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Reviews science and technology policymaking in five countries with free-market economies: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Republic of Korea, and the United States. Implications for eastern European and other countries currently reorganizing toward domestic market economies and greater orientation toward world trade are discussed. (61 references) (LRW)

This paper estimates the extent and magnitude of US college and university enrollment responses to unanticipated changes in macroeconomic activity. In particular, we consider the relationship between enrollment, economic growth, and inflation. A time series analysis known as a vector autoregression is estimated and impulse response functions are calculated to measure the enrollment response to these economic shocks. The results suggest that enrollment patterns differ by gender and are consistent with economic theory. (Contains 4 figures, 4 tables and 5 notes.)

Universities in the United States for at least the last century have made positive contributions to the economic weal, whether through their intrinsic mission of teaching and research or through special arrangements for service activities. In recent years there has been heightened awareness of the special role of academic research among policymakers at the state and federal levels and within universities themselves. Especially since 2000, explicit measures have been taken to enhance contributions of university research to economic development for the sake of national, local, or institutional gains. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze this current trend and particularly how it has affected research universities. The term "economic relevance" is used deliberately here to capture the multiple elements involved--university expertise, human capital formation, and direct participation in commercial markets--as well as their often indirect links to economic activity.

In the first half of this paper we develop a perspective on the role of "boldness" in explaining gender differences in thinking and attitudes. We apply this analysis to evidence from Australia, the USA and the UK in relation to economics at school and university levels. In the second half we present the results of a study of over 1000 15-17-year-olds in UK secondary schools. On the basis of the gender differences revealed in these data and our preceding analysis we offer some implications for learning and teaching.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event that has shocked economies worldwide, propelling large-scale adaptation of expansionary policies. This paper examines how, specifically in the scope of developed countries, key economic indicators such as tax revenue and burden, labor force participation rate, and federal budget have been impacted by the pandemic. The specific nations examined in the paper include the United States of America (USA), Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (UK). The article reveals that tax revenue had fallen at a rate similar to the GDP, and a redistribution of the tax burden has also occurred to some extent. Simultaneously, a fall in the labor force participation rate and increased government deficit were observed. This observation is primarily consistent across all five countries sampled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stochastic framework for coordination of macroeconomic policies is introduced in this paper. It is suggested that: (i) measures of policy accountability should allow for the climate of uncertainty that surrounds policy decisions, and (ii) most models of aggregate economic activity impose arbitrary specifications of uncertainty that do not appear to be empirically justifiable. Ambiguities in interpreting the Humphrey-Hawkins reports of policy authorities are sketched in section II; a proposal for maximizing the ex ante prospects of policy objectives is illustrated in section III; finally, nonstationary allocations of uncertainty are discussed in sections IV and V. This paper provides a brief survey of ongoing work by members of the Federal Reserve Board staff on the role of uncertainty in policy forecasts. It suggests that policy discussion could be improved by more explicit consideration of the allocation of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on a paper published within the issue, "Capital Formation and the Recent Productivity Slowdown," by Peter Clark. The author also discusses results from his own research in "Accounting for United States Economic Growth, 1929-1969," and applies it to Clark's paper. It is suggested that an abrupt rise in energy prices may have affected growth rates during the mid-1970s. The author also looks at a similar analysis made by John Kendrick, who focuses on the U.S. postwar period of 1948-1966.

The article offers insights on the industrial symbiosis an the field of ecology in the U.S. It introduces regional studies to industrial symbiosis and the field of ecology to which it belongs, and then summarizes each of the papers contributing to the issue. It presents conclusions about the potential overlapping between industrial symbiosis and regional development which claims that industrial symbiosis (IS) does have potential to generate regional environmental economic benefits. Nevertheless, increasing imperatives for regional sustainable economic development may dictate that IS system-scale approach to resource efficiency receive serious exploration.

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]

In a well-known paper, Akerlof, Yellen, and Katz proposed a counter-intuitive explanation for the rise of non-marital births in the United States that emphasized how birth control and abortion weakened the responsibility of men to their unmarried partner's pregnancy. The paper is regularly cited by social conservatives to support measures to restrict sex education and access to contraception and abortion. I argue that this use of the paper's findings stems from specific modeling assumptions about 'types' of women. I present a reformulation of the model using more reasonable 'types' that generates precisely the same results, but with radically different policy implications. [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]

