Demand and Supply of Public School Quality in Metropolitan Areas: The Role of Private Schools

In this paper I investigate the role of private schools in the housing market and in the supply and demand for public schooling. I estimate public school-quality supply simultaneously with demand, which provides greater confidence in calculated demand elasticities than in single-equation studies. The price of public schools, private schools, and taxes all appear in the demand estimation and have elasticities of @ndash;0.19, 0.11, and –0.49, respectively. Public school–quality supply is responsive to private-school competition but not to competition from other public schools. The percentage of school-aged children attending private schools depresses house values holding public-schooling outcomes constant.     

Industry Characteristics Linked to Establishment Concentrations in Nonmetropolitan Areas

In this paper we investigate industry characteristics associated with the clustering of establishments in three-digit SIC manufacturing industries in nonmetropolitan areas. The dispersion parameter k of the negative binomial distribution is selected as the measure of industry spatial concentration. Associations between industry characteristics and spatial concentration are investigated using OLS regression analysis. Our findings indicate that the spatial clustering of establishments is positively related to industry average establishment size, reliance on natural resource inputs, labor intensity, cost shares of professional and technical employees, and cost shares of low-skilled workers. Agglomeration is negatively related to multiplant structure, employment in precision production, and reliance on local product and input markets.     

The New Zealand Environmental Movement and the Politics of Inclusion

Engagement with the state has rarely been a comfortable association for environmental movement groups. As Dryzek (1996) illustrates, the conditions for the benign inclusion of environmental and other social movement groups are quite complex, usually requiring not just an intersection between movement and state aspirations but also the continued presence of movement groups in civil society as a democratic counterweight to state power. New Zealand's environmental movement, after a decade of relative political obscurity, may once again be presented with opportunities for political inclusion following the election of a LabourAlliance coalition and seven Green Party representatives in late 1999. This article reflects on the New Zealand environmental movement's past engagement with the state in the light of Dryzek's criteria for benign political inclusion, highlighting the extent of the challenge presented to groups in the movement and the opportunities for future reconciliation with the state.     

Imperial versus National Discourse: The Case of Russia

Abstract. It is inaccurate and misleading to apply the term ‘nationalism’ to Russia prior to the present day. Both Tsarist and Soviet leaders sought to maintain an empire and not a nation‐state, and their national consciousness was imperial rather than national. The lack of Russian nationalism was crucial for Russian history since it explains the failure of both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Modern societies cannot be successfully constructed upon the basis of imperial thinking. The absence of Russian nationalism also has significance for nationalism theory. Russia possessed the social, political and cultural characteristics that have been adduced as ‘causes’ of nationalism by a wide variety of scholars, yet Russia failed to develop a nationalist movement. This suggests that what is crucial to modem nationalism is the appearance of a particularist, secular ideology, since the most notable aspect in which Russia differed from Europe was Russia's universalistic, religious and imperialist discourse of national identity.     

The Roman—Jewish Wars and Hebrew Cultural Nationalism

Abstract. The Roman‐Jewish wars of 66–70, 115–17 and 132–35 CE destroyed the territorial, social and political bases of militant Jewish nationalism. Successive defeats brought a Roman ban on Jewish residence in Jerusalem and on proselytisation. Most of the Jewish population of Judaea, in southern Palestine, was annihilated or exiled. The creative heart of Judaism shifted to Galilee, where the study of rabbinic law and homiletics flourished, mostly in Hebrew, and the Mishna ‐ the basis of the Talmud ‐ was edited by the Tannaim (Mishna teachers). This culture was an implicit rejection of Graeco‐Roman civilisation and values in favour of a more exclusivist religious‐cultural nationalism. It is argued in this paper that this form of nationalism, though rare in the ancient world, anticipates more recent national movements of defeated peoples.     

Studies in Urban Ecology: the First Wave of Biological Invasion by Pistacia chinensis in Armidale,New South Wales,Australia

Biological invasions by deliberately introduced organisms seriously compromise the integrity of ecosystems, but their early stages have seldom been documented, especially in urban contexts. Since the 1940s, the small Asian tree Pistacia chinensis has been widely planted in streets and gardens in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, where it makes a major contribution to the autumn colours that are exploited to promote the city. Numerous wild plants are now becoming established in and near Armidale. This ongoing biological invasion may have been accelerated by the large size of the initial (planted) population, and by the presence of efficient avian seed dispersers. It is now at the stage of the first wild generation reaching reproductive maturity. While it is probably still possible to halt the invasion, various human factors appear to make this an unlikely prospect.     

The End of the Beginning?: Welsh Regional Policy and Objective One

'West Wales and the Valleys' now qualify for EU Objective One status, entitled to draw down up to 1.3 billion in EU funds, matched from public and private sources between 2000 and 2006. However, there are many issues raised by the process of organizing the subsequent programme. There are questions over policy focus in the economically diverse Objective One areas, how governance of these policies will work, and the wider implications of Objective One in financial and political terms. There is also debate over previous regional policy initiatives in a Wales that for many years had access to a relatively large share of the UK's regional policy budget and EU funds, yet still faced falling GDP per head as a proportion of the UK average, west Wales and the Valleys' very Objective One status relying on GDP per capita under 75% of the EU average.     

Public consultation or political choreography? The Howard Government's quest for community views on defence policy

On 27 June 2000, the Howard Government released a public information paper on defence which set in train a process of public consultation in which the people's views were sought on a range of defence and defence-related issues. This paper examines why the Government chose to go to the people, how and by whom the community consultation was conducted, who was consulted and listened to, and how what was heard at the public meetings component of the process was both interpreted and reported. The paper concludes that the public consultation process was more about politics than policy; it is inappropriate for the Government to claim or imply that it has heard from the 'Australian people' or even 'the majority of the community' on the issues raised; and the consultation process and its outcomes are not entirely risk-free for the Government and the defence establishment.