ALBERT

Notes: Reilly's law of markets delimits a breakpoint between the trade areas of a pair of centers based on their size and spatial separation. The construction of trade boundaries between more than two centers is inadequately dealt with in the literature. This paper generalizes Reilly's market model using probability contour mapping and numerical integration. Since the allocation phase of the model can be based on any suitable interaction model, a wide variety of retail analysis techniques is synthesized. Using computer graphics, both descriptive and predictive uses of the model are illustrated.

Notes: The spatial distribution of military expenditures in the United States is a major influence on the regional shifts of economic activity that are occurring in the US. The purpose of this study is to trace the changing spatial distribution of military prime contract awards (MPCAs) from 1941 to 1985. Using T-mode and S-mode factor analysis, the results indicate that since 1941 there have been four distinct eras in the spatial distribution of MPCAs. During each era the spatial pattern of military spending remained stable. The shift from one era to another appears to be linked to changes in the type of weapons purchased by the Department of Defense. The most recent era, the High-Technology Weapons era, has lasted for twenty years. The long-term stability evident in the spatial distribution of MPCAs supports the argument that military expenditures have played an important role in regional economic development and change. The findings also indicate that, while many states tend to follow the national trend in military spending, there are also four distinct groups of states which have gained and then lost their positions as military production centers. The main reason behind the rapid growth and decline of MPCAs going to these states was their dependence on a single weapons system.

Notes: This paper analyzes the pattern of price discrimination and cross-subsidization that result from traditional gas distribution cost allocation procedures. A gas distribution capital cost function is developed, using the Box-Cox transformation and estimation procedure applied to a cross-section of 65 communities, and is used to assess the deviations between distribution marginal costs and actual cost allocations. The major conclusions are that current pricing practices produce an aggregate net subsidy to all combined customer classes, that both intra- and inter-class cross-subsidizations are occurring, with the commercial and small industrial markets as the major losers, and that the smaller communities tend to subsidize the larger ones. These results support a move away from current, company-level pricing practices towards locally differentiated pricing.

Notes: Utilizing data from quinquennial industrial censuses for the period 1960-1975, this study examines economies of scale in a number of Mexico's manufacturing industries. A cross-sectional approach is used to estimate production functions by industry for each of four industrial censuses. In contrast to findings of relatively constant returns to scale for the United States, the Mexican data reveal substantial economies of scale at both the beginning and the end of the study period, suggesting that further opportunities for reduction in long-run costs exist. The resultant policy implications are that measures which promote larger scale manufacturing (incentives for expanded domestic production, export promotion, and selected tariff preferences) will speed up both short-term recovery and long-term growth of the Mexican economy. It is desirable, however, that these policies be harmonized with other designed to reduce the environmental contamination and congestion that has accompanied Mexico's industrial development.

Notes: The growth of many service industries among American metropolitan areas stem from an eclectic set of forces. These include market penetration effects of increasing importance of services throughout the economy, agglomeration effects in immature and deregulated industries, and institutional and infrastructure constraints. These diverse forces are interpreted as urbanization and localization economies. A cycle of centralization of 27 fast growing service industries is documented for MS As in the period 1977-84. The two agglomeration effects are tested directly, using a power function model that relates employment and establishment growth to MSA size and initial level of employment in a local industry. Localization economies rather than the general advantages of metropolitan size best explain the growth patterns. This result implies that service industrial complexes are rapidly emerging in American metropolitan areas.

Notes: Abstract The number of households in Chicago's suburbs grew rapidly between 1960 and 1980, and the spatial distribution of households of various income groups changed greatly. Nonetheless, at the conclusion of the 20-year period, the differences among the distributions of the income groups had changed little. Only in a few areas did invasion and succession play a role in neighborhood economic change, since few poor blacks or Hispanics have migrated to suburban Chicago, and there was little European ethnic concentration there. In several areas there is evidence of filtering of older expensive housing to lower income households. In other places it appears that real income of many households has decreased over time sufficiently to cause them to enter a lower income category.

Notes: Each year Congress allocates billions of dollars to states on the basis of unemployment. The stated objectives include assisting unskilled, economically disadvantaged, and dislocated workers; yet unemployment is a poor proxy for identifying such individuals. This paper examines the consequences of altering allocation formulas and concludes that switching from unemployment statistics to alternative measures of need, e.g., low wages, low income, or poverty, would have a dramatic impact on the geographic distribution of funds. Even switching from one unemployment statistic to another (e.g., from aggregate unemployment to excess unemployment or long-term unemployment) would substantially alter the distribution of funds.

