This book addresses two questions - why some political systems have more centralized systems of interpersonal redistribution than others, and why some political unions make larger efforts to equalize ...resources among their constituent units than others. This book presents a new theory of the origin of fiscal structures in systems with several levels of government. The argument points to two major factors to account for the variation in redistribution: the interplay between economic geography and political representation on the one hand, and the scope of interregional economic externalities on the other. To test the empirical implications derived from the argument, the book relies on in-depth studies of the choice of fiscal structures in unions as diverse as the European Union, Canada and the United States in the aftermath of the Great Depression; Germany before and after Reunification; and Spain after the transition to democracy.
The economic and political rise of China and India will help define the twenty-first century. One out of three people on the planet is governed from Beijing or New Delhi. These two economies are ...likely to catch and surpass the United States and European Union in coming decades, and both countries are flexing their muscles in global affairs. The direction, shape, and speed of their rise will have enormous ramifications-particularly with economic turbulence and political transitions in both places.
Any corporation, investor, or entrepreneur serious about competing internationally must understand what makes these two nations tick. Many in the West still look at the two Asian giants as political monoliths, closely controlled by their national governments.Inside Out, India and Chinamakes clear how and why this notion is outdated, and why it matters so much.
William Antholis-managing director at Brookings and a former White House and State Department official-traveled with his wife and two daughters to eleven Indian states and nine Chinese provinces in five months, discovering and exploring their enormous diversity in business and governance. Antholis's travels, research, and conversations with hundreds of stakeholders make the unmistakable point that these nations are not the centrally directed dinosaurs of the past.
More and more, key policy decisions in India and China are formulated and implemented by local governments-states, provinces, and fastgrowing cities. Both economies have promoted entrepreneurship by the private sector as well as by local government officials. Antholis's gripping narratives of local innovation in governance and business illustrate why simply maintaining a presence in Beijing and New Delhi, or even Shanghai and Mumbai, is not enough to ensure success in China or India.
Each nation has as many people as the United States, Europe, and Latin America... combined. Both China and India are vibrant, innovative, diverse, and increasingly decentralized. Each has its own agricultural heartlands, high-tech corridors, resource-rich areas, and powerhouse manufacturing regions. But few people outside these countries can even name those places, let alone understand how they are shaping global futures. Governments, businesses, and other organizations need to adopt an inside-out strategy. In a compelling conclusion, Antholis lays out exactly what that requires.
This study analyses the newly available statistical evidence on income distribution in the former Soviet Union both by social group and by republic, and considers the significance of inequalities as ...a factor contributing to the demise of the Communist regime. Among the topics covered are wage distribution (interbranch and skill differentials and distribution in terms of gender, education, and age), income distribution for the former USSR as a whole, and wage and income distribution patterns for each republic, with analysis of regional differences.
For nearly two decades, progressives have been dismayed by the steady rise of the right in U.S. politics. Often lost in the gloom and doom about American politics is a striking and sometimes ...underanalyzed phenomenon: the resurgence of progressive politics and movements at a local level. Across the country, urban coalitions, including labor, faith groups, and community-based organizations, have come together to support living wage laws and fight for transit policies that can move the needle on issues of working poverty. Just as striking as the rise of this progressive resurgence has been its reception among unlikely allies. In places as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, and San Jose, the usual business resistance to pro-equity policies has changed, particularly when it comes to issues like affordable housing and more efficient transportation systems. To see this change and its possibilities requires that we recognize a new thread running through many local efforts: a perspective and politics that emphasizes "regional equity."
Manuel Pastor Jr., Chris Benner, and Martha Matsuoka offer their analysis with an eye toward evaluating what has and has not worked in various campaigns to achieve regional equity. The authors show how momentum is building as new policies addressing regional infrastructure, housing, and workforce development bring together business and community groups who share a common desire to see their city and region succeed. Drawing on a wealth of case studies as well as their own experience in the field, Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka point out the promise and pitfalls of this new approach, concluding that what they term social movement regionalism might offer an important contribution to the revitalization of progressive politics in America.
