Essays on Illegal Activities, Institutions and Economic Growth

In public economics, two extremist views on the functions of a government compete: one emphasizes government working for the public interest to provide value for the citizens, while another regards government mainly as a workhorse for private interests. Moreover, as the sole legitimate authority, the government has the right to define the rules and laws as well as to enforce them. With respect to regulation, two extremes arise: from too little regulation to too much of it. If the government does not function or ceases to exist, the state falls into anarchy or chaos (Somalia). If it regulates too much, it will completely suffocate private activities, which might be considered extralegal (the former Soviet Union). In this thesis I scrutinize the government s interventionist policies and evaluate the question of how to best promote economic well-being. The first two essays assume that the government s policies promote illegal activity. The first paper evaluates the interaction between the government and the mafia, and pays attention to the law enforcement of underground production. We show that the revenue-maximizing government will always monitor the shadow economy, as monitoring contributes to the government s revenue. In general, both legal and illegal firms are hurt by the entry of the mafia. It is, however, plausible that legal firms might benefit by the entry of the mafia if it competes with the government. The second paper tackles the issue of the measurement of the size of the shadow economy. To formulate policies it is essential to know what drives illegal economic activity; is it the tax burden, excess regulation, corruption or a weak legal environment? In this paper we propose an additional explanation for tax evasion and shadow production, namely cultural factors as manifested by religion as determinants of tax morality. According to our findings, Catholic and Protestant countries do not differ in their tax morale. The third paper contributes to the literature discussing the role of the government in promoting economic and productivity growth. Our main result is that, given the complex relationship between economic growth and economic freedom, marketization has not necessarily been beneficial in terms of growth. The last paper builds on traditional growth literature and revisits the debate on convergence clubs arising from demographic transition. We provide new evidence against the idea that countries within a club would converge over time. Instead, we propose that since the demographic transition is a dynamic process, one can expect countries to enter the last regime of stable, modern growth in stages.

Appropriate Institutions and Economic Growth - one size fits no-one

Modern-day economics is increasingly biased towards believing that institutions matter for growth, an argument that has been further enforced by the recent economic crisis. There is also a wide consensus on what these growth-promoting institutions should look like, and countries are periodically ranked depending on how their institutional structure compares with the best-practice institutions, mostly in place in the developing world. In this paper, it is argued that ”non-desirable” or “second-best” institutions can be beneficial for fostering investment and thus providing a starting point for sustained growth, and that what matters is the appropriateness of institutions to the economy’s distance to the frontier or current phase of development. Anecdotal evidence from Japan and South-Korea is used as a motivation for studying the subject and a model is presented to describe this phenomenon. In the model, the rigidity or non-rigidity of the institutions is described by entrepreneurial selection. It is assumed that entrepreneurs are the ones taking part in the imitation and innovation of technologies, and that decisions on whether or not their projects are refinanced comes from capitalists. The capitalists in turn have no entrepreneurial skills and act merely as financers of projects. The model has two periods, and two kinds of entrepreneurs: those with high skills and those with low skills. The society’s choice of whether an imitation or innovation – based strategy is chosen is modeled as the trade-off between refinancing a low-skill entrepreneur or investing in the selection of the entrepreneurs resulting in a larger fraction of high-skill entrepreneurs with the ability to innovate but less total investment. Finally, a real-world example from India is presented as an initial attempt to test the theory. The data from the example is not included in this paper. It is noted that the model may be lacking explanatory power due to difficulties in testing the predictions, but that this should not be seen as a reason to disregard the theory – the solution might lie in developing better tools, not better just better theories. The conclusion presented is that institutions do matter. There is no one-size-fits-all-solution when it comes to institutional arrangements in different countries, and developing countries should be given space to develop their own institutional structures that cater to their specific needs.

