School results for children of poverty â those forced by that poverty to live in innerâcity neighbourhoods âgenerally indicate educational failure at a much higher rate than is seen for students nurtured by wealthier school districts. This failure in school severely limits chances of social and economic upward mobility, which translates into a waste of human capital for the nation's businessâindustrialâpolitical complex, and dashed hopes, dreams and selfâesteem for the individual. Parents and concerned citizens from across socioâeconomic strata, long aware of the general inadequacy of schools in poor communities, have demanded improvement, often seeking it through legal and political means. Important strategies among the various federal, state and local school reform efforts to make schooling a meaningful process for all students, and particularly the minority poor, are decentralization and citizen/parent empowerment, the focus of this chapter. The movement to decentralize school governance â an effort to place control into the hands of the people being served â has gained momentum and exists in some form in most largeâcity school districts today. An extension of administrative decentralization, citizen/parent empowerment is seen as one of several factors, including teacher and administrator preparation, curriculum renewal, school financing, and school restructuring, vital in the improvement of schools. A look at the meaning and scope of decentralization, operationalized through citizen/parent empowerment, and its probable effectiveness in improving school outcomes indicates that, alone, it is insufficient to ensure positive academic and social performance in school.
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze problems of financing an old-age insurance when birth rates are low and population declines or fertility fluctuates with time. A government then searches for optimal policies to cope with such problems. A first criterion could be seen in the Pareto principle. But we all know that there is no way out of PAYG unless at least one generation has to pay for the transition. Therefore an optimal policy is concerned with intergenerational redistribution and optimal growth. In the absence of public pensions the economy will in the long run converge to a steady state which is not optimal in the sense of a golden rule. This dynamic "in"-efficiency results from the decentralized decision making by the consumers and the firms. If the PAYG system influences the savings ratio of the economy, public pensions can be seen as an instrument to implement a modified golden rule.
Portability is defined as the capacity of an educational software item to be used differently from the way, the objectives, or the environment in which it was originally conceived. There are obvious economic strategies for increasing the portability of educational software. Computer software has high fixed costs and extremely low variable costs. In principle, portability would lead to greater utilization, reducing unit costs and increasing quality, thus leading to higher cost effectiveness. However, the nature and behavior of both centralized and decentralized education systems set limits to the exercise of pure economic rationality. The paper discusses both the limits of educational software markets and the potential effects of government policies to increase the portability of educational software. Three major findings derived from empirical observation and economic analysis are discussed. First, high fixed costs associated with very low variable costs make higher usage, and hence portability, particularly attractive. Second, given the peculiarities of educational markets, the way governments finance schools are relatively more important than the price of software: Teachers are more likely to buy, adapt, or develop programs according to the logic of local financing policies rather than cost considerations. Third, both markets and governments influence portability and the willingness of producers to develop portable computer-education software. Government policies that can be particularly effective to improve portability are financing and incentive systems, licensing, copyright agreements, and regulatory policies concerning systems compatibility. The provision of support functions through clearinghouses for exchange of information, training, research and development, and feedback to producers can also help correct for market imperfections.
Sifra's Theology of Revelation The reader may now wonder whether I have entered a circular argument. When I accounted for Sifra's authorship's critique of the Mishnah's utilization of taxonomic logic for the proof of propositions, I claimed that at stake was not merely omission of proof texts but a (to our authorship) flawed use of a valid logic. Yet I further stressed that the correct utilization of that logic can be shown to occur not only in Sifra but, by Sifra's authorship's own standard, in the Mishnah. I further stipulated that Scripture can have been, and probably was, the source of that appearance in the Mishnah of the kind of polythetic classification of which Sifra's authorship will have approved, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly in the Mishnah's introduction of the same polythetic taxonomy. Therefore, does it not all come down to the presence, or absence, of citations of verses of Scripture? And if all that separates Sifra from Tosefta and the two Talmuds is that the latter suffice with the inclusion of proof texts while the former insists upon rewriting the whole of Scripture in line with the Mishnah, then does not the effort invested in Sifra seem a bit excessive. The result, after all, can have been, and was, accomplished in a much simpler way by the authorships of the successor documents to the Mishnah. Why then the reversion to Scripture in Sifra's rewriting of Scripture, that is, its writing with Scripture?