Notes: This paper examines the shift from current market value assessment to acquisition-based assessment as mandated by a little-noticed provision of California's 1978 Proposition Thirteen. The distributional effects of the reformed property tax system are studied for a 300-house, ten-neighborhood sample in Davis, California. Micro-area tax inequalities for similar properties greatly increased from 1978 to 1985. By 1988, however, intra-area and inter-area inequalities in tax payments were diminishing slightly due to a low inflation rate and increased property turnover (resales). Because of its social policy consequences, acquisition-based assessment is an element of California's tax revolt that other jurisdictions should not emulate.

Notes: This paper reviews an interactive, policy-oriented simulation model and introduces the addition of a water module. This module enables policymakers to estimate and analyze those direct and indirect socioeconomic effects on a regional economy, occurring over time, which are attributable to regional water supply constraints and water allocation decisions. In addition, this paper presents a hear-programming-based approach which can guide the user in making water parameter adjustments for a chosen objective. An empirical demonstration of the procedure based on the Minnesota state economy illustrates its usefulness.

Notes: The claim that Britain's economy has been transformed by an economic miracle in the 1980s is critically evaluated, as is the entrenched view that unions have damaged productivity and competitiveness. Reviewing the empirical evidence, this article argues that after 10 years of Conservative government supply side economic performance remains weak.

Notes: The need for better financial reporting by public sector entities as a means towards greater accountability has been widely canvassed. This paper discusses the development and application of accounting standards in Australia in this context. The responses of the accounting profession, through its standard setting process, and of the Commonwealth and several State governments are described and the conclusion reached that these developments will mean significant improvement in the information content of public sector financial reports.

Notes: If the reform described in this paper is implemented, it will represent the most significant change in local government accounting for many years. From an awareness of the defects of current methods of capital accounting, an approach which might be broadly described as ‘a CCA version of residual income’ is developed. This paper has direct practical relevance as CIPFA has recommended that this major change should be adopted and experiments are currently taking place. Moreover, interest is heightened as the private sector has backed off from CCA.

Notes: This paper offers new evidence of capital and operating budgeting practices from a group of pure nonprofit organizations, independent religious agencies. It reports results of a telephone survey of chief financial officers of 47 mission agencies (a census of multinational members of a trade association), with questions covering agency objectives, operating and capital budgeting practices, and long-run financial planning practices. Explanatory modelling links usage rates of sophisticated budgeting techniques to agency age, size, and the business education of the chief financial officer.

Notes: Development projects are a major means of enhancing the economic capacity of developing countries, and of channelling multilateral and bilateral funds to them. While many aspects of development projects are covered by extensive literatures, their accounts are not. The accounts and financial management of development projects have been the subject of extensive criticism. This paper reviews the special characteristics of development projects which give rise to problems and discusses ways of overcoming them.

Notes: Sophisticated locational analysis should no longer proceed without examining (1) the feasibility of reducing uncertainty about the size and spatial spread of the market, prices and other elements and (2) the practicality of information generation through sampling. The present paper points out the methodology for Hotelling-, Weberian- and von Thünen- type location problems by examining simplified situations.

Notes: Regional economic models typically either ignore prices altogether or simply treat them as exogenously determined. An unfortunate consequence of the neglect of prices is that model builders have been very much limited in the range of macroeconomic perspectives they have been able to bring to bear on regional economic issues. In this paper, we first explain how prices can be modeled endogenously at a regional level despite the paucity of data on regional prices. Using an illustrative interregional computable general equilibrium model for Malaysia, we then demonstrate how alternative macroeconomic visions of regional systems may be captured.

Notes: Recent developments in combining input-output and transportation planning models have made it possible to construct realistic comprehensive urban and regional activity models of land use intensity. These models form the basis for a rigorous approach to studying the interactions among urban activities. However, efficient computational solution methods for implementing such comprehensive models are still not available.In this paper, an efficient solution method for a nonlinear programming urban systems model is developed by combining Evans's partial linearization technique with Powell's hybrid method. The solution algorithm is applied to a small but realistic urban area with a detailed transportation network.

Notes: Property Taxes and House Values: The Theory and Estimation of Intrajurisdictional Property Tax Capitalization, by John Yinger, Howard S. Bloom, Axel Borsch-Supan, and Helen F. Ladd. Spatial Price Theory of Imperfect Competition, by Hiroshi Ohta. Advanced Spatial Statistics, by Daniel A. Griffith. Regional Economic Development: Essays in Honour of François Perroux, edited by Benjamin Higgins and Donald J. Savoie. Recent Advances in Regional Economic Modelling, edited by Frank Harrigan and Peter McGregor. State Policy Choices: The Wisconsin Experience, edited by Sheldon Danziger and John F. Witte. Resource Development and Environmental Issues: Opportunities and Constraints in the Hunter Region, New South Wales, edited by A. J. Jakeman, P. K. Parker, J. Formby, and D. G. Day. The Urbanization of the Third World, edited by Josef Gugler. Indonesia: The Transmigration Program in Perspective, by the World Bank. The Economic Geography of China, edited by Sun Jingzhi.

