Interim Realities

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a study of information technology implementation practices in National Health Service hospitals in England. The results suggest that there is a general direction of travel, which involves the progressive linking together of individual systems, so that they are interoperable. We argue that the findings are consistent with meta-governance arguments, but that it is necessary to complement this perspective with an understanding of the nature of information technologies in order to understand them properly. We suggest that ‘interim systems’ will be the reality on the ground for many health care organizations for the foreseeable future.     

Multiracialism and Meritocracy: Singapore's Approach to Race and Inequality

This paper characterizes Singapore's efforts to tackle the problem of persistent racial inequality in terms of the notion of fair meritocracy. Singapore's race policy attempts to level the playing field through its unique race-based self-help organizations and a comprehensive, racially integrated, public housing program. Individuals are then sorted by the ostensibly objective mechanism of a standardized test based educational system. The social and economic implications of this policy are examined and, using summary data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the extent to which Singapore has been successful in creating a fair multiracial meritocracy is assessed.     

The Valuation of Equity Futures on the Tokyo Stock Exchange: 1920–1923

The futures price of an asset should depend on the spot price of that asset, the interest rate, cash flows during the contract term, the convenience yield, and storage costs. Despite many tests of the spot–future relation for commodities in historical periods, there have been no tests of this historical relation for equities. We price single‐stock equity futures on the Tokyo Stock Exchange between 1920 and 1923 and find that mispricing is considerably worse than in contemporary U.S. markets, after adjusting for (unavoidable) asynchronous data issues. The main cause of the mispricing is short‐sales constraints, rather than investor naivety. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark     

Planning Histories and Practices of Circulating Urban Knowledge

This symposium creates and stimulates new dialogue and cross‐disciplinary exchange between planning theorists and geographers in researching the transfer of urban policy and planning models, ideas and techniques. The symposium challenges a restricted historical focus in much of the emerging geographical literature on urban policy mobilities by drawing on a rich tradition within planning history of exploring and documenting the trans‐urban travel of planning ideas and models over the last 150 years. It is argued that this longer‐term perspective is required to highlight important historical continuities and institutional legacies to contemporary urban policy circuits and pathways and to question what is particularly new, distinct and innovative about an intensification in the travel of urban ideas, plans and policies over the past decade — and the accompanying scholarly interest in them. The symposium also uses the emphasis on particular details and specific experiences within planning histories to foreground and develop approaches, particularly from recent geographical scholarship, that investigate the contingent and embodied practices and wider epistemic contexts that enable — or hinder — contemporary policy transfer.     

The Triumph of American Capitalism: An Assyrian Perspective

The collapse of communism, the success of the US economy and the rise of the internet have led many to argue that the rest of the world should adopt American capitalism. This article uses evidence from the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East to argue that the most successful form of capitalism in each area (and era) depends on the context of the time, the culture of the people and the history of the region.     

International Rivalry in Advancing Products

This paper explores the forces that determine the distribution of technological leadership across countries and whether technological leadership contributes to national welfare. Increased domestic resources or domestic innovation efficiency need not improve domestic technological leadership when more than one quality level of a product sells in equilibrium. If and only if a sufficient share of income is spent on high quality levels does increased domestic resources or domestic innovation efficiency improve domestic technological leadership. When discounting is slight enough, forces that improve domestic technological leadership reduce welfare by reducing the rate of innovation.     

Investment under Trade Policy Uncertainty: an Empirical Investigation*

The link between trade policy uncertainty and the share of investment in GDP per capita is investigated using panel data drawn from over a hundred countries for the period 1960–2000. Five indicators of trade policy are used. Two specifications of volatility for each of the trade policy indicators are constructed as measures of trade policy uncertainty. Panel regression results suggest a robust correlation between the volatility of trade policy indicators and the investment share. A significant negative impact of trade policy volatility on the investment share is found in most trade policy indicators with an exception—the volatility of the trade share indicator more closely associated with volatility in quantity than in prices has a significant positive impact on the investment share.