Lives of Noisy Desperation: A Year's Work in Collection Development, 1989 development literature of 1989 shows how well the profession is coping with declining budgets, spiraling costs, and new technologies. A selective number of articles and books on the following topics are reviewed: general works on development; financing; serials; new technology; evaluation and measurement; automation; cooperative arrangements; selection and review; preservation, storage and size; vendors and acquisitions; and education and training. literature suggests that librarians in charge of development must continue to deal with financial burdens and an expanding list of demands for new materials in all formats. The mass of men, wrote Henry Thoreau, lives of quiet desperation.[1] For those involved in development and management activities these days, there is little time for the luxury of quiet. Collection managers have fallen on desperate times, their work a reflection of a dizzying display of declining budgets, spiraling costs, and new technologies. development literature of 1989 shows how well the profession is coping with these trends after the whiplash of 1987 and 1988. Included in this literature review are a selective number of articles and books produced during 1989, listed under a dozen topics of general concern to the manager. Two topics, preservation and matters relating to acquisitions as an adjunct to development, are touched on only briefly. A number of substantial works appeared this year, including full-length texts and a reprise of important pieces published years before. range of publications shows the growth of this sector of librarianship and the positive responses to the problems facing our collections. General Works Two important texts appeared, providing comprehensive overviews of the work of management. Wortman's Collection Management: Background and Principles treats all aspects of management in a way that is beneficial to both the student and the practitioner. Shoemaker's Collection Management: Current Issues is a of in-depth essays that document the state of the art of development as we understand it today. A shorter treatment of this general area is found in the Association of College & Research Libraries' CLIP note Collection Development Policies for College Libraries, which details policies for college libraries. need to shift our focus from documents to content and from collections to individuals is the focus of Drake's article, while Schwartz provides an extensive review of the decision-making process of book selection. Atkinson puts the role of development in a historical setting to develop a systemized approach to the problems in the field, similar in some respects to the arguments posed by Buckland, who examines the scope of development and suggests that we begin regarding development much as we regard file organization with a computer system. This approach allows the development librarian to see how files are used, as opposed to looking solely at the substance of the file. Bucknall discusses the problems and promises of organizing activities in one centralized area as opposed to a coordinated but decentralized approach. often-unspoken politics of development are the theme of Bullard's editorial, in which he discusses the political overtones of writing a policy statement and engaging teaching faculty and administrators in the process. An overview of collection development in action is provided in the lead essay by Fiste from a day-long workshop at the University of Toledo. Atkinson provides a scholarly essay on referential abstraction in bibliography and the ways in which bibliography is used in library selection. âŠ
Library Collection Development and Digital Resources
ABSTRACT This paper reviews recent literature to show how foreign aid and labour remittances have transformed Central America's macroeconomy, state apparatus and class structure over the last ten years. They have lifted real exchange rates, changed the composition of investment, lowered food prices, and directly supported large numbers of people. Control over these resources is now a major focus of political activity and donors play a greater role in economic policy. Project administration has become a major function of the state. Planning and public sector personnel management have become more difficult. Foreign funds have favoured decentralization and increased participation, but they have also weakened the core capacity of the state to execute policies. Transfers have fomented new social groups including sectors supported by remittances, foreignâfinanced soldiers, public employees, nonâtraditional export producers, financial intermediaries who channel remittances and refugees.
One strand of endogenous-growth\tmodels assumes constant returns to a broad concept of capital. I extend these models to include tax- financed government services that affect production or utility. Growth and saving rates fall with an increase in utility-type expenditures; the two rates rise initially with productive government expenditures but subsequently decline. With an income tax, the decentralized choices of growth and saving are "too low," but if the production function is Cobb-Douglas, the optimizing government still satisfies a natural condition for productive efficiency. Empirical evidence across countries supports some of the hypotheses about government and growth.
The Civil War brought machine politics to Chicago. The party realignment that created the Republican Party repoliticized municipal elections that had been nonpartisan for nearly a decade, while the war itself presented emergency situations that forced (or, alternatively, allowed) city officials to tax and spend on an unprecedentedly large scale. By machine politics, of course, I do not mean a Richard J. Daley style concentration of power; that kind of machine would not exist in Chicago until Daley himself built it in the 1950s. Rather, by machine politics I mean a form of city government with two characteristics: first, electoral conflict, consisting of an ongoing battle between âreformersâ and âbosses,â often waged on the issue of âcorruption,â and second, municipal finance structured so that the city treasury underwrote what political scientist Raymond E. Wolfinger has delicately called âincentives to political participation.â Before the Civil War, Chicago's government had neither of these characteristics. It did, however, have a third characteristic that historians usually associate with machine politics: It was decentralized. Antebellum Chicago's radical administrative decentralization, which I have termed the âsegmented system of city government,â was destroyed by the Civil War. A system designed to avoid the political redistribution of individual wealth was replaced by one â machine politics â that used its taxing and spending powers to pursue expensive âpublic interests.â Thus, the origin of machine politics lay not in a democratizing decentralization of power but in the addition of centralizing elements to an already decentralized government and, more important, in the political definition of those public interests for which redistribution was appropriate.
