Techniques for evaluating regulatory change

This paper demonstrates the applicability of two empirical techniques—the Heckman two-stage switching regression and the event study methodology—for evaluating regulatory or legislative change relating to companies and in particular to the regulation of company reporting. These techniques measure the impact of regulatory changes once they have happened. They could be used in practice if regulatory changes were subject to a review procedure. The availability of these relatively sophisticated techniques should encourage the quantitative analysis of regulatory changes. Comparisons of effects across member states of the European Union would be interesting but would obviously need care.     

Temporary migration in Shanghai and Beijing

In a number of developing countries, temporary migration plays a key role in the labor market. In China, where permanent migration is carefully controlled, movement without an official change in household registration (temporary migration) is relatively unrestricted. It has increased dramatically since the economic reforms introduced in 1979. Using data from surveys in Shanghai and Beijing, this article focuses on the sociodemographic characteristics of temporary migrants in relation to their reasons for moving and the duration of their stay at destination. Many temporary migrants come to these cities in search of work; however, many others move for noneconomic reasons associated with family reunion and retirement. Moreover, the distinctive socioeconomic features of Shanghai and Beijing also influence the characteristics of temporary migrants and their reasons for coming to the cities. Alice Goldstein is senior researcher at the Population Studies and Training Center of Brown University, Providence, R.I. 02912. Her research deals with the interrelations among population mobility, urbanization, and economic development. Among her most recent publications isPermanent and Temporary Migration Differentials in China, East-West Population Institute Paper No. 117 (Honolulu: 1990) (co-author with Sidney Goldstein). Shenyang Guo recently received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and has held an appointment as a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. His research interests encompass fertility changes and economic development in China.     

Local Economic Development: What is Proposed, What is Done, and What Difference Does it Make?

This paper assesses the comparative policy insights gained from the articles in the symposium in terms of three dimensions: policies proposed, actions taken, and impacts scored. Local economic development interventions are classified in terms of a five-way categorization in terms of geographic breadth of action and reliance on complementary private action as a prerequisite to lasting impact. The nine symposium cases are then examined for their evidence on development efforts' accountability to the public and lessons about efficient use of public funds. The paper concludes that the cases demonstrate that most development efforts have wasted public funds, offering at best the limited success resulting from efforts to beggar neighboring local economics with which competition for development continues.     

Book reviews

Jan Marczewski, Crisis in Socialist Planning. Eastern Europe and the USSR. Translated from the French by Noel Lindsay. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) New York: Praeger Publishers and London: Pall Mall Press, 1974. xvii+245 pp. £8.00.

Alec Nove, Stalinism and After. London: Allen & Unwin, 1975. 205pp. £4.74, or £2.35 (paperback).

John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad. Volume 1 of Stalin's War with Germany. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1975. x+594 pp. £12.00.

Henry W. Morton and Rudolf L. Tökés (eds.), Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s. New York: The Free Press and London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1974. xxvi+401 pp. £6.50.

Dodd L. Harvey and Linda C. Ciccoritti, U.S.‐Soviet Cooperation in Space. Coral Gables, Fla: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1974. xxxiii+382 pp. Paperback.

T. Dixon Long and Christopher Wright (eds.), Science Policies of Industrial Nations: Case Studies of the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, Japan and Sweden. Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government. New York: Praeger, 1975. xiii+232 pp.

Roy E. H. Mellor, Eastern Europe: A Geography of the Comecon Countries. London: Macmillan Press, 1975. x+358 pp. £7.50 or £3.95 (Paperback).

Bogdan Mieczkowski, Personal and Social Consumption in Eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany. Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. xxiv+342 pp. $21.50.

Gerhard Wettig, Community and Conflict in the Socialist Camp: The Soviet Union, East Germany and the German Problem 1965–1972. Translated by Edwina Moreton and Hannes Adomeit. London: C. Hurst, 1975. xiv+161 pp. £6.30.

Kurt Sontheimer and Wilhelm Bleek, The Government and Politics of East Germany. Translated by Ursula Price. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1975. 205 pp.

Allen H. Barton, Bogdan Denitch and Charles Kadushin (eds.), Opinion‐Making Elites in Yugoslavia. Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government. New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall Press, 1973. xxii+344 pp. £7.75.

Sharon Zukin, Beyond Marx and Tito. Theory and Practice in Yugoslav Socialism. London: Cambridge UP, 1975. x+302 pp. £7.50.

Ervin Pamlényi (ed.), A History of Hungary. Wellingborough: Collet's, 1975. (Published in Hungary, edited under the auspices of the Historical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.) 676 pp. £4.95.

Peter J. Potichnyj (ed.), Ukraine in the Seventies. (Papers and Proceedings of the McMaster Conference on Contemporary Ukraine, October 1974.) Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1975. 355 pp. $12.95 or $6.95 (paperback).

Leon Trotsky, The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923–25). Edited and with an introduction by Naomi Allen. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1975. 428 pp. $15.00. $3.95 or £1.65 (paperback).

Frank Haller, Sozialistische Akkumulations‐ und Wachstumstheorie. Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie des Sozialismus in der DDR. Berlin: Osteuropa‐Institut an der Freien Universität Berlin, 1974. In Kommission bei Verlag Duncker & Humblot, Berlin. 192 pp. DM 62.     

Reviews

Christel Lane, Christian Religion in the Soviet Union: A Sociological Study. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978. 256 pp. £10.00.

R. Amann, J. M. Cooper, R. W. Davies (eds.), The Technological Level of Soviet Industry. New Haven, Conn, and London: Yale University Press, 1977. xxxii +575 pp. £20.00.

M. M. Kostecki, East‐West Trade and the GATT System. London: Macmillan, for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1979. xviii + 157 pp. £12.00.

Josef C. Brada and V. S. Somanath (eds.), East‐West Trade: Theory and Evidence. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University International Development Institute, 1978. xi + 178 pp. $10.00. No index.

Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies), 1978. xi + 393 pp.

Robert G. Wesson, Communism and Communist Systems. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, 1978. x + 227 pp.

Adam Bromke and Derry Novak (eds.), The Communist States in the Era of Detente, 1971–1977. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1978. 306 pp. $7.95.

Jaroslav Krejci, Social Structure in Divided Germany. London: Croom Helm, 1976. 262 pp. £7.95.

Miklós Molnár, A Short History of the Hungarian Communist Party. Boulder, Colorado & Folkestone: Westview, Dawson, 1978, 168 pp. £9.00.

Robert N. North, Transport in Western Siberia: Tsarist and Soviet Development. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press and The Centre for Transportation Studies, 1979. viii + 364 pp. $22.00.