Language and Letters of the Bluestocking Network : Sociolinguistic Issues in Eighteenth Century Epistolary English

This study deals with language change and variation in the correspondence of the eighteenth-century Bluestocking circle, a social network which provided learned men and women with an informal environment for the pursuit of scholarly entertainment. Elizabeth Montagu (1718 1800), a notable social hostess and a Shakespearean scholar, was one of their key figures. The study presents the reconstruction of Elizabeth Montagu s social networks from her youth to her later years with a special focus on the Bluestocking circle, and linguistic research on private correspondence between Montagu and her Bluestocking friends and family members between the years 1738 1778. The epistolary language use is investigated using the methods and frameworks of corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, and social network analysis. The approach is diachronic and concerns real-time language change. The research is based on a selection of manuscript letters which I have edited and compiled into an electronic corpus (Bluestocking Corpus). I have also devised a network strength scale in order to quantify the strength of network ties and to compare the results of the linguistic research with the network analysis. The studies range from the reconstruction and analysis of Elizabeth Montagu s most prominent social networks to the analysis of changing morphosyntactic features and spelling variation in Montagu s and her network members correspondence. The linguistic studies look at the use of the progressive construction, preposition stranding and pied piping, and spelling variation in terms of preterite and past participle endings in the regular paradigm (-ed, - d, -d, - t, -t) and full / contracted spellings of auxiliary verbs. The results are analysed in terms of social network membership, sociolinguistic variables of the correspondents, and, when relevant, aspects of eighteenth-century linguistic prescriptivism. The studies showed a slight diachronic increase in the use of the progressive, a significant decrease of the stigmatised preposition stranding and increase of pied piping, and relatively informal but socially controlled epistolary spelling. Certain significant changes in Elizabeth Montagu s language use over the years could be attributed to her increasingly prominent social standing and the changes in her social networks, and the strength of ties correlated strongly with the use of the progressive in the Bluestocking Corpus. Gender, social rank, and register in terms of kinship/friendship had a significant influence in language use, and an effect of prescriptivism could also be detected. Elizabeth Montagu s network ties resulted in language variation in terms of network membership, her own position in a given network, and the social factors that controlled eighteenth-century interaction. When all the network ties are strong, linguistic variation seems to be essentially linked to the social variables of the informants.

New Perspectives on the Roman Coinage on the Eastern Limes in the Late Republican and Roman Imperial Period

The Ph.D. thesis discusses the monetary development in Roman Syria and Judaea in the Late Republican and the Early Imperial Period, from a numismatic, archaeological and historical point of view. In effect, the work focuses on the 1st century B.C. to the 1st century A.D., that is, the assumed time of introduction of Roman denarii to the region. The work benefits from the silver coin hoards of Khirbet Qumran recently published by the author. Though discovered as early as 1955 at Qumran, where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls had been found prior to that in 1947, most hoards remained unpublished until 2007. A second important source utilized is the so-called Tax Law from Palmyra in Syria. Its significance lies in the fact that Palmyra used to be one of the most important cities on the Silk Road, along which luxury goods were transported into the Roman Empire and Rome itself. During the research conducted, studies of the provincial coinage of Judaea (A.D. 6-66) shed new light on the authority of the Roman governors in economic and monetary matters in eastern Mediterranean regions. Furthermore, a new suggestion as to the length of the mandate period of Pontius Pilate is made. The extent of Emperor Augustus monetary reforms as well as the military history of Judaea are discussed in the light of new analytical studies, which show that the production of Roman base metal coins appears to have been a highly controlled process, contrary to popular opinion. Statistical calculations related to the coin alloy revealed striking similarities with Roman and other local metalwork found in Israel; a fact previously unknown. Results indicate that both Roman and local metalwork consisted of outstandingly systematized practises and may have exploited the same metal sources. Information: Kenneth Lönnqvist (*25.7.1962) has studied at the University of Helsinki since 1981. Furthermore, Lönnqvist has lived in the Mediterranean countries and the Near East, and made research there at various scientific institutions and universities for ca. 7 years. Contact and sales of thesis: kenneth.lonnqvist@helsinki.fi

