Digital Commons Network^™

Economic Freedom And Fiscal Performance: A Regression Analysis Of Indices Of Economic Freedom On Per Capita Gdp, Jason Ockey

Jason R Ockey

This paper explores whether different forms of economic freedom drive fiscal performance. We also seek to determine which specific measurements of economic freedom have the most statistically significant impacts. Though the results of our analysis show that economic freedom does impact levels of per capita GDP, the interpretation of these results is more complicated. Because some indices of economic freedom have negative effects on per capita GDP or are statistically insignificant, it is important to note that simply generally increasing a country’s overall level of economic freedom will not necessarily spur economic growth or increase fiscal performance. This paper does …

The Evolution Of Unemployment Relief In Great Britain, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] Relatively little has been written about unemployment relief during the period between the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 and the adoption of national unemployment insurance in 1911. This study is an attempt to help fill the gap in the literature. It examines the changing roles played by poor relief, private charity, trade unions, and public employment in the lives of the urban unemployed during cyclical downturns from 1834 to 1911. The story that emerges offers no support for a "Whig theory of welfare." Public assistance for the unemployed was more generous, and more certain, from …

The Development Of The Neoclassical Tradition In Labor Economics, George R. Boyer, Robert S. Smith

George R. Boyer

This essay on labor economics examines neoclassical theory's rise to ascendancy following the second World War, with a secondary focus on the relative decline but continued influence of institutionalist economic theory. The authors describe the evolution of institutional and neoclassical theory from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, examine some early intellectual debates between the two camps, briefly describe the work of neoclassical labor economics pioneers, and look at major developments over the past 30 years. They argue that neoclassical economists' increasing intellectual breadth and influence in public policy have led them to pay closer attention to issues that have …

The Historical Background Of The Communist Manifesto, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] The Manifesto of the Communist Party, published 150 years ago in London in February 1848, is one of the most influential and widely-read documents of the past two centuries. The historian A. J. P. Taylor (1967, p. 7) has called it a "holy book," and contends that because of it, "everyone thinks differently about politics and society." And yet, despite its enormous influence in the 20th century, the Manifesto is very much a period piece, a document of what was called the "hungry" 1840s. It is hard to imagine it being written in any other decade of the 19th …

Malthus Was Right After All: Poor Relief And Birth Rates In Southeastern England, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

The payment of child allowances to laborers with large families was widespread in early nineteenth-century England. This paper tests Thomas Malthus's hypothesis that child allowances caused the birth rate to increase. A cross-sectional regression model is estimated to explain variations in birth rates across parishes in 1826-30. Birth rates are found to be related to child allowances, income, and the availability of housing, as Malthus contended. The paper concludes by examining the role played by the adoption of child allowances after 1795 in the fertility increase of the early nineteenth century.

The Poor Law, Migration, And Economic Growth, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

The loss to the English economy caused by decreased migration resulting from relief payments to agricultural laborers is estimated. I conclude that, at worst, the Poor Law had a small negative impact on national product. If poor relief and wages were substitutes, the Poor Law may have had a positive impact on capital formation and economic growth.

What Did Unions Do In Nineteenth-Century Britain?, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

The article examines the development of the insurance function of trade unions. It analyzes how such policies worked, and why union benefit packages differed across occupations. It also addresses the impact of insurance policies on union organization. Insurance benefits increased the ability of unions to attract and retain members. They did not, however, significantly increase the power of union leaders relative to employers or union rank and file.

Unemployment And The Uk Labour Market Before, During And After The Golden Age, Timothy J. Hatton, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

During the ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 1960s unemployment in Britain averaged 2 per cent. This was far lower than ever before or since and a number of hypotheses have been put forward to account for this unique period in labour market history. But there has been little attempt to isolate precisely how the determinants of wage setting and unemployment differed before, during and after the golden age. We estimate a two-equation model over the whole period from 1872 to 1999 using a newly constructed set of long-run labour market data. We find that the structure of real wage …

Labour Migration In Southern And Eastern England, 1861-1901, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

This paper examines the determinants of migration from 19 southern counties to six major destinations in England and Wales from 1861-70 to 1891-1900. I find that, while the size of origin-destination wage gaps and the distance between origin and destination areas were important determinants of migration flows, as expected, migration was also strongly influenced by the number of previous migrants from an origin county living in a destination. The assistance provided by previous migrants to friends and relatives contemplating migration led to a perpetuation of earlier migration patterns, and helps to explain the continued dominance of London as a destination …

New Estimates Of British Unemployment, 1870-1913, George R. Boyer, Timothy J. Hatton

George R. Boyer

We present new estimates of the British industrial unemployment rate for 1870- 1913, which improve on the Board of Trade's prior estimates. We use similar sources, but our series includes additional industrial sectors, allows for short-time working, and aggregates the various sectors using appropriate labor-force weights from the census. The resulting index suggests a rate of industrial unemployment that was generally higher, but less volatile, than the board's index. We then adjust our series to an economywide basis, and construct a consistent time series of overall unemployment for 1870-1999.

