China's Nuclear Energy in Light of the Disaster in Japan

An American specialist on Russian agriculture examines that country's agrarian policy, as well as the agricultural sector more generally, one year into the presidency of Dmitriy Medvedev. Focusing on the three key policy issues—state financial support, state intervention in the grain market, and international food trade policy—he assesses the extent to which current policy represents a continuation of that prevailing during the presidency of Vladimir Putin. The author discusses the appointment of a new Agriculture Minister in 2009, which may signal a different approach to the management of the sector, and concludes with an assessment of the impact of the global financial crisis. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F130, Q100, Q170, Q180. 2 tables, 63 references.     

中世纪欧洲大学生学习及生活费用的考察

大学日常生活史愈益为当代学者所关注。本文则主要对一位中世纪欧洲大学生的总花费及各项主要费用在其中所占的比例作了大致的估算。从总体来看,在中世纪欧洲各大学,膳宿费、获得学位所支出的各项费用和听课费占了大学生花费的绝大部分,而现代大学中学生每学年开学交纳的高额入学注册费在中世纪大学则微乎其微。而且,不同时代、不同地区、不同专业、不同阶层的大学生的花费亦有差别。大学通常本着贫富有别的原则收费,从而使贫富学生获得相对等同的教育机会,而教俗统治者和富人的捐资助学也为学生完成大学教育作出了贡献。可见,让贫穷学生进入大学并完成其学业可以不必通过降低收费标准,而是可以通过减免或免除其部分费用的方法来实现。但总的来看,在中世纪欧洲,就读大学的费用是昂贵的,绝大部分大学生仍然是占人口极少数的富有阶层的子弟。     

Evidence on economies of scale in local public service provision: A meta-analysis

The standard theory of optimal jurisdictional size hinges on the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods and services. However, despite its relevance for forced local amalgamation programs and related policies, the empirical evidence on the existence of such economies of scale remains elusive. The main goal of this paper is to produce an updated and comprehensive quantitative review of the existence of economies of scale in the provision of local public goods using a meta-analysis approach to systematize the wide range of empirical approaches and modeling frameworks found in the previous literature. Our analysis confirms the presence of moderately increasing to constant returns to scale in the provision of local services with no reduction in the average costs of production in the delivery of most local public services beyond a certain, modest jurisdictional size, which many studies have estimated at 10,000 residents. Also, the potential for economies of scale differs at least across three traditional services: education, water and sanitation, and garbage collection, being highest for education and lowest for garbage collection. Our analysis also offers guidelines for future empirical research in this area. Physical output and production cost data should be used, together with translog specifications for the modeling of cost functions. Last, we find evidence that the determinants of output cost elasticity include bidirectional publication bias and population density but do not include the presence or absence of modern “lean” production technologies or the (perceived) capital intensity of the sector, contrary to conventional wisdom. These findings have significant policy implications for countries considering jurisdictional consolidation programs.     

Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water Services in Zambia

This article focuses on the commercialization of urban water services in Zambia. It aims to demonstrate the tension between cost recovery and service extension when water sector reforms combine investment cuts with price increases. It is argued that in low‐income economies where infrastructure limitations are serious and poverty is widespread, heavy reliance on ‘tariff rationalization’ with low levels of investment can lead to reduced access to water and render water charges unaffordable. Reforms to public services can prove futile in the absence of upfront resources for investment in the restoration and extension of the existing infrastructure. In many ways, Zambia typifies other low‐income economies; this study thus offers useful lessons for them.     

