Showing papers on "Economic problem published in 1983"

Economic Vulnerability and Economic Stress in Farm Couples.

Abstract: Spouses in 29 randomly sampled farm couples independently filled out questionnaires dealing with economic resources, economic losses in the past year, feelings of economic stress and patterns of blaming in the marriage. Agreement between spouses on the key measures of the study was good. Couples with greater economic vulnerability reported greater economic distress, although they tended to report experiencing less loss. Couples reporting greater economic distress reported greater blaming in the marriage. The economic problems of farm couples with greater economic vulnerability produce stress in these couples and increase the value for them of education and counseling services focused on relationship difficulties.

Reforming Federal regulation

Abstract: Examines the purpose and effects of government regulation, identifies economic problems caused by regulation, and suggests some approaches to reform.

Developments in Labour Market Analysis

Abstract: First published in 1983. This text is designed to enable intermediate and advanced students to attain familiarity with the theoretical concepts used in labour market analysis, and to apply them fruitfully to the economic problem of labour markets. Each chapter of Section I deals with a different theoretical development of the basic labour market model of utility maximising labour supply and the marginal productivity theory of labour demand. In addition, the authors discuss in depth uncharted territory including the analysis of uncertainty and discrimination in labour markets and advances in human capital theory, in each case covering the implications both for equity and the efficient allocation of resources. Each chapter of Section II analyses an important economic problem - for instance wage determination, unemployment and inflation - using the theoretical insights derived from Section I. The contributions of different theoretical developments are assessed by reference to the current state of empirical research into labour market problems. This book stresses the interaction between labour market mechanisms and also between market and non-market forces in the belief that this will lead to a greater understanding of the operation of the labour market than can be gained by viewing each theoretical development in isolation from the others.

Reindustrialization of america

Abstract: If the United States is to sustain a fairly high level of economic growth, seven functional needs must be met: transportation, communication, power, innovation, human resources, financialbegal institutions, and capital goods. Attention to these elements amounted for the successful development of the infrastructure and the capital goods sector during America's first industrialization, roughly from the 1820s to the 1920s, providing the foundation for a strong economy able to mass-produce consumer goods and services. In the decades following World War II, however, roughly from 1950 to the late 1970s, insufficient resources were dedicated to maintaining and adapting these seven elements, and in varying degrees all but one deteriorated. The result was economic underdevelopment. For the United States to regain i t s economic vitality, steps must now be taken to serve these basic needs of economic development more effectively.

Externalities, Property Rights, and Power

Abstract: This article explores the economic problem of externalities in a conceptual framework focusing on the issues of property rights and power. Externalities in an economy are pervasive as a function of the nature of individual interdependence. There are always two or more sides to an externality issue, with the problem of externalities a question of which interests are to be exposed (to bear the costs). An unavoidable issue of income distribution is essential to all externality situations. Underlying the consideration of externalities is the explicit nature of the economy "as a system of mutual coercion." The recognition of individual powers to coerce is a cornerstone of present and future economic activity. Such individual power, as an ability to exercise choice, is a function of income and wealth distribution. But the economic system is interrelated in that income and wealth distribution are a function of the law, while the use of government to influence the law is ultimately a product of the power structure. Ultimately, where the ubiquity of choice according to the interrelation of legal and economic processes is recognized, an analytical theme is developed to consider the question, Whose interests are to count? as well as the role of government in the resolution of specific externality situations.

An integrated regional model for economic-ecological-demographic-facility interactions

Abstract: Until now, the majority of environmental and economic problems have been studied in a monodisciplinary way so that the impacts between different variables are neglected. An integrated environmental model has been developed in which economic, geographical and spatial elements are analysed in relation to the natural environment. The results of integrated modelling are relevant for physical planning because insight is obtained about the medium-long term (i.e., 5–15 years) consequences of a concrete plan for a region.

Regional Restructuring: Class Politics and Popular Protest in South Wales

Abstract: The question of whether class or territory is the stronger basis of social mobilisation is examined. It is suggested that the economic problems being experienced by many older industrial areas can give rise to regional coalitions that seek to transcend class antagonisms in order to press for state investment to improve regional growth and employment prospects. But it is further argued that, because of the heterogeneity of the sociospatial base in such regions, supralocal coalitions will be vulnerable to the effects of allocative decisions favouring particular within-region locations. The notion of the vulnerability of regional social bases to the expression of local class interests is explored in the context of industrial South Wales. This region has been subject to successive attempts at economic revival, often in response to an apparently coherent regional voice pressing for state regional interventions. Important parts of various policies for restructuring the regional economy have been defeated in the...

