Reviews

Holland Hunter & Janusz M. Szyrmer, Faulty Foundations: Soviet Economic Policies, 1928–1940. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992, xvi + 339 pp., $49.50, £33.00

Peter Rutland, The politics of economic stagnation in the Soviet Union. The role of local party organs in economic management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, xv + 297 pp., £40.00.

Saul Estrin & Martin Cave, eds, Competition and Competition Policy. London: Pinter Publishers, 1993, xi + 143 pp., £35.00.

Pekka Sutela, ed., The Russian Economy in Crisis and Transition. Helsinki: Bank of Finland, 1993, 192 pp., no price.

Sheila M. Puffer, ed., The Russian Management Revolution: Preparing Managers for the Market Economy. Armonk, NY, M. E. Sharpe, 1992, xxi + 290 pages, $59.95 h/b, $19.95 p/b.

Alan Smith, Russia and the World Economy: Problems of Integration. London: Routledge, 1993, 253 pp., £37.50 h/b, £12.99 p/b.

Walter C. Clemens, Jr., Baltic Independence and Russian Empire. London: Macmillan, 1991, xxii + 346 pp., £45.00.

John Fitzmaurice, The Baltic—A Regional Future? New York, St Martin's Press Inc., 1992, xi + 171 pp., £35.00.

Jan Arveds Trapans, ed., Toward Independence. The Baltic Popular Movements, Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA, Oxford, Westview Press/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1991, 166 pp., £18.95.

Henryk J. Flakierski, Income Inequalities in the Former Soviet Union and its Republics. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, vii + 87 pp., $24.95 p/b.

Jan Winiecki, Post‐Soviet‐Type Economies in Transition. Aldershot: Avebury, 1993, v + pp. £35.00.

Roger Clarke, Ed., Privatisation: An International Symposium. Papers and Discussion from a Conference in Bled, Slovenia, 6–9 February 1992. London: The Centre for Research into Communist Economies, 1992, 133 pp., £6.50.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992, xx + 264 pp., $13.95 p/b.

Sharin Rai, Hilary Pilkington & Annie Phizacklea, eds, Women in the Face of Change: The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. London: Routledge, 1992, x + 227 pp., £10.99 p/b.

Bertram Silverman, Robert Vogt & Murray Yanowitch, eds, Labor and Democracy in the Transition to a Market System: A US‐Post‐Soviet Dialogue. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992, xxii + 228 pp., $59.95 h/b, $19.95 p/b.

David Shepherd, Beyond Metafiction. Self‐Consciousness in Soviet Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, xii + 260 pp., £30.00.

Donald D. Barry, ed., with the assistance of Louis Rodriguez, Toward the ‘Rule of Law’ in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period. Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1992, xxv + 402 pp., $90.00.

Hugh D. Phillips, Between the Revolution and the West: A Political Biography of Maxim M. Litvinov. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xii + 244 pp., £19.95.

Kitty Weaver, Bushels of Rubles. Soviet Youth in Transition, Westport, & London CT: Praeger, 1993, vii + 216 pp., £40.50.     

Reviews

László Csaba, ed., Systemic Change and Stabilization in Eastern Europe. Aldershot, and Brookfield, NY: Dartmouth Publishing Co., 1991, x + 141 pp. £30.00.

Christopher T. Saunders, ed., Economics and Politics of Transition. New York: Macmillan Press, 1992, x + 419 pp., £50.00.

David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika, Completely revised edition. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, xvi + 441 pp., £15.99.

Judith B. Sedaitis & Jim Butterfield, eds, Perestroika from Below: Social Movements in The Soviet Union. Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA, and Oxford: 1991, xii + 220 pp., $23.00 h/b.

Michael J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. London: I. B. Tauris, 1991, xiv + 423 pp., £29.95.

Örjan Sjöberg, Rural Change and Development in Albania. Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1991, xi + 199 pp., £21.95 p/b.

Anthony Kemp‐Welch, ed., The Ideas of Nikolai Bukharin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 209 pp., £27.50.     