Kirjan tie lukijalle : Kirjakauppojen vakiintuminen Suomessa 1740 - 1860

Books Paths to Readers describes the history of the origins and consolidation of modern and open book stores in Finland 1740 1860. The thesis approaches the book trade as a part of a print culture. Instead of literary studies choice to concentrate on texts and writers, book history seeks to describe the print culture of a society and how the literary activities and societies interconnect. For book historians, printed works are creations of various individuals and groups: writers, printers, editors, book sellers, censors, critics and finally, readers. They all take part in the creation, delivery and interpretation of printed works. The study reveals the ways selling and distributing books have influenced the printed works and the literary and print culture. The research period 1740 1860 covers the so-called second revolution of the book, or the modernisation of the print culture. The thesis describes the history of 60 book stores and their 96 owners. The study concentrates on three themes: firstly, how the particular book trade network became a central institution for printed works distribution, secondly what were the relations between cosmopolitan European book markets and the national cultural sphere, and thirdly how book stores functioned as cultural institutions and business enterprises. Book stores that have a varied assortment and are targeted to all readers became the main institution for book trade in Finland during 1740 1860. It happened because of three features. First, the book binders monopoly on selling bound copies in Sweden was abolished in 1740s. As a consequence entrepreneurs could concentrate solely to trade activities and offer copies from various publishers at their stores. Secondly the common business model of bartering was replaced by selling copies for cash, first in the German book trade centre Leipzig in 1770s. The change intensified book markets activities and Finnish book stores foreign connections. Thirdly, after Finland was annexed to the Russian empire in 1809, the Grand duchy s administration steered foreign book trade to book stores (because of censorship demands). Up to 1830 s book stores were available only in Helsinki and Turku. During next ten years book stores opened in six regional centres. The early entrepreneurs ran usually vertical businesses consisting of printing, publishing and distribution activities. This strategy lowered costs, eased the delivery of printed works and helped to create elaborated centres for all book activities. These book stores main clientele consisted of the Swedish speaking gentry. During late 1840s various opinion leaders called for the development of a national Finnish print culture, and also book stores. As a result, during the five years before the beginning of the Crimean war (1853 1856) book stores were opened in almost all Finnish towns: at the beginning of the war 36 book stores operated in 21 towns. The later book sellers, mainly functioning in small towns among Finnish speaking people, settled usually strictly for selling activities. Book stores received most of their revenues from selling foreign titles. Swedish, German, French and Belgian (pirate editions of popular French novels) books were widely available for the multilingual gentry. Foreign titles and copies brought in most of the revenues. Censorship inspections or unfavourable custom fees would not limit the imports. Even if the local Finnish print production steadily rose, many copies, even titles, were never delivered via book stores. Only during the 1840 s and 1850 s the most advanced publishers would concentrate on creating publishing programmes and delivering their titles via book stores. Book sellers regulated commissions were small. They got even smaller because of large amounts of unsold copies, various and usual misunderstandings of consignments and accounts or plain accidents that destroyed shipments and warehouses. Also, the cultural aim of a creating large and assortments and the tendency of short selling periods demanded professional entrepreneurship, which many small town book sellers however lacked. In the midst of troublesome business efforts, co-operation and mutual concern of the book market s entrepreneurs were the key elements of the trade, although on local level book sellers would compete, sometimes even ferociously. The difficult circumstances (new censorship decree of 1850, Crimean war) and lack of entrepreneurship, experience and customers meant that half of the book stores opened in 1845 1860 was shut in less than five years. In 1858 the few leading publishers established The Finnish Book Publishers Association. Its first task was to create new business rules and manners for the book trade. The association s activities began to professionalise the whole network, but at the same time the earlier independence of regional publishing and selling enterprises diminished greatly. The consolidation of modern and open book store network in Finland is a history of a slow and complex development without clear signs of a beginning or an end. The ideal book store model was rarely accomplished in its all features. Nevertheless, book stores became the norm of the book trade. They managed to offer larger selections, reached larger clienteles and maintained constant activity better than any other book distribution model. In essential, the book stores methods have not changed up to present times.

