Across the region: six-state review

Revenue collections were strong across New England during the first two-thirds of FY05 (July 2004 through February 2005) compared with the same period one year earlier. All states experienced positive growth in total revenue, with increases ranging from 1.3 percent in New Hampshire to 9.1 percent in Connecticut. Year-over-year revenue growth from the largest tax — the personal income tax in all states except New Hampshire where the business tax produces the most revenue—was also positive in all states. Revenue growth from these taxes ranged from a low of 5.1 percent in Maine to a high of 17.0 percent in New Hampshire. The performance of the second largest tax — the sales and use tax in all states except in New Hampshire, where the second-ranking tax is the meals and rooms tax — was mixed. Collections from these second-ranked taxes were up during the first eight months of FY05 in all New England states except Maine and Vermont, where collections dropped by 1.9 percent and 17.0 percent, respectively.Revenue - New England ; Revenue - Connecticut ; Revenue - Rhode Island ; Revenue - Vermont ; Revenue - New Hampshire ; Revenue - Massachusetts ; Revenue - Maine

Across the region: six-state review

Despite a markedly improved outlook for state finances, New England’s states still face significant fiscal pressures moving forward into the current and next fiscal years. Prominent among these challenges are two changes to the Medicaid and Medicare programs that could significantly increase state health care costs.Budget - Connecticut ; Budget - Massachusetts ; Budget - Maine ; Budget - New Hampshire ; Budget - Vermont ; Budget - Rhode Island ; Revenue - New England

Introduction

An introduction to the first volume of The Elizabeth Bowen Review (2018

How do improvements in labour productivity in the Scottish economy affect the UK position on the Environmental Kuznets Curve?

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis focuses on the argument that rising prosperity will eventually be accompanied by falling pollution levels as a result of one or more of three factors: (1) structural change in the economy; (2) demand for environmental quality increasing at a more-than-proportional rate; (3) technological progress. Here, we focus on the third of these. In previous work we have used single region/nation models of the Scottish and UK economies to simulate the impacts of increased labour and energy efficiency on the domestic economy’s position on the EKC, with a specific focus on CO2 emissions. There we find that, while the impacts of an increase in energy efficiency are difficult to predict, mainly due to the potential for ‘rebound’ effects, while increasing CO2 emissions, improved labour productivity is likely to move an economy along its EKC through more rapid GDP growth. However, recent developments in the EKC literature have raised the issue of whether this will still be the case if emissions are accounted for from a consumption rather than a production perspective (the ‘pollution leakage’ hypothesis) – i.e. taking account of indirect pollution generation embodied in trade flows rather than just domestic emissions generation. Here we extend our earlier single region analysis for Scotland by using an interregional CGE model of the UK economy to examine the likely impacts of an increase in Scottish labour productivity on the rest of the UK and on a national EKC through interregional labour migration and trade flows.computable general equilibrium; technological progress; environmental kuznets curve; pollution leakage

Six-state review

It appears that most New England states can look forward to a year in which revenues may equal or exceed budgeted levels.Budget - Connecticut ; Revenue - New England ; Budget - Massachusetts ; Budget - New Hampshire ; Budget - Rhode Island ; Budget - Vermont ; Budget - Maine

Literary Prizes and Contemporary Women’s Writing: An Investigation through Interviews

In 2011, I conducted research on the Orange Prize for Fiction. Now called the Baileys Prize, it was first awarded in 1996, the first literary prize run and judged solely by women and open only to women writers. It was in part a response to the seemingly male bias of Booker Prize judging panels – in their awards and their gender balance in panels. I was particularly interested in the prize’s remit, which includes the words ‘originality’, ‘excellence’ and ‘accessibility’. The research was stimulated by a (female) academic and novelist I know who felt that the last word potentially dumbed down women’s writing, criticising the non-specialist nature of some of the panels and the inclusion of ‘lighter’ fiction on the longlists. In short, the prize was not doing the question of women’s writing being taken seriously any favours – in fact the reverse. I discussed the prize, what it was felt to have achieved, and the contentious issue of accessibility being equated with dumbing down with many novelists, critics and former judges. Sir Simon Jenkins remained against the Prize, seeing it as form of sexism that was unnecessary in a field where women led; Kate Mosse, bestselling novelist and co-founder of the Prize naturally defended it, quoting the remaining need for the Prize in a culture that still worked against women writers’ success. Her passion was infectious, and convinced me the Prize has helped advance women’s writing. Margaret Drabble expressed uneasiness about an all-woman prize; A.S. Byatt felt it ghettoized women writers. Anne Fine said she had moved from an argument against the prize to doubting her earlier views. Interestingly, then, some leading women writers and critics are uncomfortable with the prize. There again, as the interviews below show, it rightly has a great deal of support. It has now been running for twenty years; its 2014 winner, Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, a stream-of-consciousness novel reflecting on abuse and rape in parts, is hardly ‘accessible’. In 2015, the prize was won by Ali Smith for her ‘experimental’ novel How to be Both. Smith is often called one of Britain’s leading novelists: with Hilary Mantel shortlisted previously, the Prize is certainly spotlighting the most important contemporary women writers. The three most substantial interviews are below. Louise Doughty's novel Whatever You Love was short-listed for the Costa award for fiction in 2010 and long-listed for the Orange Prize 2011. The highly successful Apple Tree Yard was selected as a Richard & Judy Book Choice in the spring of 2014. She judged; Alex Clark is a journalist who was the first female editor of Granta, who judged the Orange Award for New Writers in 2005. Doughty and Clark were both judges of the Booker Prize in 2008. Linda Grant is a British novelist whose book When I Lived in Modern Times won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000. These interviews were conducted via email

Review of 'The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe' edited by Anthony Mandal and Brian Southam.

Review of 'The Reception of Jane Austen in Europe' edited by Anthony Mandal and Brian Southam

Greening the national accounts for Scotland

Our main finding is that according to green accounting measures, Scotland's development over much of the past 20 years has not, on the whole, matched up to the standards of sustainability. However, the national picture seems to have improved in the recent past

Augmented Sustainability Measures for Scotland

We estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time: the change in augmented green net national product (GNNP), and the interest on augmented genuine savings (GS). Yearly calculations are given for each measure for Scotland during 1992-99. Augmentation means including, using projections to 2020, production possibilities enabled by exogenous technical progress or changing terms of trade. In passing, we clarify the treatment of environmental expenditures in green accounting. The change in augmented GNNP and interest on augmented GS are both always positive, showing no sustainability problem for Scotland; but the former greatly exceeds the latter, showing an unresolved problem with the theorysustainability, Scotland, genuine savings, green NNP, augmentation