Book Reviews

Yoshihara Kunio, The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Pang Eng Fong (Ed.), Labour Market Developments and Structural Change: The Experience of Asean and Australia, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1988, pp. 296 + xvii, index.

Michael T. Skully and George J. Viksnins, Financing East Asia's Success: Comparative Financial Development in Eight Asian Countries, Hong Kong: Macmillan, 1987, pp. 242 + xiii. cloth: $82.95.

Felix Schmidt Der Beitrag des Staedtischen Informellen Sektors zur Sozialoekonomischen Entwicklung Indonesiens. Dargestellt am Beispiel der Stadt Bandung [The Contribution of the Urban Informal Sector to Socio-economic Development in Indonesia: The Case of the City of Bandung], Schriften zu Regional - und Verkehrsproblemen in Industrie Bandung], Schriften zu Regional - und Entwicklungslaendem, Bd 45, Berlin: Duncker and Humbolt, 1988, pp. 295 + xix. DM 68,-.

Jennifer Alexander, Trade, Traders and Trading in Rural Java, Singapore: Oxford University Press/ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, 1987.

Colin MacAndrews, Land Policy in Modern Indonesia, Boston: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain/The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1986, pp. 119 + viii.

Wolf Donner, Land Use and Environment in Indonesia, London: C. Hurst and Company, 1987, pp. 368 + xix.

Robert Repetto, The Forest for the Trees? Government Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources, Washington: World Resources Institute, pp. 105 + viii. Cloth: $US 10.00.

Sjahrir, Kebijaksanaan Negara - Konsistensi dan Implementasi [Public Policy - Consistency and Implementation], Jakarta: LP3ES, 1987, pp. 230 + viii.

Mubyarto, Ekonomi Pancasila: Gagasan dan Kemungkinan [The Pancasila Economy: Concept and Possibilities], Jakarta: LP3ES, 1987, pp. 238 + ix.

M. Dawam Rahardjo, Perekonomian Indonesia: Pertumbuhan dan Krisis [The Indonesian Economy: Growth and Crisis], Jakarta: LP3ES, pp. 299 + xviii.

Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1460–1680. Volume One: The Lands Below The Winds, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988, pp. 275 + xvii.

E.E. van Delden, Klein Repertorium: Index op Tijdschriften met Betrekking tot Voormalig Nederlands-lndie. Deel 1: Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur 1887–1900, Amsterdam: Koninlijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 1986, pp. 79.     

Gordon Tullock as a political scientist

We consider Gordon Tullock’s impact in political science, focusing on his influence as a scholar and as an academic entrepreneur. It is common to think of Tullock as a “natural economist,” but his formal training at Chicago encompassed considerable coursework related to political science. We consider three sources of information to draw conclusions about Tullock’s contributions in political science: (1) Course syllabi; (2) Citations in academic political science journals; and (3) Impact on the careers of important political scientists, and shaping the intellectual agenda. Our conclusion is that, while Tullock’s work is clearly significant for central questions in political science, and has received some attention, his primary legacy lies in the impact he had on launching and shaping the careers of prominent political scientists, and thus the development of political science scholarship.     

Fiscal Competition and Higher Education Spending in Germany

The present paper studies the determinants of higher education spending by the German federal states with a focus on the interplay between higher education spending of neighboring states. More specifically, the paper asks whether the German federal states free‐ride on one another's higher educational spending or whether they employ higher education spending to attract university graduates. We identify a positive relationship between the states' higher education spending and conclude that the states compete for graduates rather than free‐ride. We also consider the effect of the recent introduction of tuition fees in some, but not all German states. We do not find evidence that tuition fees led to crowding out of public higher education funds.     