REEVALUATING THE ‘PROCOMPETITIVE’ EFFECTS OF HMOs: A SPATIAL EQUILIBRIUM APPROACH*

ABSTRACT. .The growth of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) commonly has been viewed as a “procompetitive” change in the structure of the health care delivery system. Because HMOs collect a prepaid fee from subscribers, they serve a dual role as insurers and providers of health care. While HMOs may have competed directly with conventional insurance plans, their effect in health care markets is potentially quite different. A multisector spatial equilibrium model, which incorporates the optimizing behavior of consumers, independent fee-for-service(FFS)providers, and a centralized HMO, is used to explore the effects of an exogenous shift in market structure away from FFS delivery toward the provision of seivices by the HMO. As more physicians are diverted from FFS practice to enter the HMO, both the HMO membership fee and prices in the FFS sector tend to rise. This pattern is consistent with empirical trends in the United States during the 1980s where, despite the rapid growth in HMOs and other forms of prepaid care, both FFS prices and HMO membership fees have risen sharply.     

IMPACT FEES: SOME FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES

Impact fees are an increasingly popular way for local governments to raise money for new capital facilities. The legal basis for the imposition of these fees, however, is unsettled. This paper considers some of the fundamental questions that must be resolved concerning the legality of impact fees. The paper concludes that in many instances such fees are unauthorized taxes, not fees incident to the regulatory power local governments possess under the police power. The paper suggests that impact fees should play only a limited role in meeting the fiscal obligations of local governments.     

Arts and culture in an era of austerity: key stakeholder views on the current and future Australian context

The arts and culture sector in many countries faces major challenges, as a consequence of ongoing austerity measures and changes in the ways in which the arts are experienced. In major nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom and in several European countries, there is considerable pressure to look for new ways of surviving in an age of consumerism, accountability and rapidly changing technologies. On the other hand, many Asian countries have invested heavily in building their arts and culture sector as part of the new twenty-first-century economy. The arts and culture sector in Australia faces serious challenges at present, including ongoing fiscal pressures, an absence of any national cultural policy and disruption as a consequence of changing governments. In order to explore these issues, interviews were held with 22 key leaders from a range of Australian organisations associated with arts representation, funding, policy and advocacy. The findings highlight both the challenges and opportunities facing Australia towards what may be considered the next wave of innovation and change.     

The Geography of Union Organising in Low‐Paid Service Industries in the UK: Lessons from the T&G's Campaign to Unionise the Dorchester Hotel, London

This paper highlights the importance of organising workers in the low‐paid services sector if British trade unions are to secure themselves for the future. After outlining the scale of the challenge and the new efforts being made to promote organising by unions, the paper looks at the hotel industry in more depth. A case study of a union campaign to win union recognition at the Dorchester Hotel in London is used to highlight the limitations of workplace‐focused campaigns in this sector. Drawing on the lessons of experience in North America, the paper then argues that an extra ‐workplace, occupational and/or sectoral approach may well secure better results. In so doing, workplace issues could be recast as matters of economic and social injustice, widening the scale of any campaign.     

The best of times,the worst of times: Community-sector advocacy in the age of ‘compacts’

The recent introduction of written ‘compacts’ between government and community services organisations (CSOs) in Australia offers the promise of meaningful co-production of policy. However, recent research has highlighted that many in the community sector continue to perceive that there are significant constraints on their capacity to engage in advocacy. This paper examines the impact of the current governance regimes on the Australian community sector and explores the dimensions of these perceived constraints. The paper argues that both government and community sectors must make concessions and adjustments. Governments must accept that the use of contracting monopolies to stifle advocacy has weakened their capacity to deliver responsive services, while community organisations must accept that new governance regimes require new modes of participation in the policy process.     

Political Decoupling: Private Implementation of Public Policy

Where policy goals can be achieved through regulation of private firms, private provision of public services allows governments to separate public policies from their political costs by shifting those costs to the private sector. Over the past three decades, financial decoupling has emerged as a regulatory strategy for promoting conservation, especially in the energy sector. Decoupling refers to the separation of a firm’s revenues from the volume of its product consumed, which allows companies to pursue resource efficiency free from financial risk. Similarly, when private firms provide public services, they separate public policies from their political costs. This political decoupling allows governments to pursue controversial policies while avoiding their attendant political risks. Applied to environmental policy, this theory implies that potentially unpopular conservation policies are more likely to be adopted and succeed when implemented through private firms. As an initial test of the theory, we analyze California water utilities and their responses to that state’s drought from 2015–2017. Analysis shows that, compared with those served by local government utilities, private utilities adopted more aggressive conservation measures, were more likely to meet state conservation standards, and conserved more water.     