This book brings together academics, members of European institutions, and regional and national level policymakers in order to assess the performance and direction of EU Cohesion policy against the ...background of the most significant reforms to the policy in a generation. Responding to past criticisms of the effectiveness of the policy, the policy changes introduced in 2013 have aligned European Structural and Investment Funds with the Europe 2020 strategy and introduced measures to improve strategic coherence, performance and integrated development.
EU Cohesion Policy: Reassessing performance and direction argues that policy can only be successfully developed and implemented if there is input from both academics and practitioners. The chapters in the book address four important issues: the effectiveness and impact of Cohesion policy at European, national and regional levels; the contribution of Cohesion policy to the Europe 2020 strategy of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; the importance of quality of government and administrative capacity for the effective management of the Funds; and the inter-relationships between institutions, territory and place-based policies.
The volume will be an invaluable resource to students, academics and policymakers across economics, regional studies, European studies and international relations.
Patchwork nation Gimpel, James G; Schuknecht, Jason E
2003., 20091027, 2003, 2004., 20030101
eBook
The unprecedented geographic and socioeconomic mobility of twentieth-century America was accompanied by a major reshuffling of political support in many parts of the country. Yet at the dawn of the ...new century these local and regional movements are still poorly understood. How can we account for persistent political regionalism and the sectional changes that have radically altered the nation's political landscape, from the Sun Belt to the Rust Belt? Patchwork Nation reveals answers to these vital questions. The masterful analysis in Patchwork Nation reminds us that the traditions and histories of individual states differ widely. Gimpel and Schuknecht's insightful examination of territorial cleavages thus provides us with a key to understanding the raw material that politicians use to fashion our party system. Their findings are an important reminder of geography's central role in our nation's political behavior. From the news analysts and pundits who use maps to identify electoral behavior patterns to the politicians and campaign strategists who study them to locate centers of support, experts of all stripes continue to recognize geography's importance to our political understanding. But in the wake of the survey research revolution of the late twentieth century, scholars often overlooked the relevance of geographic factors for the study of politics. Patchwork Nation retrieves this lost knowledge and extends it in important new directions, encouraging scholars to fundamentally reassess their thinking about the geographic basis of contemporary political behavior.
Rural counties make up about 80 percent of the land area of the United States, but they contain less than 20 percent of the U.S. population. The relative sparseness of the population in rural areas ...is one of many factors that influence the health and well-being of rural Americans. Rural areas have histories, economies, and cultures that differ from those of cities and from one rural area to another. Understanding these differences is critical to taking steps to improve health and well-being in rural areas and to reduce health disparities among rural populations. To explore the impacts of economic, demographic, and social issues in rural communities and to learn about asset-based approaches to addressing the associated challenges, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop on June 13, 2017. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
After more than a century of convergence, the economic fortunes of rich and poor regions of the United States have diverged dramatically over the last 40 years. Roughly a third of the US population ...now lives in metropolitan areas that are substantially richer or poorer than the nation as a whole, almost three times the proportion that did in 1980. In this paper I use counterfactual simulations based on Census microdata to understand the dynamics of regional divergence. I first show that regional divergence has primarily resulted from the richest people and places pulling away from the rest of the country. I then estimate the relative contributions to regional divergence of two major socioeconomic trends of recent decades: the sorting of people across metro areas by income level and the national rise in income inequality. I show that the national rise in income inequality is sufficient on its own to account for more than half of the observed divergence across regions, while income sorting on its own accounts for less than a quarter. The major driver of regional economic divergence is national-level income dispersion that has exacerbated preexisting spatial inequalities.
Challenging the main ways we debate globalization, Global Displacements reveals how uneven geographies of capitalist development shape—and are shaped by—the aspirations and everyday struggles of ...people in the global South. * Makes an original contribution to the study of globalization by bringing together critical development and feminist theoretical approaches * Opens up new avenues for the analysis of global production as a long-term development strategy * Contributes novel theoretical insights drawn from the everyday experiences of disinvestment and precarious work on people's lives and their communities * Represents the first analysis of increasing uneven development among countries in the Caribbean * Calls for more rigorous studies of long accepted notions of the geographies of inequality and poverty in the global South
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