Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition: The Case of Kenyan Horticulture

This article examines the social effects of contract farming of export horticulture among smallholders in Meru District, Kenya. During the 1980s and 1990s, contracting was popularized by donors and governments alike as a way to reduce poverty and increase opportunities for self–employment in rural areas. Considerable research has documented the tensions in social relations that emerge in such cases, giving rise to gendered struggles over land, labour, and income in the face of new commodity systems. This article highlights similar tendencies. It suggests that men’s failure to compensate their wives for horticulture production has given rise to a string of witchcraft allegations and acts, as the wealth engendered by horticultural commodities comes up against cultural norms of marital obligation. While witchcraft accusations can expose women to risks of social alienation and financial deprivation, witchcraft nevertheless remains a powerful weapon through which women can level intra–household disparities and, more broadly, challenge the legitimacy of social practice. In Meru, witchcraft discourses are a vehicle through which gendered struggles over contract income are articulated and contested, and through which the social costs of agrarian transition become apparent.     

The Density of Population of a City and the Density of Probability of a Random Magnitude

A continuation of a paper translated in Soviet Geography, April 1966, establishes a systematic relationship between the concept of a city's population density and the general theoretical probability concept of the probability density function of a two-dimensional random magnitude, and extends the discussion of population-density models beyond the category of single-center cities to a variety of non-single-center formations.     

Economic Transition and Demographic Change in Russia, 1989-1995

A World Bank demographer reviews recent population changes in Russia, relating trends in fertility, mortality, natural increase, and migration to the social and economic effects of the transition to a market economy. Significant trends (a precipitous drop in fertility, an extraordinary increase in mortality—especially among middle-aged males—and a consequent decline in natural increase) are identified and analyzed, with dislocations caused by the uncertainties of economic and political transition suggested as the principal causes. The effect of net in-migration to Russia (probably mainly ethnic Russians from the Near Abroad countries) in partially offsetting the natural population decrease is examined as well. 5 tables, 16 references.     

Funding Economic Transition in China: The Privatization Option

An American specialist on the economy of China examines whether gradual and partial privatization remains a viable option for the future, or whether rapid privatization of remaining state-owned enterprises is now necessary. The paper presents estimates indicating that rising expenditures stemming from changes in the country's economy, demographics, and technology will increase fiscal pressure on government revenues, resulting in fiscal shortfalls and exposing other vulnerabilities. Privatization is then assessed in terms of its potential to generate additional resources to support the next round of economic growth in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E62, H10, P20. 1 table, 54 references.     

Computing Abilities in Antiquity: The Royal Judahite Storage Jars as a Case-study

Studying the volume of ancient pottery vessels can shed light on the development of complex societies and state apparatus by revealing the means taken to standardize trade and taxation. It can also shed light on the cognitive abilities of ancient people by investigating their knowledge of computing. This paper explores, as a case study, the volume and shape of the lmlk (“belonging to the king”) royal storage jars, which probably represent the highest level of standardization in eighth century BCE Judah. To estimate the volume of these vessels we constructed a computer 3D model for each jar. The variation in the jars’ linear dimensions is about 2–3%, a number that is characteristic of human-made objects produced by professionals without employing measurement tools. Had the potters produced jars of the same height, they could have easily reached 3–4% accuracy in the volume. Surprisingly, the variation in the jars’ volume is 7–10%. We hypothesize that rather than height the potters focused on the jars’ shape and wall width, estimating the volume according to the jars’ outer measurements. We propose a simple way that these measurements could have been taken and suggest a formula that could have been employed by the potters and customers for quickly calculating a jar’s volume.     

Positive and Negative Externalities in Innovation,Trade, and Regional Economic Growth

