ALBERT

Notes: In this paper we deal with the question of which measures of economic well-being are adequate to identify those groups of households in the U.S. whose economic conditions justify public concern and assistance. We derive a utility based measure of economic well-being from the estimation of a complete set of consumer demand equations. The demand system is Lluch's Extended Linear Expenditure System (Lluch, 1973). Household characteristics are incorporated using the scaling method proposed by Barten (1966). Using the welfare indicator derived, we study the composition of the poorest part of the population, using data from the 1972–73 Consumer Expenditure Survey. We compare our results with those obtained using various other welfare indicators, including the official U.S. poverty line. We show that using different family composition adjustments significantly and systematically affects just who are considered to be at the bottom of the welfare distribution. We finally suggest that program designers therefore can improve their target efficiency by carefully selecting from among the acceptable indices of welfare when defining program eligibility.

Notes: This paper uses a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) framework to assess whether rail privatisation in Britain has produced savings in operating costs. The paper shows that major efficiencies have been achieved and consumers have benefited through lower prices, whilst the increased government subsidy has been largely recouped through privatisation proceeds. We also find that output quality is no lower (and is probably better) than under the counterfactual scenario of public ownership (pre-Hatfield). The achievement of further savings is key to delivering improved rail services in the future. This paper finds that a privatised structure, where shareholders demand a return on their investment, has led to significant improvements in operating efficiency. It remains to be seen whether the new regime, with a not-for-profit infrastructure owner, will deliver the same efficiency improvements.

Notes: This paper develops the link between poverty and inequality by focussing on a class of poverty indices (some of them well–known) which aggregate normative concerns for absolute and relative deprivation. The indices are distinguished by a parameter value that captures the ethical sensitivity of poverty measurement to “exclusion” or “relative–deprivation” aversion. The indices can be readily used to predict the impact of growth on poverty. An illustration using LIS data finds that the United States show more relative deprivation than Denmark and Belgium whatever the percentiles considered, but that overall deprivation comparisons of the four countries considered will generally depend on the intensity of the ethical concern for relative deprivation. The impact of growth on poverty also depends on the presence of and on the attention granted to concerns over relative deprivation.

Notes: This paper compares income inequality and income mobility in the Scandinavian countries and the United States during 1980–90. The results suggest that inequality is greater in the United States than in the Scandinavian countries and that this inequality ranking of countries remains unchanged when the accounting period of income is extended from one to eleven years. The pattern of mobility turns out to be remarkably similar, in the sense that the proportionate reduction in inequality from extending the accounting period of income is much the same. But we do find evidence of greater dispersion of first differences of relative earnings and income in the United States. Relative income changes are associated with changes in labor market and marital status in all four countries, but the magnitude of such changes are largest in the United States.

Notes: The goal of this paper is to compare the well–being of young children in Canada, Norway and the United States using Sen’s (1992) “functionings” perspective. We compare children cross–nationally in terms of ten “functionings” (low birth–weight; asthma; accidents; activity limitation; trouble concentrating; disobedience at school; bullying; anxiety; lying; hyperactivity). If we compare young children in Canada and the U.S. in terms of their functionings, there is not a clear ranking overall. Canadian children are better off for four of nine comparable outcomes; U.S. children are better off for two outcomes; Canadian and U.S. children are statistically indistinguishable for three outcomes. If we compare child functionings in Canada or the U.S. with those experienced in Norway, it is clear that Norwegian children fare better. There is not a single case in which children in either Canada or the U.S. have better outcomes than Norwegian children.

Notes: The advances made in the production and use of information and communication technology (ICT) during the past decades may have potentially large effects for long term economic growth. Indeed the substantial acceleration in real GDP growth in many OECD countries, but in particular in the United States, during the second half of the 1990s has led to suggestions that a “new economy” has emerged. In this new economy the old economic rules were supposed to have become invalid. For example, traditional concerns about the limits of maximum production capacity might disappear as the marginal costs of producing ICT goods and services are virtually nil. Moreover, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment could be reduced due to a more efficient inventory management.

Notes: Methodologies to derive price indices for information and communication technology (ICT) products vary between national statistical offices. This may lead to significant differences in measured price changes for these products and there has been concern about the international comparability of volume growth rates of GDP between several OECD countries. This article discusses the possible consequences for measures of economic growth of replacing one set of price indices by another one in the framework of national accounts. It is argued that the issue of ICT deflators cannot be dealt with in isolation and several other factors have to be taken into account, in particular whether ICT products are final or intermediate products, whether they are imported or domestically produced and whether national accounts are set up with fixed or chain weighted index numbers. Overall, results point to modest effects at the aggregate GDP level but may be more significant when it comes to component measures such as volume growth of investment, or of output in a particular industry.

Notes: Some observers have raised the possibility that production spillovers and network effects associated with information and communications technology (ICT) are an important part of the “New Economy.” Across U.S. manufacturing industries, however, ICT capital appears correlated with the acceleration of average labor productivity (ALP) growth as predicted by a standard production model, but not with total factor productivity (TFP) growth as these New Economy forces imply. Once one allows for productivity differences across industries, measured TFP growth is uncorrelated with all capital inputs, including ICT capital. This provides little evidence for a New Economy story of ICT-related spillovers or network effects driving TFP growth throughout U.S. manufacturing.

Notes: I develop three measures of structural change on the basis of U.S. data: changes in occupational composition, changes in input–output technical coefficients, and changes in capital coefficients. Using pooled cross-section, time-series data for 44 industries over the period from 1970 to 1990, I find that computer investment per worker has had a positive and significant effect on the degree of occupational change and changes in input and capital coefficients.

Notes: In this article we evaluate the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to the growth of value added during the past 15 years in France. Following North American studies, we use traditional growth accounting methods to assess the relative size of two types of contribution: on the one hand the effect of the use of information technologies (IT) on growth due to the accumulation of IT capital taking place within all industries; on the other hand the contribution of the production of ICT to growth due to the strong total factor productivity (TFP) gains achieved in the industries producing ICT. We use individual company data aggregated by industry, which provide us with a measure of the firm's computer stock and makes a detailed investigation possible.