Notes: . This paper examines the RAS, McMenamin and Haring, and Lagrange-multiplier update methods in the context of the dual accounting system of the rectangular input-output model. The motivation was to determine if the additional information contained in the dual system is exploitable, while maintaining the integrity of the rectangular structure with all its advantages. Tests were conducted on the performance of the various algorithms for a derivative Leontief model relative to their performance on the rectangular structure. The results obtained for rectangular tables were generally better than those obtained for the more conventional Leontief ones.

Notes: . The frequency of occurrence of the different types of solutions to the Weber problem is studied. These solutions are: a location at an attraction point due to a dominant force, to incompatible angles, or to concavity; a location at infinity; a location inside the polygon; and a location outside the polygon. Situations involving both attraction and repulsion points are examined in the triangle and in the more-than-three-sided polygon context, and methods for solving the corresponding problems are compared. A trigonometric solution is proposed for the triangle case involving one repulsion and two attraction points. The variation in the frequency of a location at an attraction point when the number of attraction points increases while the number of repulsion points remains the same is observed as well. Implications of the results are studied for the analysis of dynamic location processes.

Notes: . In this paper, a conditional location problem on a weighted network is examined. Attraction functions are defined and the problem is formulated as a mixed integer program. A method which simultaneously locates an additional facility on the given network and optimizes its weight is then described. A numerical example is provided.

Notes: . This paper examines the extent to which regional differences in wage rigidity exist and can help explain interregional differences in unemployment trends. Phillips-curve models of manufacturing wage inflation are estimated for the 10 largest states in the U.S., the 10 economic regions in the United Kingdom, and the 11 Lände in the Federal Republic of Germany over the 1971 to 1985 period. There is evidence of significant differences in the responsiveness of wage inflation to unemployment and the rate of change in consumer prices across the regions within each country and across the three nations. An index of real wage rigidity derived from the Phillips-curve coefficients is positively correlated with unemployment trends across the regions in our sample, suggesting that wage rigidity may be an important determinant of regional differences in labor market responses to macroeconomic shocks.

Notes: . Oosterhaven (1988) labels the supply-driven input-output model “theoretically implausible” and criticizes the straightforward use of the model for impact studies. This comment extends and corrects some of the issues addressed by Oosterhaven. We derive the characteristics which industry production relations must possess to be consistent with the implied changes in industry inputs and outputs when supply-side input-output models are employed for impact analysis. First, it is shown that an implicit assumption is the characteristic of perfect substitutability among all inputs in each industry production function. This is the polar opposite of the Leontief assumption of zero elasticity of factor substitution among all inputs, and is very unrealistic for large changes from the initially observed solution since it implies that all inputs are non-essential in the production process and that any input can be substituted for all others simultaneously. Second, it is shown that the model may still be reasonable for approximating the effect of small changes since the implied production relation may be interpreted as a cost minimizing choice for a standard constant-returns-to-scale production function linearized around the initial solution under the assumption that relative prices are unchanged. Under this alternative interpretation, the supply-side model may be expected to provide a reasonable approximation, useful for analyzing changes in the neighborhood of the initial solution, but would appear to be inappropriate for analyzing large changes.

Notes: Vector autoregression models are used to analyze the relationships between Texas and Illinois corn prices, and the New Orleans export price. Decomposition of error variances suggests an increasing exogeneity in the recent years between the export market and the two U.S. markets. Impulse response functions indicate that the export price influences both the Illinois and Texas prices.

Notes: We present in this paper a plausible and simple method of estimating the two components (frictional and excess supply) of unemployment. This approach uses a stochastic model whose error term is composed of two elements–the usual two-sided error and a one-sided error. Our method has several strengths. First, we are able to explicitly model the universally held view that there is a nonzero lower bound on unemployment. Second, we can easily determine whether each region's unemployment rate is caused primarily by excess supply or frictional forces. We illustrate our technique on a data set comprised of all 50 states over the period 1960-1979. Finally, estimation of the frictional rates of unemployment allows us to analyze, in the last part of the paper, the underlying economic and demographic determinants of differences in frictional unemployment rates across states and over time.

Notes: This paper uses a logit model of consumer choice to examine how changes in the spatial behavior of rural consumers will affect the commercial base of smaller urban places. Various socio-economic changes in a region can be expected to cause a number of behavioral changes, including changes in where people work and shop. The analysis presented in the paper emphasizes the importance of location to the commercial prospects of small trade centers as consumers become more spatially mobile and engage in more multipurpose shopping. Places that are centrally located have the best prospects for ensuring that functions are either maintained or suffer the least decline as a result of competition from higher-order centers. Remoter locations will be adversely affected by these competitive pressures.

