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Global communication, international workflow, and connected learning are converging to realign power, wealth, and work. As Friedman (2006) explained, many forces are coming together to cause a flattening or leveling effect of the world's workforce. This has allowed many skilled workers from emerging nations to enter the workplace and compete for jobs that were traditionally held by only a few wealthy industrial nations. Although the playing field is being leveled for some occupations, Florida (2005) convincingly argues that the international economic landscape is becoming spiky with innovations being concentrated in a few urban centers. These urban centers provide the new creative class with ecosystems that enable their prosperity. Innovations are improved and brought to market more quickly in settings where talented people collocate (Florida 2005). It is vital that graduates enter the workforce prepared to orchestrate globally distributed work using computer-based communication systems and know how to engage creatively in collocated activities. Despite these demands on our graduates, many university computer laboratories are sociofugal environments (environments that discourage social interaction), fostering the individual consumption of information versus collaboration. This paper examines the college computer lab as an ecological system that may impede transference of critical 21st century sociocutural norms and workplace skills.

Background: Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is a prevalent chronic non-communicable disease that affects millions of young children globally, with profound implications for their well-being and oral health. This paper explores the associations between ECC and the targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8). Methods: The scoping review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. In July 2023, a search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus using tailored search terms related to economic growth, decent work sustained economic growth, higher levels of productivity and technological innovation, entrepreneurship, job creation, and efforts to eradicate forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking and ECC all of which are the targets of the SDG8. Only English language publications, and publications that were analytical in design were included. Studies that solely examined ECC prevalence without reference to SDG8 goals were excluded. Results: The initial search yielded 761 articles. After removing duplicates and ineligible manuscripts, 84 were screened. However, none of the identified studies provided data on the association between decent work, economic growth-related factors, and ECC. Conclusions: This scoping review found no English publication on the associations between SDG8 and ECC despite the plausibility for this link. This data gap can hinder policymaking and resource allocation for oral health programs. Further research should explore the complex relationship between economic growth, decent work and ECC to provide additional evidence for better policy formulation and ECC control globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economic & Regional Studies/Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Between 1957 and 1990, nearly 100 nuclear reactors were constructed throughout the U.S., and nuclear power currently accounts for 20 percent of electricity production nationwide. Nuclear plants are often constructed in small communities for which they constitute a large source of employment and income. To date, 24 nuclear reactors have undergone decommissioning, and more are expected in the future, particularly as nuclear reactors age and face increasingly strict regulations. This paper examines the effects of nuclear decommissioning over time at the county-level on measures of employment, income, and population using difference-in-differences regression and propensity score matching. Panel data are obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, and cover the years 1975-2014. The analysis finds that nuclear decommissioning is associated with positive and statistically significant increases in employment and per capita income over time. Results suggest that nuclear decommissioning may actually be a positive force in regional economic development, and concludes with limitations of the approach and implications for future research. As an emerging area of research, this paper is meant to build on previous work, as well as to provide a basis for further discussion and debate on the economic future of nuclear host communities and regional economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adapting methods from complex system analysis, this paper analyzes the features of the complex relationship between wage inequality and the development and industrialization of a country. Development is understood as a combination of a monetary index, GDP per capita, and a recently introduced measure of a country’s economic complexity: Fitness. Initially the paper looks at wage inequality on a global scale, over the time period 1990–2008. Our empirical results show that globally the movement of wage inequality along with the ongoing industrialization of countries has followed a longitudinally persistent pattern comparable to the one theorized by Kuznets in the fifties: countries with an average level of development suffer the highest levels of wage inequality. Next, the study narrows its focus on wage inequality within the United States. By using data on wages and employment in the approximately 3100 US counties over the time interval 1990–2014, it generalizes the Fitness-Complexity metric for geographic units and industrial sectors, and then investigates wage inequality between NAICS industries. The empirical time and scale dependencies are consistent with a relation between wage inequality and development driven by institutional factors comparing countries, and by change in the structural compositions of sectors in a homogeneous institutional environment, such as the counties of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pork-barrel spending is defined as a project that is funded by the national tax base and yet only benefits a small, localized population. Anecdotally, this type of spending is often criticized as short-sighted, inefficient, and wasteful. This paper is designed to determine whether pork-barrel spending is a driver of state economic growth, both state employment and gross domestic product, despite criticism to the contrary. I find that pork-barrel spending does have an effect on employment, but this effect is