ALBERT

Notes: The study has two major objectives. The first is to determine time trends in household wealth inequality in the U.S. over the 1962–83 period. Four concepts of wealth are analyzed: (i) total household wealth, defined as total household assets less liabilities; (ii) fungible wealth, defined as total household wealth less consumer durables and household inventories; (iii) financial wealth, defined as fungible wealth less equity in owner-occupied housing; and (iv) capital wealth, defined as financial wealth less currency, checking accounts, and time deposits. Relying on a variety of data sources, I find that wealth inequality remained relatively constant from about 1962 to 1973, fell sharply from about 1973 to about 1979, and then rose sharply between 1979 and 1983. Concentration in 1983 was greater than that in 1962 for financial and capital wealth but of similar magnitude for total and fungible wealth. The second, methodological in nature, is to analyze the effect on measured inequality of the alignment of raw survey data to national balance sheet totals. I find that the alignment process can significantly affect point estimates of household wealth distribution but does not generally affect the direction of inequality trends.

Notes: Social fields are areas of analysis in which one finds both market and non-market production and situations where indirect means of financing are used, in that expenditure is made by a third party rather than by the consumer.The borderline between these two spheres changes with time and from one country to another, but often when a system of third party paying is in practice, the difference is hardly noticeable for the beneficiary. On the other hand, the central framework of national accounts introduces a complete dichotomy of these two situations.In order to obviate this drawback, the national accounts have proposed two solutions. The first leads to having appear on the accounts of households only the expenditure made by them and not the figure of their consumption. Contrary to this is a second solution whereby the consumption account of households is extended to include the non-market services received directly, and a corresponding imputed income appears.This second solution makes possible a richer analysis. However, it calls for the use of fictitious circuits and this often creates problems in the choice of a recording time. Furthermore, the number of circuits chosen has to be limited if they are to he the object of international agreement.The French system of satellite accounts seems particularly well suited to a truly thorough description of these phenomena. In fact, the analysis is carried out from a tripartite point of view of the producer, the beneficiary and the financer (i.e. the third party who takes on the expenditure). In this system, the functional perspective based on the study of the beneficiary of the expenditure can be analysed in greater depth than in the central framework of national accounts.Thus satellite accounts represent a complementary solution for the processing of problems inherent to these fields.

Notes: As is widely recognized both in the literature and by the practitioners, the treatment of financial intermediaries has been one of the most controversial issues in national accounting. This has been so largely because no one up to now has been able to define the output of banks and other financial intermediaries. In the present paper, a theory of services in general and of financial services in particular is used to demonstrate that financial intermediaries produce at least six commodity type services. Furthermore, it is argued that in order to solve the banking imputation problem it is necessary to separate the theory of interest rates from the theory of financial services and examine the interdependence between them. The gross interest rate must be unbundled because it contains three distinct components. These are, first, the pure interest rate, which reflects payment for a factor-type service; second, payments for six commodity-type services, which reflect the output of financial intermediaries; and, third, payments for unilateral transfers. The new unbundled approach is contrasted to the old bundle approach used and/or advocated by standard economic theory, the SNA, Sunga and the Ruggleses. Furthermore, it is recommended that payments for the pure interest rate be considered as part of income of the paying enterprise or sector while payments for financial services by enterprises to other enterprises should be considered as intermediate purchases.

Notes: New social concerns and priorities–beyond the economic growth paradigm–pose a challenge to the established statistical systems. The initial response of developing overall welfare measures and social indicators of the human quality of life had little impact on official statistics. Environment statistics, on the other hand, has become accepted as a new branch of applied statistics, maturing from exclusive pollution monitoring to cover various aspects of natural resources and the man-made environment. Still, a rather artificial separation between ecological monitoring and modeling and anthropocentric environmental statistics and accounting persists. The assessment of complex and interrelated socioeconomic and environmental concerns requires comparable inter-disciplinary information. The provision of such information should be facilitated by a flexible framework approach to statistical coordination and integration.

Notes: The evidence on economic inequality in nearly all developing countries is both seriously incomplete and of moderate to poor quality. In addition, information often corresponds to distributions which appear to be less revealing and useful than other ones; thus it can be argued that the frequently available distribution of income among households ranked by household income is less helpful than the seldom found distribution of consumption among persons ranked by per capita household consumption. Whether one's objective is to assess inequality in some absolute sense or (especially) to make comparisons across countries or evaluate trends over time, it is useful to know whether systematic relationships exist among various measures of inequality, in particular between those most commonly available and those conceptually most interesting. Illustrative comparisons of a variety of inequality indicators are presented. They suggest that in developing countries the concentration of income among persons (assuming equal distribution within the family) does not differ much from the concentration among households. They also suggest that the concentration of consumption is somewhat less unequal than that of income, the ratio of the respective Gini coefficients tending to cluster around 0.85 to 0.90.