Transfer of Management: Japanese Practices for the Orientals?

Abstract: Introduction Japan's success, as measured by towering balance‐of‐payment surpluses, has created serious economic issues between Japan and other industrial democracies. It has even created fears about the economic superpower status of Japan. On the other hand, because of this very success in coping with worldwide economic problems and in sustaining its export drive, Japan's unique style of management has attracted a great deal of attention.

Asymmetric information and credit rationing: another view of industrial bank lending and britain's economic problem

Abstract: British clearing banks have often been attacked over their provision of industrial finance. Lever and Edwards (1980) and Edwards and Carrington (1979) are among the more recent critics ; in their view the failings of the banks in this area are a major cause of Britain's relative economic decline. They emphasize the distortion of the credit system towards easy credit for consumption (especially housing) and away from productive investment. They argue that 'excessively cautious' lending policies on the part of the banks are to blame, rather than any lack of industrial projects which are viable by international standards. They describe industrial finance in the UK as 'short term, dear, unreasonably restricted in amounts, carrying legal risks, and subject to excessive security requirements', in comparision with that provided in countries such as West Germany and Japan.

A Qajar household and its estates

Abstract: Much of nineteenth-century Iranian history is still written from European materials--travellers' accounts, private papers, diplomatic or commercial archives--and nowhere is that disadvantage seen more keenly than in social and economic studies. The most recent, exceedingly useful compilation of economic selections for Qajar Iran, The Economic History of Iran 1800-1914, edited by Charles Issawi, has only two extracts from first-hand nineteenthcentury Persian sources. Inevitably that gives a false perspective to any discussion of the internal economic structure of the country, and likewise social attitudes are glimpsed through the palimpsest of western interpretations. A basic prerequisite is the more systematic collection and classification of Persian material, from government archives, vaqf or private possession; it is only their intensive study that will provide the information about and insight into the social and economic problems that are beginning to be sketched on a more theoretical or discursive level; detailed monographic studies, on regions, towns, communities, classes, individual trades or industries, have to clothe the skeletal hypotheses which otherwise might run the risk of empty theorizing. Even apparently

Housing rehabilitation : economic, social, and policy perspectives

Abstract: New housing has become a dream for most Americans. In its place is housing rehabilitation--an ideal vehicle for providing lower-cost, conveniently located, and environmentally sensitive shelter for the 1980s. How can its delivery capacity be ensured? Where is it most economical? How can citizen, city, and developer interests be synthesized? This edited volume brings together for the first time the why, where, and how of this vital housing strategy. It details private-public rehabilitation efforts of the past three decades, and from this experience presents how gen-trification and economic problems can be addressed, and proven production and financing strategies effected. The materials are grouped as follows: retrospective view, economic and financial perspectives, construction and administrative procedures, and policy approaches. It includes selections by Henry Aaron, John Kenneth Galbraith, William Grigsby, Michael Stegman, George Sternlieb, and other experts. The book is of vital interest to government officials, planners, attorneys, developers, lenders, and consumers, and is ideal for textbook use in urban planning, real estate, finance, and public administration courses.

The study of economics: Principles, concepts & applications

Abstract: Unit 1 Foundations: economic methods constructing and reading diagrams economic choices the economic system pricing Unit 2 Microeconomics: earnings and the consumer the business firm and market structure industry performance government and business government and household Unit 3 Macroeconomics: money economic instability the economy's output policies for economic stability and growth Unit 4 World economics: international trade international finance and the national economy alternative economic systems world economic development

The Lagos Plan of Action: legal mechanisms for co-operation between the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

Abstract: The African continent represents a region which faces economic problems of the utmost severity at a time when the global economy itself is ravaged by inflation, unemployment and the effects of a world recession. Africa contains 21 of the world's 45 least-developed nations. Its total Gross National Product accounts for only 2·7 per cent. of the world's Product and Africa has the lowest average per capita income in the world. Many African countries lack basic medical and health care facilities while food shortages and severe unemployment affect a very high proportion of African peoples. Internal African development strategies of the past have been subjected to critical investigation in an attempt to assess the sources of the continent's development problems. Despite its vast natural resources and the praiseworthy efforts of many African governments, the continent as a whole (excluding South Africa) is unable to show any significant economic expansion or growth.The 1980 Lagos Plan of Action represents the most recent initiative undertaken by the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U.) in conjunction with the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (E.C.A.) to develop a successful regional strategy for African development. It aims at economic growth in each individual African state in different sectors including food and agriculture, industry and in environmental and energy matters. It adopts specific as well as general targets with time limits, for each aspect of economic planning.

