London School of Economics and Political Science

About: London School of Economics and Political Science is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Population. The organization has 8759 authors who have published 35017 publications receiving 1436302 citations.

Politics and the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid

Abstract: Critics of foreign aid programs have long argued that poverty reflects government failure. In this paper I analyze the effectiveness of foreign aid programs to gain insights into political regimes in aid recipient countries. My analytical framework shows how three stylized political/economic regimes labeled egalitarian, elitist and laissez-faire would use foreign aid. I then test reduced form equations using data on nonmilitary aid flows to 96 countries. I find that models of elitist political regimes best predict the impact of foreign aid. Aid does not significantly increase investment and growth, nor benefit the poor as measured by improvements in human development indicators, but it does increase the size of government. I also find that the impact of aid does not vary according to whether recipient governments are liberal democracies or highly repressive. But liberal political regimes and democracies, ceteris paribus, have on average 30% lower infant mortality than the least free regimes. This may be due to greater empowerment of the poor under liberal regimes eve though the political elite continues to receive the benefits of aid programs. An implication is that short term aid targeted to support new liberal regimes may be a more successful means of reducing poverty than current programs.

Human resource management and industrial relations[1]

Abstract: Human resource management (HRM) is a term which is now widely used but very loosely defined. In this paper it is argued that if the concept is to have any social scientific value, it should be defined in such a way as to differentiate it from traditional personnel management and to allow the development of testable hypotheses about its impact. Based on theoretical work in the field of organizational behaviour it is proposed that HRM comprises a set of policies designed to maximize organizational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work. Within this model, collective industrial relations have, at best, only a minor role. Despite the apparent attractions of HRM to managements, there is very little evidence of any quality about its impact. Furthermore very few UK organizations appear to practise a distinctive form of HRM, although many are moving slowly in that direction through, for example, policies of employee involvement.

Rethinking Methods in Psychology

Abstract: Introduction - Jonathan A Smith, Rom Harr[ac]e and Luk Van Langenhove PART ONE: SEARCHING FOR MEANINGS Semi-Structured Interviewing and Qualitative Analysis - Jonathan A Smith Grounded Theory - Kathy Charmaz Life Story Research - Ken Plummer PART TWO: DISCOURSE AS TOPIC Conversation Analysis - Paul Drew Discourse Analysis - Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell Basic Principles of Transcription - Daniel C O'Connell and Sabine Kowal PART THREE: RESEARCH AS DYNAMIC INTERACTION Role Play - Krysia Yardley Cooperative Inquiry - Peter Reason and John Heron PART FOUR: USING NUMBERS DIFFERENTLY Rethinking the Role of Quantitative Methods in Psychology - James T Lamiell Repertory Grids - Jonathan A Smith An Interactive, Case-Study Perspective Q Methodology - Rex Stainton Rogers

A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital

Abstract: Consider an entrepreneur whocneeds to raise funds from an investor, but cannot commit not to withdraw his human capital from the project The possibility of a default or quit puts an upper bound on the total indebtedness from the entrepreneur to the investor at any date We characterize the optimal repayment path and show how it is affected both by the maturity structure of the project return stream and by the durability and specificity of project assets Our results are consistent with the conventional wisdom about what determines the maturity structure of (long-term) debt contracts(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item)