Working Paper Summaries Wp 94 77 Wp 94 147

Authors of Working Papers are normally staff members of the Fund or consultants, although on occasion outside authors may collaborate with a staff member in writing a paper. The views expressed in the Working Papers or their summaries are, however, those of the authors and should not necessarily be interpreted as representing the views of the Fund. Copies of individual Working Papers and information on subscriptions to the annual series of Working Papers may be obtained from IMF Publication Services, International Monetary Fund, 700 19th Street, Washington, D.C. 20431. Telephone: (202) 623-7430 Telefax: (202) 623-7201 This compilation of summaries of Working Papers released during July-December 1994 is being issued as a part of the Working Paper series. It is designed to provide the reader with an overview of the research work performed by the staff during the period.

Much is written in the popular literature about the current pace of technological change. But do we have enough scientific knowledge about the sources and management of innovation to properly inform policymaking in technology dependent domains such as energy and the environment? While it is agreed that technological change does not 'fall from heaven like autumn leaves,' the theory, data, and models are deficient. The specific mechanisms that govern the rate and direction of inventive activity, the drivers and scope for incremental improvements that occur during technology diffusion, and the spillover effects that cross-fertilize technological innovations remain poorly understood. In a work that will interest serious readers of history, policy, and economics, the editors and their distinguished contributors offer a unique, single volume overview of the theoretical and empirical work on technological change. Beginning with a survey of existing research, they provide analysis and case studies in contexts such as medicine, agriculture, and power generation, paying particular attention to what technological change means for efficiency, productivity, and reduced environmental impacts. The book includes a historical analysis of technological change, an examination of the overall direction of technological change, and general theories about the sources of change. The contributors empirically test hypotheses of induced innovation and theories of institutional innovation. They propose ways to model induced technological change and evaluate its impact, and they consider issues such as uncertainty in technology returns, technology crossover effects, and clustering. A copublication o Resources for the Future (RFF) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA).

The Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work examines the concept, practices and effects of meaningful work in organizations and beyond. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume reflects diverse scholarly contributions to understanding meaningful work from philosophy, political theory, psychology, sociology, organizational studies, and economics. In philosophy and political theory, treatments of meaningful work have been influenced by debates concerning the tensions between work as unavoidable and necessary, and work as a source of self-realization and human flourishing. This tension has come into renewed focus as work is reshaped by technology, globalization, and new forms of organization. In management studies, much empirical work has focused on meaningful work from the perspective of positive psychology, but more recent research has considered meaningful work as a complex phenomenon, socially constructed from interactive processes between individuals, and between individuals, organizations, and society. This Handbook examines meaningful work in the context of moral and pragmatic concerns such as human flourishing, dignity, alienation, freedom, and organizational ethics. The collection illuminates the relationship of meaningful work to organizational constructs of identity, belonging, callings, self-transcendence, culture, and occupations. Representing some of the most up to date academic research, the editors aim to inspire and equip researchers by identifying new directions and methods with which to deepen scholarly inquiry into a topic of growing importance.

This book highlights methodological approaches for the economics of sustainable development and brings together recent empirical work done in India, especially by Dr. Surender Kumar and Dr. Shunsuke Managi. Various chapters in this book use Indian data to show the very wide applicability of methodologies in the theory of production for dealing with many empirical issues of environmentally sustainable development in a developing country. I congratulate the authors for the time and effort devoted to compiling this very useful reference on the subject and the publishers for publishing this volume. The methodologies of cost functions, distance functions, and production fu- tions have been used in many recent studies and in the studies reported in this book for environmental valuation. Environmental valuation is required for designing policy instruments like pollution taxes for sustainable development and for meas- ing green GDP. The UN methodology of integrated environmental and economic accounting provides ways of measuring the cost of maintaining environmental resources at sustainable levels or the maintenance cost for estimating green GDP. Some of the chapters in this book show that the methodology of distance functions could be used for estimating the cost of environmentally sustainable development.

This publication is extracted from a much larger report, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, which addresses the full range of the scientific issues concerning global environmental change and offers guidance to the scientific effort on these issues in the United States. This volume consists of Chapter 7 of that report, "Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change," which was written for the report by the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Research Council (NRC). It provides findings and conclusions on the key scientific questions in human dimensions research, the lessons that have been learned over the past decade, and the research imperatives for global change research funded from the United States.

One of the few books on the subject, Country Risk Assessment combines the theoretical and practical tools for managing international country risk exposure. - Offers a comprehensive discussion of the specific mechanisms that apply to country risk assessment. - Discusses various techniques associated with global investment strategy. - Presents and analyses the various sources of country risk. - Provides an in depth coverage of information sources and country risk service providers. - Gives techniques for forecasting country financial crises. - Includes practical examples and case studies. - Provides a comprehensive review of all existing methods including the techniques on the cutting-edge Market Based Approaches such as KMV, CreditMetrics, CountryMetrics and CreditRisk+.