Foreign debt and economic growth

This paper empirically examines the relationship between government foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP based on a total sample of 77 countries, as well as sub‐samples of various regions. Cross‐sectional estimates of the coefficient of foreign debt based on the total sample have a negative sign, but are not always statistically significant. Available data from African countries indicate that foreign debt and the growth rate of per capita GDP were negatively related at a high level of significance. For industrialized and Latin American sub‐samples, this relationship is negative but statistically insignificant. The sub‐sample Asian and other developing countries show a positive but insignificant relationship. JEL classification: F34, H6, O23.     

Road infrastructure and economic development in the periphery: the case of A55 improvements in North Wales

This paper examines the impact of a major road improvement programme on the economic development of North Wales. The paper identifies the economic impacts of the road on a selection of firms and organisations in North Wales, and provides a modelling framework to examine the static and dynamic effects of road improvements. Road improvements across North Wales are found to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for economic development in this peripheral area.     

Tinbergen in De Economist

Jan Tinbergen's scientific writings cover six main areas of research. His articles in De Economist represent these areas; in some cases the contributions to De Economist were of a pioneering nature (business cycles, economic models, economic integration); in others De Economist was the first or even single outlet for Tinbergen's work. This article provides an overview of these contributions. The wide scope of Tinbergen's areas of research goes together with a unity in approach, the characteristics of which are: policy relevance, quantification and measurement, balance in analysis and presentation, and learning from experience. Tinbergen's articles in De Economist bear witness to this approach which at the time also met with scepticism and resistance as this overview shows. According to Houthakker, Tinbergen's main contribution may be that, amidst the pleas of interest groups and the slogans of the laity, an attempt is made that the voice of the professional economic researcher be heard. Tinbergen's work still sets an agenda for both economic research and policy making.     

日本行政规制改革的全景透析及其启示

自上个世纪80年代初始,日本进行了一场以经济振兴为核心目标、以行政规制缓和为主要内容的行政改革。探究日本行政规制改革的背景和动因,评介日本行政规制改革的历程与策略,剖析日本行政规制改革的特征及其对我国行政规制改革的启示,具有极其重要的理论意义和现实意义。     

Whose Capital is It? Putting Owners Back in Control

John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, looks at corporate governance issues. JEL Classification G3     

从博弈论看商务谈判僵局的本质和处理

商务谈判中的僵局是谈判双方都不愿看到但又不得不面对的难题。只有了解了商务谈判僵局产生的本质才能够更好地处理好谈判中的僵局。从博弈论的角度,对商务谈判僵局的本质进行了分析,指出在挖掘共同利益的过程中既可以寻求到瓜分共同利益的有效途径,又可寻找到共同利益与个体利益实现的最佳结合点。     

A Critique of the Legal and Philosophical Case for Rent Control

Rent control is an economic abomination. It diverts investments away from residential rent units, it leads to their deterioration, it is responsible for urban decay such as in the South Bronx, it does not help poor tenants, it is a horrendous means of income redistribution. Yet this economic regulation is beloved of intellectuals (hot beds of pro rent control sentiment are Berkeley, Ann Arbor and Cambridge) particularly in the legal and philosophical communities. The present article is dedicated to an exploration and rejection of the arguments in behalf of rent control which emanate from this source.     

Goals versus institutions: the development of performance measurement in the Swedish university sector

This paper contrasts goal-directed and institutional approaches to the development of performance measurement (PM) in the Swedish university sector, which has been subject to increasing emphasis on management by objectives since the early 1990s. We adopt a macro perspective, focusing on recent changes in PM related to governmental control of universities and colleges and combine an extensive review of archival data with interviews in our empirical analysis. It is concluded that although the goal-directed model cannot be completely rejected as a heuristic informing recent changes in PM, a process-orientated institutional perspective considerably enriches the analysis by making it less static and more contextually informed. In particular, the latter perspective better explains the evolution of loose couplings between formally stated goals and performance indicators and between different systems for PM by directing attention to the complex interplay between conflicting constituent interests in the evolution of resource and cost allocation practices and quality control procedures. However, our empirical analysis also leads us to reconsider the conceptions of loose coupling as either a “given” feature of institutionalised organizations or an outcome of more pro-active resistance at the micro level prevailing in much earlier work in institutional theory.     

Problem shifts and market research: The role of networks in business relationships

This article discusses changes in approach to the study of business relationships, and sees the paradigm concept as constituting an inadequate basis for describing gradually evolving changes in the perception of business. The frequent references to paradigms appear to focus more on state aspects than on change aspects of theory building. The article attempts to trace some of the changes in the perception of markets preceding the emergence of network theories, and relates the presence of an interactional approach to business studies to the concept of problem shifts (Lakatos). The development of interactional approaches in marketing is seen as representing a shift away from theory building commonly found in economics and organizational theory. Changes in the approach to the study of business relationships are interpreted as theoretical or empirical problem shifts, and are thus related to the a priori and a posteriori relevance of the continual evolution of alternative business theories. The article explores some of the epistemological relevance of the network theories to the study of market relationships, and the potential impact on continual changes in approach to the study of markets.