The Future of Disability Policy as a Field of Research

Although the opportunities for research in disability policy are increasing, they remain considerably fewer than in adjacent areas, notably in policy for health, social services, and education. This article explores the new salience of research on disability policy, describes why its importance is likely to increase, and then explores some issues that reveal the under development of the field.     

Services sector in India: trends,issues, and the way forward

This paper provides an overview of the Indian services sector. It shows that services is the fastest growing sector in India, contributing significantly to gross domestic product (GDP), GDP growth, employment, trade, and investment. India is a major proponent of liberalizing services both in the World Trade Organization and in its bilateral trade agreements. However, there are some concerns. In the recent past, economic growth and growth of the services sector has slowed down. Growth in employment in services has not been commensurate with the share of the sector in GDP. Although India is a major exporter of services, its export competitiveness concentrates in few sectors and a few markets. The paper identifies a number of barriers faced by the services sectors and suggests policy measures which, if implemented, will lead to inclusive growth, increased productivity, generate quality employment, increase trade and investment, and enhance India’s global competitiveness in services.     

Auditing culture

This article explores the effects of the spread of the principles and practices of the New Public Management (NPM) on the subsidised cultural sector and on cultural policy making in Britain. In particular, changes in the style of public administration that can be ascribed to the NPM will be shown to provide a useful framework to make sense of what has been felt as an “instrumental turn” in British policies for culture between the early 1980s and the present day. The current New Labour Government, as well as the arm's length bodies that distribute public funds for the cultural sector in Britain, are showing an increasing tendency to justify public spending on the arts on the basis of instrumental notions of the arts and culture. In the context of what have been defined as “instrumental cultural policies”, the arts are subsidised in so far as they represent a means to an end rather than an end in itself. In this perspective, the emphasis placed on the potential of the arts to help tackle social exclusion and the role of the cultural sector in place‐marketing and local economic development are typical examples of current trends in British cultural policy making. The central argument purported by this article is that this instrumental emphasis in British cultural policy is closely linked to the changes in the style of public administration that have given rise to the NPM. These new developments have indeed put the publicly funded cultural sector under increasing pressure. In particular, it will be shown how the new stress on the measurement of the arts' impacts in clear and quantifiable ways – which characterises today's “audit society” – has proved a tough challenge for the sector and one that has not been successfully met. The article will conclude by critically considering how the spread of the NPM has affected processes of policy making for the cultural sector, and the damaging effects that such developments may ultimately have on the arts themselves.     

Information without frontiers: Financial services,EC regulation and European cities

Using Castells' notion of the informational mode of development, this briefing investigates the changing hierarchy and function of European cities in the light of EC policies. The EC regulatory regime is identified as an integral part of the informational mode of development, setting the parameters within which the corporate sector operates. It is argued that the purpose of information flows is mainly control. A new constellation of European cities is anticipated which depends to a large extent upon the degree to which cities, competing against one another, are able to establish central urban complexes. These are based on the agglomeration economies between corporate headquarters, financial institutions and producer services at the urban level, and information flows at a global level of communications. Among the vast array of EC policies the paper identifies those in support of innovation and telecommunications, the deregulation of financial services, and regional policy as crucial for urban development. Given the requirements of infrastructure, institutions, professional skills and regulatory competence, existing metropolitan centres will capitalize on their comparative advantage and attempt to build on these in the future. These developments are likely to foster further concentration of capital and investment in a few major centres, thus counteracting other EC policies of regional equalization and harmonization. It is argued that these and other contradictions are an amplification of those already afflicting the capitalist state at both national and local levels. The paper also offers an opportunity to reassess aspects of traditional location theory, in particular central place models, in the light of these developments and finds them wanting. The same conclusion is reached regarding the cost‐benefit calculus of the Cecchini Report.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 27, Number 1. February 2011

