Rural electrification and irrigation in the U.S. High Plains

The U.S. government's rural electrification program played a critical role in the development of the agricultural economy of the High Plains, a region characterized by low precipitation, extreme temperatures and recurring drought. Rural electric co-operatives and low-cost, government-supplied electricity made large-scale, groundwater-based irrigation farming both profitable and very productive. For many of the High Plains rural electric co-operatives, groundwater-based irrigation generates a very large share of their total electricity sales and operating revenues. Declining groundwater levels and rising irrigation energy costs, however, have caused significant reductions in total irrigated cropland. Many of the electric co-operatives will continue to be confronted with declining revenues unless electric rates are raised or government subsidies for the rural electrification program increase. This raises serious questions about the continued economic viability of the High Plains rural electrification industry, as well as about the future of the region's agricultural economy.     

Reconfiguring ‘post‐socialist’ regions: cross‐border networks and regional competition in the Slovak and Ukrainian clothing industry

The global garment industry is currently being reshaped in dramatic ways through processes of trade liberalization, delocalization and interfirm and interregional competition. There has been much speculation about the increasing importance of factor (especially labour) costs in fuelling further rounds of de‐localization of garment production towards low‐cost production locations, such as China and India. However, the extent to which these processes mean the end to garment production in higher factor‐cost locations, including those neighbouring the major clothing markets of the USA and the EU, is open to question. In this article we interrogate the interregional shifts in garment sourcing taking place in Europe and its surrounding regions. While factor costs (including labour) are important determinants of the geography of sourcing, a range of other costs (logistical and policy costs) are important in structuring the geographies of global and regional production. Firms in the Slovak Republic are responding to increasing competitive pressures and we assess how trans‐border sourcing, subcontracting and FDI are being integrated into strategies to sustain European production networks. We highlight the emergence of cross‐border production relocation to Ukraine as one specific strategy. We examine the product specificity of these changes and the ways in which they are embedded within already existing production networks, forms of cross‐border contracting and central European trade regimes. In other words, we explore some of the forces that shape the somewhat tentative continuation of garment production for export to EU markets in central Europe despite the ‘spectre of China’.     

美国撤军伊拉克后伊朗和沙特的抗衡

美国从伊拉克撤军后对伊拉克安全稳定的最大挑战是地区势力的角逐,尤其是伊朗和沙特在该地区的竞争将对伊拉克的安全和稳定带来重要影响。沙特担心伊朗将利用其在伊拉克的影响来使其在美国撤军后在地区称霸。本文讨论伊朗和沙特之间的竞争以及该竞争对伊拉克未来稳定的影响。     

WAGES,RENTS, AND HETEROGENEOUS MOVING COSTS

The model of compensating differentials in regional labor and land markets was formalized by Roback (1982) . The model interprets regional differences in constant quality wages and rents as compensating firms and residents for inter‐regional differences in amenities. This paper extends the Roback model to allow for moving costs which vary among a city's residents and businesses. This modification of the model generates new interpretations of regional differences in rents and wages. The theoretical results suggest that the interpretation of inter‐city rent and wage differentials as compensating is misguided, that such differentials are inappropriate as weights in Quality of Life (QOL) comparisons, and stresses the importance of local housing market parameters in the determination of these differentials. The importance of amenities is retained, but housing supply becomes the main other determinant of regional rents. Housing supply was ignored in the literature following on Roback's initial insight. We show that interactions between amenities and housing supply will bias QOL rankings. Finally, we support the empirical importance of heterogeneous moving costs by demonstrating the effects of exogenous supply constraints on local housing prices. (JEL R31)     

Consumer Socialisation and Value Orientations among Estonian and Chinese Young People

This paper asks if Estonian and Chinese tweens’ access to pocket money influences their brand valuation, as well as value orientations in the context of perceived peer popularity and personal well‐being. Surveys conducted in autumns 2006 (China n = 188) and 2007 (Estonia n = 111) show an inherent cultural resistance among tweens in both countries towards using material standards to evaluate people and social relations. Access to own money correlates strongly with more consumerist values and strengthen the initial indications that individualist and expressive values are more highly esteemed by Estonian tweens, while social inclusion and approval are more vital for the Chinese.     

