The China–asean Free Trade Agreement And Taiwan

While China's move toward a FTA with ASEAN reflects Beijing's most recent foreign economic policy adjustment and represents a new stage in the nation's open-door policy, it inevitably produces significant impact on cross-Taiwan Straits relations. This recent development in China's foreign economic relations brings not only substantial psychological and real effects and pressure on Taiwan for its possible isolation and marginalization from the ongoing process of regional integration in East Asia, but also growing pressure exerted by the island's business community that fears being pushed into a disadvantageous position in competition with ASEAN companies in the ever expanding and lucrative market of the mainland. For strategic, diplomatic, and economic considerations in the face of this new challenge, Taiwan is pursuing counter-measures by searching for its own FTAs with other countries within and beyond the region.     

Demographic change and industrialization in germany, 1815–1914

This article analyzes demographic change in Bremen 1815–1914 against the background of changing employment opportunities. Within the pre-industrial employment structure, which still prevailed in the decades after 1850, in-migrants were particularly disadvantaged. When modern industries developed, the situation changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century both male and female in-migrants benefited from a higher life expectancy than the city-born population had. The strong sectoral changes in employment opportunities in Bremen at the turn of the century reinforced the trends towards family limitation. More skilled in-migrants felt the need to adapt their reproductive behavior to facilitate upward social mobility. The article argues for a wider use of archival data, like those used in their study, to explore issues relating to urban demographic change in German cities during industrialization.     

List of Contributors

Events in eastern Europe have changed the forms of British assistance to other parliaments. Instead of taking advantage of the links of the Commonwealth, the British government now uses the Know How Fund to give non‐partisan assistance to legislatures in the former eastern bloc, and funds the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to help parliamentarians from other countries and to advise political parties. British political parties determine a proportion of the Foundation's activities. Aid to legislatures is part of a general policy for promoting democracy, an important aspect of bilateral assistance and an element in the reorientation of Britain towards Europe. British efforts in this field have been overshadowed by better funded competitors from other countries. But they have nevertheless helped to develop fresh conceptions of ‘political aid’.     

Prisoners’ Perceptions of Father-Child Relationships and Social Support

Incarcerated fathers (N?=?185) in a maximum security prison were interviewed about their relationship with their children and their perceptions of social support. The OLS regression on social support included the inmates?? perception of the father-child relationship and other factors (demographic, sentence, child-related, and program participation). Results indicate the fathers?? perception of the relationship with their children made a positive contribution to their appraisal of social support from all sources. ??Other?? program participation and being African American were related to the fathers?? perception of social support from others. Recommendations include using social support strategies in pre-release and post-release programs.     

In remembrance of Robert D. Tollison

We discuss the mechanisms related to quadratic voting, from Vickrey’s counter-speculation mechanism and his second-price auction, through the family of Groves mechanisms and its most notable member, the Clarke mechanism, to the expected externality mechanism, Goeree and Zhang’s mechanism, the Groves–Ledyard mechanism, and the Hylland–Zeckhauser mechanism. We show that each mechanism that involves collective decisions has a quadratic aspect and that all of the mechanisms that we discuss are applications of the fundamental insight that for a process to be efficient, all parties involved must bear the marginal social costs of their actions.     

Lessons from a crisis: An analysis of Toyota's handling of the recall crisis

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Toyota managed the recall crisis through surveying public relations experts. By gathering and analyzing the perspectives of public relations (PR) executives and professors toward the Toyota recall crisis, this study tries to evaluate and measure Toyota's public relations strategies for managing the recall crisis. To collecting data, 34 public relations professors and 92 public relations practitioners were interviewed. According to the findings of this study, PR professionals emphasized that Toyota responded poorly (slowly/dishonestly) and lacked communication with the public. With regard to improvements Toyota may work on, PR experts advised not only to resolve internal corporate problems but also to strengthen the relationships with consumers and obligation to investigate further. In regarding with the lessons from the Toyota's crisis, PR professionals highlighted that it is necessary to take anticipated preventative measures and improve investigative duties and preparation for better dealing with crises.