New Releases by Kevin H

The literature on multinationals and developing countries has examined the causality" running from direct investment to changes in country characteristics (wages skills, etc.) and also the opposite direction of causality, from existing country characteristics to" inward direct investment. This paper contributes to the second line of research the question of what country characteristics, particularly market size and labor-force" composition, attract inward investment. This approach is motivated by the empirical" observation that the poorest countries attract a far smaller share of world direct investment than" their share of income. Small markets receive less investment per capita than larger ones. We" develop a model that generates both stylized facts in equilibrium, suggesting the existence of a" development trap for small, skilled-labor-scarce countries.

Throughout his campaign in 1992, Mr Clinton made bold and far-reaching promises. He worked carefully to take credit for what he had not done, and to distance himself from the negative things he had done. Whether Bill Clinton was talking about his promises to the middle class, denying an affair with Gennifer Flowers, or making one of his many false pledges to balance the budget, there was one central flaw that ran to the core of the Clinton technique: dishonesty. Now, as Bill Clinton begins another campaign of broken promises in his second bid for the presidency, it is imperitive that he be taken to task for what he has failed to do. To quote a statement Bill Clinton made on the campaign trail in 1992, It''s read my lips all over again. Except this time we can read the record. I have striven to show that the very words of Bill Clinto are the best evidence of his deceit, corruption and indecision.

On average, the poor European periphery converged on the rich industrial core in the four or five decades prior to World War I. Some, like the three Scandinavian economies, used industrialization to achieve a spectacular convergence on the leaders, especially in real wages and living standards. Some, like Ireland, seemed to do it without industrialization. Some, like Italy, underwent less spectacular catch-up, and it was limited to the industrializing North. Some, like Iberia, actually fell back. What accounts for this variety? What role did trade and tariff policy play? What about emigration and capital flows? What about schooling? We offer a tentative assessment of these contending explanations and conclude that globalization was by far the dominant force accounting for convergence (and divergence) around the periphery. Some exploited it well, and some badly.

As part of a process that has been at work since 1850, real wages among the current OECD countries converged during the late 19th century. The convergence was pronounced as that which we have seen in the post World War Il period. This paper uses computable general equilibrium models to isolate the sources of that economic convergence by assessing the relative performance of the two most important economies in the Old World and the New -- Britain and the USA. It turns out that between 1870 and 1910, the convergence forces that mattered were those that generated by commodity price convergence, stresses by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin, and mass migration, stressed by Knut Wicksell. It turns out that offsetting forces were contributing to late 19th century divergence, a finding consistent with economic historians'' traditional attention to Britain''s alleged failure and America''s spectacular rise to industrial supremacy. The convergence forces, however, dominated for most of the period.

As Britain''s ''unemployment problem'' persists, discussion and argument about it grow in fervour and complexity. But just who believe what? Who agrees with whom? What are facts and what mere opinions and prophesies? Above all, what is being done about the problem? In this Pelican Original, Kevin Hawkins provides an up-to-date briefing on these mysteries, surveying all the major theories and courses of action -current and proposed. Into a coherent context go the Philipps Curve, Bacon and Eltis, Lord Keynes and Professor Friedman, the ''welfare scroungers'' theory, the Manpower Services Commission, the balance of payment, the apprenticeship system and much else besides. There are many unemployment problems and no single solution; but, as the author shows, some -if not all-can be solved.