Notes: Equivalence scales provide answers to questions like how much a household with two children needs to spend compared to a couple to attain the same welfare level. These are important questions for child allowances, social benefits and to assess the cost of children over the life-cycle for example. We discuss equivalence scales in an intertemporal setting with uncertainty. To estimate equivalence scales we use a panel from German households (GSOEP) containing subjective data on satisfaction with life and satisfaction with income to represent the welfare level. Because satisfaction is measured on a discrete scale we use limited dependent variable models for panel data in estimation. Using satisfaction with life data we find that larger households do not need any additional income to be as satisfied as a couple. Using satisfaction with income, however, yields equivalence scales that increase with household size.

Notes: In this article an attempt is made to generate internationally comparable income distribution data for the Federal Republic of Germany (1974), Mexico (1968) and the United Kingdom (1979). To that end, the same income concept and income unit were adopted for each country, i.e. respectively household available income and the household. Moreover, incomes from various sources were adjusted for inconsistency with National Accounts according to Altimir's methodology. The paper finds that the distribution of persons by household income per equivalent unit is probably the best way of looking at the distribution of economic welfare. It further demonstrates that the distribution of persons by household available income per capita is much closer to this ‘ideal’ distribution than the distribution of households by household available income. Finally, the paper discusses some of the problems arising from the fact that one normally works with grouped data. It is found that in the case of the three countries under study, grouping is likely to have had only a small impact on the results.

Notes: This paper provides a description of the annual Input-Output Tables for Canada. It describes the accounting framework and notes its close affinity to the one described in the United Nations report, A System of National Accounts. It demonstrates the ready derivation of GDP and Expenditure on GDP, both in current and constant prices, from the Input-Output Accounts as well as their relationship to the other subsystems of the Canadian System of National Accounts, particularly the Income and Expenditure Accounts and Real Domestic Product by Industry. Compatibility of basic accounting records of the transactors with the rectangular (commodity-industry) format of the Canadian tables is described. The need to have a consistent commodity classification and to develop a consistent valuation of all transactors in the economy is emphasized. The particular formulation of the Input-Output Impact tables is noted. The problem of deflating trade margins and the resolution of this problem is described. A strong plea is made for the economics profession to pay more attention to the problem of aggregation; all economic analysis is approached with blinkers but the aggregation problem isn't even recognized as a blind spot in most analyses.

Notes: Cooperation between the Austrian and Hungarian central statistical offices in the field of industrial productivity has a history of two decades. The first comparison, carried out in 1965, was partly experimental in objective and nature. The second full scale survey took place a decade later in 1975. This was followed by a further study of about two years duration of the level of productivity and the factors influencing it in three sectors: food, metallurgy and engineering. For this study the three sectors were broken down into 31 sub-branches and nearly 400 product groups. An important and labour-intensive element of the comparisons was harmonization of the sector and product classification system; UN recommendations were increasingly helpful for this work, and relying upon them will be expedient also in the future.In the decade under review the productivity advantage of Austrian industry increased, from about 40 percent in 1965 to an average 75 percent in 1975. The dispersion of sectoral productivity indices around the average value was significant in both years.The similarity of the 1965 and 1975 comparisons offered an exceptional opportunity to examine the reliability of extrapolation. The investigations unambiguously demonstrated that extrapolation did not give reliable results for a period as long as ten years, primarily because of structural changes in production and changes in price weights.The most important conclusion to be drawn from the investigation of the three selected branches is its extraordinary usefulness from the economic, political and methodological points of view. A further important conclusion is that the method of comparison must be selected in the light of an extensive consideration of the output and technological structure of the branches.

Notes: This article reports on the plans of the member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in the area of the purchasing power parity comparisons of national product and similar aggregates. A series of comparisons of the U.S.S.R. with other individual member countries was made for 1959,1966, and 1973. A new series will be undertaken for the year 1978. The scope of the program will be expanded to cover several new aggregates, including productivity concepts and total consumption of the population. The article discusses the conceptual and methodological problems and plans. Among other matters, attention is being given to the possibility of reducing the number of specifications priced, without sacrificing accuracy.

Notes: The problem of identification and classification of off-shore financial flows and extra-territorial funds is discussed with special reference to the case of the “captive” insurance market in Bermuda. The problem is examined in the context of the UN SNA definitions relating to the evaluation of insurance activities and the difficulty of gaining access to relevant and complete data. The conclusion is reached that the conduct of off-shore financial operations by local institutions and the resulting surpluses generated remain essentially extranational and thus contribute very little to the domestic value added of the tax haven concerned. Furthermore, by its very nature, information relating to the transactors involved, as well as the value of their transactions, is difficult to obtain. This raises a much wider issue, however, as to whether such surpluses are ever identified in any country's national income estimates.

Notes: This paper has two main points. First, the usefulness of the industry detail called for in the SNA would be increased if it were altered to facilitate the construction of price and quantity aggregates classified by stage-of-process sectors. Second, the price and quantity data so arranged should be augmented by data on behaviorally related variables classified the same way. The feasibility of the stage-of-process approach is demonstrated by a table showing the high degree to which the U.S. input-output table for 1967 can be triangularized. The analytical usefulness of the approach is demonstrated through analysis of changes in prices, output, unfilled orders and finished goods inventories for primary and for finished goods manufacturers.

Notes: This article proposes a method of characterizing the growth process using two parameters, a production index measuring growth, and a structural change index measuring the changes in the composition of output. It discusses the properties of the structural change index that is developed, including its relation to the bias in growth rates measured by conventional index numbers. It then applies the measure to an examination of Yugoslav industry for the period 1952–71.

Notes: Expanding a conventional national accounting framework in order to include activities that are not produced or consumed via ordinary markets requires the accountant to adopt some procedure for assigning unit values to these activities. Often, as is the case with governmental services, unit values are equated with unit costs of production.This paper argues that the appropriate valuation generally differs depending on whether the activity is viewed from the perspective of the producer, the consumer, or society. The theoretical justification for this position is developed first for the case of nonmarketed environmental services and then for in-kind governmental transfers.Rather than choosing a single unit value, the paper argues for and outlines an accounting system that will permit the simultaneous adoption of more than one valuation. Techniques for implementing the system for the environment and for in-kind transfers are discussed.Finally, drawing on the experience of the authors, the paper argues for the importance of developing data sets with more than one valuation. The authors claim that the effort to implement the system has generated valuable ancillary data sets even though data limitations and unresolved methodological questions have precluded complete implementation.

