STUDYING THE EFFECTS OF HOUSEHOLD AND FIRM CREDIT ON THE TRADE BALANCE: THE COMPOSITION OF FUNDS MATTERS

In this article, we focus on distinguishing between household and corporate sector credit and investigate the effects these two types of credit have on the trade balance. A higher level of private credit indicates better developed financial markets and easier credit access for businesses and households. Yet, both types of borrowers vary in terms of the use of credit. Our model and empirical analysis suggest that the composition of credit does matter for the trade balance: lending to consumers has a negative effect on net exports, while firm loans contribute to a rise in net exports . ( JEL F32, F41, G21)     

Child Therapy and Evidence in Court Proceedings: Tensions and Some Solutions

Correspondence to Kate Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD. Summary Recent policy developments in the UK, implemented in the wakeof well-publicized child abuse court cases, have highlightedthe tension between offering the abused child adequate supportand providing sound evidence in any statutory proceedings. Therapeuticwork can give the court clear indications of the child's wishes,feelings and developmental needs, with or without explicit verbalstatements, and non-directive play therapy, because it is non-coerciveand largely free from therapist suggestion, is particularlyeffective in this respect. Particular features of non-directiveplay therapy which enhance the validity of such evidence areconsidered and a range of factors involved in presenting therapeuticwork to the courts are explored.     

Likelihood Inference for Unions of Interacting Discs

Abstract. This is probably the first paper which discusses likelihood inference for a random set using a germ‐grain model, where the individual grains are unobservable, edge effects occur and other complications appear. We consider the case where the grains form a disc process modelled by a marked point process, where the germs are the centres and the marks are the associated radii of the discs. We propose to use a recent parametric class of interacting disc process models, where the minimal sufficient statistic depends on various geometric properties of the random set, and the density is specified with respect to a given marked Poisson model (i.e. a Boolean model). We show how edge effects and other complications can be handled by considering a certain conditional likelihood. Our methodology is illustrated by analysing Peter Diggle's heather data set, where we discuss the results of simulation‐based maximum likelihood inference and the effect of specifying different reference Poisson models.     

Forward vs. Reverse Gear: Politics of Proliferation and Resistance in the Italian Fascist State

Abstract Gender is a useful category for historical analysis of the project of Italian fascist nation-building, how it proceeded and how it became trapped in its own paradox. Fascist policies played upon normative and limited gender stereotypes of women as mothers and prolific bearers of children, yet in the process the dictatorship constructed women as political subjects for the first time in the history of the Italian nation. This paper focuses on the fascists' demographics campaign - Il Duce's politics of proliferation—and investigates the possibility of subjectivity as a site for political struggle and resistance. Practices such as coitus interruptus and abortion, it is suggested, conformed to one hegemonic process while they defied another.     

Gender and the Limits of Social Capital*

Dans cet article, l'auteure examine l'intensification de l'intérêt envers le concept de capital social dans la politique publique au Canada et considère que ce concept est assez prometteur, en même temps qu'il entraînera des problèmes considérables, pour les femmes. Elle explique les paramètres du concept de capital social et tente de l'approfondir à l'aide de questions féministes essentielles sur l'économie politique. Cette approche jette les bases de la tâche primordiale d'associer un sexe au capital social, de telle sorte que les résultats des politiques dans le contexte canadien n'augmentent pas le fardeau du travail social et de prestation de soins de groupes déjà surcharges. This paper considers the rise in Canadian public policy interest in the concept of social capital, and suggests that the concept holds some promise, along with considerable problems, for women. It elucidates the parameters of the concept of social capital and attempts to deepen it with critical feminist political economy questions. It begins the crucial task of gendering social capital so that policy outcomes in the Canadian context do not increase the burden of social and caring work onto already overburdened groups.     

DEPOSIT INSURANCE AND EXTERNAL FINANCE

In this article we examine one potential explanation for the cross-country differences in the importance of banks and capital market financing of investment. We provide both an equilibrium model predicting and empirical evidence showing that countries with explicit deposit insurance and a high degree of state-owned bank assets have smaller equity markets, a lower number of publicly traded firms, and a smaller amount of bank credit to the private sector. Finally, our results suggest that the effects of deposit guarantees are more important than the origins of national legal systems. (JEL G21 , G22 , G32 )     

Career Planning in Prison: Ex-inmates Help Inmates

Corrections psychology has been called the “stepchild” of the field. Like the stepchild stereotype, it is neglected and ignored. (Wendt, 1979, p. 10)     

The Trouble with Access: a Study of Divorcing Families

Summary This paper explores issues concerning access between non-custodialparents and children following marital breakdown. The literatureconcerning access is reviewed, with reference particularly tothe problem of evaluating the possible benefits of a clean breakbetween non-custodial parent and the children at the time ofseparation. The findings of a research study, in which probationofficers reported on issues concerning custody and access in65 cases on which they were preparing welfare reports, are reported.The study highlights the generally problematic nature of access,discusses the behaviour problems exhibited by the children atthe time of the breakdown, and points to the importance of outsidehelp at an early stage in the divorce process.     

Children and Literature

Correspondence to Kate Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD Summary The paper draws on a range of fictional and autobiographicalaccounts of childhood to illustrate different aspects of children'sperceptions and responses and to show how they can enhance theadult's ability to understand what a child is experiencing.Three themes, concerning children's perceptions and suggestibility,their sense of helplessness and difficulty in communicatingwith adults, and their responses to loss and change are illustratedthrough the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century creativewriters. It is argued that literary accounts can work at a consciousand unconscious level in heightening our understanding, andmay also give us a perspective on how childhood experiencesinfluence the adult personality.