Young, gifted and spiritual -The case of Finnish sixth-grade pupils

The aim of this study was to explore the spirituality of Finnish academically gifted 12 13-year old pre-adolescents (N = 101). Their spirituality was investigated through the following three questions: (1) What is their relationship to religion? (2) How do they perceive transcendence? and (3) How does their search for meaning integrate into their lives? A total of 60 girls and 41 boys participated in the study. They attend a special school, Helsingin Suomalainen yhteiskoulu, in Helsinki, Finland. The school includes classes from grade 3 to upper secondary school and has an entrance test. This study is part of a research project called Actualizing Finnish Giftedness which is funded by the Finnish Academy between 2000 2007 and is led by Professor Tirri. The research project is based on Gardner s Multiple Intelligences theory (Gardner 1993) and on Hay s (1998) work on spirituality. The data in this study was gathered in 2003 and 2004. It includes both qualitative and quantitative material. The emphasis is on data gathered with interviews. The mixed method approach was used as the methodological framework for connecting the qualitative content analysis, phenomenological approach and the quantitative tests of this study. The results of the sub-studies are reported in full in the four original articles. First, the articles show that the pupils connect religion mainly with Christian institutions and do not consider religion and spirituality to overlap. Second, the articles show that the pupils believe in God and the interference of God in their lives and they think that reality includes a spiritual dimension. Third, the pupils had four kinds of existentially significant interests: personal, transcendental, cosmic and ethical. Cosmic interests were especially highlighted in the article concerning boys as nature and science were reported to be integral sources for their existential thinking. In addition, perceptions on God seemed to be connected to the individual s perception on the meaning of life. In RE, spiritual development has been a constant topic of interest since the late eighties. Likewise, recently in gifted education there have been discussions concerning spiritual intelligence (Gardner 1999) and spirituality of the gifted (Kerr & Cohn 2001). Based on the empirical results of the study, this study concludes that education wishing to promote spiritual development should aim at being existentially relevant to the pupils and use their existential search as an integrative framework for their individual talents and skills.

Land leasing, land degradation and agricultural productivity in Finland

This study analysed whether the land tenure insecurity problem has led to a decline in long-term land improvements (liming and phosphorus fertilization) under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Nordic production conditions in European Union (EU) countries such as Finland. The results suggests that under traditional cash lease contracts, which are encouraged by the existing land leasing regulations and agricultural subsidy programs, the land tenure insecurity problem on leased land reduces land improvements that have a long pay-back period. In particular, soil pH was found to be significantly lower on land cultivated under a lease contract compared to land owned by the farmers themselves. The results also indicate that land improvements could not be reversed by land markets, because land owners would otherwise have carried out land improvements even if not farming by themselves. To reveal the causality between land tenure and land improvements, the dynamic optimisation problem was solved by a stochastic dynamic programming routine with known parameters for one-period returns and transition equations. The model parameters represented Finnish soil quality and production conditions. The decision rules were solved for alternative likelihood scenarios over the continuation of the fixed-term lease contract. The results suggest that as the probability of non-renewal of the lease contract increases, farmers quickly reduce investments in irreversible land improvements and, thereafter, yields gradually decline. The simulations highlighted the observed trends of a decline in land improvements on land parcels that are cultivated under lease contracts. Land tenure has resulted in the neglect of land improvement in Finland. This study aimed to analyze whether these challenges could be resolved by a tax policy that encourages land sales. Using Finnish data, real estate tax and a temporal relaxation on the taxation of capital gains showed some potential for the restructuring of land ownership. Potential sellers who could not be revealed by traditional logit models were identified with the latent class approach. Those landowners with an intention to sell even without a policy change were sensitive to temporal relaxation in the taxation of capital gains. In the long term, productivity and especially productivity growth are necessary conditions for the survival of farms and the food industry in Finland. Technical progress was found to drive the increase in productivity. The scale had only a moderate effect and for the whole study period (1976–2006) the effect was close to zero. Total factor productivity (TFP) increased, depending on the model, by 0.6–1.7% per year. The results demonstrated that the increase in productivity was hindered by the policy changes introduced in 1995. It is also evidenced that the increase in land leasing is connected to these policy changes. Land institutions and land tenure questions are essential in agricultural and rural policies on all levels, from local to international. Land ownership and land titles are commonly tied to fundamental political, economic and social questions. A fair resolution calls for innovative and new solutions both on national and international levels. However, this seems to be a problem when considering the application of EU regulations to member states inheriting divergent landownership structures and farming cultures. The contribution of this study is in describing the consequences of fitting EU agricultural policy to Finnish agricultural land tenure conditions and heritage.

