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The present paper examines the financial development of Belarus, with special emphasis on 1996-2002, when the financial sector was restrained by pervasive government controls. Belarus is of particular interest, as, despite no economic restructuring, annual growth has averaged seven per cent since 1997. It has been argued that monetary stimulation of investment activity through interest rate ceilings, directed credit and preferential loans revived growth. This article investigates whether a repressive financial policy, adopted by the authorities in the late 1990s, led to financial deepening and increased the share of savings allocated to investment.

Caryl Churchill has shown a sustained interest in the inter-connections between self-definition, identity politics and revolution. In her career she has repeatedly examined revolutionary conditions, and engaged ambitiously with the artistic dilemma of how to represent political turmoil on stage. This chapter investigates three of her plays about revolution: The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and Mad Forest. /The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution / Hospital was written in 1972 though, inexplicably, it has never been staged. It draws on the writings of the celebrated psychiatrist and champion of the Algerian struggle for independence, Frantz Fanon, who was an inspirational figure not just for black revolutionaries but also for Churchill's generation of white, western political radicals in the 1960s. The decolonization of Africa followed Indian independence in 1947, and when, in 1960, seventeen former African colonies became independent members of the United Nations, it marked a turning point in the post-war world, re-mapping power relations between Europe and Africa. The Algerians' fight for autonomy was particularly complex since French occupation dated from 1830 and French trade and investment in Algeria had matched economic commitments in all of France's other imperial territories combined. French emigration to Algeria had far exceeded the scale of emigration to other French colonies and colonial legal policy even upheld that Algeria was an integral part of France - an ideological position that created a panoply of contradictions and paradoxes.

In this paper, we use a rich dataset disaggregating imports and exports decisions by product and origin/destination of all Danish companies for the period 1993-2003 to provide key elements in characterizing Danish firms in international trade. Most evidence to date emanates from the U.S. or developing economies like Columbia or Mexico. Benchmarking on these studies, we find some similarities but also differences which we think are representative of European-type, small open economies. We find that Danish exporters make up a fairly small fraction of the total of firms, but that this fraction is higher than in e.g., the U.S. Firms engaged in exporting have the same positive performance characteristics - size, capital and skilled labour intensity, labour as well as total factor productivity, and wages - found in also in previous studies. But most exporter premia are significantly larger in Denmark than in the U.S. There are few traces of the European Union's Single Market Program and the adoption the Euro in 1998. We observe no impact of these changes on the number of exporters, but some signs of impacts on the number of products and export destination countries. Finally, we find that trade is positively related to productivity of firms. The association between productivity and the firm's imports of intermediate goods is particularly strong.

Institutional theory has proven to be a central analytical perspective for investigating the role of larger social and historical structures of Information System (IS) adaptation. However, it does not explicitly account for how organizational actors make sense of and enact IS in their local context. We address this limitation by showing how sensemaking theory can be combined with institutional theory to understand IS adaptation in organizations. Based on a literature review, we present the main assumptions behind institutional and sensemaking theory when used as analytical lenses for investigating the phenomenon of IS adaptation. Furthermore, we explore a combination of the two theories with a case study in a health care setting where an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system was introduced and used by a group of doctors. The empirical case provides evidence of how existing institutional structures influenced the doctors' sensemaking of the EPR system. Additionally, it illustrates how the doctors made sense of the EPR system in practice. The paper outlines that: 1) institutional theory has its explanatory power at the organizational field and organizational/group level of analysis focusing on the role that larger institutional structures play in organizational actors' sensemaking of IS adaptation, 2) sensemaking theory has its explanatory power at the organizational/group and individual/socio-cognitive level focusing on organizational actors' cognition and situated actions of IS adaptation, and 3) a combined view of the two theories helps us oscillate between levels of analysis, which facilitates a much richer interpretation of IS adaptation. ; Institutional theory has proven to be a central analytical perspective for investigating the role of larger social and historical structures of Information System (IS) adaptation. However, it does not explicitly account for how organizational actors make sense of and enact IS in their local context. We address this limitation by showing how sensemaking theory can be combined with institutional theory to understand IS adaptation in organizations. Based on a literature review, we present the main assumptions behind institutional and sensemaking theory when used as analytical lenses for investigating the phenomenon of IS adaptation. Furthermore, we explore a combination of the two theories with a case study in a health care setting where an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system was introduced and used by a group of doctors. The empirical case provides evidence of how existing institutional structures influenced the doctors' sensemaking of the EPR system. Additionally, it illustrates how the doctors made sense of the EPR system in practice. The paper outlines that: 1) institutional theory has its explanatory power at the organizational field and organizational/group level of analysis focusing on the role that larger institutional structures play in organizational actors' sensemaking of IS adaptation, 2) sensemaking theory has its explanatory power at the organizational/group and individual/socio-cognitive level focusing on organizational actors' cognition and situated actions of IS adaptation, and 3) a combined view of the two theories helps us oscillate between levels of analysis, which facilitates a much richer interpretation of IS adaptation.

We use unique panel data on the evolution of transparent budget procedures in the American states over the past three decades to explore the political and economic determinants of fiscal transparency. Our case studies and quantitative analysis suggest that both politics and fiscal policy outcomes influence the level of transparency. More equal political competition and power sharing are associated with both greater levels of fiscal transparency and increases in fiscal transparency during the sample period. Political polarization and past fiscal conditions, in particular state government debt and budget imbalance, also appear to affect the level of transparency