temporary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world has been globalized much more than ever before and this process integrates the economies of countries. Moreover, one means of integrating the economies of countries is trade. In this instance, the export-led economic growth emerges as a considerable determinant. Export-led economic growth is beneficial for the countries since it facilitates the inflow of foreign exchange, increases production, creates new employment opportunities and enhances the overall commercial volume. In this study, the correlation between export-led economic growth is explored for Brazil. Therefore, according to the findings of this paper as well as econometric and statistical applications, there is a bi-directional causality in Brazil since 1960s between economic development and exports in the long-run (this could also be termed as feedback); furthermore, in the short-run, there is export-led economic growth. The novelty of this paper is that, it is one of the latest studies investigating export-led economic growth for Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on quality of life of inhabitants in Slovak countryside as well as conditions for development of municipalities on possibilities of drawing European funds and the performance of Local Action Groups. Its main objective is to evaluate the effect of the Slovak Rural Development Programme 2007-2013 measures on increasing the quality of life in a selected region and to compare results in municipalities that were part of a public-private partnership and those they did not participate. The paper mainly deals with quality of life indicators defined in the field of employment and quality of employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The model-based optimization of the waterflooding process has found significant scope for improving the economic life-cycle performance of oil fields due to geological and economic uncertainties compared to conventional reactive strategies. This paper proposes a new frequency-based system identification method to identify a robust multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) surrogate model for an oil reservoir under waterflooding process so as to describe all the injector-producer relationships. In contrast to the conventional modeling methods, the proposed data-driven modeling approach uses the available injection and production rates as the reservoir input-output data. Meanwhile, it includes a structured-bounded uncertainty model in the form of norm-bounded state-space function blocks to account for uncertainties, facilitating the identified model employed in robust control methodology using linear matrix inequality (LMI) problem formulation so as to eliminate the effect of model uncertainty. The identified MIMO surrogate model is integrated with a desired nonlinear net present value (NPV) objective function in a multi-input, single-output (MISO) system configuration to synthesize a model-based optimization prediction for economical operation and production of oil from oil reservoirs under both geological and economic uncertainties. The introduced approach is implemented on the "EGG model" as a well-recognized three-dimensional synthetic oil reservoir with eight water injection wells and four oil production wells. The results demonstrate that economic performance prediction of the oil reservoir, having an uncertain permeability field, lies in the evaluated bound of the uncertainty model. Waterflooding is a well-known method for increasing oil production. A significant amount of time and effort is required even for high-performance processors to numerically simulate a reservoir with thousands of grid blocks. On the other hand, there is a high uncertainty level in oil reservoir model-based economic optimization due to limited information about geological model parameters. Employing robust control methods can provide robustness for the performance and stability of the control system against model norm-bounded uncertainty. However, in all standard identification methods, it is assumed that the uncertainties in the model can be accommodated in the form of noise. Therefore, the challenge of using the models estimated from the standard identification approach in robust control methods can mainly be considered an essential subject. This paper presents a new frequency-based modeling approach to identify a surrogate model and uncertainty modeling for the waterflooding process with the ease of being employed in robust control methods. A desirable relationship is obtained between the injection rate and the economic production function to model the dynamics of the reservoir using the identification of the surrogate model. Then, the concept of structure bounded uncertainty modeling is presented to describe the model geological uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration policy is one of the most hotly contested political issues in the United States. In this paper, we evaluate the role of immigration in the U.S. economy. We pose the counterfactual question, “what would happen if net migration to the U.S. were to cease?” Using the REMI PI+ macroeconomic policy analysis model, we set to zero international immigration from 2018 to 2060, and estimate the national- and state-level economic and demographic implications of this change. Our estimates show that, in the absence of immigration, total U.S. employment would peak in 2019, and the U.S. GDP and labor force would decline by 20% through 2060. Per capita income and GDP effects, however, are relatively minor and sensitive to assumptions in labor and capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents some titles of new books on economics. Some books are: The Angel and the Wheat--Communication Theory and Economics," by S. Bagno, A Strategy of Decision--Policy Evaluation As a Social Process," by D. Braybrooke and C.E. Lindhlom; "Are We Slaves of Some Defunct Economist?" by D.M. Keezer; Insuring Full Employment--A United States Policy for Domestic Prosperity and World Development," by J.H.G. Pierson; The Intellectual and the Market Place and Other Essays," by G.J. Stigler; "Prices for Primary Producers," by S. Caine; "Capital Stock Growth: A Micro-Econometric Approach," by S. Kuh; "A Study of Cost and Demand Inflation," by J.D. Pitchford; "Profitability and Size of Firm," by H.O. Stekler; "Land Reforms in West Bengal--A Study on Implementation," by S.K. Basu and S.K. Bhattacharyya; "Output Employment and Productivity Growth in New Zealand Manufacturing Industries," by C.A. Blyth and P. Hamer; "Economic Development: Past and Present," by R.T. Gill; "Planning Economic Development," edited by E.E. Hagen.