Ethics in a Technological World : Framing the Questions and Three Approaches

This study addresses the following question: How to think about ethics in a technological world? The question is treated first thematically by framing central issues in the relationship between ethics and technology. This relationship has three distinct facets: i) technological advance poses new challenges for ethics, ii) traditional ethics may become poorly applicable in a technologically transformed world, and iii) the progress in science and technology has altered the concept of rationality in ways that undermine ethical thinking itself. The thematic treatment is followed by the description and analysis of three approaches to the questions framed. First, Hans Jonas s thinking on the ontology of life and the imperative of responsibility is studied. In Jonas s analysis modern culture is found to be nihilistic because it is unable to understand organic life, to find meaning in reality, and to justify morals. At the root of nihilism Jonas finds dualism, the traditional Western way of seeing consciousness as radically separate from the material world. Jonas attempts to create a metaphysical grounding for an ethic that would take the technologically increased human powers into account and make the responsibility for future generations meaningful and justified. The second approach is Albert Borgmann s philosophy of technology that mainly assesses the ways in which technological development has affected everyday life. Borgmann admits that modern technology has liberated humans from toil, disease, danger, and sickness. Furthermore, liberal democracy, possibilities for self-realization, and many of the freedoms we now enjoy would not be possible on a large scale without technology. Borgmann, however, argues that modern technology in itself does not provide a whole and meaningful life. In fact, technological conditions are often detrimental to the good life. Integrity in life, according to him, is to be sought among things and practices that evade technoscientific objectification and commodification. Larry Hickman s Deweyan philosophy of technology is the third approach under scrutiny. Central in Hickman s thinking is a broad definition of technology that is nearly equal to Deweyan inquiry. Inquiry refers to the reflective and experiential way humans adapt to their environment by modifying their habits and beliefs. In Hickman s work, technology consists of all kinds of activities that through experimentation and/or reflection aim at improving human techniques and habits. Thus, in addition to research and development, many arts and political reforms are technological for Hickman. He argues for recasting such distinctions as fact/value, poiesis/praxis/theoria, and individual/society. Finally, Hickman does not admit a categorical difference between ethics and technology: moral values and norms need to be submitted to experiential inquiry as well as all the other notions. This study mainly argues for an interdisciplinary approach to the ethics of technology. This approach should make use of the potentialities of the research traditions in applied ethics, the philosophy of technology, and the social studies on science and technology and attempt to overcome their limitations. This study also advocates an endorsement of mid-level ethics that concentrate on the practices, institutions, and policies of temporal human life. Mid-level describes the realm between the instantaneous and individualistic micro-level and the universal and global macro level.

