Book reviews

Australian Books

Raymond O'Dea, Principles of Wage Determination in Commonwealth Arbitration, West Publishing Corporation, Sydney, 1969, pp. 300, $9.50.

A. H. Boxer, Experts in Asia: An Inquiry into Australian Technical Assistance, A.N.U. Press, Canberra, 1969, pp. 180, $6.00.

Malcolm Mackerras, DL.P. Preference Distribution 1958–1969, Occasional Monograph No. 3, Department of Government and Public Administration, University of Sydney, 1970, pp. 69 + ii, 75c. Cheques payable to Sydney Monographs.

D. W. Rawson and Suzanne Wrightson, A Handbook of Australian Trade Unions and Employees’ Associations, Occasional Paper No. 5, Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, 1970, pp. 114, $1.50.

P. H. Partridge, W. F. Connell, S. W. Cohen, Social Science for the Secondary School, Ian Novak, Sydney, 1969, pp. 132, $2.70.

Non‐Australian Books

A. Robinson, et al., Black Studies in the University: a Symposium, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1969, pp. 231, $6.95.

G. Christenson (ed.), The Future of the University, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1969, pp. 292, $2.70.

J. Jeffery Auer (ed.), The Rhetoric of Our Times, Appleton‐Century‐Crofts, New York, 1969, pp. 493 + xv, $5.20.

P. J. Eldridge, The Politics of Foreign Aid in India, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969, pp. 289, $8.90.     

Global Utopias and Clashing Civilizations: Misunderstanding the Present

This is an edited text of the 23rd Martin Wright Memorial Lecture delivered at the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 14 October 1997 in which John Gray argues that international conflict does not come from 'clashes of civilization', but rather from the conflicting interests and policies of states. In order to cope better with such conflicts, we should understand that some conflicts are intractable.     

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.