Notes: In the future revision of the SNA the dual classification of flows in the national accounts will gain some importance with respect to consumption expenditures. It is likely that outlays of different institutions for consumption are added to form a new aggregate “individual consumption.” The question is whether this development requires an adjustment on the income side of the household accounts.In order to find an answer it is first necessary to scrutinize the concept of disposable income in its standard form, and in its different variations. The result is a distinction between “disposable income in the strict sense” and “income after distribution,” where the standard definition actually realizes the latter concept. It is then shown that the dual structure of the accounts does not permit the adding of individual consumption to saving of households so that the concept of enlarged income defeats its purpose.

Notes: The value-added model underlies current measures of aggregate productivity growth. Unbiased estimates result only if the economy is closed to trade in foreign-produced material inputs and all domestic intersectoral transactions are characterized by marginal cost pricing. Neither condition typically holds.This paper identifies these biases and proposes a delivery-to-final-demand framework, a modified form of that first introduced by Domar. The rate of aggregate productivity growth is decomposed into terms identifying the contributions of total factor productivity growth within individual sectors, the reallocation of the economy's primary inputs among sectors, and changes in the allocative efficiency of markets for intermediate goods. The adjustments necessary to remove biases from existing value-added estimates are derived.

Notes: Current discussion contains widely contradictory statements about the economic status of the elderly in the United States. One can read that poverty among the elderly has been eliminated, and that it remains one of the most serious problems facing the country today. This paper discusses different ways of measuring economic status, and attempts to show how authors can reach such divergent conclusions, and support them with readily available data.The U.S. Census data on personal income generally exclude in-kind benefits, and treat family size in a straightforward though unsophisticated manner. This paper shows that alternative treatments of these issues can have significant effects on indices of the economic status of the elderly. Whether or not in-kind benefits are included in the definition of income, which in-kind benefits are included and how they are valued change the conclusions dramatically. Even more important is whether the income data are presented by household or per capita (or with some intermediate divisor, using equivalency scales), since elderly households are the smallest of any age category.This paper makes 3 points. One is that there has been significant progress in the economic status of the elderly over the past several decades, although the extent of the improvement is subject to debate. But the second is that summary statistics about the elderly, such as the above, may conceal more than they reveal. The diversity of the elderly is key. Beware of the mean. Finally, there is no one correct way to measure well-being. Different methodological approaches can be chosen and justified, and the choices made alter the conclusions significantly.

Notes: This paper deals with regional accounting problems in Finland. Regional policy planning problems and special regional characteristics of the country are discussed as a background to the development of regional accounts. Accounting problems such as regional division, regionalization methods, general and special solutions to problems affecting specific sectors of the accounts, and problems in allocating production across regions are dealt with in the paper. In addition, supplementary data such as state income and expenditure data by region and regional input-output calculations, both of which may be needed in regional policy-making, are discussed. In Finland, both types of data have been included in a regional data bank compiled by the Central Statistical Office. For the future, monitoring regional standards of living and observing differences in welfare and in production by region remain important challenges for the development of regional data systems.

Notes: This paper deals with the construction of statistics on real income changes of households in the Netherlands. Two different figures are computed, called the dynamic and the static figure. The dynamic figure reflects the change in real income as experienced by individuals. It is based on longitudinal data: two panels resulting from an exact match between three files from the Netherlands' IRS. The static figure reflects the change in real income of positions (e.g. of a 60-year old civil servant) instead of individuals. It is based on micro-simulation: changes in wages, taxes, etc. are simulated on a sample of individuals for whom socio-economic and demographic positions are assumed constant.In the paper we discuss both figures and some other problems, e.g. the concept of real income and the price index. Furthermore we give results for the years 1977–1983 and discuss some differences between the dynamic and the static figure. The most notable result is the large variation in the dynamic figure, exhibiting a very substantial income mobility.

Notes: This paper describes the sources and methods used in assembling a microconsistent regional data set for Canada for 1981 for use in counterfactual general equilibrium policy analyses focussing on regional impacts of government policies.A microconsistent data set at the regional level requires assembling detailed consistent accounts of production and demand by region, of interregional and international trade flows, and of transactions involving multiple levels of government. For many or most countries, the data requirements associated with regional general equilibrium analysis preclude this form of work. But because of the substantial progress made in recent years in developing provincial data sources in Canada, such as the provincial input-output tables and the provincial economic accounts, the situation in Canada is different. Using these data, it is possible to construct an interregional microconsistent benchmark data set at a suitable level of commodity detail for subsequent model use. This data set has already been used in an initial evaluation of a number of Canadian regional issues (see Trela and Whalley (1985)). The methodology used follows that presented in an earlier paper of ours (St-Hilaire and Whalley (1983)) which described the construction of a 1972 national data set for Canada developed for tax policy analysis.

