Claims,Concerns and Interests In British Credit Union Development

The British credit union movement has grown rapidly over the past decade, albeit from a low base relative to other nations. That growth has been led by a natlonal credlt union pollcy network. Thls article provides a detailed appraisal of the structure of that network, the motivations of its members and the relations between them.

This study highlights the existence of contradictions in the ‘policy space’ occupied by this network that have obscured the public interest In credit union development to date. These contradictions need to be resolved if the performance of the system as a whole is to be improved and public policy goals are to be met Increasing visibtlity ensuing from repeated endorsement of credit unions by the Labour government is bringing added pressures to bear on that network. New actors may be expected to enter the credit union polltlcal market as a result The irnpacts of entry, both positive and negative, are evaluated in terms of the coheslon and effectiveness of ihe credit union policy network.     

Assets,activities and income generation in rural Mexico: factoring in social and public capital⋆

In recent years, there has been increasing emphasis in the rural development literature on the multiple income‐generating activities undertaken by rural households and the importance of assets in determining the capacity to undertake these activities. Controlling for the endogeneity of activity choice and applying Lee's generalisation of Amemiya's two‐step estimator to a simultaneous equation model, household returns to assets from multiple activities are explored for the Mexico ejido sector. To incorporate the multiple variables representing social and public capital into the analysis, factor analysis is used. The results indicate that the asset position of the household has a significant effect on household participation in income‐generating activities and returns to those activities. Furthermore, the inclusion of measures of social and public capital into the analysis show that these assets play an important role in income‐generating activities and that the influence is dependent on the type of social and public capital as well as the particular activity.     

如何迅速缓解全球粮食危机

【美国《华尔街日报》5月13日】大力加强增加农田产量的研究。增加水利及农村交通方面的投入。以太阳能和风能为非洲农场提供电力。以不可食用的作物代替玉米为原料生产生物柴油。     

The Role of the Non-Farm Rural Sector in the Reconstruction of the Balkans

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Firm-specific cost savings and market power

Summary. We report a policy experiment that illustrates a potential problem of using historical pass-through rates as a means of predicting the competitive consequences of projected firm-specific cost savings in antitrust contexts, particularly in merger analysis. The effects of cost savings on welfare can vary vastly, depending on how the savings affect the industry supply schedule. In a capacity-constrained price-setting oligopoly, we observe that cost savings can overwhelm behaviorally salient market power incentives when the savings affect marginal (high cost) units. However, cost savings of the same magnitude on an infra-marginal unit leave market power unchanged.     

The nature of local area social exclusion in England and the role of the labour market

The creation of the Social Exclusion Unit by the present governmentin 1997 is just one example of the increased desire by bothacademics and policy-makers to understand more about the factorsthat lead to individuals and communities becoming excluded frommainstream society. Of the many aspects of social exclusionwhich have featured in recent debate, this article focuses ontwo. The first is to describe the nature and the extent of socialexclusion in the areas in which it is concentrated in the UnitedKingdom. The second is to examine the role that labour-marketfactors play in creating, reducing, or sustaining geographicalconcentrations of social exclusion. The article draws upon theresults of social surveys conducted in deprived areas and discussesthe arguments for tackling local concentrations of social exclusionthrough area-based initiatives.     

FINANCIAL LIBERALISATION, CONSUMPTION AND WEALTH EFFECTS IN SEVEN OECD COUNTRIES

We estimate the impact of financial liberalisation on consumption in seven major industrial countries, and find a marked shift in behaviour, notably a decline in short‐run income elasticities and a rise in short‐run wealth and interest rate elasticities. A corollary is that consumption equations estimated over both pre‐ and post‐liberalisation regimes may be misleading, and either a form of testing as presented here or a shortening of the sample period may be appropriate for accurate forecasting and simulation.     

The Substitution Problem in the Theory of Effective Protection

Input substitution theoretically invalidates the resource flow predictions of effective rates of protection calculated in a partial equilibrium framework. Partial equilibrium effective protection analysis, despite this "substitution problem," has nevertheless quietly settled into the trade economistÕs toolbox. This paper presents a new, transparent review of the substitution problem in effective protection. It finds that partial equilibrium effective protection analysis, although theoretically susceptible to misleading results, is in practice a reasonable estimator of certain short-run general equilibrium effects of protection.