Local Institutions and the Politics of Urban Growth

This article uses a political market framework to analyze how the structure of local political institutions affects the relative political influence of development and environmental interests in the context of urban growth. Using panel data from 406 Florida cities from 1998 to 2003, the empirical analysis finds important interaction effects between the structure of city executive branch institutions and interest group variables. The economic and political forces driving urban growth do not operate identically in all cities—they vary as a function of institutional context. Institutional structure helps determine which interest groups have their preferences reflected in local land-use changes and development patterns. The resulting patterns suggest a "sustainability paradox" wherein richer, environmental interests push for the preservation of environmental amenities while at the same time accelerating the number of residential units built in a community.     

Instruments for Exploring Organizational Culture: A Review of the Literature

Organizational culture is widely considered to be one of the most significant factors in reforming and modernizing public administration and service delivery. This article documents the findings of a literature review of existing qualitative and quantitative instruments for the exploration of organizational culture. Seventy instruments are identified, of which 48 could be submitted to psychometric assessment. The majority of these are at a preliminary stage of development. The study's conclusion is that there is no ideal instrument for cultural exploration. The degree to which any measure is seen as "fit for purpose" depends on the particular reason for which it is to be used and the context within which it is to be applied.     

The long‐term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long‐term effect of project‐based housing assistance—public housing and private assisted housing—on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project‐based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Overall, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

犹太人与欧洲文化

在这里要感谢我的朋友罗国祥教授,让我有机会来到武汉大学讲学。首先我想列举五个重要的人物来引出要讲的主题:亚伯拉罕,耶稣,马克思,弗洛伊德和爱因斯坦!摩西的名字也应该加进去。     

The decline of an export industry,or the growth of Peruvian sugar consumption in the long run

Growth of domestic consumption of agricultural exportables is a neglected aspect of LDCs’ long‐run primary export performance. Price and income elasticities of local demand for specific exportables vary with economic development, so the Peruvian sugar industry was chosen to illustrate how and why such changes occur. Elasticity estimates for different types of sugar are presented for several time periods between 1913 and 1978. A comparison of these results with those of other researchers suggests that aggregating raw, refined and plantation white sugar consumption may bias income elasticity estimates for refined sugar upwards, and price elasticity estimates downwards.     

Reviews

Arabic Edition of the British Council Map of Europe and the Middle East. Scale 1: 11,000,000. Royal Geographical Society

Iraq Irrigation Handbook: Part I. Euphrates. Compiled by Ahmed Sousa, under the direction of J. D. Atkinson. Published at Baghdad by the Government of Iraq, 1944. 10” × 7”. Pp. in, with 35 tables, 18 figures and 1 plate, also, in a portfolio 15” × 14”, 16 other plates. Price not stated.

Jenghis Khan. By W. Yan. Hutchinson International Authors, Ltd. 9s. 6d.

From Tunisia to Normandy. By Major‐General H. Rowan‐Robinson, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. Hutchinsoh.

Defence is Our Business. By Brigadier J. G. Smyth, V.C., M.C. Hutchinson and Co. 10s. 6d.

Anna and the King of Siam. By Margaret Landon. Illustrated by Margaret Ayer. John Day Co., New York. Pp. 391.

The Modern Prison System of India. By Lieut.‐Colonel F. A. Barker, C.I.E., O.B.E., M.A., M.D., B.C., I.M.S. (Retd.).

Fabian Colonial Essays. With an Introduction by A. Creech Jones, M.P., and edited by Dr. Rita Hinden. Geo. Allen and Unwin. Pp. 261. 8s. 6d. 1945.

Modern Exploration. F. Kingdon Ward. 124 pp. Published by Jonathan Cape at 6s.     

‘Just like working for the dole’: Rural households,export crops and state subsidies in Papua New Guinea

Globally national governments have been forced to devise means for dealing with a rising tide of unemployed and semi‐employed. One method used in industrial countries involves reducing the levels of welfare payments and attaching particular conditions for the receipt of unemployment benefits. Working for the dole is one such condition. In non‐industrial countries, with primarily rural populations and without previously established unemployment benefits, other forms of dealing with increased levels of the relative surplus population have been devised. When unemployed are associated with lawlessness, forming a threat to social order and capital accumulation, particularly in urban centres, particular efforts are made to keep people in the countryside. Although household production of export crops faces global surpluses and falling international prices, one means of pressing the relative surplus population to smallholdings has been to subsidise their growing of even greater volumes of the produce. The dressing of virtuous rhetoric, ‘honest toil’ and similar terms, should not disguise the fact that the nationally subsidised crop prices are a form of welfare payment. The payment is intended to resecure the subsumption of labour to capital in conditions where accumulation forces increasing numbers of people into pools of surplus labour. Here the case of rural households in Papua New Guinea is utilised for an argument which has a much wider application.     

Transfer or transformation? What the German social science literature has to say about unification and its systemic effects

This paper serves as a review and critical assessment of the German social science literature on unification. The main concepts of unification analysis from Offe, Lehmbruch, Seibel, Czada and Wiesenthal are introduced. Each of these authors approaches unification using a form of Lehmbruch ‘s institution transfer paradigm. The usefulness of this paradigm is limited because it plays down the transformative impact of unification in spite of the consensus that unification has wrought significant changes. In the future, the line demarcating the extent to which the transfer paradigm has given way to a transformation‐centred paradigm will define one cutting edge in German studies.     

The Kuomintang's secret service in action in South China: operational and political aspects of the arrest of Liao Chengzhi (1942)

The arrest in May 1942 of Liao Chengzhi – a CCP spy chief as well as the son of a celebrated KMT elder assassinated in 1925 – is considered a Big Case in China. Using the original KMT case file on Liao Chengzhi, van de Ven describes how the KMT's secret service turned the Jiangxi Provincial Committee and then arrested leading members of the CCP in south China and thereby eliminated its organization there. The article further uses letters by prominent CCP and KMT personalities involved in the case to suggest the existence of a revolutionary aristocracy bound by personal relations and with an elite code of conduct. When the political will was present, members of this elite deployed their personal connections in the search for solutions to complex political problems.