The Economic Challenge

Abstract: The new Soviet leadership inherits from Brezhnev a daunting complex of unprecedented economic problems that, if left untackled, could lead the country toward economic disaster and provide an excuse for further adventures abroad.

Farmers' Pensions and the Polish Economic Crisis

Abstract: The Polish Government, in 1977, inaugurated a new pension program that made old-age and invalidity benefits available for the first time to most farmers in that country. The evolution and eventual failure of that program were closely intertwined with a growing national economic crisis, manifested in widespread popular unrest and culminating in emergence of the Solidarity movement. The farmers’ pension program was originally presented as both a social security measure and a vehicle for improving agricultural efficiency. The economic situation was expected to benefit as farms of older owners were passed to younger, presumably more efficient, successors, with the state sometimes acting as intermediary. A further step to bind the social security concept to agricultural efficiency came through relating the pension amount to the quantity of produce the individual farmer sold to the state over a number of years. The failure of these provisions and other unpopular features of the new program was aggravated by inflation and continuing deterioration of the Polish economy. The general outline of recent events in Poland is fa- pressures. No attempt has been made to review events miliar to anyone who has read newspaper headlines of beyond 1980 except insofar as they shed light on probthe past few years. The population’s profound dissatis- lems from earlier years. The ending, of course, can not faction over political and economic issues fostered the yet be written since the fate of Poland itself, under the growth of new trade union groupings that came to be present martial-law regime, remains unclear. However, called the Solidarity movement. With a considerable de- the past cannot be ignored and it is highly unlikely that gree of short-run success, through strikes and other the issues can be resolved, either favorably or unfavorforms of pressure, this movement then challenged the ably, without retracing much of the history outlined begovernment’s management of the country. low. It is less generally known that social security concerns figured prominently in the 1980 negotiations between striking workers and government representatives. Social security issues were an even more pronounced source of discontent among Polish farmers. Features of a newly instituted pension program designed to increase agricultural production through pension incentives to farmers were overwhelmed in reality by more deep-seated economic problems. Long-standing agricultural shortages continued to intensify and, in turn, aggravated worker discontent. This article analyzes the extent to which policies, primarily designed to provide social protection, were also expected to achieve certain economic goals that might have run counter to other economic aims and

Still a Time to Choose ...Ten Years Later

Abstract: The United States' foremost energy accomplishment of the past nine years is conservation, and it can be compared directly with energy alternatives. However, if the United States is to overcome the national security and economic problems posed by continued energy dependence on oil imports, it must mount a comprehensive multibillion-dollar conservation strategy by making investments in available conservation measures, in R and D of even more-efficient technology, and in alternative domestic sources.

Asymmetric Information and Credit Rationing : Another View of Industrial Bank Lending and Britain's Economic Problem

Abstract: British clearing banks have often been attacked over their provision of industrial finance. Lever and Edwards (1980) and Edwards and Carrington (1979) are among the more recent critics ; in their view the failings of the banks in this area are a major cause of Britain's relative economic decline. They emphasize the distortion of the credit system towards easy credit for consumption (especially housing) and away from productive investment. They argue that 'excessively cautious' lending policies on the part of the banks are to blame, rather than any lack of industrial projects which are viable by international standards. They describe industrial finance in the UK as 'short term, dear, unreasonably restricted in amounts, carrying legal risks, and subject to excessive security requirements', in comparision with that provided in countries such as West Germany and Japan.

On the relationship between population growth and economic development

Abstract: People are producers as well as consumers. If we look at only one side and ignore the other we will be unable to reach impartial conclusions concerning the population problem. An obvious and close relationship exists between population growth and national economic development. If the two do not match each other there will be numerous contradictory problems. For example if the population grows too fast serious social and economic problems will be created such as a rise in the demand for living resources an oversupply of the labor force unemployment and an insufficient availability of arable land a shortage of public housing more demand for health care and public transportation and cultural and educational enterprises. In addition a rapid population growth may cause more problems for the natural environment. As a result of overpopulation the pressure on natural resources will be intensified and may therefore cause damage to the environment and create an ecological imbalance. All the above may bring very serious difficulties and obstacles to the advancement of socialism and modernized constructions. To avoid this we must try to solve the population problem thoroughly and maintain a balanced relationship between the population growth and economic development.