Notes: This paper uses a stochastic frontier production-function model to measure and compare productivity efficiency in the manufacturing sector of states in the United States over the period 1959–1972. Based on this model we find considerable variations in productive efficiency across states. A large portion of the variation is found to be related to regional differences in labor-force characteristics, levels of urbanization and industrial structure. We also examine the relationship between productive efficiency and the subsequent growth of manufacturing and find some evidence of a weak relationship between efficiency and the growth of employment.

Notes: This paper considers a case of bilateral monopoly and examines the possibility of an intermediate location for two vertically related firms under simultaneous entry, and then analyzes the welfare-maximizing location for both firms. It shows that whatever the case, an intermediate location for both firms is unlikely to occur and that the pattern of industrial location under welfare maximization is equivalent to the one under perfect competition, but is different from the one under bilateral monopoly under certain circumstances.

Notes: The role of location-specific amenities in human migration decisions, and subsequently regional development, is explored. A framework is developed which motivates a new assessment of existing alternative models of regional development, indicating the need for additional modeling efforts which focus upon amenities as critical elements in such analyses. The approach hinges upon the notion that amenity values are capitalized into wages, rents, or other local prices. This process of capitalization enables researchers to explore the implicit value that society places upon amenities, which can then be used in assessing future regional-development trends in a more comprehensive manner.

Notes: : There are intimate and lasting connections between technical innovation, economic development and social and institutional change. A good way to begin a study of the employment and social implications of these interrelationships is to consider which technical innovations and technologies are important by virtue of their economic and social consequences. This paper argues that some of the new technologies have had an impact on the production system - and therefore their measurable macro-economic impact can be significant — while others affect society directly without necessarily having a major impact on the economy. For different reasons, both types of technologies need to be considered. The paper develops a taxonomy of technical change which is used to rank the economic impacts of various emerging technologies. The focus is on the information technologies (IT), since they are found to be by far the most pervasive.

Notes: : In this paper the author covers the current Italian debate on union representativeness and democracy, i.e. relations between union leadership and the rank-and-file, focusing on democratic procedures adopted (or not) in the internal decision-making process of the labour organisations. Experiments in the area of union self-regulation (autoregolamentazione) are discussed in connection with the collective bargaining process and strike action, mainly in public and private essential services. The author critically compares these experiments with more innovative solutions adopted in Spain, France, U.K., U.S.A. and Japan. Special attention is given to the role played by secret ballots in increasing union responsiveness.

Notes: : In reaction to growing criticism of the allegedly negative employment effects of job protection regulations (lay-off and dismissal restraints), the West German government in 1985 introduced new legislation facilitating the conclusion of temporary (i.e. fixed-term) work contracts in order to stimulate employment growth (‘Employment Promotion Act 1985‘AZPA).The research unit ‘Labour Market and Employment‘ at the WZB has evaluated the employment and labour market impact of the new legislation for the period 1985-1988, and apart from providing a detailed analysis of the socio-economic and institutional diversity of job arrangements covered by the category of temporary (i.e. fixed-term) employment, the project‘s focus has been on the impact of minor changes in the institutional frame- work as effected by the EPA on firms‘ employment policies, as well as on the overall level of employment.Results show that like in most other European countries the temporary work force in Germany has considerably grown over the past years in both absolute and relative terms, this increase, however, being largely due to cyclical factors as well as medium-term structural changes on the supply and demand side of the labour market rather than to changes in the regulatory framework as effected by the EPA.The impact of the new regulations on firms‘ hiring decisions and on the overall number of hirings in the total economy have to be regarded as rather modest, in fact amounting to not more than an estimated 25,000 additional hires per year or roughly 0.5|X% of all employment contracts concluded in the private sector. This marginal positive impact on firms‘ employment decisions, however, is counterbalanced by unintended substitution effects and an increase in involuntary quits arising from them when labour demand declines. Even under the overall positive employment development given in the period under investigation the net employment effects of the EPA temporary work legislation thus are shown to be at best marginal. In case of a deterioration of the overall economic situation, however, the increase in temporary job arrangements supported by the new legislation is likely to lead to accelerated workforce adjustments by firms and thus over time to result in a depression of the overall level of employment. From a theoretical point of view, the findings suggest that measures aiming at de-regulating labour relations such as the EPA largely fail to modify essential behavioral parameters of economic actors in economic environments which for decades have adjusted to a relatively high level of welfare state regulation, as has been the case in Western Germany.