Notes: Starting out from the observation that both imports and exports may be viewed as the difference between domestic consumption (use) and production, static standard theory of biases in consumption and production indices is brought to bear upon trade indices: Laspeyres tends to overrate when applied to imports and to underrate when applied to exports; for Paasche, the opposite holds true. Hence, terms of trade tend to be underrated (exaggerated) when based upon Laspeyres (Paasche) price indices. The problem of extending these conclusions to the case of changes in production frontiers and preference maps is discussed. When homotheticity is absent, correlation between price and quantity relatives may upset the simple conclusions. This is of special importance in the large-country situation. Dynamics further complicate the situation. A cobweb mechanism in exports may thus reverse the static results.

Notes: This article considers the major results of a study of relative wage structures in the LAFTA region. It first discusses the nature and methodology of the study, which was undertaken for ECIEL. Data on the size of labor income differences are introduced, and an attempt is made to determine the causes of such differences, and to relate them to various wage differentials. The main findings of the study are then summarized, with discussions of inter-country, intra-country, and occupational labor income differentials and their causes. Finally, the results of the study are updated to the end of 1970, and some conclusions are derived regarding the inter-temporal behavior of wages in LAFTA.

Notes: Some relationships between NNP and economic welfare are explored in the confines of a simple, static welfare maximization model. Various assumptions concerning both the measurement of NNP and the economic system underlying this model are dropped seriatem and the implications for the correspondence between NNP and economic welfare are examined.The following conclusions emerge. There are several classes of resource reorganization in which NNP and welfare move in the same direction, so that NNP can serve as an ordinal proxy for welfare. These include changes in taxes or competitive imperfections which result in product substitution and movements along the transformation function.With a general qualification, NNP-welfare correspondence is preserved for allocative changes which affect the real costs and prices of goods included in NNP or of non-included goods in inelastic demand; changes in involuntary unemployment; and changes in technological externalities affecting producers. There are other cases where changes in NNP and welfare are not positively correlated. Included here are changes in real costs of non-included goods for which demand is elastic and changes in technological externalities imposed on consumers.

Notes: The purpose of this paper is to describe the conceptual and statistical basis of the estimates of United States public and private spending for pollution abatement and control (PAC) prepared by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. The concepts and definitions were designed to ensure comparability with the national economic accounts since much of the analysis of the effects of environmental programs on the economy is conducted with the aid of the accounts. The work to date has been limited to pollution associated with harmful “foreign” substances and forms of energy discharged in the course of production, distribution and consumption. The conceptual base includes evaluation of benefits, but estimates completed thus far are limited to the cost of pollution abatement and control.Definitions are given for pollution, pollution abatement, direct pollution abatement cost, indirect pollution abatement cost and indirect benefits. A framework for the estimation and presentation of PAC expenditures is developed and the estimate of U.S. PAC expenditures for 1972 and 1973 is presented. A brief chronological summary of the BEA project is also provided.

Notes: This paper computes new indexes of output for refrigerators, using hedonic methods to adjust for quality change. The hedonic technique is applied in a new way (it is used to make quality adjustments to prices before they are used in the index), and the results are compared with those from methods used in previous hedonic investigations.There are three major findings. (1) Overall (1960–1972), our hedonic deflated output series rise more rapidly than conventional measures, because the price indexes used for deflation rise more slowly. (2) The output measures fluctuate more than do output measures produced by conventional methods, because adding hedonic quality adjustments to WPI indexes moves them up in some years and down in others, and the resulting adjustments to the output series were positively correlated with changes in output. (3) Applying methods used in previous studies produces larger adjustments to the published indexes, suggesting that some of the differences noted in previous studies between hedonic indexes and official published indexes are related to computational methods, not to quality adjustment.

Notes: The paper by Gerardi covers considerable ground, touching on a wide variety of issues in the area of international comparisons of product and purchasing power. Since our views on most of these subjects have been expounded in one or another of the International Comparison Project volumes and we will concentrate mainly on the central issue raised by Gerardi of the selection of an aggregation process that must somehow take account of the tastes of all the people who are the subject of an international comparison inquiry. In addition, we comment on some other points including the notion of special purpose PPPs. Finally, we make a brief statement about where we think future research will be most useful in improving international comparisons.

Notes: Just as intertemporal price indices have two functions, to measure price changes and to deflate current values to constant values, this is true also for interspatial price indices, purchasing power parities (PPPs). In practice these two functions of PPPs, for conversion and for comparing price levels, are not always distinguished, and this may have some disadvantages since in a number of cases the differences between the two PPPs might be considerable. The authors review the differences in content of the two types of PPPs, and make some suggestions for making the distinction more explicitly.

Notes: This paper explores the possibility of using the Classification of the Functions of Government published recently by the United Nations (COFOG) in order to segregate intermediate from final use of government production in the national accounts. It is argued that the notorious difficulties of doing that can be traced to two reasons, one the multiplicity of theoretical concepts, and the other the lack of sufficient detail at the statistical level. The first can be removed by clarifying that on the production account of an economy only production and not welfare is to be measured. The second seems to be overcome by the three-digit detail of COFOG. It is shown that many of these categories are now sufficiently homogeneous for a panel of experts to agree in assigning them to either intermediate or final use, although for a number of categories this is still difficult. The question is whether consensus in the major categories is large enough to consider the remaining controversial ones as border cases, normal in any classification and solved in the last instance not by argument but by convention. Some preliminary figures for the intermediate part of government production are given.

Notes: Commentators have suggested that the winning companies in the UK 3G mobile telephone auction overpaid for their licences. However, event-study method using the market model under ordinary least squares (OLS), robust and structural time-series estimation yields no systematic evidence of the ‘winner's curse’. Positive as well as negative one-day wealth effects are observed amongst both winners and losers, and there is no lasting adverse market reaction to the winners, taken as a group. We conclude there is no case for easing the regulatory stance in the industry on grounds that the winners paid too much.

Notes: This paper examines New Labour's social security and related policies since 1997 in the light of evidence on public attitudes. The list of measures where policies have been in or have come into line with public attitudes is much longer than the list of measures where policies have been out of line with public attitudes or appear to have led them. One interpretation is that policy has been led by opinion surveys and focus groups, with opportunities lost to take more radical action and then persuade people of the need and justification for it. An alternative would be that policy has navigated with the grain of some of the more progressive parts of public opinion to achieve a result that has carried the public with it, in a way that would not have been sustainable if there had simply been an increase in the generosity of an unreformed social security system.

