Institutions du travail et etat‐nation histoire d'un mariage à l'avenir incertain

Concepts of unemployment or of the labour market are not abstract, but develop from each society's own particular logic. Taking the examples of Germany and France at the end of the nineteenth century, it is possible to see how these concepts were constructed in specific national contexts, and how they were then used in practice. This analysis leads us to rethink current ideas about work and unemployment, and to ask what their future will be in a united Europe.     

The Outbreak of Nationalism on Former Yugoslav Territory: A Historical Perspective on the Problem of Supranational Identity

Abstract. In the text some questions about the genesis of radical nationalism on the former Yugoslav territory are discussed. The author's main thesis is that what happened during the outburst of nationalism was an alteration in the status of national identification, particularly in its relation to ‘supranational’ Yugoslav identification; that is, the eruption of radical nationalism was the result of reorganisation within an identification matrix. This thesis is first clarified by a short historical survey of the status of national identification before the outburst of nationalism, and secondly by an analysis of the main changes in the identification matrix during the outbreak of nationalism. Additionally, some of the main characteristics of political socialisation in the Yugoslav socialist state (especially the function of the value ‘brotherhood and unity’), as well as the possibility for future non-conflictual relations between the nations of former socialist Yugoslavia are discussed.     

Application of European regional development fund for objective 2 in Catalonia: planning,monitoring and evaluation

This paper describes the administration procedures of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for Objective 2 in Catalonia. The paper shows also that the flow of an average of 100 million ECU per year from this Fund from 1989–1993, despite having a relatively slight impact on the Catalan GDP, has contributed to solving some of the bottlenecks in the Catalan economy.     

La forme est le fond la structuration des appareils statistiques nationaux (1800–1945)

The present paper surveys the discussions conducted by official statisticians regarding the ideal structure according to which a national data collection system should have been designed if it was to meet the challenges put up by the various transformation Western countries have undergone since the beginning of the 19th century. Arguments in favour of coordination, centralization, or decentralization have emerged for the first time in 1832 Britain, when the Statistical Bureau of the Board of Trade was created. Up to 1945, this debate went on, the industrial take-off, the economic crises, and the world wars all being occasions for its protagonists to put forward their preferred view. The perspective we take here is original in two respects: on the one hand, instead of confining ourselves to the major statistical systems (those of France, Britain, and the USA), we intend to evoke a large number of cases and, from this comparative standpoint, propose a general account of the drive towards centralization; on the other hand, instead of restraining our-selves to the 19th century, we cover the entire time-frame extending from 1800 to 1945.     

LAND USE IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ATMOSPHERE EXTERNALITY,WITH AND WITHOUT CORRECTIVE TAXES*

ABSTRACT. Total cleared area in a von Thünen land-use model drives an atmosphere externality which depresses agricultural productivity uniformly throughout the region. Exogenous events that encourage clearance and use of a larger cultivated area (output price or population increase) exacerbate the externality. Imposition of a simple, corrective tax on land rents does not reverse these patterns but does mitigate the increase in the externality and leaves cultivators with higher incomes than they would obtain without the tax. We examine an optimal tax on land rents, designed to maximize the social value of land rents in the region, and an output tax.