The Greater Boston Region: Industry Mix Affects Growth, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

Overall prosperity in the Greater Boston region masks the extreme diversity among its cities and towns. Some areas have experienced robust growth in relatively high paying industries. Others have faced growth only in low-paying jobs, accompanied in many cases by a substantial decline in high-paying sectors. By examining the area’s five subregions in terms of industry types, wage levels, and employment growth, we begin to see reasons for these differences.

The Resource Curse And Peru: A Potential Threat For The Future?, Sergio Cruz

Master's Theses

What explains the ability of some countries to successfully use their natural resources towards development and economic growth while for others stagnation and impoverishment? The resource curse theory has helped economists explain this observation. This work examines how Peru has been able to produce strong economic growth in the last 20 years despite the economy’s strong dependence on its natural resource extractive industry. Peru has been able to avoid many of the pitfalls and traps that resource curse literature considers to be detrimental to economic growth. This article examines the resource based economies of four other countries (Venezuela, Chile, Nigeria, …

Microfinance Partnerships: A Bridge For Refugees, Megan Fielding

Master's Theses

My thesis examines the extension of microfinance to a refugee community; the objective focuses on economic assistance and a bridge to provide the required basic needs, as reported by the refugee population. With the global growth of refugees, the repositioning of refugees from either being cast aside as a potentially productive society or completely overlooked, is critical. Through my research in Ecuador, my thesis takes the viewpoint that refugees do, in fact, matter, and can become productive contributors to a society. The challenge that is presented in that viewpoint is: how do they become a part of a society?

African Development And China-African Relations, Anshan Li

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Militarism, Conflict And Women's Activism : Challenges And Prospects For Women In Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone = 軍國主義, 衝突及婦女的行動 : 利比里亞, 尼日利亞, 塞拉利昂婦女的挑戰與前景, Margo Okazawa-Rey

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Art Of Resistance = 抗爭之藝術, Ana Amorim

South South Forum 南南論壇

In 1988 I made a radical decision to start a 10 year Performance Project. The main premise for this project was that my life was art and I was going to collect one evidence of my living, at the end of the day for 10 years. I decided that this evidence was going to be a mental map (Figure 2) of my walks during the day. I also decided that I would never exhibit in commercial galleries, or in spaces where fees where charged. This project has been extended since the year 2000 and it will only stop at the …

Livelihood And Living For The Youth In Latin America = 拉丁美洲青年人的人生與生活, Alicia Ojeda Santana

South South Forum 南南論壇

I am part of the despairing middle class in Mexico, a generation of young people who went to private schools, who went to college, who speak English, live on their own and have a job. I am part of a minority, and even that seems exaggerating, only around of 17% of the total population actually gets in to a college in Mexico. And I say despairing because the crisis is fast finishing with this middle class social stratus

There has been awareness about the crisis for some years now, but poverty has always been a part of Mexico’s reality. I …

The Chernobyl Disaster : Reflection After 25 Years = 切爾諾貝爾核災難25年後的反思, Valentin Yakushik

South South Forum 南南論壇

The adverse technogenic impact of industrial accidents that have gripped the world in recent decades definitely testifies to the problem-ridden character of contemporary economic and technological development. This is especially evident on the example of nuclear industry, which proved to be a source of dangerous pollution in case of potential (and real) catastrophes, as recently borne out by the Fukushima disaster. In this regard, the issues of Chernobyl disaster once again become the part of the discourse centered on the analysis of global nuclear industry problems. Likewise, current situation in Ukraine demands deeper investigation of the problems of technological development, …

Aboriginal Andean Cosmic Vision And Rights Of Nature Challenges For "Good-Living" = 安第斯原住民的宇宙觀, 自然權及美好生活的挑戰, Victor Hugo Jijon

South South Forum 南南論壇

In the Andean countries of South America, the current political situation is determined by the need to find a new model of development, different and alternative to that imposed by neoliberal policies. This new situation includes the recognition by States of the cultural and ethnic diversity of population and, as an element of that, the need to guarantee specific rights to indigenous peoples effectively, with new public institutions and adequate resources, among the proposals that some authors call the new "multicultural constitutionalism".

