Shift In Economic Structure Research Articles

Explaining Interjurisdictional Variations in Local Sales Tax Yield

As substate policy makers design economic development strategies and respond to structural changes in their economic base, it is important to understand effects on the local sales tax. Local sales taxes are modeled here as arising from three sources: resident demand, taxable business-to-business transactions, and visitor/commuter spending. Careful attention is paid to how sales tax payments are actually made and distributed to local governments. The results indicate clearly positive effects from tourism and incommuting, whereas out-commuting yields a revenue drain. Construction provides a significant boost to local sales tax revenue, but the effects of manufacturing and services are surprising. Manufacturers, through a combination of exempt inputs and exported final products, provide no clear sales tax impact. The service sector, however, produces notable revenue gains. The findings provide general guidance on the way in which shifts in economic structure can influence local sales tax revenue and call into question revenue effects from traditional smokestack-chasing economic development policies of local governments.

Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Agriculture, Urbanization and Income Growth

Econometric analysis of some 40 years of data has provided mixed results, because of the defects of the data, and because there are some relatively sudden structural economic shifts. An important shift is when agricultural labor ceases to grow, now happening in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). A model of the interrelationship over time of the rural, mainly agricultural sector, and the urban, mainly manufacturing and service sector, is proposed. Each provides a market to the other. Growth in both requires investment, but of distinctly different types. Their interaction results in an S-shaped curve. Many SSA countries are in the acceleration phase, and its agriculture, particularly in semi-arid areas, is increasingly oriented to the growing home market. Case studies show farmers have invested and adopted new technologies but the transition to an urbanized economy has been hindered by poor policies. The current need is for appropriate investments and policies to develop the productivity of the urban sectors, so that they can continue to stimulate agriculture, and provide jobs for those who are leaving farming.

Migrants and gate keepers: The links between immigration and homelessness in Western Europe

Across Western Europe gates are being raised, creating a marginal class of aliens working within a shadow economy. The cases cited in this article illustrate the complex web of issues surrounding immigration and homelessness. In these countries migrants are segregated, confined to menial jobs and relegated to the worst housing in the least desirable districts of large cities. A growing polarization is evident between average citizens and those without full rights. Fuelled by xenophobia and rightist political movements, tension is mounting to restrict immigration, to deport foreigners, and to further curtail the rights of those who fail to conform to national standards of language, culture and ethnicity. Homelessness is growing in large cities as a result of geopolitical and social changes, structural economic shifts, and rising unemployment and poverty. After resorting to the use of temporary hostels, containers and barges to shelter homeless migrants, governments have succumbed to fiscal constraints and right-wing political pressures, restricting immigration and devolving responsibility for homelessness to local authorities and to voluntary agencies. Frequently, this has resulted in neglect. Migrants have responded by demonstrating, squatting, and staging rent strikes. Typically, their protests are ignored. Though most are people of colour, they remain invisible

Urban renewal and development of shanghai city

A new strategic thinking is put forward to resolve the urban problems in Shanghai based on the tendencies of recent shift of economic structure and development. It is argued that the traditional institution of urban economy and management is responsible for the degeneration of urban environment. Thus, a change of mechanism of urban functioning is essential to the sustainable growth of Shanghai City. The key part of the new strategic thinking of Shanghai urban renewal is the adjustment of urban land use structure and industrial structure, using land use right leasing of the emergent land market as the start force of the structure adjustment by accumulating capital. And the development of Pudong new area provides right time and space for Shanghai urban renewal.

Planning for tomorrow's consumer

The financial decisions of American consumers are swayed by a multitude of forces. Business cycle fluctuations and vagaries in fashion are short‐term influences. Long‐term determinants include changing demographics and structural economic shifts, such as double‐digit inflation, abnormally high borrowing costs and Federal economic policies. Because of their collective effect on consumer spending, saving and borrowing habits, these developments foretell profound strategic implications for American business in the 1980s.

Inflation and economic development in Latin America: Some new evidence

This article presents an evaluation of various relationships that explain shifts in economic structure. These are (1) inflation as measured by (a) the wholesale price index, and (b) sectoral price index; (2) changes in sectoral profits; and, (3) changes in alternate sectoral profits. Changes in sectoral profits (measured by sectoral price minus wholesale price) were more strongly correlated to changes in economic structure than either wholesale or sectoral price indices, while changes in economic structure are as expected when compared to changes in alternate sectoral profits in all but three of the years studied.