This brief focuses on the potential role that strategic communications can play in helping state (Maternal Child Health) MCH programs and their collaborating partners frame their message to enhance the public's understanding of the importance of early child development and the need for a comprehensive and integrated early childhood system. The…

This study estimates the effect of maternal education on birth outcomes using data from the Vital Statistics Natality files for 1970 to 1999. It also assesses the importance of four potential channels through which maternal education may improve birth outcomes: use of prenatal care, smoking behavior, marriage, and fertility. In an effort to…

A 1996 workshop held in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, explored the challenge of creating an entrepreneurial economy in predominantly rural states such as Kentucky with little or no history of widespread entrepreneurial activity. Traditional approaches to economic development in such states, such as spending on relocation incentives for out-of-state…

This annual report for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) describes the programs and services provided by this organization in 1993. Following an introduction by UNICEF's executive director, the report reviews regional developments in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, Latin…

Karl N. Stauber proposes three goals for rural development policy: helping the rural middle class survive, reducing concentrated rural poverty, and sustaining and improving the quality of the natural environment. In contrast to other visions, he advises policy that focuses on rural places rather than rural economic sectors such as agriculture,…

The Hungarian government has recently been focusing on innovation policy as part of a wider campaign to improve the business environment. This paper first underscores the importance of a good general business climate in encouraging both formal and informal R&D activity as well as ensuring Hungary benefits from the international diffusion of…

This article introduces original annual average years of schooling measures for each state from 1840 to 2000. The paper also combines original data on real state per-worker output with existing data to provide a more comprehensive series of real state output per worker from 1840 to 2000. These data show that the New England, Middle Atlantic,…

The transformation of education and the formation of social capital in Texas has been brought about by local organizations of the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation, or the Texas IAF. The organizations have operated in innercity neighborhoods to develop mutually reinforcing matrices of school improvement and community uplift. By 1992 Texas IAF…

The Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC) at Mississippi State University fosters innovative approaches to sustainable rural development and builds collaborative networks among agencies, institutions, and communities. The center's key goals are to: 1) strengthen and support the capacity of Southern land-grant institutions and their partners to…

This document reports the findings of seven case studies undertaken as part of a larger research project on the measuring and reporting of intellectual capital, being conducted by an Australian research team. The case studies aimed to investigate in more detail the approach of seven Australian organizations and enterprises to the recording and…

Over 250 rural leaders attended the conference "Beyond Agriculture: New Policies for Rural America," held in Kansas City (Missouri) in April 2000. The conference began with an assessment of where the rural economy and rural policy are headed in the new century. Speakers suggested that the rural economy is likely to remain a mix of…

Three presentations are provided from Symposium 13, Knowledge and Intellectual Capital, of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD) 2000 Conference proceedings. "Human Capital Measurement" (Joanne Provo) begins with a literature review that provides a context for understanding how investments in human capital add value to the…

The Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC) is one of four regional rural development centers in the nation. SRDC coordinates rural development research and extension education programs cooperatively with the 29 land-grant institutions in 13 Southern states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. This annual report outlines activities undertaken by…

The conventional approach to analysis of employment problems in the modern sector, namely comparison of workforce supply and demand, is inapplicable in the traditional sector, where a distinction needs to be made between the concepts of workforce underutilization and its availability. The author discusses these concepts and presents their policy…

Using an input-output framework, the author derives hypotheses on wage differentials based on the assumption that human capital (in this case, education) will explain workers' wage differentials. The hypothetical wage differentials are tested on data from the Italian economy. (RW)