Charles Smith

The Debt Crisis

How can international trade be paid for? Why are LDCs in debt? Why did Latin America suffer a ‘lost decade’ after 1982? Why was Africa’s income per head no higher in 1990 than in the 1960s? Is ‘aid’ likely to improve the position of LDCs?

Exchange Rate Systems

An exchange rate is simply the rate at which one currency can be exchanged for another currency. For example, if the rate of exchange between sterling and the Deutschmark is £1 = DM2.95, this tells us that each pound sterling we give up ‘purchases’ 2.95 Deutschmarks. But what determines the exchange rate? The answer depends on the type of exchange rate system. If exchange rates float freely, the rate of exchange is determined by market forces and it fluctuates in response to changes in supply and demand conditions. On the other hand, if the rate of exchange is fixed, its value is determined by the authorities and they intervene to preserve the agreed parity.

Future of the book and library creatively explored

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to discussion about the changing role of libraries and their collections, through discussing projects designed by architecture students. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reflects on design projects produced by final-year students studying for an undergraduate degree in architecture. A project was set for a group of students to design a “Book Repository”. Each researched their own interpretation of what this might be, given contemporary issues such as increasing digitisation, falling numbers of library visitors, changing users’ needs and what they interpret as a future for books. This paper reviews a selection of the projects in the context of contemporary research, and discusses the book as a physical object, contemporary library design and the role of libraries as civic buildings. Findings – Despite being designed by digitally literate students, physical books are highly significant in every project; however, the cultural significance of the books is more im...

Understanding Students’ Views of the Crit Assessment

Abstract The crit is the most common feedback and assessment method used in architecture and many other art and design programmes. Whilst considerable research has been conducted on the crit, little attention has been paid to students’ perceptions of the process or to understanding how and what they learn from it. This is truly a missed opportunity, given that it has been identified as the greatest source of student dissatisfaction. The aim of this research project was to understand students’ opinions of the primary method used to assess them and to identify ways in which the process could be adapted to maximise their learning. Focus groups were held with students from each level of the undergraduate architecture course at Liverpool John Moores University. Despite recognising some positive qualities of the crit, focus group participants associated many more negative issues with it. These issues are discussed in detail, with reference to contemporary pedagogic theory and best practice in assessment and feedback, to the extent that the crit’s fitness for purpose is questioned. Alternative formats to the traditional crit are then evaluated within the framework of existing research and in conclusion, a radical re-evaluation of the traditional crit is proposed with the recommendation that alternative methods are adopted alongside (if not in place of) it.

Rational Expectations in Economics

The way in which expectations are formed is crucial to an understanding of the way the economy operates. Firms, individuals and the government base their decisions about their future courses of action partly on the basis of what they expect to happen to the relevant economic variables. There are two approaches to the formation of expectations: adaptive and rational. Let us consider each in turn.

Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply

In Chapters 19 and 20 it was assumed that the price level was fixed so that any change in national income implied a change in only real national income. It was also assumed that real national income responded passively to changes in aggregate demand. These are major assumptions and a more modern view of the macro economy is that changes in aggregate demand might have a short term effect on real national income, but in the long term lead only to changes in the price level. This implies the existence of supply-side constraints in the economy and it is therefore no longer feasible to assume that aggregate supply simply responds passively to changes in aggregate demand. This chapter addresses these issues.

Trade and Development

What does international trade offer the LDC — a threat or an opportunity? As usual in economics, the answer is a mixture of both depending on a series of secondary factors. The relationship between an LDC and the trading world is dependent on its factor endowment, its political attitudes to trading partners and MNEs, and its recent economic history. For example, the discovery of oil, the joining of a trade bloc, or the ending of an imperial relationship could all make differences to the level of welfare in the country.

Feeding the World

Why is it that luxury vegetables from Africa are on sale in supermarkets in the UK, when the media lead us to believe that there is chronic hunger in their country of origin? Why do LDCs export foodstuffs, when their own citizens are short of food? Why would a country facing starvation sell cash crops to industrialised countries? Why are some peasant farmers forced off the land in LDCs, while cereals which they could have grown themselves are imported? The majority of families in a Kenyan town do not have running water in their houses. In the distance they can see sprinklers watering fields of flowers to be sent to Europe for Mother’s Day. What is going on?

Costs and Revenue

In this chapter we look at the behaviour of costs as output changes. Our analysis builds on the ground covered in the previous chapter and will form an integral part of our analysis of the behaviour of firms covered in Chapters 10–13.

The Influence of Digital Media on the Design of Libraries

This is an opinion piece, exploring how – and in what ways – digitisation is changing the role of libraries and how they might evolve in the future.