One of the notable macroeconomic developments of the last two decades has been the apparent decline in the so-called neutral real rate of interest (or r-star). The declining level of r-star has significantly reduced forecasts of the steady-state federal funds rate associated with “normalized” monetary policy. Because a lower steady-state policy rate implies a heightened probability of reaching the effective lower bound on the federal funds rate in the event of an economic downturn, a debate has opened among academics and policymakers about potential changes in Fed’s monetary policy framework that might ameliorate the lower bound problem. This paper introduces a variation of price-level targeting that satisfies a definition of price stability that requires the central bank to keep the price level within a pre-specified percentage of a pre-specified target path for all time horizons into the future. The framework, referred to as bounded price-level targeting, is compared to other proposed frameworks. The paper discusses the conditions under which bounded price-level targeting is consistent with other proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a series of popular economics “Invest in Kids” (IIK) reports in the United States has called for increased investment in children's early education. These national reports articulate a new concept, the “public finance value” of children, and argue for increased investment in preschool because of its positive impact on the long-term fiscal health of the nation. This paper analyzes the IIK reports from 2003-6 to assess their attention to the multidimensional aspects of early care and education (ECE) in the US. Although the reports evaluate increased investment in preschool, they fail to recognize the need for a comprehensive system of ECE that includes support for childcare and the unpaid care and education provided by parents. As a result, the reports undervalue the contributions of women and of the ECE sector itself. Feminist economics offers a broader perspective that would help the IIK authors avoid conceptual traps and recognize the need for more comprehensive reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Using simulations projecting Chinese economic growth into the future, this paper first examines when China will overtake the USA to become the largest economy. Demographic changes that affect economic growth are taken into consideration in these projections. China is expected to become number one sometime in the mid-2020s, unless its growth rate of gross domestic product per worker declines dramatically, à la the lost decade of Japan. Next, the paper examines whether China becoming the number one economy will mean its currency, the renminbi (RMB), will become the international key currency. According to the basket currency regressions during the period that Chinese currency was gradually appreciating against the US dollar from July 2005 to August 2008, it is shown that the RMB has already acquired a strong influence on the Asian currencies. This shows that the RMB is fast gaining the status of a regional anchor currency for a possible regional joint float. As the Chinese government proceeds with internationalization of its currency, the RMB is expected to gain in the ranking of other aspects of international currency, such as the store of value and the medium of exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent issue of this journal, Beil et al. (2005, hereafter, BFJ) examined the relationship between telecommunications investment and economic growth in the United States over the period 1947-1996. Based on results from Granger-Sims test, BFJ conclude that '... investment by telecommunications firms is caused by, but does not cause, economic activity, and the findings are robust across lag lengths'. However, using another version of the Granger causality test due to Toda & Yamamoto (1995) and the same data set transformed into natural logarithms, the evidence in this paper indicates a feedback where there was a bi-directional causality between telecommunications investment and economic growth. This seems to suggest that policies aimed at stimulating the US economy by accelerating investment in the telecommunications sector may be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates historical intergenerational elasticities between fathers and children of both sexes in the United States using a novel empirical strategy. The key insight of our approach is that the information about socioeconomic status conveyed by first names can be used to create pseudo-links across generations. We find that both father-son and father-daughter elasticities were flat during the nineteenth century, increased sharply between 1900 and 1920, and declined slightly thereafter. We discuss the role of regional disparities in economic development, trends in inequality and returns to human capital, and the marriage market in explaining these patterns. (JEL D63, J12, J16, J24, J62, N31, N32) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the dynamic panel data generalized method of moments estimator to the data on commercial passenger air traffic at all primary airports in the United States to evaluate the impact of traffic volume and number of destinations served with non-stop flights on the key indicators of regional economic development. We find that number of destinations served with non-stop flights has a much clearer and more robust impact on level of employment, number of business establishments, and average wage in the region. Passenger traffic volume affects employment and average wage, but not number of establishments. At the sample median, connecting a metropolitan statistical area with an extra destination, keeping everything else constant, creates 98 jobs and facilitates the opening of four new business establishments that employ people. The corresponding numbers for the sample mean are 223 jobs and 15 businesses. The impact of air travel on regional economic development is influenced by competition on the respective airline markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents the author's opinion with regard to George Stigler's views on the practice of political economy in the United States. The evidence presented in the paper of Stigler seems persuasive to me. It is difficult to look at this analysis and still subscribe to the widely held view that election results are highly sensitive to swings in business conditions. Once again we seem to have found that what everybody knows to be true is not necessarily true. Since Stigler's analysis on macro evidence is exhaustive and impressive, suppose we turn to micro evidence to see if it provides any clues to an understanding of why the macro results turn out the way that they do. Here we do gain some insight into attitudes pertinent to Stigler's analysis. What the views of Stigler suggest is that within reasonable tolerances, changes in political sentiment are more apt to reflect the myriad of other factors that bear on voter sentiment. If the swing is outside these tolerances, or if the event is sufficiently visible or discrete, economic developments can exert a substantial effect on citizen support or the incumbent. If therefore, the economic indicators start to waver, the economist may sleep well at night, knowing that in all probability it means little, but the politician may for very good reasons remains awake, wondering if this will be one of those cases that transforms him into a statesman.