Notes: The way in which cyclical fluctuations in activity in the U.K. economy affect factor income shares and the channels through which these effects work through to the size distribution of income are traced. Using National Accounts data, the impact of an upturn in activity in increasing the shares of profits and self-employment income in factor incomes, and of self-employment and rent, interest and dividends in personal incomes, is quantified. Using Family Expenditure Survey micro-data, the resulting shift in decile shares in personal income, which is towards the top of the size distribution, is estimated.

Notes: This paper is an abridged version of a report with the same title originally written for the United Nations Statistical Office, as a part of the ongoing review of the System of National Accounts. Its purpose is to identify the issues in the financial statistics area that need to be considered in the course of the review. Particular attention is paid to problems of harmonization of SNA with related standards of the International Monetary Fund. The 1968 SNA provided a place in the framework for financial accounts and balance sheets, but did not develop them in any detail. In the 19 years since the revised SNA was published, policy and analytic interest in financial questions has greatly increased, and much work has been done on conceptual development and statistical compilation of financial statistics, both within and outside of the SNA framework. It is now apparent that some of the early decisions taken when financial considerations were not the focus of attention need reconsideration, some of the makeshift solutions that have grown up over time are no longer adequate, and some issues that have not been dealt with at all need to be addressed. This paper is not intended to propose solutions, but rather to reflect questions that have been raised, and to present alternatives that have been proposed.

Notes: This paper develops a rationale for a comprehensive measure of income and provides illustrative calculations within the Canadian System of National Accounts for making adjustments to net worth for price changes.The paper notes that the System of National Accounts is designed to provide a number of individual aggregates measuring total production, income, savings and net worth. There is no single overall comprehensive measure which reflects the combined effect of changes in income and wealth. Such a measure is of particular importance in periods of rapid or extensive price changes which affect not only purchasing power of income but also the value of assets held and liabilities outstanding with consequences on net worth positions. This paper explores these issues and develops techniques for measuring the effects of specific and overall price changes with respect to net worth of the various sectors in the economy, illustrated with data from the integrated Canadian System of National Accounts.

Notes: The findings of this paper may be summarized in a few paragraphs which, of course, omit all qualifications of the statistical data used.1. The best single measure of economic growth from the stock (rather than the flow) aspect now available is deflated durable reproducible tangible wealth per head,1excluding military tangible assets, subsoil assets, and civilian semi-durable and perishable assets.2. The average rate of growth of real R.T.W. per head for the entire period from 1805 to 1950 is 2 percent, with a range of about 1.8 to 2.2 percent. These figures should be regarded as minima because they do not make allowance for the probable overstatement of the effective rise in the price level involved in the process of deflation and because of the omission or understatement of some types of durable assets such as soil improvement.3. The rate of growth increased from approximately 2.2 percent in the first half of the nineteenth century to 2.5 percent in the second half. The highest decadal rate for periods of about ten years was apparently reached in the‘eighties with approximately 3.8 percent. From this peak it declined to approximately 1.6 percent for the period 1890 to 1922, but rallied to 2 percent in the‘twenties. From 1930 to 1945 R.T.W. per head not only failed to grow but declined slightly, an unprecendented phenomenon due to the Great Depression and to World War II.4. Since World War II the rate of growth of real R.T.W. per head has averaged fully 4 percent. This is higher than any decadal rate known; and probably higher too than that prevailing during any previous period of prosperity. The increase of 22 percent in the five years 1946–50 seems to be as high as that in any previous period of equal length. While part of this rapid increase may be regarded as making up for deficiencies in the ratio of R.T.W. to national product created in the preceding fifteen years; and while it is uncertain how long the recent rapid rise will continue, even if we disregard restrictions on civilian capital formation under the impact of rearmament, it may be that the downward trend in the rate of growth of R.T.W. per head in evidence since the late nineteenth century has been arrested.5. During the one hundred and fifty years for which data are available and which encompass virtually the entire economic history of the United States, the structure of R.T.W. has shown considerable changes, but also a degree of stability which may be regarded as astonishing in view of the extraordinary extension of the economic area of the United States and the radical changes in the nature of its economy. In particular, the proportion of R.T.W. represented by reproducible durable assets for consumers' direct use and for use in production has changed but little.6. Residential buildings and consumers' durable goods accounted for approximately two-fifths of total domestic R.T.W. (in current prices) throughout the period, although the ratio has shown a slight tendency to rise since the middle of the nineteenth century. Within consumers' R.T.W. residential buildings have lost slightly in importance at the expense of movable durable goods. The share of government (including non-profit institutions but excluding military assets) has risen from an insignificant fraction to approximately one-eighth of total R.T.W.’The proportion of R.T.W. represented by private enterprise (including farms) has declined moderately. Within total business R.T.W. changes, however, have been very substantial. The two outstanding trends are the relative decline of R.T.W. of agriculture (excluding farmers' residences and consumers' durables), and the increase in the share of non-farm business structures and equipment, particularly prior to 1880. Non-farm business inventories, on the other hand, seem to have maintained approximately the same proportion to total domestic R.T.W. throughout the period.7. Until World War I part of domestic R.T.W. must be regarded as being the property of foreign owners. The proportion of foreign investments to R.T.W. of the United States, however, declined rapidly throughout the nineteenth century from a proportion of over one-eighth at its start to only a few percent after World War I.Investments abroad have never been substantial compared to R.T.W. They have been almost insignificant throughout the nineteenth century. Even at their peak in 1929 they represented only 7 percent of domestic R.T.W., a proportion not yet regained by 1950.

