PUBLIC CAPITAL, REGIONAL OUTPUT, AND DEVELOPMENT: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

ABSTRACT The goal of our paper is to provide direct estimates of the association between public capital and regional output. This is made possible by the construction of a data series which measures public capital at the state level.
The relation between public capital and other productive factors is tested using a translog production function. Our results show that labor and public capital are complementary inputs, and that public capital exhibited diminishing returns. We also consider restrictions on the translog formulation. Linear homogeneity is rejected in all cases, and the Cobb-Douglas specification is rejected for the manufacturing and all sectors categories.     

The Essential Difference Between History and Science

My thesis is that there is a deep, intractable difference, not between history and science per se , but between paradigmatically central kinds of historical interpretations—call them humanistic historical interpretations —and theories of any sort that are characteristic of the physical sciences. The difference is that unlike theories in the physical sciences good humanistic historical interpretations (purport to) reveal subjectivity, agency, and meaning. I use the controversy provoked by Gordon Wood's recent reinterpretation of the American Revolution to illustrate and substantiate this thesis. I also use it to support the claim that unless one attends to the ways in which humanistic historical interpretations reveal subjectivity, agency, and meaning one has no hope whatsoever of getting the epistemology of historical studies right.     

Book reviews

Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Labor Markets and Integrating National Economies. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994. xxvi + 126 pp. No price given.

F.M. Scherer. Competition Policies for an Integrated World Economy, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994. xxii + 133 pp. No price given.

Sylvia Ostry and Richard R. Nelson, Techno‐Nationalism and Techno‐Globalism: Conflict and Cooperation. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995. xxvi + 160 pp. $US28.95 (paper).

Richard N. Cooper, Environmental and Resource Policies for the World Economy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1994. No price given.

C. Randall Henning, Currencies and Politics in the United States, Germany, And Japan. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1994. 432 pp. $17.99.

Ming Zhang, Major Powers at a Crossroads: Economic Interdependence and an Asia‐Pacific Security Community. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1995. xiii + 223 pp. $US49.95 (cloth).

Zaki Laïdi (ed.), Power and Purpose After the Cold War. Oxford and Providence, RI: Berg, 1994. xv + 213 pp. £14.95 (paper), £34.95 (cloth).

Hans‐Henrik Holm and Georg S0rensen (eds), Whose World Order? Uneven Globalization and the End of the Cold War. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. x + 246 pp. $US28.95 (paper).

Geoffrey Stern, The Structure of International Society: an Introduction to the Study of International Relations. London and New York: Pinter, 1995. vi + 314 pp. £11.99 (paper).

David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. xii + 324 pp. £13.95 (paper).

James L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers Since the Mid‐Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. x + 426 pp. $32.50 (paper).

James Burk (ed.), The Military in New Times: Adapting Armed Forces to a Turbulent World. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994. ix + 212 pp. $US44.95 (cloth).

Lawrence Freedman (ed.), Military Intervention in European Conflicts. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994. 195 pp. $39.95 (paper).

Mark Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945. London: Zed Books, 1995. vi + 250 pp. $US25.00 (paper), SUS59.95 (cloth).

Wang Enbao, Hong Kong, 1997: The Politics of Transition. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995. xiii + 231 pp. $US45.00 (cloth).

Kobkua Suwannathat‐Pian, Thailand's Durable Premier. Phibun Through Three Decades, 1932–1957. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995. xiv + 332 pp. $39.95 (cloth).

Sandy Gordon and Stephen Henningham (eds), India Looks East: An Emerging Power and its Asia‐Pacific Neighbours. Canberra: Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence, No. 111, Australian National University, 1995. xx + 280 pp. $24.00 (paper).

Ralph R. Premdas, Ethnic Conflict and Development: The Case of Fiji. Aldershot (UK): Avebury, 1995. xi + 198 pp. £45.00 (cloth).

Werner J. Feld and Robert S. Jordan with Leon Hurwitz, International Organizations. A Comparative Approach. 3rd edn. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994. xxiii + 338 pp. $US24.95 (paper), $US75.00 (cloth).     

The Dynamics Of Federalism

Wright, Deil S., Understanding Intergovernmental Relations
Walker, David B., Toward a Functioning Federalism
Hanus, Jerome J., The Nationalization of State Government
Hale, George E. and Marian Lief Palley, The Politics of Federal Grants     

URBAN POLITICAL ECONOMY: INTRODUCTION

I used to think that what was needed was to bring the mountain people into the “economic mainstream.” I thought it would be possible to do this and still preserve some of the positive, humanizing qualities of mountain cultures. I no longer think that is either possible or desirable. Our challenge is not to join mainstream America. It is to recreate (and) renew … what the mountains have always been … an alternative to mainstream America. This alternative is nearer to being absorbed today than it has ever been in the past. The task before us is to renew this alternative and endow it with the capabilities it will need to survive in late Twentieth Century America. (Mike Smathers, Mountain Life and Work , February, 1973, p. 19).