This paper utilizes a novel dynamic propensity score matching approach for multiple cohorts of U.S. counties between 1989 and 1999 to examine local economy resilience to rare natural disasters. Affected counties are sorted based on disaster intensity and are carefully matched to similar counties that did not experience a disaster. A difference-in-difference estimator compares trends of affected counties' postdisaster business establishments, employment, and payroll to counterfactual trends in the matched counties. All affected counties experienced short-run drops in economic activity that was particularly noticeable in higher-intensity disasters. In the longer run, less distressed counties returned to their estimated counterfactual trends, but countieswith lower predisaster socioeconomic conditions still lagged in growth, particularly in cases of lowerintensity disasters. Policymakers can use this information to better prepare responses to future disasters. [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]

This paper reviews catch-up growth in various parts of the world, especially in the twentieth century, with a particular focus on what this implies for the Global South. In 1950, US per capita national income, adjusted for purchasing power, was nearly five times the world average. Since then, Western Europe and Japan have closed their per capita income gaps with the USA. East Asia, South Asia and some other developing countries have also started to close their gaps with the West in recent decades. Thus, after well over a century of growing international economic disparities or divergence, the world has witnessed an era of uneven catching up with the North in parts of the South since the mid-twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The statutory patent length is 20 years in most countries. R&D-based growth models, however, often presume an infinite patent length. In this paper, finite-length patents are embedded in a non-scale R&D-based growth model, while allowing any patent's effective life to be terminated prematurely, subject to two idiosyncratic hazards from imitation and creative destruction. This gives rise to an autonomous system of mixed-type functional differential equations (FDEs) that had never been encountered in the growth literature. Its dynamics are driven by current, delayed and advanced states. We present a relaxation algorithm to solve these FDEs by solving a sequence of standard boundary value problems for systems of ordinary differential equations. We use this algorithm to simulate a calibrated U.S. economy's transitional dynamics by making discrete changes from the baseline 20 years patent length. We find that if transitional impacts are taken into account, the switch to the long-run optimal patent length can incur a welfare loss, albeit rather small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - Over the past decade telecommunications media and technology (TMT) has driven a new era that has evolved into the digital age. There is a growing consensus in developed countries that TMT is the most important driver of economic and social development for a society. Its genesis began in the USA and its cultural preference for market-based development set the framework for national policy and development. Recently the formation of convergence regulators amongst many of the leading nations has begun another episode. This article aims to explore and build upon a research study of the senior executives of six of the leading convergence regulators in Asia and Europe. The article aims to analyse by way of a numeric comparison expert views of the key convergence issues three and five years out. Design/methodology/approach - A generic conceptual model was constructed of the foundation, social and economic dividend issues. By examining the relative progress of nations developments of these issues and their different approaches, new insights are developed into different regulatory approaches. Findings - The concept of proactive regulation with competition (PRC) would appear to have benefits for a number of these nations. It is hoped that these research outcomes and hypotheses will generate further research and analysis amongst the world's leading regulators in order to work through the best regulatory approaches for the current challenges. Originality/value - The paper presents original research regarding regulatory challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

use a simple growth model with public capital to examine the evolution of the US macroeconomy and to discuss the implications of the public infrastructure decline for the productivity slowdown over the last four decades. The main difference of the model to other papers in the related literature is that public investment is actively managed as a non-linear function of the state of the economy, and is not a constant fraction of output in every period. The active management policy delivers transition dynamics that reproduce the public capital downsizing episode, but that accounts for only a minor fraction of the observed productivity slowdown. However, taking into consideration higher rates of returns to public capital or the reallocation of public resources from productive to unproductive expenditures, which is consistent with the US experience in the 70s and 80s, the model simulation accounts for most of the observed productivity slowdown. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pathways toward 'overshoot and collapse' futures are not always or exclusively determined by international trends, national governments, wars and large-scale events. While these gain considerable attention their overall impact is arguably no greater than the constant 'drip, drip, drip' of conventional decision-making around more mundane activities that fall under familiar headings like 'business strategy', 'economic growth' and 'development'. While cities have master plans and strategic goals most of them evolve within, and are expressed through, a continuous series of commercially inspired projects founded on narrow short-term economic assumptions. They emerge from a typically up-beat, entrepreneurial (profit-oriented) and finance-based worldview that is little short of delusional. As a result, many large-scale projects are poorly conceived and end up working against shared community interests. The central purpose of this paper is to contribute toward a broad re-appraisal of such projects in the hope that future 'developments' can be turned toward more consciously proactive and socially responsible ends. [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]

