic groups, and develop a valid and reliable (0.69) Index of Ethnic Involvement (IEI) with a strong emphasis on social capital theory. Our initial analysis shows the IEI predicts some personal and business characteristics. Future development will include building regression models to predict business outcomes. The IEI, when fully developed, promises to be useful for targeting assistance, education and training programs, and policy initiatives for entrepreneurs and small business owners according to the level of ethnic community involvement.     

Is America’s National Pastime too time consuming?

World Series telecasts are now an inferior good. Income and the time cost of consumption interact so that a ten percent income increase reduces viewership by 1.8 million households. Increased availability of substitutes reduces ratings but increased drama improves them.     

Supplier and customer exchange in international industrial markets: An integrative perspective

A significant body of knowledge pertaining to the management and organization of international distribution channels has evolved over the last three decades. More recent foci have been on relational forms of exchange and models that accommodate efficient exchange management within the context of supply chain systems. This review provides a framework for furthering knowledge along important dimensions that have received limited attention and offers a series of propositions for future scholarly work in the area. Key themes pursued in this study include (1) the impact of the international dimension of exchange; (2) the distinction between upstream and downstream forms of exchange; and (3) the influence of electronic commerce on the future of international exchange. We conclude this review by highlighting research challenges facing scholars.     

Book Reviews

Anne Booth (1998), The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A History of Missed Opportunities, Macmillan, London, and St Martin's Press, New York, pp. xvi + 377. Paper: US$ 19.95; cloth: US$ 79.95.

J. Thomas Lindblad (1998), Foreign Investment in Southeast Asia in the Twentieth Century, Macmillan, London, and St Martin's Press, New York, pp. xiii + 240. Paper: £49.95.

Adam Schwarz and Jonathan Paris (eds) (1999), The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia, Council on Foreign Relations Press, New York, pp. 150. Paper: US$17.95.

Arief Budiman, Barbara Hatley and Darnien Kingsbury (eds) (1999), Reformasi: Crisis and Change in Indonesia, Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne, pp. 402. A$24.95.

Hal Hill (1999), The Indonesian Economy in Crisis: Causes, Consequences and Lessons, Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. 150. S$22.50; US$14.90.

Terry Dwyer (ed.) and Barry Reece and Craig Emerson (contributors) (1999), Resource Tax Policy in Countries of the Asia Pacific Region, Asia Pacific Press, The Australian National University, Canberra. A$20.00; US$20.00.

Januar Achmad (1999), Hollow Development: The Politics of Health in Soeharto's Indonesia, Coombs Academic Publishing, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, pp. viii + 220. A$15.00 plus postage.

Terence H. Hull, Endang Sulistyaningsih and Gavin W. Jones (1999), Prostitution in Indonesia: Its History and Evolution, Pustaka Sinar Harapan, Jakarta, pp. 161. A$10.00.