Poverty Reduction and Good Governance: Examining the Rationale of the Millennium Development Goals

Whilst the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) looms large, the outcomes so far have been mixed. This article examines the policy logic that ‘good governance’ leads to poverty reduction, which has been adopted by international agencies in pursuit of the MDGs. This causal relationship is examined through an empirical panel‐data estimation using Worldwide Governance Indicators and the poverty headcount ratio in ninety‐eight countries. The empirical evidence does not support the hypothesis that good governance leads to poverty reduction. Good governance alleviates poverty only in middle‐income countries, not in least developed ones. These findings point to the necessity to devise policies that address poverty directly, rather than through indirect instruments, and highlight the urgent need to address structural inequality in developing countries.     

BALANCED BUDGET MULTIPLIERS FOR SMALL OPEN REGIONS WITHIN A FEDERAL SYSTEM: EVIDENCE FROM THE SCOTTISH VARIABLE RATE OF INCOME TAX

This paper explores the impact on aggregate economic activity in a small, open region of an income tax funded expansion in public consumption that has no direct supply‐side effects. The conventional balanced budget multiplier produces an unambiguously positive macroeconomic stimulus, but the incorporation of negative competitiveness elements, through the operation of the local labor market, renders this positive outcome less certain. Simulation using a single‐region Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for Scotland demonstrates that the creation of local amenity effects, and the extent to which these are incorporated into local wage bargaining, is central to the analysis.     

Lithic Economy and Specialized Activities Among the Iberomaurusian Populations of Tamar Hat Rockshelter (Northeastern Algeria)

Tamar Hat rockshelter (Béjaïa, northeastern Algeria) has yielded a lithic assemblage showing general characteristics of an Iberomaurusian Early Late Stone Age nature. Specific “becs,” which we shall call “becs of Tamar Hat,” appear as an important component of the assemblage in the upper occupations, which occurred at the end of Late Glacial Maximum. These becs, from a technological point of view and especially by their shaping processes, constitute a reliable reference collection, though showing morphological variability resulting in part to the reduction process. The use-wear analysis conducted, based on a microscopic examination validated by experimentation, testifies the becs would have functioned for engraving hard bone, such as those of deer. Other scars observed on the sharp edge and lower face near the active portion of the tool are caused by hafting. Hence, the results of the technological and functional analyses of the becs from Tamar Hat reveal the presence of specialized activities in the upper occupations, related to the animal bone processing. These results are supported by the archaeozoological study, which confirms that the site functioned as a seasonal habitat, where Megacerin deer was exploited in the upper occupations for utilitarian, non-food purposes. The emergence of the use of the becs of Tamar Hat is synchronous with the end of the Upper Paleolithic, prior to the expansion of bec use in the Upper Magdalenian of Europe, where technical and stylistic convergences were observed. This raises the question of the emergence of these lithic implements in North Africa and the possible spread of similar industries elsewhere.     

Ethnography In/Of/As Open Systems1

Afton, Jean, David Fridtjof Halaas and Andrew E. Masich. Cheyenne Dog Soldiers: A Ledgerbook History of Coups and Combat. Niwot: The University Press of Colorado, 1987. xxxii + 400 pp. including illustrations, appendices, notes, glossary, bibliography and index. $49.95 cloth.

Berlo, Janet C., ed. Plains Indian Drawings, 1865–1935: Pages from a Visual History. New York: Henry N. Abrams, 1997. 240 pp. including illustrations, bibliography and index. $60 cloth.