Microloans to small and medium-sized enterprises have become popular in many countries. However, evidence on the economic and social impact of microfinance is scarce. In an attempt to partly fill this gap, this paper looks at a case study and analyzes the economic impacts of the microloan programme of the Latvian development bank Hipoteku Banka. In our analysis, we focus on the following questions: Did the microloan programme increase employment within the supported firms? And was it able to contribute to the economic development of rural areas and the decrease of economic inequalities across regions? We find that the firms that were granted a loan from Hipoteku Banka on average considerably increased their employment during the loan period, as well as the microloan programme made a successful contribution to the economic development of rural regions in Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant remittances play an important role in the economic development and the improvement of household welfare in Ghana. The movement of youth from rural Northern Ghana to the South has been a recurrent research focus. This paper examines the dynamics of north-south migration of the youth and resulting remittances in Ghana using Accra and Kumasi as study areas. The paper shows that the youth embark on the southward journey with the anticipation of getting employed so as to earn money to be able to remit to support and improve the wellbeing of relations back home. Also, the paper highlights that the young migrants remit varying amounts of money. These monies have been put to different uses, much of which is used in buying food for consumption, the maintenance of the household and other ventures. The study notes that the mode of savings, the duration and place of stay, the level of income and sex to a larger extent determine the amount of money, frequency and the likelihood that a migrant will remit at any point in time. Most importantly, the migration of the youth from Northern to Southern Ghana and the remittances sent, play an important role in improving household wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use a partial adjustment model to analyse the relationship between employment and population growth in Irish district electoral divisions. We employ a spatial estimator to augment our partial adjustment model with a spatial lag and spatial error process. Our results indicate a dual relationship between employment and population growth, suggesting that not only do people follow jobs but also jobs follow people. This finding has implications for economic development policies, which typically focus solely on attracting jobs to a location. The results suggest that a dual-pronged approach to policy may be necessary including developing a region’s amenities to ensure that it is attractive to people and to stimulate population growth. We highlight how our analysis can be used to inform policy through the lenses of place-based and smart specialisation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the most conventional statements in economics, with regard to the services sector, suggests that, as a whole, this sector has a lower productivity level and growth rates than the other productive sectors. From this approach, we can derive the relative lower productivity in some advanced economies (such as the European countries versus the USA and some particular emergent economies) as an explanation of the growth of the tertiary sector. This paper will look in greater depth at issues related to services productivity, from conceptual aspects regarding the definition and meaning of productivity to methodological and measurement of services productivity. This work is essentially a necessary revision of the literature on economic growth, productivity and the services sector, reviewing not only the conventional literature but also those new waves of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the link between new firm formation and subsequent employment growth. It investigates whether it is possible to have the wrong type of entrepreneurship—defined as new firm formation which leads to zero or even negative subsequent employment growth. It uses a very similar approach to that of Fritsch and Mueller (Regional Studies, 38(8), 961–976, 2004), confirming their findings that the employment impact of new firm formation is in three discrete phases. Then, using data for Great Britain, the paper shows the employment impact of new firm formation is significantly positive in the high-enterprise counties of Great Britain. However, for the low-enterprise counties, it shows that new firm formation has a negative effect on employment. Of the 15 low-enterprise regions, eight are Scottish (of nine Scottish regions in our data base) and three are North East Counties (of four). Our findings imply that having the “wrong type of entrepreneurship” is indeed possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the livelihood strategies pursued by people in the post-socialist societies