Notes: The recognition of differences among the major sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing, has a considerable tradition in economic thinking. Also, there is evidence that important national and international predicaments of our time are closely related to sectoral-structural developments. Yet economists in the developed countries are often disinclined to study the shifts among the megasectors.This paper suggests that an intensified study of the topic may be profitable. In order to support this proposition it first reflects on the traditions of sectoral emphasis in literature. Second, it considers the evidence for the ascendancy of the quaternary activities. Third, it deals with the input-output relations among the four megasectors of the economy. Thereafter it points to the emergence of potential inefficiencies among quaternary activities and raises the possibility of a megasector misequilibrium. Finally it outlines certain connections to the thoughts of Leontief and Sraffa; considers services in the neoclassical framework; explores the relationships to institutional thought; and ponders the extension of its basic hypothesis to the developing nations, the socialist countries, and to historical analysis.

Notes: The French national accounts applied the insurance production assessment method recommended by the European system of accounts (ESA), for the years 1970 to 1985, in a particularly turbulent economic and financial environment. A better understanding of the sector was thereby obtained, but the problems set by the very “technical” production assessment method were thus brought to light. These problems are still not solved by the present accounting system, since, to summarize matters, it hides the importance of the sector's “financial” activity, whereas in fact the income drawn from this activity contributes to a high extent to the global balance of insurance operations. This is of course related to the reasons why in certain countries insurance companies are considered more as savings collecting and investment institutions rather than risk transformers.This report sheds light on the significance of the present premiums, indemnities and reserves recording method and then presents the new method chosen by the french accounts to assess production; finally it analyses the remaining difficulties relating mainly to capital gains.

Notes: National and Sector Balance Sheets are playing an increasingly important role in economic analysis. This article reviews the actual and potential applications and considers whether there is a case for modifying SNA practice and recommendations to increase the value of the contribution that balance sheets can make to analytical work.The major sections of the article relate respectively to financial and non-financial items in national and sector balance sheets. In the context of financial items, there is discussion of the perception of what constitutes an individual's total financial portfolio and therefore which items should be included or excluded when assessing the financial assets of the household sector (e.g. various forms of pension entitlement and life assurance). The relevance of marketability is considered as is the possibility of attempting to identify a separate domestic households sub-sector. The other main topic considered in relation to financial balance sheets is the relevance of adopting a single approach to valuation; alternatives are considered in relation to the stock of public sector debt.So far as non-financial assets are concerned, difficulties arise with the national accounting practice of treating the acquisition of consumer durables and military assets as current expenditure. While it is considered, on balance, best to continue to treat the purchase of consumer durables as current expenditure, though recording the value of the stock of durables outside the main body of balance sheets, it is recommended that “non-fighting” assets such as transport ships and aircraft and hospitals should be treated as capital assets. The treatment of sub-soil assets and the valuation of fixed assets is also discussed.Reconciling balance sheets with flows data is an essential step if balance sheets are to be fully exploited; some comments are offered on the UN guidelines on this topic.

Notes: Problems raised in the article relate to the treatment of services in a planned economy. While the theoretical discussion argues for change in the conceptual framework for qualifying and measuring the output of the service sector, the practice of statistical reporting is still based on the classical concept of the material product system (MPS) of national accounts. The first part of the article gives an outline of the MPS background and presents major theoretical and practical dilemmas of measurement of services in the non-material sphere of production. The second part is an empirical investigation of interrelatedness between production in the material sphere and services created in the non-material sphere in Poland during the period 1970–81. Correlation and elasticity of growth analysis as well as structural forecasting methods were used in order to demonstrate the strong relation between the development of the material and non-material spheres of production, and the favorable position of services in terms of factor productivities with their low potential for dynamic structural changes in the future. For the purpose of empirical analysis, the service sector output was estimated by using an extended version of MPS. There are two major conclusions to be drawn from the analysis. The first is that the classical concept of MPS not only inadequately copes with changes resulting from economic reforms in Poland but produces more and more dilemmas and practical problems. The second conclusion calls for a more active approach to services in development programming and planning.