Notes: This paper discusses the experience of Croatia in applying, from 1994 to the beginning of 2001, a profit tax that was charged only on equity income in excess of an imputed normal return - and was thus, in essence, an ‘Allowance for Corporate Equity’ (ACE) scheme of the kind advocated by the IFS Capital Taxes Group and others. The computation of taxable profit under this system is summarised, and the theoretical attractions of the system are described. The paper then discusses a variety of criticisms that were made of the system in Croatia, including an alleged bias in favour of capital-intensive enterprises (and, in particular, large State-owned enterprises with overvalued assets), international complications, the complexity of the computations of taxable profit, the possibility that the rate of protective interest was set at an inappropriate level, and excessive revenue cost.

Notes: We examine two different policy regimes towards continuing vocational training for the adult workforce: policy in France has been interventionist, using an employer training levy since the 1970s, whereas British policy has relied largely on individual initiatives for training investment by employers and workers.We begin with a review of the theory of vocational training, indicating why market failure and underprovision are the likely outcome and signalling types of corrective policy that might be adopted. We set up hypotheses about the likely impact of policy in France relative to Britain to provide a framework for evaluation. We present a detailed comparison of the two systems in observed training incidence and the returns to training captured by workers and employers, drawing on a wide range of econometric studies. We conclude with an assessment of the employer training levy in France and suggest ways it could be modified if adopted in Britain.

Notes: This paper has two principal objectives. Using a tax-benefit microsimulation model and the 1998 micro data of the Bank of Italy survey of household income and wealth, we first study the distributional effects of the current Italian income maintenance system and highlight its main defects and limitations, concerning in particular its unequal coverage of the population and its low efficiency in fighting poverty. The second aim is to describe and analyse the reforms recently implemented in this field; in particular, the Italian government has reformed the targeting criteria and introduced three new cash transfers. We describe these reforms both in their institutional characteristics and in their likely distributional consequences, and examine whether and to what extent they are able to overcome the shortcomings of the current system.

Notes: This paper discusses the five main problems with current price estimates of China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These are the measurement of housing services, fiscal subsidies, welfare services provided within enterprises, rural industry and livestock products. The paper gives the possible ranges of error arising from problems in these areas and shows their quantitative impact on GDP estimates. The paper concludes that these problems have some impact on the structure of China’s GDP, but limited impact on the total size of China’s GDP. The official estimates, therefore, provide a reasonably accurate measure of the size of China’s current price GDP.

Notes: In 1996, the U.S. Department of Commerce began using a new method to construct all aggregate “real” series in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). This method is based on the so-called “ideal chain index” pioneered by Irving Fisher. The new methodology has some extremely important implications that are unfamiliar to many practicing empirical economists; as a result, mistaken calculations with NIPA data have become very common. This paper explains the motivation for the switch to chain aggregation, and then illustrates the usage of chain–aggregated data with three topical examples, each relating to a different aspect of how information technologies are changing the U.S. economy.

Notes: This paper investigates income transfers between dynastic families caused by a public pension system. Using Japanese data, we present simulation results based on a model in which intergenerational altruism works, and income distribution exists between and within generations. The growth rates of income and population, as well as the formulation for the determination of the contribution rate and the payment rate, are crucial to determine both the qualitative and quantitative effects. Especially, under negative income growth over generations, pay–as–you–go public pensions can cause negative income redistribution.

Notes: Lutz Leisering and Robert Walker (eds.), Review of The Dynamics of Modern SocietySteven Durlauf and H. Peyton Young (eds.), Social Dynamics

Notes: The advances made in the production and use of information and communication technology (ICT) during the past decades may have potentially large effects for long term economic growth. Indeed the substantial acceleration in real GDP growth in many OECD countries, but in particular in the United States, during the second half of the 1990s has led to suggestions that a “new economy” has emerged. In this new economy the old economic rules were supposed to have become invalid. For example, traditional concerns about the limits of maximum production capacity might disappear as the marginal costs of producing ICT goods and services are virtually nil. Moreover, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment could be reduced due to a more efficient inventory management.

Notes: The public sector is defined here to include government plus public enterprises. Historically, economists and statisticians have been more concerned with its separate components than with the public sector as a whole, but it is suggested that the public sector may be an appropriate concept for studying several current problems of economic policy.While there is general agreement as to what constitutes government, countries have differing views about what makes an enterprise public. Differences in country definitions of public enterprises are identified as one of the main problems in making international comparisons for the public sector.Statistics are presented for up to 16 OECD countries on the share of the public sector in total final demand, value added, employment, and net lending. It is argued that there is rarely a unique answer to the question “How big is the public sector?” For most countries judicious selection of data and careful definition will lead to different conclusions about the size and growth of the public sector.Because of the lack of data, it is not possible to analyse public sectors in developing countries in the same detail as OECD countries. The evidence available suggests that while public sectors are about the same size in both OECD and developing countries, public enterprises play a more important role in the latter.

Notes: Following the growth of the public sector traditional measures of the size of the public sector have appeared to be inadequate for policy purposes. In the article the role of the public sector in the Finnish economy is described first by using some traditional methods and indicators. The historical background of the development is briefly discussed. After that some specific problems of the measurement are discussed. These problems include measurement of output and productivity, definition of appropriate balance of the public sector, different measures to describe the size and scope of the public sector, role of tax reliefs and subsidies, different organizational arrangements, public sector regulation etc.The growth of the public sector takes many different forms and it appears to be more difficult than formerly to obtain a comprehensive picture of the scope of the public sector. For different purposes different indicators have to be used. At the end of the paper the implications of the changing emphasis in the public policy are discussed.

Notes: This paper outlines a general strategy for constructing socio-demographic matrices, starting with a set of initial estimates based on available data and ending with a set of final estimates adjusted to meet the constraints connecting their true values.The method is described and illustrated by a numerical example taken from the author's current work on marital transition matrices. The figures relate to the male population of England and Wales in 1978 and are based on British official statistics of population numbers, births, deaths, migrations, marriages, widowhoods and divorces.