U.S.-Japanese Corporate Finance For at least two decades, Japanese corporate investment consistently has outpaced U.S. corporate investment. One of the leading explanations of this phenomenon--and a favorite among U.S. corporate managers--is that the cost of capital is lower in Japan than in the United States. The combination of lower real interest rates and higher stock prices makes it cheaper for Japanese firms to borrow money and issue equity, enabling them to invest more. But how do we square this explanation with the view held by many economists that capital is mobile across national borders? If capital is indeed cheaper in Japan than in the United States, why don't U.S. companies go bargain hunting for capital in Japan? The answer may lie in differences in the structure of corporate financial markets between the two countries. 1) In 1977, the average debt-equity ratio of Japanese companies was roughly four times that of U.S. companies; it is now about the same. 2) Until fairly recently, about 90 percent of all Japanese corporate debt took the form of short-term bank loans; during the same period, only about 30 percent of U.S. corporate debt was financed by banks. 3) In a sample of financially distressed U.S. public companies, roughly one-half filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code; in a comparable sample of Japanese companies, none filed for bankruptcy protection. These stark differences in financing behavior suggest tha there is more to understanding the cost of capital differences than a simple comparison of interest rates and stock prices. I have conducted research with Takeo Hoshi, Anil K. Kashyap, and David N. Weil that may shed some light on how structural differences in the two financial markets--many of which are quickly disappearing--could explain in part why corporate investment in Japan has been higher than in the United States. Relationship Banking in Japan Historically, the linchpin of Japanese corporate finance has been the close relationship between a firm and its main bank. The main bank provides debt financing, owns some of the company's equity (by statute, no more than 5 percent), and may even place bank executives in top management positions. This system is similar in many respects to West Germany's, but it contrasts sharply with U.S. financing practices. Here, large companies generally have a more arm's-length relationship with the capital market; their debt and equity tend to be held diffusely. Japanese banking practices are driven more by relationships, while U.S. banking practices are driven more by price. For many Japanese companies, the main bank relationship is part of a larger industrial structure known as the keiretsu, a group of companies centered around affiliated banks and other financial institutions. These companies also have strong product--market ties to each other that are strengthened by cross-share ownership. Historically, the links have been strongest in the six largest keiretsu--Mitsubishi, Mitsui, sumitomo, Fuyo, Dai-ichi Kangyo, and Sanwa. This corporate financial structure can facilitate investment through at least two distinct channels. first, the main bank and keiretsu system can provide a ready source of funds to companies that otherwise would be unable to raise capital in a decentralized market. Thus, even though the system may not affect the cost of capital, it can affect the availability of capital. Second, the main bank and keiretsu system can lower the costs of financial distress. This facilitates investment in two ways: by ensuring that companies with valuable investment opportunities are able to exploit them; and by enabling companies to take on more debt, which generally is thought to be cheaper than equity. I consider each of these channels in turn. Liquidity Constraints and Investment In a frictionless capital market, companies with valuable investment projects should have to trouble raising the funds they need to finance these projects. âŠ
The Soviet Union is undergoing a peacefulâbut massiveârevolution. Everywhere, old institutions are being challenged, and old beliefs are being rejected. Soviet society is beginning to ferment with entrepreneurial zeal, a thrust toward decentralization and democratization of decision making, and a blossoming of interest in competition and free enterprise as a way of reviving the stagnant economy. The health care sector is no exception.<sup>1</sup>Although the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to guarantee free medical care as a constitutional right to all its citizens,<sup>2</sup>the quality and accessibility of that care are now in question. In the face of deteriorating health status indicators and dissatisfaction among Soviet citizens, restructuring the health care system has been joined to the economic reform. The major goal is to infuse new resources into the system and make it part of the self-supporting economy. This reform initiative has been
public good whereby the sum of the marginal rates of substitution between the public good and some numeraire private good for all agents who benefit frqm the public good must be equal to the corresponding marginal rate of transformation, i.e., XMRS = MRT. This rule can be implemented in a decentralized fashion if the government has enough financing instruments available, e.g., person-specific lump sum taxes and government debt. However, whether or not the first-best benefit rule can be implemented when the government only has control over relative prices is an open issue. Pigou (1947), Diamond and Mirrlees (1971), Dasgupta and Stiglitz (1971), Atkinson and Stern (1974), Pestieau (1974), and more recently, Wildasin (1979, 1984, 1985), King (1986), and Batina (1987) have considered the effect of decentralizing the government's policy on the optimal first-best benefit rule for a public good. It is generally true that if the government cannot completely control the economy because of a lack of policy instruments, then the first-best benefit rule governing the provision of the public good must be modified as a result.