Notes: This paper is addressed to the question of how far income distribution statistics currently available in Latin America can be relied upon, either to assess the degree of inequality in the national distribution of income or to undertake comparisons between countries or over time. It gives a summary account of research carried out on Latin American data.The sources available in Latin America for estimating income distributions are discussed. Concentrating the attention on household surveys conducted in various Latin American countries, an inventory of such surveys and their characteristics is offered, along with a detailed exposition of survey methods and income concepts used for estimating household income. Methods used for assessing the representativeness of samples are summarily reviewed. The case for comparing income data from household surveys and population censuses with national accounts estimates is put forward, along with the procedures and assumptions used for carrying out such comparisons. The relative discrepancy between the two sources is taken as indicative of the degree of underestimation of each type of income in each survey. An analysis of such discrepancies across the set of surveys considered gives clues on possible underestimation biases in measuring each type of income and total household income in different types of survey and in population censuses.Differential effects on comparability of survey results call for appropriate methods of adjusting income distribution estimates to account for the missing incomes. A method for carrying out such an adjustment is applied to income distributions from a selected number of Latin American surveys. The results obtained provide an indication of how much difference it makes to use unadjusted or adjusted data to assess income concentration or to carry out comparisons over time or space.

Notes: The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently published a set of experimental estimates of gross State product at factor cost and its income components for the States of Australia (1): The regular compilation and publication of the estimates is also commencing. In compiling the estimates, certain conceptual issues were confronted. Others were recognized but have not required final resolution as yet because they are beyond the scope of the estimates presently compiled.This paper considers the development of a framework for regional accounts for countries with regional characteristics broadly similar to those of the Australian States by starting with the SNA framework that applies at the national Ievel. The difficulties that arise are highlighted and alternative approaches for dealing with specific issues discussed. These alternative approaches can have a significant impact on measured State relativities and performance over time. In some instances the choice between approaches may be narrowed because of practical considerations in the same way that the SNA is a conceptual framework that nevertheless has to take account of practicalities. The issues largely involve consideration as to whether or not to regard certain activities as extra-territorial in nature. If an extra-territorial concept is not adopted choices must be made on how to allocate data items related to such activities by State.

Notes: This paper reviews the underlying concepts and definitions of SNA and MPS in order to identify those areas where the differences in the content or classifications of the corresponding aggregates of these systems of national accounting can be eliminated or reduced in the course of the present or the future work on the revision of both SNA and MPS. This will bring the systems nearer to each other and improve international comparability of national income data. In cases where such a reconciliation is not feasible, the introduction of certain modifications or clarifications in the selected sections of SNA and/or MPS will be a useful step.Pursuing this objective, the paper introduces the following classification of the intersystem differences:—differences in the fundamental concepts and definitions;—differences caused by the peculiarities in the—institutional set up;—so called “incidental” differences.On examining the above classification the paper comes to the conclusion that each group requires its own approach. The second conclusion is that possibilities for reducing intersystem differences are more promising in the case of the third group.The paper uses the simplified MPS matrix in order to demonstrate the usefulness of certain modifications in the MPS classifications. These modifications do not imply any deviations from the fundamental concepts and yet they could facilitate international comparability.The paper also discusses certain modifications (or clarifications) concerning some aggregates which could be useful in the context of international comparisons.

Notes: Between March and June of 1983, for 118 days, Israel experienced one of the most prolonged doctors' strikes ever recorded. This article provides a conceptual framework for analysing the strike. It presents an outline of the role of different health agencies in Israel prior to and during the crisis and considers the status dilemma of modern doctors.

Notes: Breakfast-time television offers a different approach from more established television output; but how significant are the differences? This article analyses the scope and presentation of industrial relations issues on breakfast-time television and evaluates the qualitative implications they are given.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article:Unions in Crisis and Beyond: Perspectives from Six Countries Richard Edwards, Paola Garonna and Franz TödlingUnions, Unemployment and Innovation Eric Batstone and Stephen Gourlay with Hugh Levie and Roy MooreLabor Law Reform and US Industrial Relations Barbara Townley GowerMilitant Managers? Managerial Unionism and Industrial Relations Greg BamberWhite Collar Workers, Trade Unions and Class P. Armstrong, B. Carter, C. Smith and T. NicholsSoziologie der industriellen Beziehungen Walther Mtiller JentschGrey Dawn Breaking: British Merchant Seafarers in the Late Twentieth Century Tony Lane

Notes: This article uses a large scale body of survey data to investigate the proposition that reported management perceptions of the extent to which unions constitute a constraint on organisational change will vary systematically according to certain personal and organisational characteristics. The resulting evidence of selective perception has a number of implications for survey work that seeks attitudinal based responses to questions, particularly from a single management respondent per employment establishment.

Notes: In recent years many large companies – mainly those making large scale redundancies – have made efforts to stimulate job creation in the localities in which they are based. Although this has succeeded in helping to create jobs, it has been criticised, prompting major sponsors of such initiatives to consider how job creation strategies can be made more effective.