Notes: Extended accounts of total income and product and associated capital stocks for the United States, in current and constant dollars, are offered for the years 1946 to 1976. They include intangible and tangible capital accumulation and non-market and market outputs in all sectors, services of government and household capital and of unpaid household labor, and opportunity costs of students. Defense and police services are classified as intermediate product; a portion of commercial media services is counted as final product. Expenses related to work are subtracted while the values of employee training and human capital formation and net revaluations of existing tangible capital are added.Total incomes (TISA) net national product was 50 percent greater than official Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) NNP in 1976. BEA gross private domestic investment was only about 18 percent of TISA gross capital accumulation. Intangible investment and TISA net domestic capital accumulation grew more rapidly than BEA net private domestic investment. Household investment has been growing while there have been sharp declines in government investment, particularly in research and development. Contrary to some views of the import of the narrower BEA accounts, total capital accumulation appears to have risen considerably more rapidly than total consumption, 6.3 percent versus 2.2 percent per annum from 1946 to 1976, thus increasing sharply its share of TISA GNP.

Notes: The paper is mainly concerned with statistical problems relating to intermediate services that arise in the construction of national input-output (I–O) tables. Though these problems are sometimes discussed in the literature, their precise nature is usually not spelled out in any detail and this is done in the paper. The problems are closely related to the company-establishment statistical dichotomy permeating the ultimate sources and allocation of intermediate services. Important examples can be found regarding the statistical treatment of head offices, research and development expenditures, and international trade of intermediate services. Presently used procedures for Canadian and U.S. I–O compilation show evidence of statistical inconsistencies and lack an appropriate framework to utilize full information. The paper suggests a possible approach for reconciling company and establishment data based on industrial organization linkage studies at the microlevel. Considerable empirical support is offered, using various official Canadian statistical publications, to show that the suggested approach is both feasible and has desirable properties.The paper goes on to argue that the contemporary information technology revolution has profound implications for I–O compilation and use with special reference to intermediate services. Four major implications are explained in the context of the growing microelectronics technological change and related literature. Some basic suggestions are put forward with regard to joint-cost allocation and inter temporal comparisons problems with respect to I–O compilation. It also appears that some fundamental rethinking of commonly accepted standard industrial classification conventions may be called for in the near future if I–O tables are to remain relevant and viable. The paper thus features a somewhat broader view of I–O statistical problems than usual and attempts to show that this view is potentially appropriate to questions of economic policy formulation.

Notes: International comparisons always raise difficult problems, more especially when they deal with services which are jointly financed by households and government in varying shares with varying procedures in each country. This is obvious in the case of health where the area itself, the principles of economic analysis and the UN method of National Accounting appear to be either vague or unwieldy. Before any proposal it is necessary to review what is involved in the concept of service and the possibility of delimiting the health field inside which economic measures are feasible. Then using the SNA concept and with the help of six interdependent tables we propose two aggregates: the National Medical Consumption and the Current National Expenditure on health. The detailed and harmonized breakdowns of these global results make it possible to compare the structures of values, prices and quantities on an international base.

Notes: The paper presents some estimates of the imputed dollar value of household work (HW)for Canada in 1961 and 1971, finding this to be about $16 and $38 billion respectively, equal to 40 percent of GNP. From the results we derive some implications about five questions raised in the relevant literature. First, no clear evidence of a downward trend for the ratio HW/GNP is found, contrary to U.S. results. Second, addition of HW to GNP as a welfare measure does not affect the general pattern of past growth estimates. Third, a cost–by-function method of estimating HW is found superior in its theoretical support and the detail it provides, but the opportunity-cost method, despite doubts on its theoretical validity, gives a good approximation in the aggregate, and, being simpler, is likely to remain popular. Fourth, disaggregation does matter if detail by region or family type is required, in which case data by number and ages of children and market-employment status of females are needed; for the total, a reasonable estimate (6–7 percent error)is given by further aggregated data. Fifth, sensitivity of HW to accuracy in the data used is large only for female wages chosen, in particular for the function “cooking”. Finally, though available data must be manipulated to fit the needs of HW, especially for earlier years, the extent of this is not all that much more than is commonly found for GNP estimations.

Notes: This paper discusses the problem of valuing the time spent on household production and presents estimates of that production for the United States in 1960 and 1970. The estimates are derived by using both opportunity cost and market cost valuations of household time. A comparative analysis of these estimates concludes first that opportunity cost estimates exceeded market cost estimates by 1.0 to 3.0 percent of the GNP. Second, the ratio of household production to the GNP, although declining slightly between 1960 and 1970, may in the long run tend to be relatively stable. These conclusions do not support the popular views that over time household production will decline in relative magnitude, or that the opportunity cost method of valuing household time, relative to the market cost method, is significantly upward biased.

Notes: Construction has traditionally constituted one of the problem areas in the preparation of industry price and quantity statistm with in the system of national accounts of most countries. The difficulty stems from what is considered to be the unique character of construction projects. This has unnecessarily impeded the calculation of output price indexes and has resulted in the use of various input-based prices as proxies for output prices.One of the objectives of the development of the system of construction price statistics described in this paper is to permit deflation of the outputs of construction industries in order to produce industry output data in constant prices in a manner consistent with measures for the rest of the economy. This is a more promising approach to improving constant price industry and expenditure measures within the SNA framework than attempting such improvements through the collection of a vast array of quantity data.Construction industries sell specified configurations of materials-in-place which are, to borrow the jargon of other fields, sub-assemblies of some total system. As in other areas of industrial pricing, some of these products are simple and some are complex. Trade contractors sell these sub-assemblies or commodities mainly to an owner-builder or to a general contractor who, in turn, resells the trade contractors’ commodities along with whatever sub-assemblies the general contractor has produced. These sub-assemblies, when combined with, for example, the relevant outputs (or sub-assemblies) of manufacturers, the design services of service industries and the purchasers’ own contributions, yield the wide variety of plant and structures which constitute the various classes of gross fixed capital formation, which are not typically solely the outputs of the construction industries.The resulting contractors’ selling price indexes will provide deflators for the whole range of outputs of the various construction industries. These will become part of the system of industry selling price indexes from which relevant indexes for the various goods and services can be selected and combined with appropriate weights to yield arrays of deflators for the highly complex capital expenditures of business, institutions and government.Ultimately this integrated system of construction industry statistics will permit the preparation of gross output and value added measures, in both current and constant prices, to be calculated for the construction industries as an integral part of the Canadian System of National Accounts, as well as provide a key element for improving the deflation of fixed capital formation.