Why do medium- and large-scale farmers succeed practicing CA and small-scale farmers often do not? – experiences from Paraguay

Conservation agriculture (CA) is defined as a system comprising no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic soil cover, and crop species diversification [FAO. (2014). What is Conservation Agriculture? FAO CA website, consulted on 15.09.2014. Retrieved September 15, 2014, from http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/1a.html]. The vast majority of medium- and large-scale farmers in Paraguay and neighbouring countries (Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay) who use tractor-based farming systems have moved from conventional agriculture and adopted CA through no-tillage technologies. Among this farmer type, very few wish to return to the old system of tillage agriculture. However, despite massive efforts to transmit the technology to small-scale farmers by development aid projects and local governments, widespread adoption of CA has not happened on farms that use animal traction or manual farming systems; in fact significant dis-adoption of CA practices by smallholders has occurred. Some of the reasons for this dynamic are analysed in this paper. The reasons for dis-adoption by small-scale farmers can be generally divided into two groups. One group has to do with the fact that, comparatively, small-scale farmers are less able to cope with the factors related to CA (e.g. degraded soils, recuperating and maintaining soil fertility and know-how) than medium- and large-scale farmers. The second group of reasons has to do with the approaches and strategies that development aid agencies and local governments have taken towards small-scale farmers, which have influenced small-scale farmers’ ability to adopt and maintain CA practices. Small-scale farmers’ main asset is the soil and the CA/no-tillage system is a knowledge-based, learning-intensive system. However, despite the technical support provided by aid agencies and local governments, small-scale farmers often lack a deeper understanding of the CA concepts and practices. This is attributable to the short- to medium-term and rather conservative transfer-of-technology approaches that have been applied by development aid agency and local government programmes over the years, without any changes and without adaptive research. The latter can be derived, for instance, from the accountability of results to donor agencies or the one-size-fits-all approach applied in order to achieve ‘numbers’. One consequence of this is that ownership by and empowerment of farmers is often absent among dis-adopters. It therefore seems more suitable to apply long term, adaptable approaches to CA with smallholders. The lessons learned in Paraguay may well serve to properly direct future development intervention efforts in this country and also serve to mend development strategies in other countries in South and Central America, Africa or Asia.     

Two-stage capital budgeting,capital charge rates,and resource constraints

We study two-stage, multi-division budgeting mechanisms that allocate scarce resources among divisions using capital charge rates. Each divisional manager observes private sequential project information and competes for scarce resources over two stages. The optimal capital charge rates in our two-stage setting can be quite different from those that arise in a single-stage setting. If the firm faces a resource constraint at only the second stage, a less severe constraint can imply more first-stage project initiation, which can lead to higher second-stage capital charge rates. If resources are constrained at both stages, a decrease in the severity of the constraint at just one stage decreases the capital charge rate at that stage but increases the capital charge rate at the other stage because each constraint affects the intensity of competition at both stages. This result holds regardless of whether the scarce resources are fungible or non-fungible across stages.     

Einzelbesprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Emerging Markets and the Global Monetary System: The Challenge of Rising Inflation

While spillovers of the present financial turmoil in mature economies to emerging economies have so far largely been contained, the monetary policy implications of the financial turbulence present a challenge to the approach pursued by emerging markets in integrating into the global monetary system following the crises of the mid to late 1990s. Specifically, the period of a smooth coexistence between meeting inflation targets and maintaining a high degree of exchange rate stability is likely to come to an end. * At the time of writing this paper, the second author was an advisor at the Deutsche Bundesbank on secondment from the European Central Bank. The views expressed are solely those of the authors. They wish to thank Karlheinz Bischofberger, Ulrich Grosch and Sabine Herrmann for their valuable comments and suggestions, as well as Livia Chitu for excellent research assistance.     

Balancing creativity and time efficiency in multi‐team R&D projects: the alignment of formal and informal networks

The business world is denoted by an increasing number of multi‐team research and development (R&D) projects, however, managerial knowledge about how to run them successfully is scarce. The present study attempts to shed light at this kind of projects by investigating the alignment of formal and informal network structures and their effect on the challenge to balance project creativity and time efficiency. In order to analyze this issue data in two multi‐team R&D projects in space industry are collected. There are two intriguing findings that are partly contradicting the state‐of‐the‐art knowledge. First, formally ascribed design interfaces and informal communication networks overlap only marginally because the informal communication networks are characterized by many more linkages. Second, the weak overlap between formally ascribed design interfaces and the informal communication networks is inversely U‐shaped associated with the team's creativity, whereas it negatively impacts the team's time efficiency.