EU Multi-level Governance in the Making - The Community Initiative LEADER+ in Finland and Germany

In order to fully understand the process of European integration it is of paramount importance to consider developments at the sub-national and local level. EU integration scholars shifted their attention to the local level only at the beginning of the 1990s with the concept of multi-level governance (MLG). While MLG is the first concept to scrutinise the position of local levels of public administration and other actors within the EU polity, I perceive it as too optimistic in the degree of influence it ascribes to local levels. Thus, learning from and combining MLG with other concepts, such as structural constructivism, helps to reveal some of the hidden aspects of EU integration and paint a more realistic picture of multi-level interaction. This thesis also answers the call for more case studies in order to conceptualise MLG further. After a critical study of theories and concepts of European integration, above all, MLG, I will analyse sub-national and local government in Finland and Germany. I show how the sub-national level and local governments are embedded in the EU s multi-level structure of governance and how, through EU integration, those levels have been empowered but also how their scope of action has partially decreased. After theoretical and institutional contextualisation, I present the results of my empirical study of the EU s Community Initiative LEADER+. LEADER stands for Liaison Entre Actions de Développement de l'Économie Rurale , and aims at improving the economic conditions in Europe s rural areas. I was interested in how different actors construct and shape EU financed rural development, especially in how local actors organised in so-called local action groups (LAGs) cooperate with other administrative units within the LEADER+ administrative chain. I also examined intra-institutional relations within those groups, in order to find out who are the most influential and powerful actors within them. Empirical data on the Finnish and German LAGs was first gathered through a survey, which was then supplemented and completed by interviewing LAG members, LAG-managers, several civil servants from Finnish and German decision-making and managing authorities and a civil servant from the EU Commission. My main argument is that in both Germany and Finland, the Community Initiative LEADER+ offered a space for multi-level interaction and local-level involvement, a space that on the one hand consists of highly motivated people actively contributing to the improvement of the quality of life and economy in Europe s countryside but which is dependent and also restricted by national administrative practices, implementation approaches and cultures on the other. In Finland, the principle of tri-partition (kolmikantaperiaatte) in organising the executive committees of LAGs is very noticeable. In comparison to Germany, for instance, the representation of public administration in those committees is much more limited due to this principle. Furthermore, the mobilisation of local residents and the bringing together of actors from the local area with different social and institutional backgrounds to become an active part of LEADER+ was more successful in Finland than in Germany. Tri-partition as applied in Finland should serve as a model for similar policies in other EU member states. EU integration changed the formal and informal inter-institutional relations linking the different levels of government. The third sector including non-governmental institutions and interest groups gained access to policy-making processes and increasingly interact with government institutions at all levels of public administration. These developments do not necessarily result in the empowering of the local level.

Funktionaalinen Transitioteoria : Hallinto, Instituutiot ja Oikeusjärjestys Venäjällä

Functional transition theory: administration, legal order and institutions in Russia This dissertation examines some of the salient characteristics of Russia that are deemed to have impeded the growth of its economy and investments in particular. These characteristics are the volatility of the administrative and legal systems, corruption, and the perceived irrationality and difference in the operating environment in comparison with European conditions. The dissertation is one of the first studies on Russia that approaches the subject from the perspective of comprehensive social scientific theories. The study is based on the structural functionalistic theory, which is widely used in the social sciences. Adopting a sufficiently ambitious theoretical examination will provide a systematic and logical explanation of the characteristics of Russian institutions and ways of operations, such as corruption, that are commonly perceived as inexplicable. The approach adopted in the dissertation sheds light on the history of Russia's development and provides a comparative view of other societies in transition. Furthermore, it suggests recommendations as to how the structures of Russian society could be comprehensively strengthened.

