Fiction in Review: The Fictional World of Nina Berberova

Books reviwed in this article:
Nina Berberova, The Ladies from St. Petersburg
Nina Berberova, The Books of Happiness
Nina Berberova, Cape of Storms     

State Government Targeting in Economic Development: The New York Experience

New York State has made extensive use of social, geographic,and sectoral targeting in economic development. It has targetedboth distressed industries, particularly manufacturing, andgrowth industries. When the initial assistance provided to manufacturingin the 1960s did not stem the decline of this sector, the stateresponded by providing larger subsidies. Even though manufacturingcontinued to decline, both absolutely and relatively, supportfor its preferred status has, nevertheless, remained strong,and few of the programs initially aimed at this sector haveseen any sign cant changes in their manufacturing focus. Effortsto target distressed areas and individuals, however, were notsustained over time. The state's two most significant effortsat geographic targeting were expanded statewide over relativelyshort periods of time.     

Religion,liberty and economic development: An empirical investigation

The empirical investigations conducted for this paper show that one can not accept the null hypothesis that religion and liberty are not related to development. Judeo-Christianity in particular appears to an important determinant of economic development. This is explained in part by its fostering of the private ownership of property. Nations with the Judeo-Christian values are more likely to have political democracies that are conductive to economic development. Capitalist economies with Judeo-Christian democracy are more likely to have higher levels of economic development.     

Consensus with respect to the fairness of incomes: Differences between social groups

This article deals with consensus on norms on how incomes in a society ought to be distributed. Functionalist theories presume consensus between almost all members of a society. Marxist theories presume at least some dissension, e.g., persons in unfavorable positions will support the achievement principle to a lesser extent and the equality and need principle to a larger measure. In 1987, a vignette study was conducted among a sample of 795 individuals representative of the Dutch population between the ages of 18 and 70. The respondents were presented with a random sample of 15 vignettes and requested to assign a fair income to the described household. A total of 11,394 fair incomes were assigned to the virgnettes. In the analysis the respondents were grouped on value patterns and income position. There was consensus on the main achievement attribute occupational prestige in assigning fair incomes. There was also some dissension discernible between different groups. However, neither of the theories was fully corroborated.