The article presents a list that specifies doctoral degrees conferred during the academic year terminating June 1964, and theses undertaken in the same period. For General Economics; Methodology, degrees conferred to James F. Hofheinz for his paper on The evolution of economic philosophy. For Price and Allocation Theory; Income and Employment Theory; History of Economic Thought, degrees was conferred to Cleverland W. Bateman for his paper on Investment behavior and the acceleration principle. For Economic History; Economic Development; National Economies, degrees was conferred to researcher Ralph Anspach on his paper The problem of a plural economy and its effects on Indonesia's economic structure: a study in economic policy. For Statistical Methods; Econometrics; Social Accounting, the degree was conferred to researcher Takeshi Amemiya on his paper Specification analysis in econometrics. For Economic System; Planning and Reform: Cooperation, the degree was con fared to Michael Boreteky for his paper on The Soviet challenge to U. S. machine building: a study in production and technological policy.

The article presents summary of articles present at a round table conference on population problems. Joseph J. Springler's paper is concerned principally with the effects of the various population movements now in process in the United States upon the level of employment. Population movements now in process probably exercise a greater influence today than formerly upon the amount of absolute and disguised unemployment in the American economy because of the greater specificity of factors of production today as compared with formerly. Otto Nathan, in his paper, stated that in analyzing the relationship between population movements and the economic development a distinction should be made between the secular trend and the business cycle proper. One of the factors constituting the secular or long-term development is the population movement itself. In his paper, Alan R. Sweezy, expressed that once an investment boom in underway, increase in the labor supply does have an important influence on investment. Wages rise more slowly than they would with a constant labor supply and numerous investment opportunities consequently can be exploited which would otherwise be unprofitable. The boom once started may be expected to last longer if the labor supply is increasing.

