Hymer and uneven development revisited:Foreign Direct Investment and regional inequalities

Picking up on one of Hymer's key contributions, this paper examines the impact that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK has on the patterns of development, both within and across regions. Using a panel of data for the manufacturing sector, the paper illustrates that even where one isolates the effect on the domestic sector alone, inward investment acts to increase the demand for skilled, relative to unskilled labour, and also generates the expected agglomeration effects in terms of the demand for capital investment. The paper then goes on to draw certain policy comparisons between these findings and the desired aim of attracting FDI, notably to increase demand for labour in those regions suffering structural unemployment, and secondly to reduce the disparities between regions.

Intra-industry foreign direct investment, uneven development and globalization:the legacy of Stephen Hymer

This paper revisits the issue of intra-industry foreign direct investment (FDI). This issue was considered in Stephen Hymer's early work, but was not subsequently developed, and was largely ignored in the literature for some time. Using the example of the UK, this paper traces the patterns of intra-industry FDI, both across countries and industries, for both the manufacturing and service sectors. Despite the undoubted increase in the integration of goods and factor markets since the time of Hymer's writing, the analysis presented here shows that the pattern has changed little in the last 40 years. The paper then goes on to discuss the motives for intra-industry FDI, relating it to technology flows and factor cost differentials. Finally, we present some analysis relating intra-industry FDI to uneven development, both between developed and developing countries, and between regions of a developed country. It is clear that intra-industry FDI is still very much a developed country phenomenon, as Hymer suggested, with both developing countries and poorer regions of developed countries unlikely to reap any of the benefits. In this context, one-way and two-way FDI must be seen as different phenomena within the debate on globalisation. © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

Financialisation, Capital Accumulation and Economic Development : A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of the Nigerian Economy

The primary focus of this study is to highlight those unobtrusive, yet fundamental, factors undermining economic development in Nigeria. To begin with, it posits that the decelerating pace of capital accumulation in Nigeria, which naturally occasions rising unemployment and poverty levels, and widening inequality gap, is the result of the ‘low possibility’ of capitalist enterprises in the country of earning an adequate rate of profit from their productive processes. In turn, the ‘low possibility’ is argued to be the result of the uneven development inherent in the modern capitalist structure, the high cost of capital and of production peculiar to Nigeria, and the ineffective demand for goods made in Nigeria: these elements are viewed as been precipitated by the contradictions of the contemporary political-economic arrangement that organises the Social Structures of Accumulation. For Nigeria to ‘develop’, it is contended that the unobtrusive elements inherent in the contradiction of the political-economic economic that undermine the capitalists’ ability to earn a commensurate rate of profit in the country needs to be fully addressed first. Furthermore, this study suggests that it is crucial the country embraces knowledge-based industrialisation if it is to achieve some form of ‘competitive advantage’ in the global market, which could enable its productive processes extract a commensurate level of profit from the market. To facilitate the knowledge-based industrialisation, the state should, not only create a conducive environment for industrial development but also play the lead role in transforming the peripheral and oil dependent economy to a knowledge-based economy by coordinating business organisations and investing in high-risk innovations.

Contingent or structural crisis in British agriculture?

The British agricultural sector is either already in or rapidly approaching some sort of crisis. Two features are particularly significant in the political response to the current situation. First, there is an increasingly neoliberal approach to agricultural policy. Sec end, agricultural policy per se is being subsumed with wider rural policies. In this paper we question the rationality of both these trends, both theoretically through 'new wave regulation theory' and by relating the British situation to the recent experiences of the agricultural sectors in Australia and New Zealand.

Estudo comparativo entre indicadores de desempenho da JCI e do Contrato Programa Cirurgia Segura

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia e Gestão da Qualidade

Assessing the dynamics of terms of trade in a model of cumulative causation and structural change

ABSTRACT The motivation for this paper stems from the steady decline in the share of consumer expenditures on goods produced in the global south, coupled with the (empirically ambiguous) Singer/Prebisch hypothesis that this can be explained by a secular decline in the southern terms of trade. Drawing on these sources of inspiration, the paper sets out to study the dynamics of the terms of trade using a multi-sector growth model based on the principle of cumulative causation. The upshot is a North-South model of growth and trade in which the evolution of the terms of trade depends on differential rates of productivity growth in different sectors of the economy - and in which terms of trade dynamics may not be the best guide as to whether or not there is an uneven development problem.

Incidencia de los actores internacionales no estatales en los conflictos internos. Estudio de caso: la participación de las empresas militares privadas “Executive Outcomes” y “Sandline International” en la guerra civil de Sierra Leona (1991-2002)

La Participación de las Empresas Militares Executive Outcomes y Sandline International en el conflicto de Sierra Leona fue una de las primeras veces en las que se vieron en escena a estos actores confluyendo en un nuevo orden internacional; y este estudio de caso busca determinar la manera de actuar de estas empresas y su incidencia en el conflicto. El caso de Sierra Leona es uno de los principales acercamientos a este nuevo fenómeno, que empezó a ejercer funciones que tradicionalmente le correspondían a los Estados y que han llevado a una privatización de la seguridad. Por medio de este estudio de caso se busca también determinar cuáles son las falencias y los retos que acarrean a las Empresas Militares Privadas en cuanto a su intervención en los conflictos internos. El caso de Sierra Leona es fundamental en tanto fue uno de los conflictos más intensos desarrollados en África en la década de los 90; y fue el momento en el cual las Empresas Militares Privadas empezaron a estar en la mira internacional a causa de estas intervenciones que generaron tanto críticas negativas como positivas.