Personal Independence Payments,welfare reform and the shrinking disability category

The question of who counts and how we construct just who can ‘be disabled’ is central to our concerns in disability studies. As Stone makes clear, disability is exactly what a state deems it to be; the very malleable nature of the category has been exploited to widen or more commonly to narrow just who counts as disabled. This article will apply and adapt Stone’s thesis to current plans to revise the Personal Independence Payment extra costs benefit. Using official and disabled people’s narratives, the article will make clear the force with which new definitions of disability are being put forward. This process arguably risks doing state violence to a number of disabled people. These reforms have also used the language of independence in a way that fundamentally distorts the origins and potential of the term in an enabling society.     

The open system of four dynamic bio-socio-economic processes of the firm: The diamond of the black box

The ‘discovery’ of the black box of production has opened Pandora's box of adjustments, rectifications, and denials. This paper transforms these boxes into a diamond of inputs that creates unique and differentiable firms. Their moving force is human beings which have brain, spirit, emotions, and body to perform organized purposeful body movements. An open negentropic and dynamic system of four non-overlapping but interdependent processes completely describes the evolution of firms. These four processes correspond to four opportunity costs, namely wisdom, strategic, kinetic, and transaction costs that determine the costs of tangible inputs such as capital and labor.     

Is volunteer labor part of household production? Evidence from married couples

Volunteer labor is generally modeled as an individualistic pursuit, akin to leisure or to human capital accumulation. Some activities labeled as volunteering, however, may be more usefully thought of as quid pro quo time commitments that are part of securing services for family members. Parents are frequently expected to volunteer, for example, when their children participate in youth sports leagues or school marching bands. In such cases, volunteering is essentially an instance of household production undertaken outside the home. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we divide volunteering into three categories—youth-related, religious, and non-youth-related secular—according to the likelihood that an instance of volunteering in the category represents household production. We find evidence that husbands and wives respond to one another’s time pressures such that youth-related volunteering looks like a task for which husbands’ and wives’ time inputs substitute for one another. Further, we find this pattern for housework, and not for other forms of volunteering. An increase in either spouse’s hours of market work will significantly reduce that spouse’s likelihood of volunteering for youth-related activities while raising the partner’s likelihood of volunteering. A similar pattern holds for hours volunteered to youth-related activities, with the wife’s responses achieving statistical significance.     

Low Confidence in Social Security Is Not Warranted

The public's low confidence in Social Security is unwarranted. Social Security as discussed here means the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program (OASDI) but does not include Medicare. Its financial condition is excellent in the short range and sound in the long range, based on intermediate-cost estimates. Those who believe otherwise are too pessimistic about our demographic and economic future. The OASDI cost rates are expected to remain at today's level for the next three decades, and will rise starting about 2020. The cost rates are expressed as a percentage of taxable payroll. Because the taxable payroll as a proportion to total compensation is projected to decline, the cost rates in the future will rise even when benefit payments do not. This problem could be solved by a method that effectively taxes total compensation at a constant percentage rate. Another reason for cost rates to rise is population aging. It is possible to reduce the cost rates if educational and work environments are made more hospitable to long worklives. Although population aging is a basic reason for OASDI costs to increase, only about two thirds of such costs are for retirement benefits. The rest is for disabled workers and families of workers.     

Public and private photographs of refugees: the problem of representation

In 1948 Manivald Sein made a series of photographs as he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, illegally, on board the Walnut. He was one of 347 passengers, mostly Estonian refugees, who escaped Soviet occupation near the end of Second World War and who were again fleeing Stalin's wrath after living in Sweden for four years. This article will examine the various ways photographs taken by refugees in transit not only give a voice to their experience, but more importantly, allow outsiders to see them as complex human beings, which in turn provides a powerful counterpoint to prevailing stereotypes.     