Global and EU governance for sustainable forest management with special reference to capacity building in Ethiopia and Southern Sudan

The purpose of this study was to produce information on and practical recommendations for informed decision-making on and capacity building for sustainable forest management (SFM) and good forest governance. This was done within the overall global framework for sustainable development with special emphasis on the EU and African frameworks and on Southern Sudan and Ethiopia in particular. The case studies on Southern Sudan and Ethiopia focused on local, national and regional issues. Moreover, this study attempted to provide both theoretical and practical new insight. The aim was to build an overall theoretical framework and to study its key contents and main implications for SFM and good forest governance at all administration levels, for providing new tools for capacity building in natural resources management. The theoretical framework and research approach were based on the original research problem and the general and specific aims of the study. The key elements of the framework encompass sustainable development, global and EU governance, sustainable forest management (SFM), good forest governance, as well as international and EU law. The selected research approach comprised matrix-based assessment of international, regional (EU and Africa) and national (Southern Sudan and Ethiopia) policy and legal documents. The specific case study on Southern Sudan also involved interviews and group discussions with local community members and government officials. As a whole, this study attempted to link the global, regional, national and local levels in forest-sector development and especially to analyse how the international policy development in environmental and forestry issues is reflected in field-level progress towards SFM and good forest governance, for the specific cases of Southern Sudan and Ethiopia. The results on Southern Sudan focused on the existing situation and perceived needs in capacity building for SFM and good forest governance at all administration levels. Specifically, the results of the case study on Southern Sudan presented the current situation in selected villages in the northern parts of Renk County in Upper Nile State, and the implications of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and of the new forest policy framework for capacity building actions. The results on Ethiopia focused on training, extension, research, education and new curriculum development within higher education institutions and particularly at the Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCF-NR), which administratively lies under Hawassa University. The results suggest that, for both cases studies, informed decision-making on and capacity building for SFM and good forest governance require comprehensive, long-term, cross-sectoral, coherent and consistent approaches within the dynamic and evolving overall global framework, including its multiple inter-linked levels. The specific priority development and focus areas comprised the establishment of SFM and good forest governance in accordance with the overall sustainable development priorities and with more focus on the international trade in forest products that are derived from sustainable and legal sources with an emphasis on effective forest law enforcement and governance at all levels. In Upper Nile State in Southern Sudan there were positive development signals such as the will of the local people to plant more multipurpose trees on farmlands and range lands as well as the recognition of the importance of forests and trees for sustainable rural development where food security is a key element. In addition, it was evident that the local communities studied in Southern Sudan also wanted to establish good governance systems through partnerships with all actors and through increased local responsibilities. The results also suggest that the implementation of MEAs at the local level in Southern Sudan requires mutually supportive and coherent approaches within the agreements as well as significantly more resources and financial and technical assistance for capacity building, training and extension. Finally, the findings confirm the importance of full utilization of the existing local governance and management systems and their traditional and customary knowledge and practices, and of new development partnerships with full participation of all stakeholders. The planned new forest law for Southern Sudan, based on an already existing new forest policy, is expected to recognize the roles of local-level actors, and it would thus obviously facilitate the achieving of sustainable forest management.

Modern Societal Impulses and their Nordic Manifestations : On Emancipation and Constraint in Societal Development

The 1980s and the early 1990s have proved to be an important turning point in the history of the Nordic welfare states. After this breaking point, the Nordic social order has been built upon a new foundation. This study shows that the new order is mainly built upon new hierarchies and control mechanisms that have been developed consistently through economic and labour market policy measures. During the post-war period Nordic welfare states to an increasing extent created equality of opportunity and scope for agency among people. Public social services were available for all and the tax-benefit system maintained a level income distribution. During this golden era of Nordic welfare state, the scope for agency was, however, limited by social structures. Public institutions and law tended to categorize people according to their life circumstances ascribing them a predefined role. In the 1980s and 1990s this collectivist social order began to mature and it became subject to political renegotiation. Signs of a new social order in the Nordic countries have included the liberation of the financial markets, the privatizing of public functions and redefining the role of the public sector. It is now possible to reassess the ideological foundations of this new order. As a contrast to widely used political rhetoric, the foundation of the new order has not been the ideas of individual freedom or choice. Instead, the most important aim appears to have been to control and direct people to act in accordance with the rules of the market. The various levels of government and the social security system have been redirected to serve this goal. Instead of being a mechanism for redistributing income, the Nordic social security system has been geared towards creating new hierarchies on the Nordic labour markets. During the past decades, conditions for receiving income support and unemployment benefit have been tightened in all Nordic countries. As a consequence, people have been forced to accept deteriorating terms and conditions on the labour market. Country-specific variations exist, however: in sum Sweden has been most conservative, Denmark most innovative and Finland most radical in reforming labour market policy. The new hierarchies on the labour market have co-incided with slow or non-existent growth of real wages and with a strong growth of the share of capital income. Slow growth of real wages has kept inflation low and thus secured the value of capital. Societal development has thus progressed from equality of opportunity during the age of the welfare states towards a hierarchical social order where the majority of people face increasing constraints and where a fortunate minority enjoys prosperity and security.