Cuando creces, yo crezco contigo”: La configuración de áreas de protección ambiental y de subjetividades en el Humedal de Córdoba y la vereda El Verjón Bajo

La configuración de lugares como áreas de protección ambiental puede ser vista como un proceso técnico y objetivo, en el que se crean políticas públicas que definen prácticas adecuadas e inadecuadas en el lugar. Pero esta configuración es un proceso histórico y negociado. Este se construye en contante diálogo entre diferentes actores que se preocupan por definir qué es la naturaleza y el cuidado ambiental, y las percepciones que individuos que habitan en o cerca a estos lugares construyen en su diario vivir. Es así como la configuración socioambiental de lugares como áreas de protección ocurre por transformaciones en la forma de percibir un lugar, la relaciones con este y sobre todo, prácticas y relaciones que se traducen en formas de negociar nociones de naturaleza y cuidado ambiental. Esta negociación tiene grandes implicaciones en los individuos, particularmente en su subjetividad. Es decir, en hechos como la forma de nombrarlo, caminarlo, observar las especies, iniciar proyectos de agricultura orgánica, cambiar prácticas productivas, el cerramiento de zonas para proteger las fuentes de agua o zonas de vegetación. También sobre su subjetividad, la manera como se sienten frente al lugar, como juzgan sus acciones y las de otros y cómo construyen objetivos personales con respecto a la idea de cuidado ambiental.

A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards

A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards is an instructional performance piece based on a corporate manual from 1960. The pamphlet is focused on the time necessary for the accomplishment of minute labour procedures in the office, from the depressing and releasing of typewriter keys to the opening and closing of filing cabinet drawers. In the performance, seven costumed performers represent the different levels of management and employment while performing the actions described in the guide, accompanied by a live musical score. There has been much discussion of the changes to work in the west following the decline of post-Fordist service sector jobs. These increasingly emphasise the specificity of employees’ knowledge and cognitive skill. However, this greater flexibility and creativity at work has been accompanied by an opposite trajectory. The proletarisation of white collar work has given rise to more bureaucracy, target assessment and control for workers in previously looser creative professions, from academia to the arts. The midcentury office is the meeting point of these cultures, where the assembly line efficiency management of the factory meets the quantifying control of the knowledge economy. A Guide to Office Clerical Time Standards explores the survival of one regime into its successor following the lines of combined and uneven development that have turned the emancipatory promise of immaterial labour into the perma-temp hell of the cognitariat. The movement is accompanied by a score of guitar, bass and drums, the componenets of the rock ‘n’ roll music that rose from the car factories of the motor city and the cotton fields of the southern states to represent the same junction of expression and control.

Ativismo ministerial na implementação de políticas públicas

The research aims to analyze the reasons and the unique role of prosecutors in the promotion of public policies. The opening lines deal with the evolution and expansion of the general theory of the fundamental rights in the international and national levels and that have led to the creation of a welfare state concerned with carrying out positive actions which aim at the community well-being. Thus, it is clear that, after the uneven development of the Brazilian democracy, the Constitution of 1988 not only has erected to a state socially responsible, but also built a system of guarantees which highlights the significant expansion of the Powers of the Public Ministry and has now taken an outstanding position in regard to collective rights, allowing, at the same time, its members to perform the syndication of state actions, particularly public policies, correcting the course of these administrative processes in the presence of poor management and inactivity of the public administrator when acting in defense of fundamental rights. This ministerial activism, even facing the obstacles and boundaries submitted to its pursuit, has shown an increase in actions that culminated, in the last ten years, in a significant number of judicial and extrajudicial measures that indicated the correction of public policies and actions in areas of health, education, housing and the environment. In this process of monitoring and doing, the important role of the other social characters is highlighted, especially the one of the citizen who is responsible for most of the complaints that start the initiatives of the Public Ministry and that can be deployed through a significant list of judicial and extrajudicial instruments, especially the important procedure that allows the hearing and participation of the involved in the implementation of public policies, enabling a collective even a consensual solution of the matter generated among the Public Administration. Given these initiatives, the ministerial activism has established itself as a movement of its own characteristics, aimed to guarantee the fundamental rights, especially when these are not targeted by state actions that should contribute to the achievement of the democratic state of law idealized by the Federal Constitution without any distortion of direction. Nevertheless, this activism still seeks for its full accomplishment in the practical world

Socialização do conhecimento ou sociabilidade adaptativa: trabalho e educação diante das transformações do capitalismo contemporâneo

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

O regionalismo na formação territorial brasileira em Caio Prado Júnior

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Mobilidade: a ordem espacial dos deslocamentos urbanos numa sociedade desigual

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)