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This paper aims to highlight the role of the United Nations in the formulation and implementation of the current understanding of “population assistance” and examine some of the arguments for “population assistance” in the form of reproductive health care.

It presents the data for global population assistance and briefly compares these figures with data for other developmental sectors, recommending certain policy changes if real development is to be achieved.

During the last decade increasingly large amounts of money have been spent on limiting population growth of underdeveloped countries. Population control is seen as the corner‐stone of development and population activities. Thus, population control has become “population assistance,” and birth control has become “reproductive health services.” Population control is pursued at the expense of women's rights and to the detriment of real economic growth and social improvement.

For more than two decades, John Conway O'Brien has written on the importance of ethics for economic growth. In a recent article, he concluded that “although the illuminated may have been activated by the most altruistic of motives, their search for the good society was doomed from the start.” This paper attests the validity of his remarks.

This paper studies the components of the forward discount dynamics in Germany from 1972 to 1996. By using two different frequencies in the analysis, we find that an ARCH structure fits the monthly data well, while an EGARCH structure gives a better description of daily forward discount volatility. Results also suggest that foreign central bank reserves and portfolio investment are significant in the determination of the forward discount trend over the whole period. The causality, however, varies over time. Sign size, and persistence effects on the volatility of the forward discount are all significant, and thus, provide important information to both policy makers and operators in the market. There is also evidence that the volatility of the forward discount dropped after the Plaza Accord.

Sustainable development is a policy approach that has gained quite a lot of popularity in recent years, especially in international circles. By attaching a specific interpretation to sustainability, population control policies have become the overriding approach to development, thus becoming the primary tool used to “promote” economic development in developing countries and to protect the environment. These policies, however, have failed to achieve either goal. By analyzing the theoretical underpinning of such policies as well as the available scientific research, this paper aims at bringing some light to these results. The findings suggest that, while the focus on population is not necessarily incorrect, the policies implemented are mistaken since they hamper the growth of a key element of economic development: human capital, and thus render it unsustainable.

Analyzes, by means of Porter’s Value Chain system, a possible strategy to address the problems of shared parental obligations by men and women, and in particular the supervision of children below school age and “latchkey” children. Also addresses the difficulty of employer retention of valuable working women. The business in this case consists of the schools, and the strategic business unit under study is identified as school‐age children with full‐time working parents. Suggests an extension of school hours as a solution.

In the twentieth century many developed countries moved from an “agricultural‐based industrial society” to an “information society.” The second part of the century saw a deterioration of social conditions in many industrialized countries. The combination of these two factors has posed to countries both serious challenges and economic burdens. There is concern about the effects of the breakdown of the family on economic development and growth. These problems are magnified when considered within the context of developing economies. Recently, some developed countries have chosen to address what is at the heart of both the social deterioration and the economic problems it brings. This paper addresses two questions. First, how can the family be viewed within economic activity? Second, why are the breakdown of the family and policies that encourage this breakdown incompatible with sustainable real economic development?

The rapid growth of immigration in past decades and the consolidation of economic blocks have brought to the foreground “old concerns” over the effect of immigration on native workers’ wellbeing. The “old concerns” present “new characteristics” which have led to the introduction of “multiculturalism” into the debate over immigration. Considers efficiency gains from immigration taking into consideration the “cultural diversity” involved in any immigration phenomena. In this light, examines the effect of the policies supported by the proponents of a “multicultural education” understood as an “amorphous syncretism” in the economic development of the recipient countries.

This paper examines wealth effects and changes in the systematic risk associated with the return structure of the “three‐pillar” functional system in Greece, resulting from the introduction of the eight major European Union Banking Directives over the period 1990‐94. The findings indicate that the systematic risk for the insurance and investment firms dramatically increased, while the systematic risk for commercial banks slightly increased through the passage of the Free Capital Movement Directive. Evidence was also found to show that the Free Capital Movement Directive created significant wealth effects for the investment firms, but insignificant wealth effects for banks. In addition, a marginal wealth effect was created for the insurance firms. Conversely, the results suggest that the Solvency Ratios and Own Funds Banking Directives produced no wealth effects for the banks, significant wealth effects for the insurance firms, and insignificant wealth effects for the investment firms. The wealth effects of the rest of the EU Banking Directives on the functional “three‐pillar” Greek financial system were neutral.