of East-Central Europe? This paper critically evaluates the view that most of the population secures its livelihood through the formal economy and that only marginalized populations now have to rely on the informal economy (i.e. work beyond employment) for their livelihoods. Drawing upon extensive survey data from Ukraine, this paper reveals that only a small minority of households in this post-socialist society rely on the formal economy alone and that the vast majority depend on a plurality of both formal and informal economic practices to secure their livelihoods. The outcome is a call for a greater appreciation and recognition to be given to the role of the informal sector in post-socialist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a roundtable discussion by economists Chalongphop Sussangkarn, Xiaolan Fu and Prema-chandra Athukorala, on issue of recyclable materials from Japan. Sussangkarn mentions the lacked of a coherent conceptual framework on why countries are ready to import waste. Xiaolan suggests the importance of funding for observatory research on waste material import. Athukorala also expresses the value of trade in waste generates employment and export earnings.

This paper examines the existence and stability of a long-run equilibrium rate of unemployment in a Post-Keynesian growth model and contrasts it with the NAIRU model. In the latter the equilibrium rate of unemployment determines unanticipated inflation in the short run and actual unemployment and output in the long run. The real balance effect plays the pivotal role in the transition from the short run to the long run. For the Keynesian model we take the Marglin-Bhaduri (1990) model as our starting point and complement it by Okun's Law for the labor market and a wage curve type of relation for distribution. The distinction between wage-led and profit-led growth regimes in the Marglin-Bhaduri model turns out to be crucial for the long-run equilibrium rate of unemployment. In the profit-led regime, there is a stable equilibrium rate of unemployment that, NAIRU-like, determines growth. In the wage-led regime, however, the equilibrium rate of unemployment is not stable. The long run is thus but a succession of short-run equilibria. Therefore the goods market dominates the labor market even in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do particular types of labour market institution hold the key to economic success? Should other countries try to emulate the flexibility of the American labour market or the centralization of Swedish-style corporatism? Since 1970 within the OECD there has been a sharp divergence both of economic performance and of indicators of labour market structure. The paper uses union density and the degree of wage dispersion across industries to proxy a country's underlying labour marked institutions. In assessing economic performance, it is argued that cross-country differences in output growth were much smaller than differences in employment growth. For given output growth, there is a clear negative relationship between employment growth and real wage growth across countries. Why do different countries find themselves at different points on this trade-off? The final part of the paper examines the correlation between indicators of labour market structure and the position on the wage-employment trade-off. It concludes that the degree of wage dispersion across industries is the most important indicator of market angers and that countries with very high or very low dispersion, typically the countries with highly centralized or highly decentralized bargaining in the labour market, have better employment performance than countries with intermediate degrees of centralization and wage dispersion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering manpower constitutes an important national resource where demand and supply must be in reasonable balance to assure continued economic growth. The paper establishes a demand analysis to predict the need for engineers in 15 industry groups through 1987, subject to various economic scenarios. It is shown that for total engineering employment in any industry segment the constant dollar gross national product fraction per engineer is only a slowly varying function of time. A least-square fit of this ratio versus time is shown to be an adequate predictor of employment and can be used for extrapolation with confidence. A parallel analysis is also developed for engineers employed in research and development. It is shown that, in general, the need for new engineers due to economic growth is smaller than the need to make up for attrition due to death, retirement, promotions out of engineering and voluntary leaving of the profession. The high mobility rate of engineers out of the profession is significant and its importance has not previously been documented. The paper concludes with a preliminary discussion of the balance between supply and demand. Even with a healthy economic growth the nation is likely to produce a small