Highlights • The internal relationship between decoupling theory and EKC hypothesis was studied. • A two-dimensional decoupling theory was established. • China and US were taken as a case to study. Abstract The current decoupling theory cannot distinguish the decoupling state of a region with different economic development level. To overcome this problem, this paper first studies the internal relationship between decoupling theory and EKC hypothesis. Furthermore, we establish a two-dimensional decoupling theory of economic development and CO 2 emissions. Finally, taking China and US as a case, this theory is used to explore the decoupling relationship between economic development and CO 2 emissions over the period 1965–2016. If the EKC curve satisfies the inverted U type characteristic, the critical point between strong decoupling and weak decoupling can be approximately obtained at the extreme point of EKC curve. Based on the Tapio decoupling theory and extreme point of EKC curve, the two-dimensional decoupling model with 16 kinds of decoupling sates is established. For China and the United States, the EKC curve of carbon emissions and per capita GDP satisfies the inverted U type characteristic. The threshold value of per capita GDP for China and the United States are $7999.5 and $50980.52, respectively. At present, China's economy is experiencing a low level of economic development. The development of the United States in 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 presented strong decoupling with high level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the underlying structural elements of US growth patterns, pre- and post-crisis. Prior to the recession, the US economy exhibited a defective growth pattern driven by outsized domestic demand. As domestic aggregate demand retreats to more sustainable levels relative to total income, the tradable side of the economy is a catalyst for restoring strong growth. A structural rebalancing is already underway; although it is only a third of the economy, the tradable sector generated more than half of gross gains in value-added since the start of the recovery. However, distributional issues loom on the horizon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small island developing States ( SIDS) have narrow resource bases and are usually extremely reliant on fossil fuel based energy for transport and electricity generation. These island economies are thus particularly vulnerable to the impacts of peak oil and also to climate change, impacts which are likely to not only hamper economic development but also adversely affect the quality of life of local inhabitants. In order to reduce the vulnerability of SIDS to peak oil, an urgent transition to renewable sources of energy is necessary. This paper propounds that the reform of power sector that took place in Caribbean and Pacific SIDS (particularly between 1970 and 2000) should have been viewed as an opportunity to re-orient power producers away from the proclivity to utilise conventional fossil fuel uses. Reasons why reform measures did not result in a substantive transition are put forward. Moreover, recommendations towards facilitating a transition to renewable energy in the power sector through future reforms are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the potential role that airfreight transport in the US can play in stimulating local and regional economic development. The analysis examines trends in employment and income for metropolitan statistical areas that make use of airfreight services. The focus is on causality, and not on simple correlation, and uses econometric analysis rather than simpler economic multiplier approaches. Granger causality testing based on panel data covering 35 airport and 32 metropolitan statistical areas in the US from 1990 to 2009 indicates that airfreight transport was a positive driver for local economic development. The conclusions focus on the strengths but also the weaknesses of the methodology for assessing causality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Highlights • We use dynamic panel regression analysis for 70 countries from 1965–2009. • We find that patent rights have no effect on productivity growth. • We offer an alternative explanation, finding the ECI positive and significant. • Our results lend evidence that patent rights are insufficient for the inducement of productivity. • We argue it is not discovery that increases productivity, but the ability to adapt. Abstract Does the rigorous protection of patents advance or retard economic development? Two decades ago, a new global standard of intellectual property swept across developing and industrialized nations through the implementation of the WTO's TRIPS Agreement. Many years later, the issue of patent rights remains contentious. In this paper, we focus on the effects of patent rights systems on total factor productivity growth, using dynamic panel regression analysis for 70 countries from 1965 to 2009. We show that the effects of stronger or more rigorous patent systems are insignificant for productivity growth in both developing and industrialized countries. Why does the strength of patents appear to have no impact on productivity? Classic economic theory suggests that stronger patent systems incentive innovative output with important spill-over effects for productivity and growth. We offer an alternative explanation using data from the Economic Complexity Index. We find that while patents rights are increasingly irrelevant to productivity, the relationship between economic complexity and productivity is highly positive and significant. Our results are consistent with the contributions of the absorptive capacity theory in that they suggest it is not the discovery and ownership of novel products and processes at the innovative frontier that induces productive growth, but the ability to adapt, replicate and diffuse along the international productive chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than a century, white communities across the United States employed strategies to remain all-white, including violent acts, forcibly driving minorities out of town, and local ordinances. One particularly widespread and effective approach used by many towns to exclude certain groups of people from living in their towns was the creation of a ‘sundown town’. This paper seeks to examine the association between past sundown policies and one component of community life that many towns currently struggle with: economic development. By examining the racial histories and economic development activities of 428 towns in the Midwest and nontraditional South, the study examines whether historical legacy can carry over to the present and affect economic development. Findings suggest that former sundown towns currently pursue fewer economic development activities than towns that have a history of being inclusive, even after controlling for a community's assets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Badalian and Krivorotov (2012) not only acknowledge the strong link between the crisis of 2007 and the 1990s technological paradigm, but they also accept the complementarity between overinvestment in new technologies and increasing financial liquidity that we highlighted in our article "A Financialized Monetary Economy of Production." They argue that a similar trend seems to have also characterized Great Britain between the end of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century. Thus, in this paper, we try to deepen the comparison between the regime of accumulation led by Great Britain during the nineteenth century and the finance-led regime of accumulation led by the United States that has characterized contemporary capitalism since the 1990s. We also explain the main differences between the growth patterns during these two periods. Furthermore, we criticize the monetary theory proposed by Badalian and Krivorotov for failing to consider both the store of value function and the credit function of money. This leads to two major misconstructions: the first relating to the interpretation of the financial circuit typical of the international payment system used between 1870 and 1907; the second relating to the definition itself of financialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces arguments from Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic¹ to suggest that the Civil War arose ultimately because of class-conflict between on the one hand, Southern slaves and their masters and, on the other, Northern workers and their employers. It does not, however, suggest that either in the North or the South these conflicts were on the point of erupting into revolution. On the contrary, they were relatively easily containable. However, harmony within each section (North and South) could be secured only at the cost of intersectional conflict, conflict which would finally erupt into civil war. The Civil War was a 'bourgeois revolution' not only because it destroyed slavery, an essentially precapitalist system of production, in the United States but also because it resulted in the enthronement of Northern values, with the normalisation of wage-labour at their core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper studies the impact that oil prices have had on the floating exchange rate (ER) of the Dominican peso during the 1990-2008 period. The existing empirical literature has documented a link between these two variables for large developed economies and oil-producing countries, always including the 1970s oil crises in their sample periods. Few authors analyze the case of small open economies dependent on oil imports. Since the acceleration of economic growth in the Dominican Republic during the last decade has greatly increased its degree of external energy dependence, this country's experience presents an ideal case study. We estimate the influence that changes in international gasoline prices have on the real exchange rate between the Dominican peso and the United States dollar. The cointegrated nature of the gasoline price and ER time series are tested and a vector error correction model is developed. Our results indicate that a 10% rise in the price of gas coincides with a 1.2% depreciation of the peso in the long run and that the causality runs from gas prices to the peso. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]