Front and back cover caption, volume 27 issue 1 Front cover 25th South East Asian Games The 2009 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Vientiane, the first to be hosted by Laos in the event's 50‐year history, was widely experienced by Laotians as an unprecedented moment of national success, reinforcing national symbols and materializing national memory and ideology. In this picture two fans play giant khene, a bamboo free‐reed musical instrument distinctive to Laos and the ethnically Lao areas of northeast Thailand. Traditionally played to accompany courtship and folk songs, the khene is today considered the national instrument, and at the Games it complemented an array of other national symbols on display. Scenes such as these typify the ways in which the SEA Games engendered collective sentiments that were popular, participatory and joyous, particularly among Lao youth. The Games had also bolstered power and authority of the regime. The shared joy of the Games that momentarily united Lao people from across the country soon faded into the everyday realities of one‐party authoritarian politics in Laos, where the state's resource‐extraction policies often set ‘national interests’ against those of existing resource users. These two sides of the SEA Games reflect the contested nature of collective sentiments and, in particular, emphasize how these are aroused through public symbols and assembly. In a rather different display of collective feeling on the back cover, students in London protest government policies that threaten to turn tertiary education into an elite activity affordable mainly by the rich. Back cover UNIVERSITY FUNDING CUTS: AUSTERITY FOR ANTHROPOLOGY The UK faces austerity in public spending to a degree not seen in a generation. The back‐cover image shows students in London demonstrating in October 2007 against the top‐up fees introduced in September 2006, which allowed universities to charge variable fees. Demonstrations intensified in the closing months of 2010, when it was announced that fees would increase by up to three times because of the government's withdrawal of the teaching block grant from the arts, humanities and social sciences in England. In protest, students occupied dozens of universities. What are the implications for higher education and, in particular, for anthropology? In this issue, Hugh Gusterson casts a withering eye over the American precedent, arguing that high fees degrade the educational experience, cause grade inflation, and force indebted students to seek the highest paying rather than the most worthwhile careers. Similar policies applied in England may result in a brain drain of both staff and students. Richard Fardon argues that the proposed changes combine the worst of American and British models: indebted students and over‐regulated, under‐funded universities. It is not even clear that this policy will save money. Like other small disciplines, anthropology will struggle to retain a critical mass of departments, and it will be vulnerable to rises in fees as postgraduate study costs come into line with those for undergraduate study. What might tertiary‐level anthropology look like a decade from now? The number of departments is likely to have been reduced, and with it, academic job opportunities. Student populations will tend to represent the extremes of wealth and poverty, for whom fee remission is being touted as a gesture to fairness. Up to 30 years of debt will act as a deterrent to students between these extremes. As budgets are squeezed, and working conditions deteriorate, the best staff may choose to work elsewhere. Rather than putting UK higher education on a firmer footing, current policy may be a nail in the coffin of one of the few remaining areas of UK excellence internationally.     

Public funding of culture in the Czech Republic since the fall of the iron curtain: contemporary dilemmas

The article deals with explicit cultural policy and its outcomes in the post-communist Czech Republic. In the first part, the authors look at the organisational and conceptual impact on culture of the transition from a centrally managed economy to a pluralist parliamentary democracy following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The cultural sector experienced privatisation, property restitution, commercialisation, globalisation, decentralisation and devolution, as well as the emergence of the private sector and the non-governmental non-profit sector (NGO). Although the process of societal transformation is now complete, certain key issues of cultural policy remain unresolved. The authors focus on three contemporary issues in theatre, namely: political intervention in the management of public cultural institutions, the persistent debate on funding through grant systems and the lack of trust culture professionals have in the creators of cultural policy. As a result, even though after 1989 it was expected that the private or NGO sector would dominate in the area of culture, there still exists a relatively dense network of public cultural institutions (contributory organisations) characterised by a resistance to proposed organisational and funding changes.     

