Promoting sustainable development through civil society: A case study of the EU’s NSA/LA thematic programme in Kyrgyzstan

The article focuses on the contribution of the European Union (EU) in promoting sustainable development through the involvement of civil society in partner countries. More specifically, it analyses the main features and outcomes of the projects implemented by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Kyrgyzstan under the EU thematic programme Non‐State Actors and Local Authorities in Development (NSA/LA). Despite its importance—this is the only EU programme providing direct support to non‐state actors and local authorities engaged in poverty reduction—to date, there has been very little research on the functioning of this instrument on the ground. This article seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the EU’s contribution to sustainable development through a case study on Kyrgyzstan. The study is based on primary data: 10 semi‐structured interviews conducted with the EU‐funded organizations implementing the NSA/LA programme. The NSA/LA projects were analysed by considering two major fields of engagement of non‐state actors in the development process: as service providers and as advocates (Banks & Hulme, 2012). Overall, the organizations awarded EU support were not only focused on fulfilling short‐term needs but also sought to introduce new ways of dealing with poverty and inequality, positioning themselves between the “Big‐D” and the “little‐d” approaches to development (Bebbington, Hickey, & Mitlin, 2008). Nonetheless, the EU‐funded projects were too limited and fragmented to be able to sustain long‐term structural change. Therefore, the EU should place new emphasis on creating synergies between new and old structures at the grassroots level and establishing mechanisms and bodies that could merge and co‐ordinate their efforts. In addition, the calls for proposals could highlight the need to share the lessons learnt by “obliging” the beneficiaries to act as multipliers and to pass on their positive experience to neighbouring communities. Finally, the EU could stimulate the funded organizations to experiment with innovative mechanisms of involvement in the policy‐making process, by making this aspect a mandatory requirement of the projects implemented with its support.     

Shared service center research: A review of the past,present, and future

More than 75% of Fortune 500 companies have established models of shared services with the aim of gaining superior performance by cost savings and service enhancements. Despite scholars' complaints about scant shared service center (SSC) research, this study shows that the actual shortcoming in this stream concerns a high fragmentation of the academic literature (e.g., we found 137 works in the initial search and 83 works in a refined screen). In this first comprehensive literature review, we synthesize peer-reviewed articles and classify them into 4 perspectives according to their research questions (i.e., determinant, process, control, and outcome). We identify 17 major research areas across these perspectives. Additionally, we provide information on methodologies and theories. On the basis of the literature synthesis, we discuss opportunities and gaps and propose an agenda for future research. Specifically, we suggest 3 potential research directions (i.e., direct relationships, mediating, and outcome effects) regarding SSCs during their operational maturity phase.     

Dimension reduction via local rank regression

Outer product of gradients (OPG) achieves dimension reduction via estimating the gradients of the regression function. In this paper, we propose two novel OPG estimators via local rank regression: the rank OPG estimator and the Walsh-average OPG estimator. Both proposals guard against a wide range of error distributions, and are safe alternatives to existing OPG estimators based on local linear regression or local L1 regression. The effectiveness of the new proposals are demonstrated via extensive numerical studies.     

Graphical and Numerical Methods for Detecting Influential Observations in Complex Bingham Data

We describe methods to detect influential observations in a sample of pre-shapes when the underlying distribution is assumed to be complex Bingham. One of these methods is based on Cook's distance, which is derived from the likelihood of the complex Bingham distribution. Other method is related to the tangent space, which is based on the local influence for the multivariate normal distribution. A method to detect outliers is also explained. The application of the methods is illustrated in both a real dataset and a simulated sample.     

局部均衡函数及其构造

研究了局部均衡函数,定义了改进的局部变权向量,提出了与之对应的状态局部变权向量和局部均衡函数,证明了两类函数是局部均衡函数;利用局部变权向量建立了企业信用评估模型,并通过实例说明了该理论是有效的和合理的.     

Analysis of Deviance for Hypothesis Testing in Generalized Partially Linear Models

In this study, we develop nonparametric analysis of deviance tools for generalized partially linear models based on local polynomial fitting. Assuming a canonical link, we propose expressions for both local and global analysis of deviance, which admit an additivity property that reduces to analysis of variance decompositions in the Gaussian case. Chi-square tests based on integrated likelihood functions are proposed to formally test whether the nonparametric term is significant. Simulation results are shown to illustrate the proposed chi-square tests and to compare them with an existing procedure based on penalized splines. The methodology is applied to German Bundesbank Federal Reserve data.     

Exploring Neglected Dimensions of Social Policy: The SDW, Fiscal Welfare and the Exemplar of Local Taxation in England

Titmuss's Social Division of Welfare (SDW) thesis is a vitally important but much neglected element of social policy analysis. This article seeks to explore the SDW, with a particular focus on fiscal welfare. Fiscal welfare has been described as forming a hidden welfare state, and while taxation is one of the main ways in which governments affect the lives of citizens, studies of welfare pay remarkably little attention to its impact. Fiscal welfare is examined by using, as an exemplar, local taxation in England, a subject that itself is neglected within social policy. Local taxation in England is of interest because it illustrates the impact of a system of taxation on different groups of citizens, and how this can operate to the benefit of rich over poor citizens. This is because the current system is highly regressive, meaning that those on low and middle incomes spend proportionately more of their income paying the tax than do those on high incomes. What is of further interest is how within the debate about reform of local taxation, concern with regressivity becomes obscured and ceases to be the focus of attention. We are thus provided with an example of how fiscal welfare remains a hidden issue. The article concludes by arguing that social policy analysis needs to move beyond the narrow confines of social welfare and develop a broader understanding of welfare, based on the SDW.     

南疆基层社会的精英互动

本文根据帕累托提出的广义"精英"定义,将南疆基层社会的精英分子分为政治精英、道德精英和经济精英三种类型,并使用实地调查得到的资料和案例分析了这三种精英在当地实际社会运行过程中的互动方式,同时探讨了国家政权、乡村干部和传统宗教人士在基层社区民众生活中各自发挥的作用。     

What Survey Data Reveal about Price and Wage Rigidity in Portugal

This paper exploits the information collected from a survey conducted on a sample of Portuguese firms to study the patterns of firms’ price and wage adjustments and the extent of nominal price and wage rigidities. The evidence shows that the frequency of price changes varies substantially across sectors and depends on the intensity of competition, the share of labor costs and firms’ price reviewing behavior. The results also suggest that the constraint imposed by the presence of downward nominal wage rigidity is less important in firms where the fraction of permanent and high‐skilled workers is lower and the share of flexible pay components is higher.     

THE DEMAND FOR LIQUID ASSETS,CORPORATE SAVING,AND INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL FLOWS

The recent period of capital outflows from emerging economies has coincided with an increase in their corporate saving. In this paper, we model corporate saving as a demand for liquid assets by credit‐constrained firms in a dynamic open‐economy macroeconomic model. We find that the implications of this model are very different from standard models, because the demand for foreign bonds is a complement to domestic investment rather than a substitute. We show that this complementarity is at work when an emerging economy is on its convergence path or when it has a higher TFP growth rate. This framework is consistent with a number of stylized facts found in high‐growth, high‐investment emerging economies.