This article examines the evolution of garden city ideas in the United States during the twentieth century. It distinguishes between four sets of goals: environmental reform; social reform; town planning, and regional planning. Much of the literature on American garden city movements focuses on the general political failure of its advocates to achieve key social reforms and regional planning objectives. By contrast, the accomplishments in environmental reform and town planning have been far more successful. Though Ebenezer Howard's proposals did not lead to widespread adoption in their purest form, urban decentralization and subâurbanization have produced significant improvements in the building of higherâquality and lowerâdensity housing and in providing more open space and greenery for a large segment of the population. This pattern of planning and development may be viewed as âthe garden metropolis.â Its relationship to garden city ideas is best symbolized by the central role of Thomas Adams, the British planner who served as a leading proponent of the garden metropolis in the United States. Many of Adamsâ policy recommendations, including his strong support for mass home owership initiatives, were later implemented by the Federal Housing Administration beginning in 1934. The FHA, through its mortgage insurance programs, its property and neighborhood standards, and its Land Planning Division, was extremely influential in shaping the growth of the garden metropolis, especially during the 1940s and 50s.
On Taking Substituted Judgment Seriously I am a long-time advocate of patients' rights in general and the right to die in particular, but i believe the U.S. Supreme Court rendered the right decision in Cruzan. This is not a comfortable position for me. I have witnessed the lingering death of members of my immediate family three times in the last five years. My heart goes out to the Cruzan family. But the Court's unwillingness to overturn Missouri law is no more to blame for the Cruzans' plight than is your and my unwillingness to kidnap Nancy and spirit her away to a place where she can die in peace. The Court, in my opinion, did not have legal authority to do what the Cruzans asked of it. The U.S. Supreme Court does not sit as a super legislature over the states. It has no authority to rule on the wisdom of state laws or general power to promulgate uniform rules of state law. The Court has only the power to strike down state laws that conflict with federal law, including the U.S. Constitution. Thus, when the Court refused to invalidate Missouri's and convincing requirement for substituted judgment, it was saying only that it did not find the requirement to be in conflict with the Constitution or other valid federal law. It was not approving of the requirement or imposing it on all those states that have not adopted it, but merely saying it was permissible for Missouri (or any other state) to make that requirement part of its law--if it wanted to. For the Court to have overturned the Missouri requirement as unconstitutional, it would have had to find that the measure had been motivated by an illegitimate state purpose, or that the state purpose it advanced and the reasons for advancing it by the means chosen were clearly out-weighed by the burden imposed upon individual liberty interests. By neither of these tests is Missouri's approach to substituted judgment unconstitutional. If Missouri's approach burdens individual liberty interests, so does that of every other state that employs substituted judgment for PVS cases. By requiring clear and convincing, evidence of substituted judgment, Missouri prevents death decisions for some persons who are in PVS. But so do those states that do not require clear and convincing evidence for substituted judgment. Such states do not allow death decisions where there is no evidence for substituted judgment, or where the patient's family has not reached a death decision for the patient. What reason is there for thinking that Missouri's procedural safeguards that cause many PVS patients to be continued on life support are unconstitutionally burdensome but those of other states are not? Missouri's purpose is requiring the safeguards is the same as the presumed purpose in other states--to ensure that death is in fact what the patient would want for herself. This is centainly not an illegitimate state purpose. If the liberty interest here is that of patient choice, it can be argued that Missouri's higher standard of proof is designated to protect that interest. In contexts where less important liberty interests were at stake, the Court has not only allowed use of a clear and convincing standard, but at times required it. Similarly, denying family members a general power to make death decisions for patients is arguably more protective of patient liberty than less. âŠ
This paper considers the relative centralization or decentralization of public finance, and relates the equity and efficiency issues to the special features of developing economies. The paper considers the centralization of taxation and service provision in Indonesia in relation to these theoretical principles and indicates ways in which we may expect decentralization to proceed in the Indonesian context.
Abstract Decentralization is an increasingly fashionable theme in the development literature. This paper attempts to distil from experience in a number of countries some basic considerations that should be taken into account by wouldâbe decentralizers with respect to intergovernmental fiscal relations and local taxation. After a brief review of the nature of the problem and the economic case for decentralization, four basic principles of reformâtransparency, stability, flexibility, and incrementalismâare put forward as useful guidelines to the restructuring of governmental finances and functions that seem needed in many developing countries.