India's structural transformation and role in the world economy

This paper employs (1) a three-sector structuralist model of development with informal and formal activities and (2) a global one-sector model with demand determined outputs and bargained distribution to investigate whether India's growth performance can be sustained, where the country might face constraints to growth, and how India's growth matters in the global economy.     

North-South relations: Alternative policy simulations for the world economy in the 1980s

This article makes projections of the world economy in the North-South context for the period 1981–1990 using a latest global version of a macroeconomic model named FUGI-GNEM type IV 011–62. The model classifies the world into 62 countries/regions, where the North-South interdependence is incorporated into an integral part of the world economy through international economic linkages. Based on alternative simulations, the author presents future images of the North-South interdependent world economy through changes in economic growth rates, employment, wages, prices, money supply, interest rates, public finance, trade, capital movement, international balance of payments, foreign exchange rates, etc., in each country or region. The model forecasts that the real economic growth of the developing countries as a whole in the 1980s will likely be around 4%–7% annual rate according to alternative policy scenarios.     

New Economy and New Social Policy in East and Southeast Asian Compact, Mature Economies: The Case of Hong Kong

In the 1970s, as the now compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia were industrializing, their governments had claimed that they saw no need for the kind of welfare programmes developed in Western “welfare states”. Notwithstanding this claim, a study of social welfare development in these economies in the last three decades, particularly when Hong Kong is taken as an example, shows that they have gone for universal social welfare, largely as a result of the growing prosperity and the rising expectations of the people. This trend has, however, been reversed since the start of the Asian financial crisis in the latter part of 1997, with the resultant slowing down of the economy, rising unemployment and surging fiscal deficits. Governments of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia found that they must rethink their social commitments and in order to return to balanced budgets, the former selective approach is now adopted by concentrating social welfare resources on the most needy people. While it is not in dispute that there is a close and positive relationship between industrialization and social welfare, the case of the compact, mature economies in East and Southeast Asia shows that as they are more vulnerable to world economic vicissitudes, the relationship may not be as steady as it has been in the Western industrial states.     

国际金融危机背景下的南宁市房地产市场供需量预测分析

国际金融危机对我国房地产市场造成较为严重的冲击,南宁市房地产市场也出现了一些波动。通过运用GM（1,1）模型,采用定性与定量相结合的方法分析可知：近期南宁市房地产市场供给量将呈现稳中有增趋势,长远来看全市房地产市场供给量增加是必然的;而市场需求量近期将呈现下降趋势,长远来看全市房地产刚性需求是巨大的。为此政府与房地产开发企业应积极采取措施,防患于未然。     

Labour Market Policy in the United States, Canada and Sweden: Addressing the Issue of Convergence

'Convergence theorists' suggest that domestic and/or global challenges and pressures are rendering welfare states broadly similar across national boundaries. 'Resilience theorists', in contrast, argue that a range of socio-political factors have allowed states to respond differentially to these pressures and maintain their distinct national social policy approaches. However, both research streams have addressed the 'welfare state' writ large in a multitude of nations and typically relied upon narrow, quantitative budgetary indicators. This study examines qualitative changes to key income security and social service programmes in one central social policy domain – labour market policy – in three nations, the United States, Canada and Sweden. It suggests that there is evidence of some degree of 'convergence' in the broadest sense of the term across these three nations. However, while both the USA and Canada have readily embraced genuinely neo-liberal restructuring, and become increasingly similar over the past two decades in this policy area, Sweden has managed to retain its distinctive social policy approach so far, despite notable changes, developments and trends. It also suggests that the character and direction of change may vary across and within policy domains in a single nation. The conclusion provides a discussion of universality, equality and solidarity, concepts that are commonly employed in accounts of welfare state change.     

State Educational Investments and Economic Growth in the United States: A Path Analysis*

Objective. This article investigates direct and indirect relationships between state investments in education and economic growth measured as change in per‐capita gross state product (GSP). As a basis for selecting control variables, it also applies a conceptual framework borrowed from the cross‐national growth research. Method. We gathered 18 years of panel data on the 48 continental states and ran GLS regressions with panel corrected standard errors after executing an AR1 correction for autocorrelation. Results. Per‐capita savings deposits, college attainment, and initial GSP are the most consistent predictors of GSP growth over the 18‐year period investigated. However, all the independent variables in the model, except high school attainment, predict per‐capita GSP growth from 1997 to 2005. Conclusion. The study supports the virtues of a path model and a cross‐national framework for explaining the relationship between educational expenditures and GSP growth, especially from 1997 to 2005.     