中国区域经济增长新格局与区域协调发展

当前,中国区域经济增长呈现新格局,主要表现为中西部地区发展速度加快,优势产业各具特色;以城市群为核心,形成空间发展格局;区域开发秩序得到进一步规范;区域合作和一体化不断得到加强。与此同时,中国区域经济增长也遇到新的挑战。因此,必须联动实施国家区域发展战略,开拓区域经济协调发展的新思路。     

The internal death of Japanoise

Japanese noise music (Japanoise) has strong associations with death. In the early stages of Japanoise’s development, practitioners would often make reference to eroticism, violence and death in their performances and album artwork to help visualise the “excess” of their sound. The discourse of Japanoise also draws on these associations, through concepts such as disembodiment, to help frame this transgressive enterprise. Death becomes a way of visualising and conceptualising a subversive style of music that attempts to leave the world of limits and meaning. Paul Hegarty and Eugene Thacker both account for Japanoise in these terms. Although death is only implicit in their writing, it will be argued that this understanding of death is essential to what Hegarty means by failure and what Thacker means by disembodiment. This paper will show how, for both theorists, death names a paradoxical yet extreme form of possibility that enables Japanoise to test limits. However, the problem with this understanding is that it holds Japanoise to a limited framework. It essentialises the concepts of negativity and subversion to the economy of Japanoise. This paper will argue that Japanoise cannot be limited to these concepts if it hopes to be more than an oppositional form of music and a tired form of transgression. This requires that its relationship with death not be reduced to a form of production or act of will. By arguing that Hegarty and Thacker’s accounts of noise can be read as Heideggerian, this essay will critique this understanding by drawing on Maurice Blanchot’s account of death. This critique will show how a different understanding of death enables a more nuanced understanding of Japanoise.     

Attitude theory and behavioral costs

The Fishbein and Ajzen reasoned action model is briefly introduced and some theoretical aspects of the model arc discussed. Based on a critical analysis of the act and behavioral category concepts in their model an alternative concept, ‘behavioral field’, is introduced. A behavioral field is defined as: ‘the total of acts that are perceived by the acting individual as leading to a common goal or valued state’. Then a distinction is made between goal acts and instrumental acts, Goal acts lead to goal attainment. Instrumental acts will bring the individual into the direction of his goal. It is argued that for acts that are predominantly instrumental other substitutable acts are available. The choice between suhstitutable instrumental acts is governed by both expected outcomes and the behavioral costs attached to the acts. Behavioral costs are defined as the behavioral price relative to the behavioral budget. The behavioral price is determined by tile time, psychic and physical task demand. The behavioral budget is a function of the goal importance of the behavioral field. Some further aspects of behavioral costs are then discussed. Several arguments to treat costs and outcomes separately in the explanation of behavior, are elaborated. Then some implications from the behavioral cost concept are drawn for attitude theory. Finally the entangling of costs and value is briefly discussed.     

DOES THE PUBLIC SECTOR IMPLODE FROM BAUMOL'S COST DISEASE?

The root of the Baumol cost disease is higher productivity increases for manufactured goods than for services. The implied increase in relative costs of service production is widely claimed to have devastating implications for the public sector as a provider of tax‐financed services such as health, education, and care. To match the increasing costs it appears inevitable that tax rates would be ever increasing. It is shown that this inference does not follow under standard assumptions when accounting explicitly for service provision from both the private and public sectors. Strikingly under assumptions often made in the literature, the welfare maximizing tax rate for a utilitarian policy maker would remain constant despite the Baumol cost disease, and by implication the share of public employment in total employment will remain constant. (JEL H5, H11, O41)     