excess of engineering graduates over the near future. However, there will be a shortage of engineers holding advanced degrees for entry into research and development, even if R & D sees only a moderate growth. Better industry-university cooperation is called for to encourage engineers to undertake advanced degrees, to assess actual future needs and to advise students to select appropriate engineering disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the productivity of ancient Egyptian agriculture, a discussion of economic theory, per capita GDP, economic growth, and agrarian economies through history, this paper tries to isolate the relative roles of land, labor, and grain in the economy of Ancient Egypt. There is little room for full employment in an agrarian economy; in Bronze Age Egypt the labor of a small fraction of the population would have sufficed to nourish all. Aside from services, an agrarian economy cannot expand employment much. Increasing productivity is counter-productive and none of the wealthy agrarian economies grew organically into an industrial economy. Govert van Driel pointed out that in agrarian ancient Mesopotamia there was no place for the market or silver, although both were present (as is claimed for Egypt). Overcapacity, trade, underemployment, and finance allow an understanding of the ancient economies, economics and economic growth; the impact of using modern economic thought based on production (and not economic behavior and activity) results in a flawed theory that must be revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In peace-building and transitional justice literature economic restoration is considered central to sustainable peace in post-conflict societies. However, it is also widely recognised that many post-conflict states cannot afford mechanisms to provide restoration. Not only are many such states poor to begin with, but violent conflict further degrades their economic capacity. As a result, in their need to provide jobs, generate tax revenues, spur development and promote sustainable peace, many post-conflict states turn to alternative processes of economic restoration. This paper examines the potential for foreign direct investment (FDI) to serve as one alternative means by which to provide economic restoration in post-conflict states. Presenting findings from six months of fieldwork evaluating one such project in rural Sierra Leone, the paper describes how local people experience such projects and explores whether employment and land-lease payments can provide experiences of economic restoration so far unforthcoming from the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have central role in the global economy as a result of their key features - SMEs are dynamic, easily adaptable and flexible. Today, SMEs are considered to be one of the key driving forces of the economic growth and job creation. Around 90% of all businesses in the global economy are SMEs; their share in total private sector employment is between 61%-81%. One of the main features of the SMEs is the ability for producing innovations. Modern growth theories acknowledge the role of innovation as central to enhancing growth and productivity. Innovations are considered to be the instruments by which the entrepreneur creates new products and augments the current products. This paper will try to examine the importance of innovation and innovative activities in SMEs. Additionally, the paper will explore some specifics of SMEs, concept of innovation, innovation types and determinants of innovation, as well as the obstacles to innovation faced by the SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of research papers which were published in the August 1965 issue of "The Review of Economics and Statistics." The object of the computations described in the paper "The Economic Impact--Industrial and Regional--of an Arms Cut" was to determine what effect a hypothetical reduction in military demand accompanied by a compensating increase in non-military demand would have on the industrial composition and regional distribution of employment in the continental U.S. In the paper "Foreign Assistance and Self-Help: A Reappraisal of Development Finance," the relationship between foreign capital inflows and progress toward self-sustained growth in developing countries is studied as the central aspect of the self-help problem. "Investment in Commercial Construction" focuses on the construction of office buildings and retail stores, which together account for 85% of the total. The basic hypothesis underlying the statistical analysis is that because commercial construction is an investment flow, it can best be explained by factors determining the prospective profitability of investment: expected revenue and cost. "Prediction With Consumer Attitudes; The Time Series--Cross Section Paradox" examines the hypothesis that there are attitudinal effects at the individual consumer level but that they have been obscured by inadequate measurement or mis-specification.