Notes: In the UK there has been increasing concern about the growing ‘legalism’ of the Industrial Tribunal System. An alternative is the system in the Republic of Ireland which uses a ‘Rights Commissioner’ under a ‘regulated arbitration’ system. This article examines the lessons to be drawn from Ireland and their relevance to reform in the UK.

Notes: Industrial relations in the national newspaper industry are in a state of flux. Structural changes, in particular those of technology, make it likely that the shift in bargaining power in favour of employers is largely irreversible.

Notes: Data from a survey of 143 enterprises indicates that foreign-owned firms are likely to devote more resources to, and be more advanced in, modern human resource management techniques while being similar in the extent to which unions are recognised for collective bargaining.

Notes: State-level financial assistance programs for water projects are expected to become more important as federal funding levels drop and mechanisms change. In some western states such as Texas and California, constitutional restrictions are placed on tax and spending limits and the issuance of general obligation bonds to finance projects is subject to voter approval through a referendum process. Seven water-related referenda have been held in Texas between 1957 and 1985. Election results indicate that through 1968 voters from across the state supported the concept of state-level financial assistance for water projects and ratified three consecutive referenda, thus establishing the Water Development Fund and its $400 million authorization limit. Between 1969 and 1981, three amendments intended to increase authorization and expand the Fund's scope were defeated in elections that exhibited a regionalized voting pattern between East and West Texas voters. In 1985, this cleavage was not evident and the Water Development Fund was increased by an additional $980 million. These shifts reflect changes in voter perceptions of the state's water development policy and coincide with release of the 1968 and 1984 versions of the Texas Water Plan. The Texas experience, which is particularly relevant to California, could also be useful to other states considering similar state-level financial programs that would require voter approval.

Notes: The period 1966 to 1976 was a decade of change, contrast and challenge. In this article a model is developed and estimated contrasting the labor market experiences of young men who participated in post-school occupational training during this period with those young men who did not participate. Participation in post-school forms of occupational training is identified as a significant contributor to individual labor market success during the period and racial differences in returns to training participation are highlighted. The results prompt questions concerning the direction of current federal training policy.

Notes: State lotteries are the fiscal gimmick for the 1980s, receiving widespread popular and legislative approval. Unfortunately, the impact of structural and external influences on lottery sales is not well understood. This analysis sheds light on these influences, demonstrating that state economic activity, age of the game, interstate lottery competition, and game portfolios significantly affect sale and, consequently, benefit to the state.

Notes: Incentive and liquidity effects of Pittsburgh's land value tax system are hypothesized to encourage new housing development. To test this hypothesis, an econometric model is estimated using building permit data for the dependent variable and tax rates and other determinants of new housing demand and supply for the independent variables. For the case of new housing, it is shown that the incentive effect is significant but the liquidity effect is not. The incentive effect is found to encourage increases in the number of new units constructed in Pittsburgh rather than increases in the average cost of new units.

Notes: A modified core-periphery model of economic spatial relations is tested by an examination of U.S. corporate merger behavior from 1955 to 1980. A core, a number of semicores, semipheripheries, and a periphery describe the merger-defined relationships between states and SMSAs. The core-periphery structure is not stable across time and is related to the merger cycle.

Notes: The Arizona Community Data Set (ACDS) now contains the results of 40 separate establishment-level, community-wide surveys. These communities can be classified into different functional types, and OLS regression models can be used to explore the relationships among community functions, levels of public transfer payments, and magnitudes of economic base multipliers. The statistical analysis suggests that employment-derived estimates of the base multiplier tend to be biased upward unless transfer payments are specified in the model.

Notes: British trade unions are not alone in needing to develop sophisticated and effective responses to rapid change – the theme of an earlier article by Tony Lane in Vol 17 No 4. Here the authors explore the problems of German trade unions in absorbing and evaluating detailed company information.

Notes: A number of significant reforms for the improvement of the position of women in Greece ha ve taken place since the restoration of democracy in 1974. After a brief discussion of these changes the author examines their effects on Greek women's pay and compares them with the British case.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article:The Decline of Trade Union Organisation, P.B. BeaumontImproving Industrial Relations – the Advisory Role of ACAS, Eric Armstrong and Rosemary LucasThe State of the Unions, Barrie ShermanThe Trade Unions and the Labour Party, Andrew J. TaylorNew Technology at Work, Arthur FrancisDictionnaire Canadiert des Relations du Travail, Gérard DionSocialist Enterprise: Reclaiming the Economy, Diana Gilhespy, Ken Jones, Tony Manwaring, Henry Neuburger, Adam Sharpies

Notes: This article explores patterns of industrial relations throughout the world, and hypothesizes that there are three basic sub-models: the developed capitalist, the communist, and the semi-developed capitalist sub-model. All have analytical rigor and predictive possibilities, and can be utilized and tested.

Notes: In attempting to account for the variation in accident rates in underground coal mines in New South Wales this article examines potential explanatory variables and concludes that the most important cause is mine size. The author explains this as a consequence of the greater bureaucratisation and decreased worker autonomy which characterise large mines.