Notes: : The works related to the disequilibrium theory often show that situations of classical unemployment and of Keynesian unemployment coexist on a long-term basis. The following study deals with a theoretical model of mixed unemployment reflecting this coexistence. In this model, prices are assumed to be flexible upward, but not downward. Hence, classical unemployment leads to inflation, without quantitative rationing on demand, which is closer to reality.The study analyses the asymmetric relations between the classical and the Keynesian sectors as well as the resulting implications for economic policy. What comes out is that differentiated policies always have a stronger impact than aggregate policies. The highest level of efficiency is obtained by stimulating the supply of firms set in the classical situation, provided that one acts on the non-wage determinants of supply in order not to further depress the outlets for firms set in the Keynesian situation.

Notes: : This paper traces a long-term perspective of the relationship between wages and unemployment in the Italian economy from the end of the fifties to the mid-eighties. During this period, the rate of unemployment exhibited three distinct time profiles. After a cyclical episode from around 1958 to the mid-sixties, the unemployment rates changed very little for a decade, showing only mild fluctuations until 1975. Since then, unemployment has been increasing steadily, and in 1987 it exceeded 12|X% of the labour force. The aim of this paper is not to provide a new interpretation of facts, but rather to assess whether, and when, wage pressure has represented a significant factor in the evolution of unemployment. The main conclusion of the paper is that the considerable rise in unemployment observed since the mid-70s is part of a long term evolution, and that in the long-run wages are not exogenous. Though there have been periods of exogenous wage push temporarily affecting unemployment, the argument that the continuous rise in unemployment depends on inappropriate real wages has no empirical content.

Notes: : The main purpose of this paper is to test the Regulation Theory (la Théorie de la Régulation) ‘ on a subject — the long cycle of rigidity/flexibility in labour markets and industrial relations we have experienced between the late sixties and now — that should be one of the central concerns of such a theory, being linked to one of its basic concepts: the Rapport Salarial. Does the theory of regulation help us (more than rival theoretical frameworks do) in explaining why we underwent a rigidity/flexibility cycle? And in explaining why this cycle took such different forms in different countries?In order to achieve this purpose, the author first distinguishes several meanings, or dimensions, or rigidity/flexibility (money and real wage, numerical, functional, intensive, dualistic, geographical) and goes to some length in analysing why comparisons in this field between national industrial relations systems and labour market arrangements are rather difficult to perform. Having done that, the author argues that regulation theory is of little help in understanding our diachronic question — why we went through a flexibility cycle — because such a theory does not make any strong bet on the causes of change in the institutional arrangements of labour markets and industrial relations. On the synchronic question — why the forms of the cycle have been so different cross-nationally — the conclusion is that Regulation Theory can be useful as a focusing device, as an ideal-type, but that a lot of nationally-specific materials have to be added in order to obtain adequate answers.The paper ends up with a methodological discussion on the statute of regulation theory. It is argued that it is neither theory nor history: it is a series of ideal-types of system-integration, connected by ex-post, historical linkages.

Notes: : The strategies adopted by European countries during the 1970‘s and 1980‘s have been unsuccessful in their attempt to produce more employment. These strategies have been centred on attempts to improve the international position of a country at the expense of the others through increasing productivity and competitiveness. The negative effects on employment due to higher productivity should have been offset, in the longer run, by an increasing share of exports. But the eventual result has been that relative positions of countries have remained fundamentally unchanged. This is due to the fact that all countries adopted the same strategy. Aggressive strategies do not pay in terms of employment. More effective policies, in a situation characterized by accelerated technical progress, can be more easily implemented in a more co-operative international context.Even if there is no moral solidarity between the nearly related races of Europe, there is an economic solidarity which we cannot disregard. Even now the world markets are one. This is to put the issue on its lowest grounds. There are other arguments, which the most obtuse cannot ignore, against a policy of spreading and encouraging further the economic ruin of great countries (J.M. Keynes) 18

Notes: : The paper is concerned with estimating and analysing the duration of unemployment, that is the length of time people spend on average looking for work. The first issue of the paper is to estimate unemployment duration using data from the survey on labour force done quarterly in Italy by ISTAT, the National Institute of Statistics. The survey data on the duration of unemployment measure duration so far, that is the average length of unemployment spells in progress up to the date of the survey, but they don't provide any information about completed duration of unemployment experimented by people before finding a job or leaving the labour force. In order to estimate the average length of completed unemployment spells, we would have to use data on cohorts of people followed from the time of entry to the time of exit from the labour market. As longitudinal data is not available, the problem becomes rather complex. One way to get round this is to use data on flows to firstly estimate probabilities of leaving unemployment within a particular period. The available data refer to quarterly flows and yearly flows. This makes it possible to estimate short-term unemployment (less than six months) and long-term unemployment (more than twelve months). In another paper we have analysed the nature of the bias introduced by estimating short-term and long-term unemployment in the way we do, and we have come to the conclusion that the bias is approximately a constant, which can be very easily estimated and eliminated. The second issue of the paper is to analyse the estimated short-term and long-term unemployment in relation to cyclical changes in the economic system and with trend changes in the number of unemployed people seeking the first job. In particular, we want to establish the extent of causal relationships between the chosen explanatory variables and the dependent variable. These causal analyses are done separately for the male and female population, and cover the period from the first quarter of 1979 to the last quarter of 1986.

