An Econometric Analysis of the Role of Knowledge in Economic Performance

We conduct a regression analysis of the effects of knowledge on aggregate economic performance using data from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank for four groups of countries during 1995–2001. Our results indicate that knowledge is a key driver of economic growth for each group of countries. More importantly, we find that variation in economic performance among these groups may be related to the timing of investment in education, R&D, and information technology, as well as economic policies that affect trade and foreign direct investment.     

Aufklärung und Abwehr: The lasting legacy of the Stasi under Ernst Wollweber

The following article traces the development of East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, during the reign of Ernst Wollweber, the second Minister of State Security. By examining key Stasi operations during this period, notably the ‘concentrated strikes’ strategy following the June 1953 revolution, the campaign against Ostbüros, and operations to secure the economy, and by examining Wollweber's major speeches, it argues that Wollweber's reign was a decisive one for the Stasi because of the integration of intelligence gathering outside of East Germany (Aufklärung) with domestic surveillance (Abwehr). Although this balance shifted toward external duties in Wollweber's landmark August 1955 speech, Wollweber continued to promote integration of the two duties, in particular by anchoring the intelligence gathering duties in the local-level domestic structures of the Stasi.     

Economic calculation in the Soviet Union

The article seeks to analyse the relationship between different forms of economic calculation in the Soviet Union, concentrating on monetary calculations used by the State Bank and on the use of ‘material balances’ and of input‐output analysis in planning the Soviet economy. It provides a critique of Bettelheim's analysis of the role of monetary calculation in the Soviet Union and, using the work of Lavigne, attempts to provide a foundation for a specific analysis of economic calculation (and hence, relations of production) in the Soviet Union. The article concludes by arguing that the variety of methods of calculating used in the Soviet Union, and the generation of ‘needs’ by organisational exigencies which may not be fully taken into account in the main methods of calculation, undermine the common conception of planning as the rational pursuit of certain ideal ends, a conception which is unfortunately still influential in many socialist conceptions of planning. Finally, in rejecting the view that one can conceive of socialism as a certain ideal state of affairs, the article argues that political critiques of the Soviet Union do not entail the rejection of the view that it is a socialist society.     

Reunification deadlocked: The United States,China and Taiwan

Abstract

Since the New China News Agency's release on March 15, 1949, of an editorial entitled “The Chinese People Are Determined to Liberate Taiwan,” that theme has been a cardinal principle of Peking's national policy. To appreciate fully the Chinese position, one must recognize not only Peking's claim that Taiwan is legally, ethnically, and historically an integral part of China, but also modern China's yeaming for national reunification and territorial integrity. On the ethnic question, China points to the fact that except for an extremely small number of aborigines, the inhabitants on the island today, including the so-called “native Taiwanese,” are of Chinese ancestry. They speak southeastern Chinese dialects and share with their compatriots on the mainland all the other basic Chinese cultural traits. Historically, as a Chinese spokesman once put it, “long before Christopher Columbus discovered America, the Chinese people were already in Taiwan. Long before the United States achieved its own independence, Taiwan had already become an inseparable part of the territory of China.” Although imperialist Japan occupied the island from 1895 to 1945, the island was returned to China in 1945 after Japan's surrender at the end of the Pacific War.