Notes: On the basis of strike statistics it has been argued that Northern Ireland has a more harmonious industrial relations climate than Great Britain. Here the author compares its strike pattern with that of the UK as a whole and explains why Northern Ireland should be seen as a relatively strike prone region.

Notes: There is a large literature concerning the effects of aggregation on the output estimates produced by, and information content of, input-output models. However, virtually no attention has been given to the effects of aggregation on input-output multipliers. This paper presents a methodology for calculating consistent aggregate input-output multipliers for any given change in final demands.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article: What Do Buyers Want? Kenneth Train, Qualitative Choice Analysis: Theory, Econometrics, and an Application to Automobile Demand. Federal Finances Joseph F. Moraglio and Harry D. Kerrigan, The Federal Budget and Financial System: A Management Perspective. Silicon Tarheels Dale Whittington, High Hopes for High Tech: Microelectronics Policy in North Carolina. Turning It Around in Colombia Vinod Thomas, Linking Macroeconomics and Agricultural Polices for Adjustments with Growth: The Colombian Experience. A Changing World John H. Baldwin, Environmental Planning and Management. Toward a Theory of Industrial Development Donald A. Hicks, Advanced Industrial Development Restructuring, Relocation, and Renewal. Applying the HUDS Model to Chicago John F. Kain and William C. Apgar, Jr., Housing and Neighborhood Dynamics: A Simulation Study. Deindustrialization: Causes and Self-Help Warner Woodworth, Christopher Meek, and William Foote Whyte, eds., Industrial Democracy: Strategies for Community Revitalization. Integrating Disparate Views Peter Burnell, Economic Nationalism in the Third World. The U. S. Food Trade with CPEs James R. Jones, ed., East-West Agricultural Trade. Some Are Still More Equal Than Others Janet K. Boles, ed., The Egalitarian City: Issues of Rights, Distribution, Access, and Power.

Notes: The methodology used to build a leading indicator model for Ohio SMSA employment is described in this paper. A composite leading indicator series for each of the eight major metropolitan areas and the state of Ohio was constructed. These composite indicators appear to work well in a “real-time” simulation of their actual use. The methodology employed here departs from traditional methods for constructing such leading indicators in the approach to weighting the individual indicator series in order to devise a composite index. An econometric approach to determining the weights was employed. The weighting method can be said to be “optimal” in that the weights were chosen to maximize the out-of-sample ability of the composite index to detect future changes in economic activity, proxied here by the level of employment. This approach to weighting the component series in devising a composite index is computationally expensive, since it requires that a number of models be estimated and simulated in an actual use environment. It does overcome the usual subjective nature of the weighting schemes employed, and has resulted in composite indexes for the eight metropolitan areas and Ohio that perform quite well.

Notes: This paper attempts to identify and adjust for several shortcomings of previous port impact studies in the estimation of primary port economic impact. These shortcomings are found to create the potential for both positive and negative bias. Also presented in this paper is a technique for circumventing several practical problems in the estimation of secondary economic impact. These adjustments are applied to estimate the economic impact of the Port of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Notes: Should an economic development strategy target the business services industry to insulate the local economy from the business cycle? The relationship between business services employment (SIC 73) and measures of the business cycle is analyzed at national and metropolitan-area levels. At the national level, certain components of business services are not immune to the business cycle while others are. At the metropolitan level, certain characteristics of the metropolitan area and its industrial structure are identified which would result in business services employment being procyclical or not immune to the business cycle.

Notes: Extensive literatures exist on both regional development and the optimum use of nonrenewable resources over time, but the two have not been melded to consider the effect of combining the optimization of resource exploitation with optimization of population growth and infrastructure investment. A model incorporating these dimensions of regional growth is analyzed using control theory to characterize the optimal time paths of the source-related investment, resource use, and infrastructure investment. An example of nonrenewable groundwater use in the Colorado High Plains region is analyzed to show the shortcomings of existing regulatory schemes.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article: The Return of a Hero Robert D. Hisrich, ed., Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, and Venture Capital: The Foundation of Economic Renaissance. Alaska's Oil, Alaska's People Lawrence A. Palinkas, Bruce Murray Harris, and John S. Petterson, A Systems Approach to Social Impact Assessment: Two Alaskan Case Studies. Regional Trends Bernard L. Weinstein, Harold T. Gross, and John Rees, Regional Growth and Decline in the United States. The Particular and the General Derek Gregory and John Urry, eds., Social Relations and Spatial Structures. Growing Through Export Vittorio Corbo, Anne O. Krueger, and Fernando Ossa, eds., Export-Oriented Development Strategies: The Success of Five Newly Industrialized Countries

Notes: Indexes of leading indicators are used to forecast short-run changes in economic activity in many states and metropolitan areas. This article examines the forecasting performance of a sample of such regional indexes over several business cycles. Although these indexes vary across regions, the results show that they do provide forecasts of recessions and recoveries and also exhibit some potential for forecasting quantitative changes in regional employment.

