Gender and Household Economic Strategies in Rural Appalachia

In recent decades, many Appalachian households have experienced declining incomes due to the loss of traditional male jobs in the mining and manufacturing sectors. One response to this decline has been an increase in female employment in formal sector activities. Another response is homework, or the home-based production of goods and services for sale in the formal and informal sectors. In rural Appalachia, where formal jobs are often unavailable or inadequate to support a household, many women are engaging in homework as an economic strategy. Consequently, economic restructuring cannot be fully understood without analyzing household strategies and gender relations. This paper examines the intersection of gender, households, and economic restructuring as it relates to women's homework and employment shifts in rural Appalachia. Research for this paper entailed qualitative interviews with 50 West Virginia women who are engaged in the home-based production of goods and services. The study analyzes the variety of homework activities done by rural women, their contribution to household incomes, and the effect of these activities on gender relations and divisions of labor in the home. The research forwarded in this study advances a conceptual understanding of household economic strategies and has some practical applications for women and economic development in underdeveloped regions .     

Why Russian Peasants Remain in Collective Farms: A Household Perspective on Agricultural Restructuring

This paper seeks to understand what motivates collective farm employees-share-holders to remain in collective structures rather than exercise their legally sanctioned right to leave with land and property shares. On the basis of a 1999 survey of 181 collective farm households and analysis of regional agricultural policies in Leningrad and Saratov oblasts, the paper examines divergent overt and covert benefits that employees derive from association with market-oriented versus less reformed collective agricultural producers. The paper relates the structure of employee incentives to regional-level agricultural policies and to the divergent effects these policies have on the depth and pattern of structural transformations of agricultural production. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O18, Q10, Q15. 5 figures, 15 tables, 38 references.     

A Father's Perspective on Bridewealth in the Making of the Transnational Papua New Guinean Household

That people value ‘people’ over ‘things’ is argued often by anthropologists, but how people value specific forms and qualities of relations as they do in the example of bridewealth is less so. I explore the perspective of Papua New Guinean-born fathers in Australia as they advocate innovations in bridewealth traditions and thereby enable daughters to marry for love, cultivate a companionate marriage, and create a Papua New Guinean household. Past generations gauged the worth of traditional bridewealth by the quantity and distribution of items given and the number of exogamous clan connections forged as an index of past and future relations between clans. The current generation judges the value of even alternate forms of bridewealth for making new possibilities for those who share in it. If bridewealth enables the transnational household to emerge as the unit of decision making that replaces the clan, then innovations in bridewealth support, rather than undermine, a new normativity of companionate marriage that empowers that much wider net of kin. Drawing on a theory of value as the importance of social action towards the goal of the new normativity of the transnational household, I show how choosing a spouse is cultivated by women's fathers who refuse bridewealth, as often as it is by their husbands who provide new forms of wealth at marriage.     

Economic Analysis in Historical Perspective

Book reviewed in this article: Analytic Narratives, by Robert H. Bates, Avner Greif,Margaret Levi, Jean‐Laurent Rosenthal, and Barry R. Weingast     

经济学视角下的政府旅游管理职能研究

纯粹的市场经济存在着信息不对称、“公地悲剧”、外部性问题和合成谬误等自身难以克服的缺陷。需要政府对旅游经济运行进行干预,因而在旅游发展过程中政府主导力量起着重要的推动作用。然而政府本身并不完美,其掌握信息的不充分、行政能力的有限理性和部门间的利益冲突决定了其在进行旅游行政管理时的局限性。因此,需要在旅游发展过程中,根据不同阶段特征对政府计划和市场两种手段进行有效的组合,并建立多中心体制来保证旅游业的健康持续发展。     

文明交往视阈下16世纪布哈拉汗国的经济发展

1500年布哈拉汗国的建立拉开了中亚近代史的序幕。乌兹别克人的南下加快了河中地区游牧文明与农耕文明的交往,促使汗国经济发展步入转折期。在继承和变革帖木儿王朝经济制度的前提下,16世纪汗国的农牧经济得到恢复和发展,手工业进一步完善,对外贸易重新活跃,从而对中亚近代文明交往产生了深远影响。乌兹别克人在与河中地区各民族频繁交往的过程中,其经济生活逐渐转向农业,并接受中亚传统的伊斯兰教,从而实现了中亚农耕文明和伊斯兰文化的传承与发展。     

产业融合：旅游业发展趋势的新视角

本文从产业融合的理论视角对当前旅游业多业态现象进行了分析,指出旅游业正在与其他服务业、制造业和农业进行产业融合,产业价值链不断被解构和重组,并表现出生产性现代服务业特征。本文不仅对这种产业融合动因进行了具有旅游特质性的剖析,对融合情况进行分类,还指出其本质是一种创新。融合产生的效应反映在多方面：行业竞争格局发生演变,出现系统集成商和具有双边特征的平台企业,非物质资源取代自然资源推动旅游业发展,旅游业出现模块化迹象,跨行业人才成为稀缺资源等。     