Political Risk in Credit Evaluation: Empirical Studies and Survey Results

Financing trade between economic agents located in different countries is affected by many types of risks, resulting from incomplete information about the debtor, the problems of enforcing international contracts, or the prevalence of political and financial crises. Trade is important for economic development and the availability of trade finance is essential, especially for developing countries. Relatively few studies treat the topic of political risk, particularly in the context of international lending. This thesis explores new ground to identify links between political risk and international debt defaults. The core hypothesis of the study is that the default probability of debt increases with increasing political risk in the country of the borrower. The thesis consists of three essays that support the hypothesis from different angles of the credit evaluation process. The first essay takes the point of view of an international lender assessing the credit risk of a public borrower. The second investigates creditworthiness assessment of companies. The obtained results are substantiated in the third essay that deals with an extensive political risk survey among finance professionals in developing countries. The financial instruments of core interest are export credit guaranteed debt initiated between the Export Credit Agency of Finland and buyers in 145 countries between 1975 and 2006. Default events of the foreign credit counterparts are conditioned on country-specific macroeconomic variables, corporate-specific accounting information as well as political risk indicators from various international sources. Essay 1 examines debt issued to government controlled institutions and conditions public default events on traditional macroeconomic fundamentals, in addition to selected political and institutional risk factors. Confirming previous research, the study finds country indebtedness and the GDP growth rate to be significant indicators of public default. Further, it is shown that public defaults respond to various political risk factors. However, the impact of the risk varies between countries at different stages of economic development. Essay 2 proceeds by investigating political risk factors as conveivable drivers of corporate default and uses traditional accounting variables together with new political risk indicators in the credit evaluation of private debtors. The study finds links between corporate default and leverage, as well as between corporate default and the general investment climate and measeures of conflict in the debtor country. Essay 3 concludes the thesis by offering survey evidence on the impact of political risk on debt default, as perceived and experienced by 103 finance professionals in 38 developing countries. Taken together, the results of the thesis suggest that various forms of political risk are associated with international debt defaults and continue to pose great concerns for both international creditors and borrowers in developing countries. The study provides new insights on the importance of variable selection in country risk analysis, and shows how political risk is actually perceived and experienced in the riskier, often lower income countries of the global economy.

The Context and Diffusion of Knowledge in the Finnish Jewellery Industry - The role of the House of Fabergé

Researchers within the fields of economic geography and organizational management have extensively studied learning and the prerequisites and impediments for knowledge transfer. This paper combines two discourses within the two subjects: the-communities-of-practice and the learning region approaches, merging them through the so-called ecology of knowledge-approach, which is used to examine the knowledge transfer from the House of Fabergé to the Finnish jewellery industry. We examine the pre-revolution St Petersburg jewellery cluster and the post-revolution Helsinki, and the transfer of knowledge between these two locations through the components of communities of people, institutions and industry. The paper shows that the industrial dynamics of the Finnish modern-day goldsmith industry was inherently shaped both through the transfer and the non-transfer of knowledge. It also contends that the “knowledge-economy” is not anchored in and exclusive for the high technology sector of the late 20th century.