A Walkinthe Clouds

<正>Summertime has finally come to the capital city,and everyone stands jaw agape at the wonderful,kaleidoscopic colored skies.Masks are out;parasol parades are in.Is that overhead blanket something new?Did the government by accident discover ways to make fissures in the vast gray concrete sheet that normaly hovers above our heads?Answering     

Structuralism versus Monetarism : A note on evidence

This paper illustrates, with a ten year simulation, possible effects of Malaysia's national buffer stock for natural rubber on the level and stability of export earnings, export tax revenue, producer income and world price. Employing rubber market parameters based on inference and empirical tests and buffer stock operating costs and policies similar to those of the current Malaysian buffer stock, it is shown that capital requirements for effective control exceed those at the disposal of the buffer stock manager while control may be expected to stabilize price at the expense of export earnings and producer income stability. These unfavourable effects can be neutralized in part by the increase in receipts obtained with a sufficiently narrow controlled price range or by an increase in demand emanating from reduced price risk. Under the apparent wider range of the buffer stock, losses in export earnings and producer income, as well as capital expenses and the terminal deficit of the stock authority are each less than 1 per cent of export earnings and producer income. The maximum short run capital requirement is about 2.5 per cent of these latter magnitudes. The arguments presented indicate that internationalization of the buffer stock would increase the benefits and decrease the costs in terms of the proportion of producer income and export earnings, compared to the existing national device.     

Behold,Modern China

<正>With the stealth of a cat,I guiltily eased my way past the dancing shadowy figures in the dark,all gray-headed senior Chinese women.I know their hair color simply because usually this crowd slowly gathers when dusk begins to fall,and they chat until it is dark enough for no one to see their misshapen bodies exercising.They dance.My guilt does not owe to being a pervert or"peeping Tom"but because my conscience has been nagging at me for months to join the group to avoid being     

Corporate social responsibility performance in the Niger Delta: beyond two constitutive orthodoxies

Against the background of attempts to explain the poor Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of transnational oil corporations in the Niger Delta in the context of flawed approaches, processes and inadequate CSR packages, this paper contests not only the explanations for the failure of CSR, but the core idea that CSR is capable of engendering sustainable community development at all. Given the enormity of the development challenge in the region, corporations cannot, even with the best of intentions, make meaningful impact on host communities, mainly because of the structural constraints arising from the profit-seeking ethos which drives corporate behaviour.