Notes: This paper deals with the problem of modelling sub-county areas that are so small that county level forecasts cannot be used for policy purposes. Starting from a simple specification that relates demand for local goods and services to local and non-local income, a system of equations is developed that can be used as a satellite to a county model to forecast impacts of economic events at the town level. Regression coefficients for the equations are estimated using data at the one-digit SIC code level for a pooled sample of towns in Massachusetts. Model validation tests are reported. An example of an application is provided by simulating impacts of 500 new manufacturing jobs in a town within a county. Our approach yields simulation and forecasting results for both the town and the county.

Notes: This research provides a conceptual framework—based on the stem family concept—with which to explore the cyclical nature of return migration to Eastern Kentucky. A generalized six-phase migration model is developed within a stem family/diffusion context to explain how the socioeconomic characteristics of return migrants have varied in response to economic changes outside Appalachia. The role of awareness space on channeling migration flows is also examined.Responses from 119 households in Laurel, Pike, and Powell counties, Kentucky, are used to test hypotheses associated with the general model. The survey results support the continued existence of extreme stem family forces within Eastern Kentucky. Most inmigrants are return migrants. Return migration motives continue to be more related to sociocultural factors than they are job-related decisions. Most returnees are well below retirement age, and even the younger and more educated among these have a strong preference for remaining in Eastern Kentucky, although their historical tendency has been to move away when economic pulls are strong enough. Maps of return migrants’awareness spaces closely conform with past outmigration patterns. As awareness spaces have been shown to correspond with migrants’destination choices, the maps suggest that future outmigrants from Eastern Kentucky will continue to bias their destination choices more toward the North than the South.

Notes: Book reviews in this article: Border Linkages. Peggy B. Musgrave, ed. If the Creek Rises. Raymond J. Burby and Steven P. French, with Beverly A. Cigler, Edward J. Kaiser, David H. Moreau, and Bruce Stiftel That Rising SunDuane Kujawa, Japanese Multinationals in the United States: Toward a High-Tech Economy John Rees, ed., Technology, Regions, and Policy. Impacts on Humans James A. Lee, The Environment, Public Health, and Human Ecology: Public Finance in CanadaDouglas J. McCready, The Canadian Public Sector. Toronto: A Survey of Industrialization PoliciesRobert N. Gwynne, Industrialization and Urbanization in Latin America. Baltimore: The Risk Takers Robert C. Perez, Inside Venture Capital: Past, Present and Future. New York: Policy Directions Charles R. Warren, ed., Urban Policy in a Changing Federal System: Proceedings of a Symposium. Power for the Future Adela Maria Bolet, ed., Forecasting U.S. Electricity Demands: Trends and Methodologies.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article:The Industrial Relations Practices of Foreign-Owned Firms in Britain Peter J Buckley and Peter EnderwickJapanese Participation in British Industry John H DunningEmployee Consultation and Information in Multinational Corporations edited by Jacques VandammeThe Transformation of American Industrial Relations Thomas A Kochan, Harry C Katz and Robert B McKersieThe Making of Labour Law in Europe edited by Bob Hepple MansellManagement and Society in Sweden Peter Lawrence and Tony Spybey Routledge and Kegan PaulThe Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in HungaryThe Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in NorwayThe Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in SpainThe Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in YugoslaviaLabor-Owned Firms and Workers' Cooperatives S Jansson and A B Hellmark (eds)Towards a Democratic RationalityThe Cooperative Workplace—potentials and dilemmas of organizational democracy and participation J Rothschild and J Allen WhittPower and Performance in Organisations: An Exploration of Executive Process I ManghamWarwick Papers in Industrial Relations—School of Industrial and Business Studies, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick

Notes: The reform of workplace labour relations in Great Britain generally had limited effects on job control. Drawing from case study material, this article analyses the interaction between the technical and social factors accounting for job control. The study of these underlying forces indicates many of the limitations of institutional reform.

Notes: Recent work by economists has generated new theories of the impact of trade unions on productivity. This article gives an exposition of these theories and assesses the extent to which they are supported by empirical evidence.

Notes: Although the US labor movement remains an important part of the nation's organized economic and political life it is now struggling to reverse its decline in power and membership. In this article the author identifies factors explaining this decline and its implications for American labor. This contribution continues the debate begun by Michael Piore in Vol 17 No 3 Autumn 1986.

Notes: Report of an international trade union seminar for delegates from the UK, USA and USSR held at Nottingham University and Northern College, Barnsley, 4–15 April 1987

Notes: Payment by results systems have long been thought to encourage strikes but surveys have produced conflicting results. Using new statistical techniques the article concludes that there is little evidence of a direct link between PBR and strikes.