Technology policy and employment

Abstract: Current social and economic problems as experienced in the UK are placed in the context of long-term trends in labour economics and the impact of new technology. The reasons why technological unemployment has not hitherto been a growing problem are stated and the relationship between technical change and economic recovery is analysed. Policy implications are suggested and the part which universities can play in recovery is discussed.

Trade Policy, Economic Performance, and Britain’s Economic Problems

Abstract: The genesis of the conference topic presumably lies in the various proposals current in the UK for ‘solving our economic problems’ by the use of a much increased level of protection. These proposals take quite different forms. The Cambridge Economic Policy Group advocates a uniform and non-discriminatory tariff (at least as between different types of manufactured goods). Others propose selective protection to ‘ailing industries’.

Coordination of Capital Investment among CMEA Member Nations

Abstract: The Comprehensive Program for the Further Intensification and Improvement of Cooperation and Development of Socialist Economic Integration of CMEA Member Nations states: "The coordination of plans will be accompanied by the coordination of capital investments in individual projects that are of mutual interest projects in which the resolution of technical and economic problems requires the considerable concentration of resources for the creation of optimal production capacities with the aim of securing the more complete satisfaction of the needs of interested countries and of securing stable, long-term mutual foreign trade relations."

The components of aggregate demand

Abstract: I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize–not) I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years–the way the world thinks about economic problems. 1

Eastern Europe and the Third World: The Expanding Relationship

Abstract: The countries of communist Eastern Europe have entered the decade of the 1980s with far less optimism than they had a decade ago. Their position in both the international political and economic systems is currently in a state of significant change. The first half of the past decade witnessed a substantial increase in political and economic relations with the industrialized countries of the West as part of the growing detente in East—West relations. This growth in contacts with the West represented an integral part of policies aimed at expanding the economic capabilities of the European communist states by means of increasing imports of high-level technology from the West. However, a number of serious economic problems, compounded by the deterioration in Soviet—American relations, have required the leaders of these countries to reconsider at least some aspects of their relationships with the outside world. Their inability to expand exports to match imports, with the result of serious balance of payments problems; their heavy and growing dependence on raw materials imports, and the recent staggering rise in the price of some of those materials, in particular petroleum; and the failure of past technology imports to affect significantly the level of labor productivity in most of the East European countries have all required East European governments to reduce their optimistic predictions for future economic growth and to reassess their economic relations with various groups of countries.

The general resource allocation problem

Abstract: This chapter discusses the general resource allocation problem A theory of resource allocation is built in two stages In the first, purposeful choices of individuals is studied to provide a model for human behavior in the economic realm In the second, a theory of exchange coordination and equilibrium is developed to explain social interlink ages Markets are not the only organizations that help to arrange the allocation of resources The internal workings of corporations, families, recreational clubs, government bureaus, judicial systems, and legislative bodies are also non-market systems of resource allocation The resource allocation problem begins by describing the environment facing the economy The environment includes the list of commodities, the names of all individuals in the society, the tastes, technology, endowment of each individual, and the physical or legal restrictions on individual choices It is important to be specific about the commodities that are involved in the economic problem The list of commodities is more extensive than commonly understood because commodities are distinguished by their physical characteristics: quality, date of availability, location of availability, the natural circumstances of availability, or even the property rights associated with it

The Supply-side Approach to Macro-economic Policy: the West German Experience

Abstract: There is a growing awareness that the current economic difficulties of most industrial countries can be ascribed to unsolved structural problems. Governments of most countries have shifted their attention to supply rigidities and their causes. As a consequence thereof, the magnitude and composition of productive potential, rather than its current rate of utilisation, become a matter of economic policy. The drastic oil-price increase in 1973–74 intensified competition from newly industrialising countries of the Third World and the disincentives caused by the expansion of the public sector have revealed structural weaknesses in the mature economies. A large part of unemployment and inflation is interpreted as resulting from rigidities on the supply side. Supply-oriented policy can be seen as an attempt to restore and enlarge adjustment capacity, which was eroded during an era dominated by the belief that demand management is an answer to all serious economic problems. Disenchantment with this policy in the course of subsequent inflation has redirected the attention of policy makers to the supply side of the economy.