The international trade in automobiles: Explaining short-run changes in the import share of the United States market, 1979–1981

This paper examines the underlying causes for the rapid rise of the import share of the U.S. automobile market in the 1979 to 1981 time frame. Using data on the import share by state for the 1975–1979 period, a logit model is developed explaining movements in the import share. The principal purpose is to demonstrate that the rapid growth of the import share was due to a unique set of short-run factors such as constrained U.S. small car production capacity and exceptional consumer preference for fuel efficient automobiles. The sensitivity of the import share to changes in different factors is examined. The article concludes that U.S. policy makers concerned with the long-run viability of the U.S. automobile industry should discriminate between changes in import penetration caused by short-run factors and those caused by a secular deterioration of the U.S. comparative advantage in automobile production.     

Trade and development in the world economy: Methodological features of Project DYNAMICO

The paper reports on the methodological features and early application of the model underlying the DYNAMICO Projects, which has been developed at the United Nations Secretariat to study the interaction between trade and development. In order to investigate alternative development strategies, scenarios are calculated year by year for the global economy and the ten regions covered in the model.Each year is represented by a block-angular linear programming problem, where the systemwide (or coupling) constraints represent the world market clearance conditions for nine tradable commodities. Each subblock of relations represents the economy of a given region. The Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition method is used to solve the system.Section 2 reviews the specifications of a typical regional subproblem. Each regional subproblem contains the following material balances; labor, land, and capital requirements; investment functions; the most important macroeconomic definitions; and several other restrictions to simulate policy constraints concerning both domestic and external economic activity.Decomposition methods may, in general, be viewed as resource-allocation procedures valuable to capture some of the essential features of decentralized decision-making. In the literature, two classes of such resource-allocation procedures have been proposed: primal (relying on quantity signals), and dual (relying on prices). Section 3 discusses some of the theory underlying the Dantzig-Wolfe method, which is a price-directive one.Section 4 describes in detail the particular solution method implemented in the model. At first, in a prelink phase, each regional subproblem is solved a number of times on the basis of     

Relationships among financial satisfaction,life satisfaction,and political action: A comparative study of the United States and South Korea

This study explores the potential impact of cultural orientation on the relationship between financial satisfaction, life satisfaction, and political action within the United States and South Korea. The total sample size was 3,432 individuals (United States = 2,232, South Korea = 1,200). 1 confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model and a path analysis model were assessed using a maximum likelihood estimation. The findings showed a strong positive relationship between financial satisfaction and life satisfaction in both countries. Also, in both countries, more progressive individuals participated in more political actions. When exploring political action, we find an inverse relationship—with greater political action among lower‐income individuals in the United States and greater political action among higher‐income in South Korea. In South Korea (culturally “collectivistic”), middle‐income individuals were also found to participate in political actions that likely benefit larger segments of society. From a cultural dimensions theory perspective, these data suggest political actions in the United States (classified as “individualistic”) were largely conducted by low‐income individuals, potentially as means to enhance their individual well‐being.     

Adjustment costs in labour markets and the distributional effects of trade liberalization: Analytics and calculations for Vietnam

This paper explores the implications of different labour market adjustment formulations for the analysis of trade liberalization across different sectors and households in the Vietnamese economy using computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. The model is calibrated to a model admissible Vietnamese data set for 1997.We use five different adjustment cost treatments in analyzing the effects of trade liberalization in Vietnam. We compare simulation results from each and show how different treatments can significantly affect the distributional impacts of policy reforms, such as the trade liberalization. First, labour is treated as fully mobile across all sectors in the economy. Second, the sectors of economy are broken down into the two blocks of agricultural and industrial-service sectors and labour markets are treated as segmented by sector block. No mobility of labour between blocks is allowed while labour within each sector block remains fully mobile. The third is the same as the second, but movement within each agricultural and industrial-service sector block involves transactions costs. In the fourth, mobility of workers from the agricultural to industrial-service sectors and vice versa is possible with transactions costs. Finally, we calibrate the model with unemployment but no adjustment costs for labour reallocation to explore how model results differ in terms of adjustments in the labour market and welfare effects.Our results indicate significant differences in the impacts from trade liberalization across these cases. The redistributional impact of trade liberalization is sharper against poor rural households with segmented labour markets and with transactions costs, while aggregate efficiency gains are similar to no adjustment cost analyses. The conclusion is the choice of model structure for labour markets is crucially important for the perceived distributional impacts of trade liberalization.     