Transportation infrastructure investment (TII) has significant influence on regional economic development. This paper aims to measure the potential economic impact of TII and to help policymakers to evaluate different alternatives and strategies at the regional level through a system dynamics (SD) approach. First, an SD model is established to simulate the impact of TII on the economy and employment. The relationship between transportation investments and economic development is examined and the relevant employment and economic indicators are identified. Second, the variables, flow diagrams, and structural equations of the SD model are defined. Third, the program Vensim is employed to establish the SD model with economy, transportation, and employment subsystems. It is then calibrated based on the historical statistics data in Liaoning Province, China. Finally, scenario analysis of different transportation investment plans is presented. The results will help investors, policymakers, and government agencies to estimate the potential outcomes of proposed transportation investment plans and to further develop optimal policies for transportation investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optimal pace of business dynamics-encompassing the processes of entry, exit, expansion, and contraction-would balance the benefits of productivity and economic growth against the costs to firms and workers associated with reallocation of productive resources. It is difficult to prescribe what the optimal pace should be, but evidence accumulating from multiple datasets and methodologies suggests that the rate of business startups and the pace of employment dynamism in the US economy has fallen over recent decades and that this downward trend accelerated after 2000. A critical factor in accounting for the decline in business dynamics is a lower rate of business startups and the related decreasing role of dynamic young businesses in the economy. For example, the share of US employment accounted for by young firms has declined by almost 30 percent over the last 30 years. These trends suggest that incentives for entrepreneurs to start new firms in the United States have diminished over time. We do not identify all the factors underlying these trends in this paper but offer some clues based on the empirical patterns for specific sectors and geographic regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Çalışma ve Toplum is the property of Calisma ve Toplum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present paper estimates the effect of the Abe Cabinet's Womanomics policies that aimed to increase female labor supply and keep women on a career path. The policies are surveyed, and the effects are estimated using microdata from the Labor Force Survey combined with data at the prefectural level on day care provision. A difference-in-difference (DD) method is applied to uncover the impacts of the Abe Cabinet's policies. The rapid increase in the provision of infant care, especially in the urban area, has contributed to a strong increase in the labor participation of mothers with young children. In addition, DD method estimates show a strong increase in mothers with infants staying in permanent-contract regular employment. A significant shortening of work hours of workers, especially of parents with infants, is observed, which enabled working mothers to maintain their employment status. A change in the gender wage gap in the Japanese labor market is observed, but much progress is still required to close the large wage gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Barro and McCleary (2003, Religion and economic growth across countries. American Journal of Sociology 68: 760-781) is a key research contribution in the new literature exploring the macroeconomic effects of religious beliefs. This paper represents an effort to evaluate the strength of their claims. We evaluate their results in terms of replicability and robustness. Overall, their analysis generally meets the standard of statistical replicability, though not perfectly. On the other hand, we do not find that their results are robust to changes in their baseline statistical specification. When model-averaging methods are employed to integrate information across alternative statistical specifications, little evidence survives that religious variables help to predict cross-country income differences. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates critically the conventional hierarchical representation of the formal/informal employment dualism, which depicts formal employment as extensive and positively contributing to economic development and social cohesion, and the separate realm of informal employment as weaker, inhabiting the margins and impairing progress and development. Although the discourses of informal employment as weak, marginal and separate from formal employment have been previously put under the spotlight, there has been little questioning of whether informal employment is a negative phenomenon. Through a study of Ukraine, however, this paper finds evidence that informal employment positively contributes to not only economic development as a seedbed for enterprise and entrepreneurship but also social cohesion as a primary vehicle for delivering community self-help. The outcome is a call for a finer-grained understanding of informal (and ultimately also formal) employment that recognises its plurality of forms and their varying consequences for economic development and social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effects of new business formation on employment growth in Spanish manufacturing industries. New firms are believed to make an important contribution to economic growth but the extent of this contribution is unclear. We consider time lags of new firm formation as explanatory variables of employment change and identify how long the effect of new firm entries on employment lasts. Our main results show that the effects of new business formation are positive in the short term, negative in the medium term and positive in the long term, thus confirming the existence of indirect supply-side effects found in similar studies for other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keane