Notes: This paper examines a simple model of North-South trade and capital flows along structuralist lines. The South can choose its growth rate, but must finance its growth in excess of its savings by borrowing from the North. The long-run consequences of this process for the process of uneven development and for Southern debt-dependence are explored. The appropriate responses to a debt crisis are considered.

Notes: Piore and Sabel's concept of flexible specialisation (FS) has initiated a lively debate between‘optimists’,‘pessimists’and ‘sceptics’. The potential impact of FS on work organisation and skills is examined through a review of industry case studies with discussion of the implications for management, government and unions with respect to training policy.

Notes: Scandinavian trade unions have been trying to influence the introduction of new technology in the work process since the early seventies. Recently, the most progressive unions have initiated their own research projects aimed at developing alternative technologies. This article discusses two examples.

Notes: Canadian labour laws ban lawful work stoppages while collective agreements are in force. Managerial prerogative generally governs technological change. Employees lawfully enjoy varying, but limited job security. Current laws may not deal adequately with the next wave of technology. Significantly, four jurisdictions provide midcontract arbitration.

Notes: This article reviews the flexible specialisation debate in the context of the clothing industry in the West Midlands. It questions the central importance given to the introduction of technology in the recent restructuring of the industry and argues that such changes do not necessarily benefit the workforce.

Notes: Trade unions have generally found it difficult to exercise influence over the process of technological change and its effect on the conditions and content of work. This article seeks to identify the circumstances under which unions may be able to gain access to the decision-making process and in turn shape the organisational outcomes of new technology.

Notes: The article by Claire Shearman and Gibson Burrell which was published in this journal, Autumn 1988 (Vol. 3 No. 2) provoked an immediate response. Here Ray Oakey and Roy Rothwell exercise their right of reply. This is followed by a response from the authors who defend their original article.

Notes: Book reviewed in this articleThe Japanization of british IndustryTechnological Change at WorkThe Meaning of Work and Technological OptionsManaging the Adoption of New TechnologyThe Individual, Work and Organisation

Notes: This article reviews recent studies of new technology and industrial relations and indicates four main areas for future research. The author concludes that more attention should be devoted to the technology itself, and that industrial relations research could usefully incorporate many recent insights and developments in industrial sociology.

Notes: CAD has been described as a‘Trojan horse’through which drawing office work will be deskilled. This article rebuts the crude Tayloris-ation thesis which underlines such views and offers an alternative analysis of the effects of CAD.

Notes: This article examines the relationships between microelectronics and manpower in Chinese enterprises in the context of the economic reforms. It focuses on skills and training developments and the potential for technology transfer.

Notes: Managements often fail to deal with problems of reorganising work to cope with technical change. Nevertheless, it is suggested that skills are becoming more enterprise-specific and that employers should train to satisfy their own needs. While markets help to distribute skills, they do not ensure that sufficient are created.

Notes: Numerous studies conclude that technological and organizational innovations are mutually supportive. Yet Canadian evidence shows a relative lack of emphasis on the crucial organizational dimensions of the innovation process. This article examines the results of a survey of technological and organizational change in 1,000 establishments and discusses reasons for the relative neglect of organizational factors.

Notes: In view of high unemployment, one major issue of concern within the German population is the impact of new technology on the labour market. This article examines the problem of determining and predicting effects of technological change on employment and discusses the development of job structure, work organisation and skill requirements.

Notes: Book reviewed in this articleThe Management of Innovation in High-Technology Small FirmsComputer Chips and Paper Clips Technology and Women's Employment Volume II Case Studies and Policy PerspectivesNew Office Information Technology: Human and Managerial ImplicationsApprasing and Exploring OrganisationsThe Human Side of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

Notes: Is the ‘social dimension’ of the European Community the ‘socialist dimension’? Dr Martin Holmes, of Oxford University, argues that there is a real danger to Britain's prosperity from the Common External tariff and the CAP, in addition to the collectivism of the ‘Social Charter’.

Notes: What justification is there for a special Department of National Savings? Tim Lund of Chase Manhattan Securities, argues that the sale of National Savings, including the new Capital Bond, should be privatised.

Notes: What lessons can economics teach about the best method of reducing crime? Dr D.J. Pyle, formerly a Home Office economist, argues that crime rates depend on unemployment, the probability of detection and the severity of punishment.

Notes: Is it even possible to distinguish between manufacturing and services? Peter Lawrence, chairman of Associated British Industries PLC, argues that the difference is only semantic.