We build on Grossman and Helpman (1991), Rivera‐Batiz and Romer (1991), Acemoglu (2009, pp. 678–80), and Batabyal and Nijkamp (2013b) and analyze the interactions between positive and negative externalities in innovation and trade for economic growth in a region when this region is part of an aggregate economy consisting of two regions. In both regions, consumers have constant relative risk aversion preferences; there is human capital use, and there are three kinds of manufacturing activities involving the production of blueprints for inputs or machines, the inputs or machines themselves, and a single final good for consumption. We study two cases. In the first case, although no growth occurs in the human capital stock, innovative activities give rise to positive externalities or knowledge spillovers in two ways. In this setting, we, study whether and under what circumstances opening a region to trade results in an increase in this region's equilibrium growth rate. In the second case, although growth occurs in the human capital stock, innovation experiences negative externalities. In this scenario, we show that opening a region to trade leads to more innovation but to no change in its long‐run growth rate. Los autores se basan en el trabajo de Grossman y Helpman (1991), Rivera‐Batiz y Romer (1991), Acemoglu (2009, pp 678‐80), y Batabyal y Nijkamp (2013B), para analizar las interacciones entre las externalidades positivas y negativas en la innovación y comercio para el crecimiento económico en una región, en los casos en los que dicha región es parte de una economía global que consiste en dos regiones. En estas dos regiones hipotéticas a) los consumidores tienen aversión constante al riesgo relativo (CRRA); b) se hace uso del capital humano; y, c) se llevan a cabo tres tipos de actividades manufactureras: la elaboración de planes o plantillas de producción, la producción de insumos y maquinaria, y la producción de un único bien de consumo final. El presente estudio analiza dos casos. En el primer caso, aunque no hay crecimiento en el stock de capital humano, las actividades de innovación generan externalidades positivas o derrames (spillovers) de conocimiento de dos tipos. En este contexto, se estudia si, y bajo qué circunstancias la apertura de una región al comercio resulta en un aumento en la tasa de crecimiento de equilibrio de la región. En el segundo caso, hay crecimiento en el stock de capital humano, pero la innovación experimenta externalidades negativas. En este escenario, se muestra que la apertura al comercio de una región conduce a una mayor innovación pero sin ningún cambio en la tasa de crecimiento a largo plazo. 本文在Grossman and Helpman (1991)、Rivera‐Batiz and Romer (1991)、 Acemoglu (2009,,pp. 678–80)和Batabyal and Nijkamp (2013b)等研究基础上,分析了当某一区域与另一区域构成经济聚合体时,该区域经济增长中创新与贸易的外部正负效应的相互影响。在两区域中,消费者均具有不变的相对风险规避(CRRA)参数设定,然后考虑人力资本利用和三种类别的制造活动的预期产量,即投入或机器、原料或机器本身、可消费的单一制成品。我们分析了两种不同的场景。在第一种场景中,尽管人力资本存量并未增长,创新活动也通过正外部性或知识溢出两种方式得到了增长。在该设定下,我们研究了区域是否或者在何种情况下开放贸易会提高地区的均衡增长率。在第二种场景中,尽管人力资本存量增长而创新部分却经历着负外部效应的影响。研究显示,一个地区贸易开放将导致更多创新活动的发生,但并未影响到长期的增长率。     

Modeling Expansive Phenomena in Early Complex Societies: the Transition from Bronze Iron Age in Prehistoric Europe

The Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in Prehistoric Europe represents a perfect case study to test different and competing hypotheses of social dynamics and economic change in small-scale societies. The paper discusses the possibilities of modeling what could have happened in Europe between 1800 and 800 bc, in terms of spatiotemporal dynamics. The paper presents some theoretical aspects of the dynamic study of expansive phenomena and gives an overview of a computer model programmed to explain the way new burial forms expanded in Europe. The main idea is comparing classic demic diffusion models (spread of population), cultural transmission models (spread of ideas), and technological innovation diffusion model (spread of goods). We will present the fundamentals of a preliminary study towards the computational simulation of such hypothetical social mechanisms, using a dataset composed of more than 1,500 georeferenced and radiocarbon dated archaeological contexts of a period between the Early Bronze Age and the first Iron Age (1800–800 bc) from an area including the North-East of Iberian Peninsula, Southern France, Northern and Central Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Southern Germany.     

Zooarchaeology in Complex Societies: Political Economy, Status, and Ideology

The zooarchaeology of complex societies provides insights into the interrelated social and economic relationships that people and animals created. I present a synthesis of zooarchaeological research published since the early 1990s that addresses political economy, status distinctions, and the ideological and ritual roles of animals in complex cultures. I address current approaches and applications as well as theoretical shifts in zooarchaeological practice. Research indicates there is great variability across space and time in how past peoples used animals to generate economic surplus, to establish status differentiation within societies, and to create symbolic meaning through sacrifices, offerings, and in feasts. The study of human/animal interactions in complex societies can contribute to fundamental questions of broad relevance regarding political and social life.     

Cost Efficiency,Urban Patterns and Population Density When Providing Public Infrastructure: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

Relying on stochastic frontier analysis we propose a methodology to study the technological characteristics and cost efficiency levels related to the provision of public infrastructure for basic utilities. The methodology assumes a cost minimizing behaviour on the part of public officials when planning the construction of local infrastructure, which is represented by way of a flexible translog cost function. Introducing relevant definitions of scale economies, associated with larger numbers of inhabitants and dwellings, as well as economies of density, brought about by reductions in urban dispersion, we analytically determine the optimal population densities for which average cost is minimized. We illustrate our model with the water cycle sector, including water distribution, sewage collection and cleansing of wastewater, and considering data at the municipality level for the Spanish region of Castilla y León. The obtained results indicate potential cost savings in the form of decreasing average costs, as relevant scale and density economies are present, along with large inefficiency levels. Relevant policy guidelines favouring larger and denser urban sizes are drawn, as the observed cost excess is the result of a general suboptimal urban size in terms of population density, and the negative effects of dispersed settlement patterns.     

Capital Accumulation,Economic Restructuring,and Nonequilibrium Regional Growth Dynamics

Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in explaining the significance and persistence of regional growth differentials. Much of the debate in contemporary political economy has focussed on the relative importance of either “weak” or “strong” competition in regulating movements in prices, profits, and investments both within and between economic sectors and regions. However, little attention has been directed toward developing theoretical models that are capable of evaluating the relative importance of (non) equilibrating forces in determining the long-run accumulation dynamics of capitalist space economies. In this paper, I develop an approach to modeling regional growth that simultaneously theorizes the link between processes of economic restructuring and regional capital accumulation. I examine the stability properties of this model in order to evaluate the theoretical significance of both equilibrating and nonequilibrating forces in determining the trajectory of regional outputs, profits and employment.