A Conference on the Economic Development of the Volga Region

The magnitude of migratory movements has been steadily increasing in the USSR over the years, so that now more than 10 million people change their permanent place of residence every year. Although natural increase in cities has become an increasingly significant component in urban population growth, migration still contributes the largest element of that growth. The author applies an index of the effectiveness of migration to the process of urbanization in the USSR. This is the ratio of net migration in a particular place or region to the gross migration (sum of arrivals and departures). In general, migration from rural areas to cities is confined to a particular oblast or group of adjoining oblasts while city-to-city migration tends to cover greater distances between regions. Mean distances of migration are analyzed for the various economic regions of the USSR.     

中国式旅游发展道路的跨文化比较研究

本文以西方市场经济发达国家和其他发展中国家分别作为参照系,从旅游事业产生背景和标志性发展阶段分期、旅游事业核心内涵、旅游事业发展重心以及旅游业务发展模式等方面进行了跨文化比较分析,并讨论了中国式旅游发展道路的生命力基础和前景开拓机制。本文认为,博大精深的中华文明是中国式旅游发展道路的生命力基础,与时俱进是拓宽中国式旅游发展道路的强大动力,严格遵循旅游发展客观规律是必须始终坚持的根本方向。     

新经济史视域下中日现代化的制度比较

要进行现代化尝试,必须形成一定发达程度的商品经济以及在此基础上资本主义的发展,并建立一整套有效的产权制度。形成现代意义上的民族国家以及在此基础上的中央权威。形成具有现代性的思想文化以及在此基础上的知识分子和社会群体的壮大。由于制度的差异,具体国情和历史起点不同,中日两国所走的现代化道路也不同。从而产生了不同的结果。     

体育旅游资源开发及营销

体育旅游是近年来国内外旅游研究中的新兴课题。本文简述了体育旅游研究的产生背景,从营销角度探讨了大型体育赛事的旅游功效评价;在尝试对体育旅游进行类型划分的同时,分析了这些类型划分对有关体育旅游发展战略的影响。     

灾荒与民生:考察陈炽经济思想的新视角

本文从陈炽身处的时代背景、独特的个人经历入手,对其经济思想的体系进行再探讨,指出其经济思想大多是因灾荒而起,以救治民生为中心,并在中国经济思想史上第一次从环境变迁的角度分析了近代中国特别是北方地区地瘠民贫、灾荒频仍的原因,进而提出了一系列人口的、环境的、经济的、社会的救治措施,为近代中国经济发展提供了一条新的思路,给后来的经济思想家们以特殊意义的借鉴。     

Economic Development in 2002

Thirty-four out of the 117 aid-Tibet projects, undertaken according to the decision of the 4th National Conference on Work in Tibet held by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, have been completed; they consumed an investment of 7.886 billion Yuan. This helps with local economic development.Agriculture and Animal HusbandryThanks to efforts made to optimize the production structure, both farmers and herders increase their income mainly through export of labor. Their net income in 2002 increased 9 percent     

Agricultural Development and Household Incomes in Central Asia: A Survey of Tajikistan, 2003-2008

Two noted specialists on the agricultural economies of the former Soviet Union examine the effects of land reform on agricultural production and the income of rural house-holds in Tajikistan. The authors utilize official government statistics to discern trends of agricultural output at the national level, and the results of three extensive surveys conducted in 2007-2008 (N > 2,000) and one in 2003 (N = 4,000 respondents) by international organizations (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Asian Development Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Bank) to identify household-level changes. They also review the legislative framework for agrarian reform in the country; examine national-level trends in farm structure and organization, livestock production, farm productivity, and cropping patterns; and analyze shifts in size of land holdings and rural family incomes at the household level. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D130, O130, P320, Q150. 11 figures, 10 tables, 42 references.     

试论区域经济地理学的实践功能

本文列举了区域经济地理学研究中存在的危机表现,认为克服危机的出路在于参与区域发展与开发的实践。在当代的中国,实践领域是非常宽广的,区域经济地理学的科学属性和方法特别适合实践的要求。文章提出了当前应参与的实践课题和实践过程中应注意解决的一些理论认识。     

转型视角下我国自助旅游发展研究

自助旅游是全球旅游发展转型背景下的新型主导型旅游方式,具有深远的可持续发展意义。本文站在从传统大众旅游到新旅游转型的视角下,审视了在当前市场环境与技术支撑下自助旅游蓬勃发展的背景、历程及独特价值,继而从自助旅游在国内的发展现状入手,深入分析自助旅游在中国的发展特点、存在的问题,并据此提出了加强管理、促进发展等针对性的措施与建议。