Restructuring the Soviet Economy examines the Soviet leadership's most urgent question - how to revitalize the soviet economy. David Dyker argues that the current impasse can can only be understood ...in the context of the failure of 60 years of central planning. He analyses both the problems besetting the centrally planned system and those that have paralysed perestroika and assesses whether the most ambitious attempt ever to reform the Soviet economy will succeed.
First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Contributors: Leszek Balcerowicz , Central School of Planning and Statistics, Warsaw and former Deputy Prime ...Minister of Poland; Raimund Dietz , Vienna Institute for Comparative Economic Studies; D. Duff Milenkovitch , Columbia University, New York; Irena Grosfeld , DELTA, Paris; Helmut Leipold , University of Marburg, Germany; J. Michael Montias , Yale University; Alec Nove , University of Glasgow; Petr O. Aven , Advisor to Stanislav Shatalin, Chief Economic Advisor to Gorbachev, Institute of System Research, Moscow and IIASA, Austria; Wodzimierz Brus , St Antony's College, Oxford; Robert W. Davies , University of Birmingham; Tadeusz Kowalik , Institute of the History of Science, Warsaw; Pekka Sutela , University of Helsinki; Xiaochuan Zhou , formerly Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, People's Republic of China; Alexander Bajt , University of Ljubljana, Yugoslavia and advisor to Markovich, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia; Ellen Comisso , University of California, San Diego; Jerzy Osiatynski , Minister of Planning, Poland and Institute of the History of Science, Warsaw; Leon Podkaminer , Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw; Márton Tardos , Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Chief Economic Advisor to the party of the Free Democrats in Hungary
This is an up-to-the-minute revised edition of a text which, since its publication in 1990, has been extremely influential. The great changes of the past 18 months have entailed a comprehensive ...updating of the book. This edition takes account of new developments that include the independence of the Baltic states and the treaty which sparked 1991's attempted coup.
This paper examines the effects of quantitative literacy on the likelihood of employment among young adults in the United States. The data set used is the 1985 Young Adult Literacy Assessment Survey. ...This survey of persons 21 to 25 years old makes available scores achieved by individuals sampled on a test measuring proficiency in the application of arithmetic skills to practical problems encountered every day. We use these scores as one of a set of variables in a probit model explaining the probability of a person being fully employed. It is found that quantitative literacy skills are a major factor raising the likelihood of full-time employment. Furthermore, low quantitative literacy appears to be critical in explaining the lower probability of employment of young Black Americans relative to Whites.
Recent legislation may substantially expand federal assistance in paying for child care. This paper examines the potential effects of three aspects of federal assistance-reducing child care price ...(through vouchers or grants to providers), improving its quality (through incentives or regulation), and increasing family income (through tax credits)-on the child care choices employed mothers make. The data come from the 1985 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Ohio State University. Both multinomial and universal logit models are used. The results suggest that price is a critical variable in child care choice. The higher the price, the lower the probability a mode of care will be chosen. Parents do not consistently select high quality care, although overall quality improvements may increase the use of family day care. Mothers who earn more per hour and families who have higher incomes (other than the mother's earnings) are more likely to select center care over other modes. Consequently, subsidizing child care expenditures directly through vouchers and reduced fees or increasing other family income through tax credits consistently increases the use of center-based programs, all else equal.
Empirical studies have found an association between vertical integration and low risk. However, other work has suggested that a complex pattern of vertical integration reduces ability to adapt to ...environmental turbulence and hence increases risk. This study examined the relationship between vertical integration and risk to shareholders (systematic risk) and creditors (bankruptcy risk) in the forest products industry. The results indicate that fully integrated firms have higher systematic and bankruptcy risk in turbulent product-market environments. In addition, environmental growth was associated with low creditor risk and environmental turbulence with high shareholder risk. These associations suggest the possibility of firms' using diversification strategies to shift risk between shareholders and creditors.
This empirical study investigates whether brand extensions should be introduced early or late in the life cycle of a product category. The longitudinal/cross-category sample of frequently purchased ...consumer brands is used to analyze how the performance of brand extensions depends on order of entry. The results indicate that early-entering brand extensions do not perform as well on average as either early-entering new-name products or late-entering brand extensions. This conclusion is based on four findings. First, the brand extensions were introduced later on average than the new-name products. Second, the early brand extensions had a lower probability of surviving than either the early-entering new-name products or the late-entering brand extensions. Third, the brand extensions earned higher market shares on average than new-name products, controlling for order of entry. Fourth, the extensions obtained smaller market share premia from entering early than did new-name products.
This paper details resource expenditures on nonexchange, noncharity transfer activity in the United States in 1985. Expenditures designed to facilitate and inhibit nonexchange transfers, executed ...privately or through the state, are reported. The numbers indicate that individuals plausibly invested nearly a trillion dollars in transfer activity that year. Nominal GNP in 1985 was just over $4 trillion, which includes numerous transfer-related resource investments that arguably should be subtracted out. Transfer activity thus apparently constitutes a much larger fraction of all economic activity conducted in the United States than previously recognized.
This article examines the efficiency of electricity retail distributors in Sweden in a multiple output multiple input framework. Productive efficiency measures are calculated by use of different ...versions of the non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. Comparisons are made between different types of ownership and between different types of service areas. The study indicates a rather low level of technical efficiency, a high level of scale efficiency in urban service areas, but a fairly low level of scale efficiency in rural areas. The results show no significant differences in efficiency between different types of ownership or economic organization.