The Political Consequences of Outsider Labour Market Status in the United States: A Micro‐level Study

This article contributes to recent research that seeks to understand the political consequences of ‘outsider’ labour market status. There is an emerging consensus that labour market outsiders have systematically different policy preferences and display systematically different political behaviour to securely employed ‘insiders’ in Europe. Yet the political consequences of outsider status in the USA are less clear. They may be expected to differ from those that have been documented in the European context, because: (1) the USA is characterized by low employment protection of insiders; and (2) there is evidence that Americans are more reluctant than Europeans to hold governments responsible for personal economic hardship. We therefore use the General Social Survey to examine how outsider labour market status is related to voting behaviour and to social policy preferences in the USA. We find that the concept of ‘labour market outsider’ – as conventionally operationalized – holds little explanatory power in the American context. Disaggregating the outsider category, our results suggest that the political consequences of outsider labour market status may be contingent on individual beliefs about government responsibility.     

The Poverty Situation in Indonesia: Challenges and Progress of the Marginalized Group

This paper focuses on Indonesian poverty alleviation programs. It examines the national poverty reduction programs of cash‐based support projects for the poorest of the poor and highly marginalized groups. Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. In 2005, Indonesia began unconditional cash transfers (UCT) for the first time – giving cash money to the poorest, poor and near‐poor targeted households. As a result, the income of the poorest households receiving UCT increased by 1.3 times compared to that of non‐recipients. The UCT can be seen as a new benchmark for Indonesia as a mechanism of a “shockbreaker” for the poor affected by the crisis. In 2007, the government of Indonesia began a trial of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program known as the Hopeful Family Program (Program Keluarga Harapan or PKH). The CCT program was provided to poor families with an allowance conditional on their attention to their children’s education and health. With this program, women in the community gained access to new resources, in the form of the additional cash. CCT is planned to be the basis of the development of a future social security system.     

Crossing Boundaries: Comparing Group Work in the United States and Australia

ABSTRACT

This article compares the teaching and practice of group work in Australia and the U.S., including data on both students and practitioners, group work content in selected schools of social work, the types of groups offered and client populations served. Implications for cross-cultural social work are discussed as are areas of future international collaboration and research.     

Aging and social welfare in transition: the case of the United States

In the United States at the end of the twentieth century, government policies regarding elderly people appear to be in transition. In part this reflects the traditional American ambivalence between radical individualism and collective assistance - especially in the form of tax-supported public welfare provided through government agencies - for those unable to earn or save for their own support. But in part this reflects new concerns about the growth of welfare "entitlements" for elderly people and the presumed "generational inequity" of public support for the aged at the expense of funds for children and young families. We review 1) the changing demography of the United States elderly population, 2) the complex and ambivalent history of welfare policy in the United States and 3) the evidence for tensions and conflicts between older and younger Americans in the context of politicized "generational inequity" debates, with special attention to changing government health care policies. We conclude that in American society, particularly in terms of federal assistance to the aged, there is considerable public support for current policy measures, and - contrary to the predictions of many - it is not likely that there will be dramatic policy changes in the near future.     

Income inequality and health outcomes in the United States: An empirical analysis

A growing body of research suggests a relationship between health and income inequality. This study specifically analyzes the correlation between income inequality, measured by state-level Gini coefficients from the American Community Survey (ACS), and individual behavioral, physical, and mental health outcomes from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for 2006 through 2014. After controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health insurance status, year trends, and state fixed effects, income inequality was found to have significant relationships with behavioral, physical, and mental health outcomes, including heavy drinking, obesity, exercise, diabetes, heart attack, heart disease, physical and mental health problems, and depression, and often the impact on low-income individuals is slightly smaller than on the high-income group. The research suggests that economic policies to address the rising income inequality in the United States might serve to also address some of our nation’s most troubling health statistics.     

Religious involvement and group identification: The case of Hispanics in the United States

This study examines the link between religious involvement and racial group identification among Hispanics in the United States. Relying on the multifaceted nature of religious involvement, this study focuses on five dimensions of religious involvement—church attendance, prayer, the importance one places on religion, one's belief in God's love, and religious affiliation. Using the data from the Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity (1st wave, 2006), this study employs regression analysis. The results show that, among the five dimensions of religious involvement, only church attendance has a significant effect on racial group identification; Hispanics who frequently attend church are more likely to identify with Hispanics. This study suggests that church attendance increases Hispanics’ group identification for two reasons: first, because of the formation of Hispanic-oriented churches; and second, because of the intense interaction among Hispanics within their church communities.