Communal Forest Management: The Honduran Resin Tappers

Natural resource tenure and economic feasibility of resource-based activities are two of the most important issues in the current debate around environmental degradation and rural poverty. While many analyses have blamed the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and government mismanagement for environmental destruction, this paper provides a case study of resin tapping in Honduras which formulates the hypotheses that common property regimes can be successful and that economic liberalization policies may be detrimental to community-level resource schemes. Over half of the 6000 farmer-resin tappers in Honduras are organized into forty-six co-operatives that market the tree sap, wood and other forest products. These activities combine the twin goals of community-based forest preservation and income generation. Established legally in 1974, the tapping groups have expanded to include a variety of organizational and technical arrangements. The two co-operatives of Villa Santa and San Juan de Ojojona demonstrate contrasting histories, ecological endowments and economic outcomes. Currently the Honduran resin tappers are facing problems over their access to forest resources, the fluctuating profitability of extractive activities and the stability of the co-operative organization. These three issues are relevant to a variety of community-based environmental activities, and the lessons of the Honduran experience can be applied to analyse the processes of environmental degradation and community response elsewhere in the Third World.     

TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN MANUFACTURING FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM THE STATES*

In this paper, we first develop a measure of total factor productivity (TFP) growth and summarize a source-of-growth analysis for the manufacturing sector of 48 states. As have others, we find little association between TFP growth differentials and output growth differentials for census regions. At the staterather than the regional level, however, we find a positive association between TFP growth and output growth. We use cross-sectional data to estimate the determinants of the variation in TFP growth. Two results emerge that are important for regional policy and for understanding national productivity trends. First, state investments in education and in transportation infrastructure may affect TFP growth. Second, energy price increases in the early 1970s had no differential effects on productivity growth across states. We also explore the determinants of manufacturing output growth and find that TFP growth, demand growth, wage growth, wage levels, and state corporate income tax rates are significant.     

Multicollinearity and Parameter Estimation in Simultaneous-Equation Models of Fluvial Systems

Simultaneous-equation statistical models are an attractive method for directly analyzing interactions among components of geomorphic systems. This study demonstrates that the utility of simultaneous-equation analysis is limited for fluvial systems by inherent multicollinearity among hydrologic and morphologic variables. Although multicollinearity for observed data may not be severe, estimation procedures for simultaneous-equation models often enhance this multicollinearity to problematic levels. Diagnostic tests are applied to three models of fluvial systems to illustrate the severity of the problem. It is recommended that investigators who develop simultaneous-equation models perform appropriate diagnostic evaluations to determine the impact of multicollinearity on specific parameter estimates.     

TECHNICAL CHANGE AND PROFITS IN CANADIAN MANUFACTURING: A REGIONAL ANALYSIS

Manufacturing profitability and growth declined sharply in Canada between 1955 and 1984. The spatial extent of this decline has not previously been documented. This article examines manufacturing performance in six regions of Canada. The analysis reveals significant interregional performance differences that appear to be increasing. Two different types of inter-firm competition are identified in the article: competition in production and competition in the market. Empirical investigation reveals that changes in production conditions had a greater impact on regional profitability in five of the six regions studied. In the remaining region, poor market performance was the primary cause of the reduction in profits after 1955.
Au Canada la rentabilité et la croissance industrielle ont profondément diminué entre les années 1955 et 1984. L'ampleur spatiale de cette baisse n'a jamais été docu-mentée. Cette étude examine le comportement et les performances de fabrication dans six régions canadien-nes. De considérables différences inter-régionales, qui semblent toujours s'accentuer sont mises en évidence. Dans cette recherche, deux genres de concurrence entre les societes son identifiés: la concurrence dans la production, et la concurrence dans le marché. L'analyse empi-rique montre que certains changements dans les conditions de production ont eu un effet considérable sur la rentabilité régionale pour cinq des six régions en question. En ce qui concerne la dernière région, la baisse des profits a partir de 1955 est dûe essentiellement à la mauvaise performance du marché.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

Cora Vellekoop Baldock, Volunteers in Welfare (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.xii + 171. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442213 X.