Notes: Professor H. S. Ferns reviews the likely effects of the Government's reforms of the finance of the universities and concludes that they are likely to make universities more responsive to the market.

Notes: What should be the role of government in research? Professor Bryan Clarke, Professor of Genetics at Nottingham University, argues that the control of scientific research by the government is unlikely to be productive.

Notes: Liberalisation of East European economies is desirable. But, as Professor Jan Winiecki of Warsaw University points out, there are reforms and psuedo-reforms.

Notes: In part II of his review of economics at university for undergraduates, our anonymous commentator continues his light-hearted survey of the next step in economics after ‘A’ Level.

Notes: What is the effect of minimum wage regulation on youth crime? Masanori Hashimoto, of Ohio State University, argues that in the USA the evidence suggests that the minimum wage causes both unemployment and teenage crime.

Notes: Has there been an economic miracle during Mrs Thatcher's decade in office? Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell describe the government's achievements, but ultimately conclude that despite benefits there nave been major costs.

Notes: What are the prospects for railway privatisation? John Hibbs, of Birmingham University, outlines some of the problems for what could be the last major privatisation before health and education.

Notes: How to answer a question in ‘A’ level economics? Graham and Mair Dawson, both teachers of economics, give all the information necessary to write a DIY model answer.

Notes: Book reviewed in this article: ONE OF US Hugo Young. GORBACHEV'S STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC REFORM Anders Aslund. PRIVATE AGRICULTURE IN THE SOVIET UNION Stefan Hedlund. SOCIAL CONTRACT, FREE RIDE A Study of the Public Goods Problem Anthony de Jasay. THEORY OF THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY: Towards a Post-Classical Synthesis Bill Gerrard. CRADLE TO CRAVE: Comparative Perspectives on the state of Welfare Ralph segalman and David Marsland. LABOUR MARKETS IN DISTRESS: THE DENIAL OF CHOICE Ross MacKay and David Jones Gower. INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS: A Critical Introduction to Corporate Enterprises in Europe and America W. Duncan Reekie. WEALTH, POVERTY AND POLITICS Gordon Tullock. THE ROPESPINNER CONSPIRACY Michael M. Thomas.

Notes: Are volunteer forces or conscription the best method of supplying recruits for the armed forces? Colin Ash, of Reading University reviews the issues.

Notes: How should the National Health Service be reformed? David Green, director of the IEA Health Unit, analyses the Government's proposals.

Notes: Performance auditing is a common interest in the Supreme Audit Institutions of the developed countries. In Japan, the Board of Audit (JBA) has been developed and has expanded performance audits since its establishment (1880). In this paper, the methodological and organizational problems which arise according to expansion of performance audits are discussed, based on JBA's experiences. As for methodological problems, a self-development approach should be needed, added to the compliance approach (that is, traditional auditing concept). And as for organizational problems, the function presenting feedback information to the Diet should be put in an important position in government auditing to avoid “unintended effects”.

Notes: Accounting information, when used in organizations for decision-making purposes, joins with other types of information to help define and interpret situations. In an effort to portray the role played by accounting information and that of the Treasurer in the construction of the budget of an English Police Authority, this paper explores through a dramaturgical metaphor the events which led to the setting of the budget.

Notes: A number of writers have bemoaned the lack of a conceptual framework for public sector accounting. This paper surveys briefly the recent accounting history of UK local authorities. It continues with an outline of a number of frameworks which are available and concludes that an inclusive framework based on the concept of worldviews, recognising the variety of views and perspectives, would be more appropriate. This is then applied to explain the current debate on capital asset accounting, suggesting that there has been a major shift in the worldviews of accounting policy makers from fiduciary stewardship towards performance evaluation. The need for further research is recognised.

Notes: AbstractThe paper describes the experiences of CSIR in developing an in-house capability and implementation process of R&D management development programmes. The conceptual approach of the laboratory-based R&D management development programmes is described. Different phases in the process of implementation are presented along with the case studies of recent training programmes in two different laboratories. Some of the key aspects of the training programmes —- successful implementation, relationship with policy-making, and improving R&D performance have been examined. The role of international co-operation in R&D management development is suggested. The paper also discusses the future prospects of R&D management development programmes in the country.