M. J. and Garvey E. (2006) Measuring the employment effects of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme, Regional Studies 40, 359–374. The paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme introduced by the Irish Government in 1998. The rationale for the scheme puts the emphasis on new economic activity and economic growth in the designated area. Thus, it is legitimate to look for positive employment impacts as a primary outcome of the tax scheme. The empirical results suggest that the tax scheme has had positive effects on the numbers of people unemployed in the tax area. However, using available estimates of the costs of the scheme, these employment gains are not significant enough for the scheme to pass an efficiency test. Keane M. J. and Garvey E. (2006) Measuring the employment effects of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme, Regional Studies 40, 359–374. The paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme introduced by the Irish Government in 1998. The rationale for the scheme puts the emphasis on new economic activity and economic growth in the designated area. Thus, it is legitimate to look for positive employment impacts as a primary outcome of the tax scheme. The empirical results suggest that the tax scheme has had positive effects on the numbers of people unemployed in the tax area. However, using available estimates of the costs of the scheme, these employment gains are not significant enough for the scheme to pass an efficiency test. Projets fiscaux ruraux, Effets emploi, Modèles d'effets fixes, Analyse coûts-avantages Keane M. J. and Garvey E. (2006) Measuring the employment effects of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme, Regional Studies 40, 359–374. The paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme introduced by the Irish Government in 1998. The rationale for the scheme puts the emphasis on new economic activity and economic growth in the designated area. Thus, it is legitimate to look for positive employment impacts as a primary outcome of the tax scheme. The empirical results suggest that the tax scheme has had positive effects on the numbers of people unemployed in the tax area. However, using available estimates of the costs of the scheme, these employment gains are not significant enough for the scheme to pass an efficiency test. Ländliches Steuersystem, Auswirkungen auf die Erwerbstätigkeit, Modelle festgelegter Wirkung, Kosten-Nutzenanalyse Keane M. J. and Garvey E. (2006) Measuring the employment effects of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme, Regional Studies 40, 359–374. The paper presents evidence on the effectiveness of the Rural Renewal Tax Scheme introduced by the Irish Government in 1998. The rationale for the scheme puts the emphasis on new economic activity and economic growth in the designated area. Thus, it is legitimate to look for positive employment impacts as a primary outcome of the tax scheme. The empirical results suggest that the tax scheme has had positive effects on the numbers of people unemployed in the tax area. However, using available estimates of the costs of the scheme, these employment gains are not significant enough for the scheme to pass an efficiency test. Regímenes fiscales en zonas rurales, Efectos en el empleo, Modelos de efectos fijos, Análisis de costes y beneficios [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kyklos is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper provides a Kaldorian interpretation for empirical regularities of productivity growth at the sectoral level of the economy. The statistical evidence is based on a dataset drawn from internationally compatible time series for employment and value added in 30 developing countries. Based on novel non-linear statistical techniques the findings show: (i) a regular pattern of positive sectoral employment elasticities with respect to output growth; (ii) robust differences across sectors in the magnitude of the employment elasticities; and (iii) employment elasticities for all sectors that are significantly less than unity, suggesting strong evidence for increasing returns at the sector level of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new economic growth in nonmetropolitan areas of the U.S. has been the result of numerous economic, social, and political forces. One of these forces has been the location and expansion of export-oriented businesses. This is characterized by the relatively faster growth of manufacturing and some nonmanufacturing employment opportunities compared to the metropolitan changes (Haren and Holling 1979; Petrulis 1979). The export base expansion will have the well-known multiplier effect on total employment. While the central logic of the economic base multiplier is generally accepted, questions continue to abound regarding its apparent instability. Richardson (1978) commented on the wide variability of multiplier estimates. Many reports of economic impact warn the reader that actual results may vary from anticipated results because of type of stimulus, location of spending, timing, etc. However, a search of the literature has yielded few reports that have systematically examined community factors which influence the size of the local multiplier or the impacts from the multiplier. The purpose of this paper then is to present the results of a systematic examination of community characteristics which condition the magnitude of local multiplier impacts. The central hypothesis to be tested here is that community economic growth or decline is a function of the type of exogenous employment change and a vector of community characteristics, including location and population. It is the contention of this study that community characteristics affect consumption, production, and investment decisions and account for much of the variation in the estimated size of economic multipliers among communities, The remainder of this paper presents an argument for consideration of forces that influence the expression of the local multiplier, and the results of a regression model using a 10% stratified random sample of nonmetropolitan counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]