This official recognition is a result of the struggles and demands of the indigenous movement, in their process …

Peasant Movement To Constitute Life-Affirming Communities In Bangladesh = 孟加拉國重視生命的農民運動, Farhad Mazhar Muzharul Hug

South South Forum 南南論壇

Led by small scale farming communities of Bangladesh, biodiversity-based ecological agriculture, known as Nayakrishi Andolon (New Agricultural Movement), has become popular as a peasant movement. It is not a 'traditional' farming practice in a static sense but aims at enhancing capacity of the farming communities to absorb advances in environmental, ecological and biological sciences and recent knowledge of increasing climatic variability. It is done without compromising the life affirming wisdom of popular culture of rural Bangladesh and without displacing the historical experience and capacity of the agrarian civilisation. The movement envisions an ecological civilization and by its agrarian practice intends …

Double Challenges To Japanese Farmers : Nuclear Accident And Transpactfic Regional Partnership = 日本農民的雙重挑戰 : 核危機及太平洋區域的合作關係, Takemasa Ando

South South Forum 南南論壇

For a while after Japan was struck by a major earthquake and tsunami on 11 March this year, gloomy and depressing atmosphere was dominant in Japanese people. As soon as the disaster occurred, corporations refrained from distributing their commercial messages (CMs) on TV. Japanese people are usually exposed by the enormous amount of CMs, but could not but repeatedly watch CMs produced by AC (Advertising Council Japan), a private non-profit agency, during the few weeks. Most of the agency’s CMs are more public than those of other private companies, such as a CM to enhance women’s awareness of breast cancer …

60 Years Of Rural Reconstruction Movement In The Philippines (Prrm) = 回顧菲律賓鄉村建設運動60年, Isagani R. Serrano

South South Forum 南南論壇

PRRM did not go to the countryside to disperse buffalos though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. PRRM did disperse buffalos and other farm animals but it went to the countryside for nobler reason---the liberation of the peasant from poverty and oppression. It sought to do this through mass education and mass movement.

By 2012 PRRM will have spanned a period running in parallel to the postwar development history of the Philippines. It was founded in 1952 during the administration of President Magsaysay, called “Man of the Masses”. PRRM peaked in the 1960s, declined in the late 1970s through to …

Tension And Contradiction In Agrarian Reform And Rural Reconstruction In Post-Monarch Nepal, Arjun Karki

South South Forum 南南論壇

Agrarian reform and land reform are usually understood synonymously as they are embedded with the unequal agrarian structure in Nepal. A widespread objective of agrarian reform is to promote social justice by equitable distribution of land and resources. Agrarian reform includes the restructuring of land tenure, the means of production, and the provision of support services to the farmers and rural inhabitants.

In Nepal land is the principle determinant for classifying people into distinct classes. Due to the various state-led land grants, unequal socio-economic relations and growing population density, little ‘free’ land is available these days (Karki, 2001). More than …

The Boston Mpo Planning Process And Low-Income Suburban-To-Suburban Transportation Needs, Phillip Granberry, Michael Landon, David Terkla

David G. Terkla

The rapid evolution in the Boston MPO transportation planning process is discussed as well as its particular application to the suburban-suburban transportation needs of low income individuals. The results of two experiments designed to improve access to transportation for low income suburban individuals are discussed and policy suggestions are made for improving such access.

Alternative Medical Care And Livelihood In Latin America = 拉丁美洲另類醫療與人民生計實踐, Aleida Guevara

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Community Autonomy Of The Zapatistas = 墨西哥薩帕斯塔的社區自治, Jorge Santiago

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Body Of Mother Earth : Global Climate Justice Post Cochabamba Movement = 保護 "大地母親的身體" : 科城會議之後全球氣候正義運動, Ariel Salleh Prof.

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Fukushima Nuclear Disaster And People's Battle Lines, Masaaki Ohashi

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.

Grassroots Democracy And Non-State Approaches Toward Popular Empowerment And Rural Sustainbility In The Philippines = 菲律賓的草根民主實戰, Eduardo Tadem

South South Forum 南南論壇

Grassroots democracy is often equated with “popular participation” and is seen as both a goal and a method of change. As Kaufman (1997: 7) puts it:

As a goal, popular participation refers to a society where there no longer exists a monopoly of the means of political, economic, cultural, and social power in the hands of a particular class, sex, social stratum, or bureaucratic elite. As a method of change, participation is a means to develop the voice and organizational capacity of those previously excluded; it is a means for the majority of the population to identify and express their …

Decentralization And Local Participatory Development : Experiences From Cambodia And The Philippines = 去中心化與本土參與式發展 : 以柬埔寨與菲律賓為例, Maria Dolores Alicias

South South Forum 南南論壇

No abstract provided.