Does the flypaper model stick? A test of the relative performance of the flypaper and conventional models of local government budgetary behaviour

Two of the most widely referred to models of local (or state) budgetary behaviour are developed and tested. The models considered are a variant of the flypaper model (see, for example, Courant et al., 1979 and Oates, 1979) and a conventional model which builds on the seminal work of Wilde (1969, 1971). The models are developed in a manner which allows them to be tested empirically using data for English local governments. Two types of test are employed: the ability of the two models to explain the variations in expenditure levels across local governments within any given fiscal year; the ability of the models to predict future levels of expenditure given changes to local government budget constraints (as brought about, for example, by changs in grants-in-aid from central government).     

Economic growth and environmental quality are compatible

Man's relationship to the natural environment and nature's influence upon human life are among the oldest topics of speculation. Until modern times the major reason for concern was the prospect of diminishing returns. It was thought that population and economic growth would press against natural resource limits, and that economic welfare would fall to subsistence levels.In modern times in developed nations the prospect of diminishing returns has been avoided. Population increase has abated to rates which promise stability in population numbers. Technology, capital accumulation, and improvements in labor force have yielded increasing returns. Per capita output grows at 2 or 3 % per year.The modern concern is quality of environment and quality of life. The technology, industrialization and agglomeration which have yielded increasing returns of goods per capita have side effects. These are pollution and crowding, increased needs for public goods, expanded monopoly in the market places, and dilemmas of choice from affluence. The task for modern societies is to bend their enlarged technology and productive power to improving quality of environment and, more generally, quality of life.Presented at the Man and Land Symposium on Economic Growth and the Quality of Life, College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, May 10, 1973.     

Methods for developing relative need criteria to accompany a health care capital expenditure limit

In recent years capital spending in the health care industry has escalated tremendously, and most forecasters agree that needs will increase at an even faster rate throughout the 1990s. As a result of this trend, there is a dire need to develop effective and equitable controls on capital spending in health care. One of the capital payment options under consideration is the establishment of a lid on capital expenditures and the concomitant allocation of capital to health care providers whose applications are the most meritorious. The purpose of this article is to present some ideas and methods for the development of a relative need system to accompany a capital expenditure limit and to supplement and expand the absolute need determinations of the typical CON process.     

The association of alcohol-induced blackouts and grayouts to blood alcohol concentrations

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the association between measured blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and the presence and degree of amnesia (no amnesia, grayout, or blackout) in actively drinking subjects. A secondary aim was to determine potential factors other than BAC that contribute to the alcohol-induced memory loss. An interview questionnaire was administered to subjects regarding a recent alcohol associated arrest with a documented BAC greater than 0.08 g/dL for either public intoxication, driving under the influence, or under age drinking was administered. Demographic variables collected included drinking history, family history of alcoholism, presence of previous alcohol-related memory loss during a drinking episode, and drinking behavior during the episode. Memory of the drinking episode was evaluated to determine if either an alcohol-induced grayout (partial anterograde amnesia) or blackout (complete anterograde amnesia) occurred. Differences in (1) mean total number of drinks ingested before arrest, (2) gulping of drinks, and (3) BAC at arrest were found for those having blackouts compared with no amnesia; while differences in drinking more than planned were found between the no amnesia and grayout groups. A strong linear relationship between BAC and predicted probability of memory loss, particularly for blackouts was obvious. This finding clinically concludes that subjects with BAC of 310 g/dL or greater have a 0.50 or greater probability of having an alcoholic blackout.     

A rapid test for heroin (3,6-diacetylmorphine) based on two chemiluminescence reactions

A rapid method for screening drug seizure samples for 3,6-diacetylmorphine (heroin), which consists of a simple hydrolysis procedure and flow-injection analysis with two chemiluminescence reagents, is described. Before hydrolysis, 3,6-diacetylmorphine evokes an intense response with a tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(III) reagent (prepared by dissolving the perchlorate salt in acetonitrile), and a relatively weak chemiluminescence response with a second reagent: potassium permanganate in an aqueous acidic polyphosphate solution. However, the permanganate reagent is extremely sensitive toward the hydrolysis products of 3,6-diacetylmorphine (i.e., 6-monoacetylmorphine and morphine). Some compounds commonly found in drug laboratories may cause false positives with tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(III), but do not produce the markedly increased response with the permanganate reagent after the hydrolysis procedure. The combination of these two tests therefore provides an effective presumptive test for the presence of 3,6-diacetylmorphine, which we have verified with 14 samples obtained from a forensic science laboratory.