Notes: The multiplier effects resulting from an isolated increase in the level of public consumption within different public branches are investigated and the policy implications are discussed. The article begins with a theorethical analysis which shows why and in which ways these multipliers can be expected to differ between public branches. Thereafter, an empirical investigation is given, based on simulations with an econometric model of the Swedish economy. In this model the public activities are divided into 13 different public branches. The effects of an increase in public consumption on employment, imports and private consumption are found to differ considerably depending on which branch of the public sector is expanded. Some implications for short run stabilization policy are discussed. The article ends with a special analysis of the implications for a medium term planning problem: the trade off between private and public consumption growth. This analysis throws new light on the old topic “private or public consumption”. In an economy with highly differentiated production in the public sector the trade-off is shown not to be unique. The sacrifice of private consumption growth corresponding to a given growth of public consumption expenditures will vary considerably according to the distribution of the public consumption growth within the different branches of the public sector.

Notes: The constant price method is used here to evaluate transfers related to inflation either between households and other economic agents (essentially enterprises) or among groups of households defined by occupation, age class and so on. The results obtained are only fragmentary due to a lack of many pieces of information. The method requires in fact the splitting up of every value variation into a price component and a size component.Nevertheless, some interesting results are shown. In recent years, if the total productivity surplus has always been positive, the wealth surplus of households is sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Concerning the distribution of the productivity surplus among household groups, it has not been possible to find significant distortions, other than those which are related to differences in the propensity to save. On the contrary, marked distortions appear in the distribution of the wealth surplus due to wide differences in estate composition and indebtedness level.

Notes: As a basis for judging how public policy affects the poor, this article explores how “poor” families may be defined and how well such families can be distinguished from other families in the less developed countries. This is done by seeking proxies for poverty which are relatively easy to measure, accurate in discriminating between the poor and the non-poor, and relevant to public policy. To this end, a highly parsimonious model is developed, based on truncation and regression procedures, using only family size and number of wage earners in addition to either income or an education-age combination. Application of this model to data from household surveys in three major cities of Latin America shows that the model is highly effective in pinpointing poverty households, although the pattern of errors is not random, the most frequent type of error being to classify poverty households as non-poor.Especially significant is that the model is nearly as effective for discriminating poverty households from others when financial variables are excluded as when they are included. This would suggest that a good deal of flexibility exists in deciding what variables to include in future studies of this type. The results also suggest that even better results should be possible if more complete information is obtained on the employment status of the different members of the household and on the contribution of each to household income. Ideally, the data collection and model development should proceed in an iterative manner since there are numerous possible variables as well as alternative model formulations.

Notes: Unlike most developing countries, the Philippines has had several (four) reasonably comparable family income and expenditure surveys, covering a reasonable period of time (15 years). This study draws on those surveys and on wage data in an attempt to judge how, if at all, the distribution of income has been changing. The household survey data shows a declining share of both income and consumption for the top income groups; for the bottom quintile the share of recorded income fell while that of recorded consumption rose. When possible biases of the data are allowed for, it is hard to argue that either a narrowing or widening of income differentials occurred over these years. Real wages of a number of important occupations appear to have fallen, however. Only a partial reconciliation of the trends indicated by these wage series and the income trends for various occupational groups implicit in the household survey data was possible, indicating either data problems or the need for more subtle interpretations of the data. Since structural change in the labour force has been rapid (an increasing share being found in the high income occupations as time passed), declining wage rates for certain lower income groups cannot be taken to imply a general worsening of distribution. Our final conclusion is that distribution has probably changed little, and is about as likely to have changed one way as the other.

Notes: The paper reports on several results from a comprehensive study of the household incidence of public expenditure in Peninsular Malaysia in 1974. The results for education show a pro-poor distribution of expenditure when measured as a share of household income. Using however the criterion of each according to his needs (that is the number of school-age children per household) reverses this outcome. In agriculture, because of the importance of land settlement, benefits from public expenditure distribute predominantly in favor of the poor.The research differs from the usual study of this kind in that individual government outputs such as school years, or fertilizer loans, were defined, and in the case of education their unit costs estimated and their distribution across households measured. In the case of education, both the costs of services from capital and the households’ out-of-pocket educational costs were added to the current subsidies. As one consequence, it was seen that total expenditure for education in Malaysia exceeds one-eighth of GNP, nearly double the conventional estimate. Equally important, for the poor the burden of private costs for education even within a public system were seen to be very high.The contrasts between the strong results for education, a broad based social service, and the less conclusive results for agriculture, an economic service which impacts directly on production, were instructive in suggesting the limitations of such research in measuring the effects of government budget activity on distribution.

Notes: To adjust business accounting for inflation, one current proposal is to convert all dollar figures in existing financial statements to units of fixed general purchasing power. A widely offered alternative is to retain the dollar units but replace the historical-cost figures by current values. The two alternatives would yield very different results. After reviewing these and variant proposals, the analysis concentrates on certain major issues: the unit of measurement; the treatment of capital gains; the concept of capital maintenance; and the treatment of changes in the purchasing power of debt. Current value accounting would not correct for changes in the general price level and would involve far more difficult problems of concept and measurement than general purchasing power accounting. The latter is therefore preferable.

Notes: In this paper, we reclassify U.S. input-output data along functional lines by analyzing the use of products represented in the detailed coefficients of the 1967 interindustry study. Our new categories comprise 11 producing “industries,” services (nonproduction), energy (nonproduction), marketing, distribution, other general, crude materials, semi-finished materials, energy production, service production, and machinery replacement, furnishing products to 80 consuming industries. This functional input-output system is then used to analyze postwar structural change in the American economy. Distinct shifts in the uses of different types of inputs are indicated and the implications of these results are discussed.

Notes: The paper reports experience in constructing social accounting matrices (SAMs) for three national economies, viz. Iran, Sri Lanka and Swaziland. The SAMs focus particularly on the distribution of income through disaggregation of household sector income and outlay accounts consistent with more conventional disaggregation of production, factors, etc. The SAMs were conceived as an initial step towards understanding income distribution as an integral part of the development process and have been developed in parallel with work on planning models. Both the Iran and Sri Lanka SAMs were constructed within the context of the International Labour Office, World Employment Programme: that for Iran was intended as a contribution to the work of the Comprehensive Employment Strategy Mission to Iran under WEP auspices; while the Sri Lanka SAM was more specifically a research oriented study. The Swaziland study was financed by the Overseas Development Ministry, London as a research activity.Some learning-by-doing was involved in the sequence of SAMs and the problems encountered, solutions adopted and lessons learned provide the main substance of the paper.

