Is Foreign Direct Investment Good for Growth? Evidence from Sectoral Analysis of China and Vietnam

We estimate the impact of FDI on growth using sectoral data for FDI inflows to China and Vietnam. Previous empirical studies, using either cross-country growth regressions or firm-level micro-econometric analysis, fail to reach a consensus. Our paper is the first to use sectoral FDI inflow data to evaluate the sector-specific impact of FDI on growth. Our results show that, for the two developing-transition economies we examine, FDI has a statistically-significant positive effect on economic growth operating directly and through its interaction with labor. Intriguingly, we find the effects seem to be very different across economic sectors, with almost all the beneficial impact limited to industrial sector. Other sectors appear to gain very little growth benefit from sector-specific FDI.Foreign direct investment, growth, China, Vietnam

Togetherness with the Past: Literary Pedagogy and the Digital Archive

Archival materials are invaluable to an understanding of the historical, cultural, and material contexts in which literary texts were published. Materiality, paratextual elements, and other key characteristics of literature cannot be discerned from recent editions. Yet original and rare versions of literary texts are difficult or impossible for most scholars, let alone their students, to access. Digital facsimiles provide opportunities to examine archival texts over the Internet, alleviating logistical and financial barriers. In Dust: The Archive and Cultural History (2001), Carolyn Steedman writes: “The Archive is a place in which people can be alone with the past” (81); archives are generally thought of as quiet, solitary environments. However, digital archives afford a communal engagement with the past. In this essay, I describe my experiences teaching British literature through digital facsimiles of first or early printings of novels and poetry that are available online. I draw on my observations as an educator, as well as those relayed by my students, to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using such archives in undergraduate literature courses. I analyze what it means to be together with the past, and how a shared experience of the Archive can be developed and improved through digital resources

China's International Competitiveness: Reassessing the Evidence

In this paper we argue that export data are an inadequate tool to measure a country's international competitiveness when external trade is dominated by export-processing trade. Export data do not necessarily reflect the value produced in an exporting country, but rather capture the gross value of the products that leave a country's ports. We demonstrate that, in the case of China, this leads to an upward bias in both the perceived quantitative and qualitative threats to the Western economies

Editor, Reader, and Value for Money in Young Folks

Our Young Folks Weekly Budget (1871–97) is among the longest-running Victorian periodicals designed for child readers. Beginning as a halfpenny weekly, it soon doubled its price to establish its format as a children’s story paper similar to The Boy’s Own Paper (1879–1939) and comparable children’s weeklies. Throughout its publication, Young Folks displays an explicit concern with value for money, balancing assertions of quality with a desire to maintain its price. This article explores some of the ways in which the paper’s editors built their community of readers, explained changes to the paper’s length, format, and price and incorporated reader contributions to promote circulation. Through an examination of interactions between “the Editor” (James Henderson’s editorial team) and readers of Young Folks, this article charts a concerted effort to keep readers persuaded that every change made to the paper was in service of value to the consumer. At a time when periodicals strove to satisfy readers’ appetites for high-quality content while also keeping prices low, Young Folks employed specific strategies to remain a penny weekly that adapted to significant changes in its readership for over two decades.</jats:p

Editorial

The editorial to Studies in Comics 12.2 introduces the contents of the issue and offers a brief overview of the articles, interviews and reviews contained in the issue and the themes that they address. It is noted that two of the five articles in this issue take the form of comics.</jats:p