Notes: AbstractMost studies of the management of the technological innovation process cover the range of activities that culminate in the commercial introduction of a new product. In certain sectors of industry, however, especially those characterised by extended product lifecycles, continued competitiveness depends on vigorous and continuous product improvement, i.e. on the process of ‘re-innovation’ to satisfy evolving user requirements. Ongoing research at SPRU has investigated the process of re-innovation in a number of industry sectors, and the paper presents material relating to two of the characteristic patterns of re-innovation identified in this research.The first characteristic pattern is re-innovation combining the existing with the new. Two brief case studies are presented. In both cases, the manufacturer and customer gained significant benefits from this re-innovation strategy. For the manufacturer there were reduced development and testing costs, scale and learning curve benefits, distributed inventories of spares and servicing experience. For the customer there were familiarity benefits and reduced entry risks associated with proven reliability of parts and sub-systems.The second, and more general pattern of re-innovation is based on the concept of the ‘robust design’. This is a basic design which has sufficient inherent technological slack or flexibility to enable it to evolve into a significant design family of variants. Product design families offer the producer economies of scale in R&D, manufacturing, marketing and sales and servicing. They offer the user learning from experience, the enhanced possibility of user-inspired modifications, a wider range of price/ performance packages and rapid adaptations to changing environments. Robust designs can effectively combine economies of scale with economies of scope; they are strategically more flexible than leanly configured designs which satisfy only transient user requirements.

Notes: AbstractThe literature shows a plethora of roles in innovation management. These roles have not provided a systematic and unique pattern of relationship which can serve as an instrument of organization. An analysis of the empirical findings shows the existence of division of labour in innovation management in a multiple role concept. The concepts like ‘product champion’, ‘gatekeeper’, ‘sponsor’, ‘business innovator’, ‘technical innovator’, ‘promoter’ etc. have some elements of commonality and complementarity. Two underlying principles can be delineated: division of labour according to phases of the innovation process and according to sources of power of the incumbents. An interaction model and a process linkage model for innovation management are developed to explain the different findings. These models help to integrate these empirical concepts and serve as guidelines for possible organization of the innovation process.

Notes: AbstractThis paper explores how a state-of-the-art concept, organization culture, shapes decision making and consensus generating strategies used in the successful management of product development activities in high technology companies. Engineering development groups interact with many individuals and groups on a wide variety of very comples engineering, manufacturing, marketing and business issues Much uncertainty exists around these issues because information that would allow for a decision to be made is often unknow or unknowable. Trade-offs are made continually resulting in a high degree of interdependence among development groups and others with whom they interact. Achieving a balance between controlling development activities on the on hand, and encouraging creativity and initiative on the other, is a complicated process.this paper illustrates the role of organizational culture in product development using case material from a very successful US high case material from a very successful US high technology company. ‘Consensus management’, a major cultural theme at ‘DW Enterprises’, is a decision making style that involves everyone in the decision making process who might have relevant input. A cultural analysis reveals that the engineers developed specific techniques for generating consensus, and that these related as much to control over participation in product development as to decision making.

Notes: Technology, by its very nature, creates a high degree of interdependence in the industrial marketplace. Customers buy products for use with other products in a production system. The consequent requirement for technical compatibility constrains managers' freedom in developing products and marketing programmes. lndustrywide product standards, and the process of setting them, play a complex and little discussed role in enabling managers to deal with these constraints. This article provides a market-based examination of product standards and that role.

Notes: In the United States fabrication shops build equipment to client specifications. Once their growth and profitability were closely aligned with those of their clients who were generally the larger firms. Now that most of these clients import their needs from abroad, fabrication shops need to compete on their own in both domestic and foreign markets. In order to help them achieve their goal, we need to have some understanding of their internal development and further identify possible barriers to their foreign involvement. To this end, a conceptual model with several operational and planning variables, to discriminate fabrication shops that service foreign markets from those that do not, is postulated and empirically tested. Policy implications of the study findings are discussed briefly. Limitations of the statistical procedures and possible future work are outlined.

Notes: The most important families of R&D project evaluation and selection methodologies and associated techniques are briefly reviewed. For each family, generally one or two methods were chosen to be analysed from the point of view of the integration with the strategy. But, first some definitions and some aspects of the new strategic role of the evaluation and selection of R&D projects, which were in mind during the interviews, are presented.Finally, some empirical results of the use of these methodologies in France and Japan are presented. The strong and weak points of the most prevalent methods are described as they are considered by the users.

Notes: The paper reports a study carried out in a large UK industrial R&D establishment which had recognised that queuing for service from support groups was becoming a serious problem.The main part of the study was carried out on the operations of an analytical department. Interviews were carried out with both ‘servers’ and ‘customers’ at all levels in the organisation. These were supplemented by observations of the actual process by which service was demanded and rendered, and by analysis of records.The study revealed why the queuing problem arose and the reasons for its undesirable effects. The authors concluded that resolution of the problems is a matter for the organization as a whole, and not merely for servers and customers.The situation is further analysed in terms of queuing theory. It is argued that improvement could be achieved if a systematic priority allocation system which took into account both urgency and importance were instituted. However, rational scheduling is possible only over a short time horizon, given current human and computing abilities. To achieve optimization over a longer time horizon the authors recommend the development of an expert system incorporating past experience into its knowledge base.