Family caregivers of the elderly: quality of life and coping in Estonia

The purpose of the study was to analyse the assessments of elderly people aged 65 and more about family caregiving as a factor influencing their quality of life and coping. The study is based on the project SUFACARE—‘Supporting family carers and care receivers in Estonia and in Finland’—in the framework of which the Institute of Social Work of Tallinn University carried out postal surveys in 2010. The Estonian survey was conducted in Tallinn and Lääne-Viru County. The total number of respondents was 581 (70% female and 30% male), of whom 98 (n=74 female and n=24 male) were family caregivers. Caregiving has not influenced the physical and mental health of caregivers, the reason being that many people who receive care are not of very ill health or suffer from dementia. People mostly take care of their spouses. Based on the Estonian Family Law Act (RT I 2009, 60, 395), adult descendants are required to provide maintenance if their relatives are not able to care for themselves. Caregivers whose health is below average consider caring to be physically demanding. We cannot speak of the social isolation of respondents who have care duties—they communicate actively and do not feel lonely. Women report caregiving to be physically strenuous more often than men. The mental health of male caregivers is better—fewer male respondents claimed to feel unhappy or depressed compared to female respondents.     

Die individuellen Erträge ehrenamtlicher Arbeit

In the recent debate on the future of voluntary work and honorary appointments the question of the individual benefits of volunteering is of special interest. In a dynamic perspective it is obvious that an unpaid voluntary activity has to be regarded as work because of the individual’s expectation to yield a personal gain. Combining a sociological and a micro-economical perspective, volunteering is shown to be part of the production process within the private household. Volunteers gain returns by reducing transaction costs and by deriving benefits from economies of scale and economies of scope.     

2012年中国经济发展展望

2012年,中国经济发展将受到全球经济持续低迷、经济复苏艰难的影响和制约,但仍将保持稳步增长。按照“稳中求进”的总基调,中国经济发展重点要关注三个问题：继续实施积极的财政政策和货币政策;调整结构,重在调整重点领域经济结构,主要体现在调整需求结构、区域结构、要素结构和对外贸易结构;大力发展实体经济。     

Neo-development of underdevelopment: Brazil and the political economy of South American integration under the Workers’ Party

ABSTRACT

This article critically assesses Brazil’s role in the South American regional integration process. My hypothesis is that despite the rhetoric of Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) governments about a ‘new developmentalism’ project to support ‘post-neoliberal’ regional integration, the structural continuities imposed by neoliberal macroeconomic policies have constrained all possibilities of overcoming underdevelopment. In the realm of regional integration, the driving force has been the internationalization of oligopolic Brazilian business in a process that promised Brazil a leadership role in the subcontinent. This frame has fostered business based on the overexploitation of labour and the destruction of the environment, enforcing trends that deepen the structures of economic dependency and social conflict. The political outcome of that process is that the PT has contributed to contain social pressures, both in the domestic and in regional contexts, as Brazil has played a moderating role in South America’s so-called progressive wave.     

美以武力解决伊核问题的合法性与可行性

发展核武器虽符合伊朗致力于成为地区大国的战略逻辑,但受到国际国内压力,伊朗未必能够突破红线,军事打击伊朗难以具备足够的合情理性和合法性。伊朗核设施具有数量多、防攻击能力强等特点,其核能力趋于成熟,其民族国家建构亦比较成功,无论是定点清除,还是全面战争,均难以达到彻底解决伊核问题的目标。军事打击还可能导致石油市场崩溃和全球经济危机,并将遭到中俄等国家的强烈反对,美以不得不有所顾忌。尽管战争的可能性始终不能排除,但遏制伊朗以及提供延伸威慑已逐渐成为美国对伊政策的重点,美伊关系有可能陷入长期低烈度但可控的冲突。     

Electricity consumption changes following solar adoption: Testing for a solar rebound

We use household-level data to explore residential electricity use patterns following installation of solar panels. Solar adoption leads to an increase in total electricity consumption relative to a matched non-adopting control group. Our point estimate translates to a rebound effect of 28.5%, suggesting that nearly a third of the electricity produced by a customer's solar panels is used for increased energy services, rather than reduced grid electricity consumption. We explore several potential drivers of an increase in electricity consumption. These results have important implications for electricity planning and policy, suggesting that rooftop solar stimulates additional demand for electricity.