Notes: Household budget data collected in 1966–1971 in eleven cities in six South American countries are used to define individual mean budget structures (means of budget shares across households). These structures are then compared by indexes of dissimilarity, calculated for the entire budget and also for major components: food, animal protein foods, nonfood, and housing and clothing. Differences among cities in real income account for much of the difference in the share of the consumer budget devoted to food, which in turn is a principal source of overall budget dissimilarity. Within the food and nonfood budgets separately, income is of somewhat less importance; prices and preferences become more significant. Budget structures tend for this reason to be similar for cities in the same country. The structure of nonfood spending also varies markedly between coastal and interior cities, largely because of differences in housing costs. The available price data account for dissimilarities which depend on the price of a single large category of spending, but they do not help explain structural differences involving many categories: prices seem more important for nonfood than for food expenditures. Regression analysis is used to weigh the importance of each variable contributing to dissimilarity.

Notes: This paper considers the need for a more integrated system of social and demographic statistics than SSDS and discusses the advantages of building it on the concept of life expectancy. The system would include a network of additive tables which would (as SNA does for economic variables) bring together leading social variables in a way that would permit the effects of exogenous changes to be quantified and compared. The author proposes as the base of such a system a table giving the expected duration of various life states (education, employment, retirement, etc.). This would be supplemented by a family of social co-efficients and fixed-weight index numbers that slot into it, allowing inter-temporal and international comparisons. The system would facilitate analysis of inequalities (regional, ethnic, etc.) and social change, and government planning of such change. It would also provide a framework for the development of national systems of social statistics.

Notes: The relevance of national accounts data to the broad development planning process which spans varying time horizons is considered. Undue emphasis on aggregated conventional macro-economic variables and recorded monetary values may have distorted the real vision and objectives of development. At the same time, other important and measurable problems like regional and distributive imbalances have often remained unquantified in traditional planning models. The UN “Supply-Disposition” table permits a summary description of the basic structure of an economy which can be easily extended within the context of the complete SNA to embrace significant social features without resort to complex inter-industry relationships. The table, however, loses few of the important dynamic economic properties of a full I–O system. It retains the means of checking the consistency of both overall policy objectives as well as basic data and it enables governments to ensure the necessary equilibrium between physical resource flows and financing capacity in formulating their development plans. The system's internal logic, combined with its potential for greater relevance and flexibility and capacity for fairly rapid and regular up-dating, makes it a most useful tool for practical planning purposes. Case studies of Zambia, Fiji and Oman are used to illustrate the fundamental concepts and underlying schematic framework of the system and its flexibility.

Notes: This paper collects and extends the available data on size distribution of income by country, and then uses these data to develop an hypothesis about the relation of stage and mode of development to the distribution of income. In particular, the author attributes the increase in income inequality which often occurs in the early stages of economic development to the uneven spread of capitalist modes of production, which leads to a dualism which separates the capitalist sector from the rest of the economy. The author goes on to discuss the role of this dualism in increasing the inequalities existing in the society. Finally, the author contrasts the income distributions found in socialist countries with those of capitalist ones, and concludes that it is not economic growth per se, but rather the capitalist mode of production, which creates income inequalities in developing countries.

Notes: In its first part, this note is a summary of the French version of the discussion paper submitted to the present IARIW Conference./〉 The second part is devoted to theoretical aspects of aggregation, as regards preference aggregation, and gives necessary and sufficient conditions which are useful for our purposes.

Notes: This paper is concerned with the definition and measurement of poverty in Malaysia. A poverty line is estimated after considering both the absolute and relative approaches to the definition. Various indices of poverty are discussed, ranging from the simple “incidence of poverty” measure to others which take account of the “poverty gap”. There is a derivation of a new index due to Sen, and alternative normalizations are suggested for it. Estimates of all these measures are presented for Malaysia. Finally, the simple “incidence of poverty” measure, which is decomposable, is adopted to construct a “profile” of the poor in Malaysia.

Notes: This paper is divided into two sections-the first section discusses the history and development of Canadian low income cut-offs developed by Statistics Canada and the second examines problems relating to the adequacy of one year's income and the treatment of wealth in the low income data.The first section summarizes the conceptual basis of the Statistics Canada low income cut-offs that were first introduced for an analysis of 1961 Census data; a description of the data sources for specifying the cut-offs and examining the low income population is presented; a recently incorporated revision is described; and uses and abuses of the Canadian low income cut-offs are described.The second section discusses two main issues. The first issue relates to the adequacy of one year's income as a poverty criterion. Between years there is a significant amount of movement in and out of low income status which varies by socio-demographic characteristics.The second issue relates to the effect of ignoring wealth in the derivation of the low income population.The two concerns are examined empirically with data from the Canadian Survey of Consumer Finances.

Notes: Stagflation is a combination of an increasing rate of inflation with a decreasing rate of real growth. It appears when the inflationary gap of production costs raises faster than the inflationary gap of expenditures on Gross Domestic Marketable Product. The decomposition of these two gaps into their main elements gives then the possibility of determining the sources of the inflationary increase in costs and the causes of the relative retardation of the inflationary increase in expenditures. The main cause of stagflation in 1974 for France and Germany was the huge rise in oil prices which had not been immediately followed by an equal rise in prices of their exports. The inflationary rise in wages is an almost permanent factor of stagflation in France; in Germany its responsibility is involved only before 1975. In France the insufficient increase in the inflationary gap of expenditures was mainly due to the restrictive monetary policy and to the official price regulation. In Germany the restrictive monetary policy also contributed to the slowdown in demand in 1974 and 1975. In 1977, on the contrary, the main cause of stagflation was the slackening of export demands due to the world recession and the revaluation of the DM.

Notes: This study examines the economic costs and benefits to the UK of a 50 per cent cut in UK defence exports from the average level of 1998 and 1999. The net impact on the government budget is estimated to be an ongoing loss of between around £40 million and £100 million a year: around 0.2–0.4 per cent of the total UK defence budget. In addition, there is estimated to be a one-off net adjustment cost, spread over five years, of between £0.9 billion and £1.4 billion. A further more speculative adjustment cost (estimated at around £1.1 billion) could result if the loss of income associated with the ‘terms-of-trade£ effect were also included. In terms of the wider debate about defence exports, the results of this study suggest first that the economic effects of the reduction in defence exports are relatively small and largely one-off, and secondly that the balance of arguments about UK defence exports should be determined mainly by non-economic factors.