Hugh V. Emy and Andrew Linklater (eds.), New Horizons in Politics: Essays with an Australian Focus (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.vii+207. $17.95 ISBN 0 04 442269 5.

P. Hay, R. Eckersley and G. Holloway, Environmental Politics in Australia and New Zealand (Hobart: University of Tasmania, 1989) pp.200. $n.p. ISBN 0 85901 405 3.

Peter Larmour (ed.) The Greening of Government: The Impact of the Labor/Green Accord on Government in Tasmania (Hobart: Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 1990) pp.iv + 74. $12.00.

Ian McAllister, Malcolm Mackerras, Alvaro Ascui and Susan Moss Australian Political Facts (Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.x + 234. $12.99 ISBN 0 582 71258 0.

John Summers, Dennis Woodward and Andrew Parkin (eds.), Government, Politics and Power in Australia (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 4th edition, 1990) pp.375. $n.p. 0 582 86843 2.

Comparative and international politics

Archie Brown (ed.), Political Leadership in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xi + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 333 41343 1.

Henry P. Frei, Japan's Southward Advance and Australia—from the sixteenth century to World War II (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1991) pp.xvii + 303. $34.95 ISBN 0 522 843921.

Manuel Antonio Garreton, The Chilean Political Process (Translated by Sharron Kellum and Gilbert W. Merkx) (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.xix + 220. $39.95 ISBN 0 04 497069 2.

Timothy Garton Ash, We The People, The Revolution of ‘89, Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin & Prague (Cambridge: Granta Books, 1990) pp.156. $12.99 ISBN 0 14 014023 9.

Misha Glenny, The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy (London: Penguin, 1990) pp.xiii + 245. $14.99 ISBN 0 14 014394 7.

Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: the party and the revolution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, paperback edition, 1990) pp.xii + 238. $29.95 ISBN 1 55786 072 6.

Dennis Kavanagh and Peter Morris, Consensus Politics from Attlee to Thatcher (Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.ix + 137. £6.95 ISBN 0 631 16566 5.

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Affairs 1990. (Southeast Asian Studies, 1990) pp.x + 395. $US37.00 ISBN 0377 5437.

David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) pp.xv + 401. $34.95 ISBN 0 04 445167 9.

Ralph Miliband, Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) pp.x + 277. $n.p. ISBN 0–19827535–8.

J.D.B. Miller and John Vincent (eds.), Order and Violence: Hedley Bull and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 220. $55.00 ISBN 0 19 827555 2.

Peter Riddell, The Thatcher Decade: How Britain has changed during the 1980s (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) pp.x + 236. $39.50 ISBN 631 16274 7.

Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Vietnam 1954–1960 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xxx + 256. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 370187 6.

Malcolm Waters, Class and Stratification: Arrangements for Socioeconomic Inequality Under Capitalism (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.ix + 199. $n.p. ISBN 0 582 86833 5.

Political theory and methodology

Rodney Barker, Political Legitimacy and the Stale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 990) pp. 216. $62.50 ISBN 0 19 827495 5.

John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit, Not Just Deserts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) pp.viii + 229. $65.00 ISBN 0 19 824233 6.

David Gauthier, Moral Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990). pp.377. $14.95 ISBN 0 8014 2431 3.

G.T. Kaplan and C.S. Kessler (eds.), Hannah Arendt (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989) pp.xi + 178. $16.95 ISBN 0 04 920109 3.

David W. Lovell, Marx's Proletariat: The Making of a Myth (N.Y.: Routledge, 1988) pp.261. $27.59 ISBN 0–415–00116–1.

Schmidtz, David. The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991) pp.xviii + 197. $21.00 ISBN 0 81 330871 2.

Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, Aaron Wildavsky, Cultural Theory (Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1990) pp.xiv + 296. $49.95 ISBN 0 8133 7863 X.