International product life cycles,trade and development stages

The Journal of Technology Transfer - In this paper we first propose a proxy for early stage activity in a country’s exports based on product life cycle theory. Employing a conditional latent...     

Interrogating Gender Divides in Technology for Education and Development: the Case of the One Laptop per Child Project in Ghana

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project aims to make low-cost computers accessible to the “world’s poorest children,” presuming that the gadgets will support their empowerment via education. The project’s success globally, however, has been mixed at best, with many countries terminating their purchases due to cost, inadequate infrastructure, and negative side effects. In October 2010, Ghana suspended the country’s 3-year participation. This study examines the complex history and failure of OLPC Ghana in two pilot schools, one urban and one rural, with particular attention to gender bias. The analysis draws on interviews with government personnel, students, and teachers in the pilot classes. Despite lacking electric power in the rural community, UNDP’s Millennium Villages Project played a strong support role, making OLPC somewhat more effective with less of a gender divide in the rural school than in the urban school in Accra. Both pilot schools faced severe sustainability challenges raising decade-old questions about modernity and technological determinism. Further, in both schools, particularly the urban school, a digital divide by gender was evident.     

From 'Political' to 'Human' Economy: The Visions of Harriet Martineau and Frances Wright

The marginalization or exclusion of women from economic theory has a long and distinguished pedigree. Michele A. Pujol, in her groundbreaking study Feminism and Anti-Feminism in Early Economic Thought (1998), wryly observes that whilst Adam Smith devotes an entire page to the question of women's economic activity in his Wealth of Nations , women 'are nowhere mentioned in Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation and in Malthus's Principles of Political Economy ' (Pujol 1992:17-23). In similar fashion Groenewegen, in Feminism and Political Economy in Victorian England (1994), notes that 'there have been few women contributors to … economic literature' (Groenewegen 1994:16). Indeed, as far as the first half of the nineteenth century is concerned, only two women - Jane Marcet and Harriet Martineau - seem to have written on political economy. Both wrote as expositors and popularizers of existing theoretical knowledge, content to repeat rather than challenge established orthodoxies, and as a result neither has commanded much more than a footnote in the history of economic thought. Martineau enjoys somewhat more of an enhanced reputation in the field of literary studies but even here attention tends to focus on A Manchester Strike at the expense of her other economic fictions. The present discussion, then, attempts to expand the field of vision with regard to Martineau by examining four of her economic tales: The Rioters (1827), The Turn-Out (1829), The Hill and the Valley (1832) and A Manchester Strike (1832). The first two of these were written prior to Martineau's 'conversion' to political economy, whilst the latter two appeared as part of Illustrations of Political Economy (a series of twenty-three tales published in twenty-five monthly parts between 1832 and 1843). As a way of exploring the disjuncture between economic theory and narrative events within these tales, the narratives themselves are read as implicit commentaries on (as well as 'illustrations'of) aspects of political economy, thereby allowing Martineau to emerge as a much more complex and problematic writer than is usually acknowledged. Also under examination here are the economic ideas of Frances Wright, another early nineteenth-century woman writer, particularly her critique of the existing economic order (which sharply differentiates her from Martineau) and her proposals for a new 'feminine' economy. The intention is to show that women writers on economics were not confined to the role of 'dutiful intellectual daughter, repeating … the words of her intellectual fathers' (David 1987:35)--to borrow Deirdre David's characterization of Martineau in Intellectual Women and Victorian Patriarchy --but were capable of articulating a thoroughgoing critique of existing theoretical models.     

Contextual Socioeconomic Status and Mental Health Counseling Use Among US Adolescents with Depression

Most adolescents with depressive disorders do not receive any mental health services, even though effective treatments exist. Although research has examined numerous individual-level factors associated with mental health service use among depressed adolescents, less is known about the role of contextual factors. This study examines the relationship between contextual-level socioeconomic status (SES) and clinic-based mental health counseling use among US adolescents with high depressive symptoms in urban and suburban areas. Data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 1,133; 59 % female) were analyzed using multilevel logistic models in which adolescents were nested within counties. After controlling for individual-level predisposing, enabling, and need characteristics, as well as county racial/ethnic composition, county SES was positively associated with clinic-based counseling use among depressed youth. A one standard deviation increase in the county affluence index was associated with 43 % greater odds of receiving any clinical counseling services. Furthermore, the positive relationship between county affluence and clinical counseling use was no longer significant after controlling for the county supply of mental health specialist physicians. The results indicate that county residential context is a key correlate of mental health service use among depressed adolescents, such that those who live in lower SES counties with fewer mental health specialists are less likely to receive treatment.