Notes: Two new gas tariffs were introduced in 2000, with contrasting effects. One abolished a fixed standing charge, while the other, specifically targeted at low-income consumers, introduced a preset charge, independent of fuel consumption, for eligible consumers. We analyse the effect of the abolition of the standing charge on different household groups, including the fuel poor, the current focus of government and regulatory policy. We find that while low-income groups have benefited more than others from abolition of the standing charge, the fuel poor have gained less than average. We contrast this with the other targeted preset charge scheme.

Notes: This paper examines some current reforms to social security benefits / tax credits and changes to employment provisions from a gender perspective. It analyses tensions between the trend towards ‘individualisation’ and growing emphasis on the couple/household as a policy focus.New tax credits change the distribution of resources within many couples. Incentives to work for some second earners should improve; but extending in-work subsidies to childless couples raises questions. Payment of child tax credit to the ‘main carer’ has been welcomed, though the implications of joint ownership of tax credits are unclear, and joint assessment will be extended.Many claimants' partners can now access employment services. However, this is aimed at reducing the number of workless households rather than expanding individuals' opportunities. Joint claims for jobseeker's allowance, and work-focused interviews, involve increased responsibilities for partners but no right of access to individual income. A more consistent critical analysis of reform from a gender perspective is required.

Notes: Governments often try to reduce the complexity of personal income tax systems by decreasing the number of tax filings. The 1998 reform of the Spanish income tax system has followed this approach by adjusting withholding on earned income to the income tax liability. In this paper, we assess to what extent the reform has fulfilled its purposes, making use of a micro-simulation tax-benefit model for Spain, ESPASIM. The number of individuals exempt from filing a tax return has been reduced to around half of the total number of taxpayers. However, the quantity of tax returns sent to the tax administration has not changed so much because the new withholding system adjusts taxes for only 29 per cent of those exempt. Moreover, the new system increases the overall excess of tax withholding by 1.5 billion euro. We also study alternative reforms that could achieve better results than the one implemented.

Notes: Should local authorities be free to determine their expenditure, provided they finance changes in spending by changes in local taxation? We set up a theoretical framework to analyse this issue, and discuss three arguments that have been put forward for central control of such spending. The first relates to tax spillovers, the second to distributional effects combined with imperfect local democracy and the third considers self-interested local politicians. While these arguments cannot be entirely dismissed, they are subject to numerous qualifications and, if correct, would imply the desirability of a number of policies other than expenditure capping.

Notes: I examine the unemployment insurance (UI) and workers' compensation (WC) insurance programmes, concentrating on labour supply, insurance and income redistribution. UI and WC increase the time employees spend out of work. Elasticities of lost work time that incorporate both the incidence and duration of claims are centred at 1.0 for UI and between 0.5 and 1.0 for WC. These elasticities are larger than elasticities typically found in studies of wage effects on hours worked by men, probably because UI and WC lead to short-run variation in wages with mostly a substitution effect and the programmes alter the participation margin. Some good evidence suggests that UI smooths the consumption of the unemployed and more clearly indicates that UI progressively redistributes resources. There is substantial evidence that injured workers suffer material hardships even with WC programmes, but research has not provided an overall picture of the insurance and redistributive aspects of WC.

Notes: This paper examines the cost-effectiveness of the new Home Energy Efficiency Scheme (HEES), a key component of the UK government's Fuel Poverty Strategy. The impact on the fuel poverty gap is simulated using data on a large-scale and representative sample of households in England. The scope for improving the scheme's targeting is considered by examining the optimal allocation of grants between households. The extent to which these potential gains might be achieved in practice using pragmatic criteria for distributing grants, and the implications of taking into account the dynamics of fuel poverty and the self-selection of grant applicants, are also explored. The current scheme is unlikely to have a very significant impact on fuel poverty, and considerable gains could be achieved by redesigning HEES, although the paper also highlights the difficulties involved in efficient targeting, including some additional complications not encountered in the analysis of more traditional anti-poverty measures.

Notes: The paper presents two taxonomies for classifying global and transnational health-promoting activities according to three parameters of publicness — non-rivalry of benefits, non-excludability of non-payers and the aggregation technologies. Based on these taxonomies and their implications for efficiency and equity, this paper identifies the need for international cooperation in some, but certainly not all, areas concerning the provision of such health-promoting activities. Additionally, institutional responses are evaluated in light of the various health-promoting activities. The roles of multilaterals, non-governmental organisations, foundations and nations are addressed. A host of current global health issues — for example, public-private partnerships, international orphan drug legislature and patent protection — are addressed.

Notes: The paper aims to clarify the tax status of pension schemes in the UK and, by using economic and other arguments, to establish a theoretical benchmark that could be considered the ‘appropriate’ tax regime for pension saving. We consider existing tax regimes for saving (such as the ‘ISA’ regime) and theoretical regimes (such as a pure expenditure tax and a comprehensive income tax) and we compare the costs different tax regimes impose on defined contribution pension schemes.We conclude that an expenditure tax is an appropriate benchmark tax regime for pension saving, and that other tax regimes impose additional financial as well as administrative costs.

Notes: This paper considers the principles that underpin the design of the UK's macroeconomic framework, with particular emphasis on the importance of good institutional design in ensuring effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy when an independent Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has operational responsibility for setting interest rates. The theoretical literature on policy coordination finds that the cost of central bank independence is less monetary-fiscal coordination. We argue that once account is taken of the institutional arrangements, this conclusion does not hold for the UK. In fact, the UK macroeconomic policy framework represents a significant improvement in policy coordination through mechanisms that allow for greater transparency and accountability in policy-making. Among the measures discussed in the paper is the role of the Treasury Representative on the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee.

Notes: TRADE UNIONS UNDER CAPITALISM: Tom Clarke and Laurie Clements (Eds) ESSAYS IN LABOUR HISTORY 1918–1939: Asa Briggs and John Saville (Eds) WORKER PARTICIPATION WORKER SIT-INS AND JOB PROTECTION: J. Greenwood A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY BRITISH WORKER COOPERATIVES: P. Chaplin and R. Cowe CAN WORKERS MANAGE?: B. Chiplin, J. Coyne and L. Sirc LABOR SHORTAGE AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS; A STUDY OF OCCUPATIONAL LABOUR MARKETS: B. Thomas and D. Deaton MEASURING INEQUALITY: F. A. Cowell CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A RE-ASSESSMENT: Michael Beesley and Tom Evans