THE BEHAVIORAL COSTS OF ECONOMIC INSTABILITY*

This paper reviews the literature reporting a connection between economic change and behavioral disorder. The literature is separated into individual and aggregate based research and the methodological issues raised by each approach are described. The implications of the research findings for illness prevention, remedial services and economic policy making are discussed. The authors argue that the social costs of mobile capital should be accounted and internalized because social justice as well as Economic and Psychological theory assume that an individual should bear the costs of his or her behavior.     

THE MARKET VALUE OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ALTERNATIVE FISCAL REGIMES*

ABSTRACT Land price differentials have long been used as a proxy for the value of environmental improvements in cost/benefit analysis. Both the empirical and theoretical literatures have largely ignored two important facts, however: Taxes financing local improvements are often distortionary, and amenities which influence property values in turn impact the fiscal budget, and hence the tax rate and final economic burden. Put another way, the economic cost of an improvement is endogenous to both the amenity level and the revenue structure. Extending the story in this direction for a system of open or closed spatial cities, the paper finds land rent measures to be a biased measure of the willingness to pay for amenities financed by either head taxes (benefit taxes), property taxes (excise taxes), or highway tolls (user fees). These results are used to correct the conventional specification of empirical property value regression models, which traditionally account for neither tax revenue effects nor the excess burden of distortionary taxation.     

A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR SMALL BUSINESS POLICY

A number of public policy issues have been discussed in this article, the most important of which are: 1. Small business would not need special consideration if our economy were basically a competitive one. 2. A large and growing segment of our economy has sufficient market and political power to make our economy basically non-competitive. 3. Small firms tend to provide price competition, to lead in the development of new products and processes, and to generate new innovations and new employment. 4. Government policy tends to create artificial economies of scale, giving an unwarranted advantage to the very large firm. As a first approximation, a policy of government neutrality on firms of varying size is needed. But, because of discriminations which already exist which favor large firms over small firms, special small business programs may be necessary to provide an equitable policy base. Unfortunately, programs designed to benefit all business, like the investment tax credit, tend to primarily benefit larger firms (Berney, 1979). This is the case for two reasons. First, there is a basic difference in production relationships: large firms tend to be more capital intensive and small firms more labor intensive. Second, the more complex a rule or regulation, the more costly it is for small business to use it. Consequently, even the employment tax credit, which should benefit the small firm is not used by them. Instead, it tends more to benefit the larger firm. Neutrality, as a governmental policy, would appear to demand different treatment for firms of varying size. As an example, the “regulatory flexibility” concept applies different standards to different sized firms so that the burden of regulation is more equitably distributed. The concept of encouraging or requiring financial institutions and other lenders to establish “dual prime rates” is a further example. Since small firms appear to have much higher debt to equity ratios and rely more heavily on shorter-term bank credit, they are more heavily burdened by a tight money policy which forces increases of interest rates. Thus, dual prime rates help to spread the burden of rising interest costs more equally. As many people prefer to work for themselves, equalizing the burden of government policy could only serve to increase the basic growth rate for small business, thus providing an easier start for entrepreneurs and would encourage a more rapid rate of economic growth. None of these discussions, however, argues that small business should be protected from failure. The more efficient firms will succeed and prosper, and the least efficient will not. Many currently successful entrepreneurs learn how to improve their production processes or managerial skills from their failures. What is being recommended as a first step is that government should concentrate on equalizing burdens and benefits in order to achieve true neutrality. If private economies of scale do indeed exist, new firms must grow to survive; what the government should not create are artificial economies of scale with public policy. A strong argument for further action can also be made: it appears that significant external benefits are produced by an economic system with a dynamic small business sector. Since these benefits go to society as a whole rather than entrepreneurs alone in the form of increased profits, a freely operating market without government assistance does not generate as many new small businesses as would be optimal for our society. To internalize the benefits that come from small business, governmental programs need to be devised to increase the rate of return on new, innovative small businesses. Should this happen, we could then anticipate increased rapid rates of innovation and technological change, more rapid rates of employment growth, expanded price competition in all sectors of the economy, and improved export capabilities, in short, true flexibility in our capitalistic system.