Dr James Juniper

Eurozone economies were the most adversely affected by the Global Financial Crisis, with forecast macroeconomic outcomes still highly uncertain. This article argues first that the Eurozone policy framework can be viewed as neo-liberalism overlaid with policy constraints associated with a mis-specified Optimum Currency Area. We are critical of this framework since it is incompatible with the policy sovereignty that is experienced, if not utilised, by sovereign economies such as the USA, UK and Australia. Second, recent and proposed policy reforms which generally lie within the constraints of the Eurozone framework are examined. We conclude that these policies are piecemeal and fail to restore policy sovereignty, which ultimately requires that member countries exit the Eurozone. Key issues associated with such an exit are briefly discussed.

I suggest that outstanding scholarship, within the university sector, will continue to rely on smooth integration between teaching, industry collaboration and research. As such, I question the likelihood of a wholesale change in the nature of the University due to the well-known pressures emanating from innovations in the information and communications technology sector. In the critical accounting literature, research into the implications for accounting practice of market and technology uncertainty is increasingly prominent. One effect of this uncertainty is to draw marketing and innovation activities together more closely, in a strictly spatial sense. To identify this and other sources of "proximity effects" in the innovation process, I examine three contrasting theoretical perspectives: evolutionary economics, the new growth theory and transaction cost theory. I then review these approaches through the critical lens of a Hegelian Marxist reading of political economy. In addition, I review Keynesian perspectives on uncertainty and innovation and draw on two Marshallian notions: on one hand, the significance of economies that are external to the firm but internal to the industry; and on the other hand, the importance of the industrial milieu in reducing uncertainty. At the same time, I demonstrate that all of the above schools of thought describe powerful transformative forces that are working to promote cluster formation, networking and inter-firm collaboration. My discussion of proximity effects requires of me that I engage in an extended Foucaldian critique of the burgeoning knowledge-management literature. Finally, I link my findings to the core issue of the future of university, arguing that university research and industrial collaboration will inevitably continue to exhibit a strong regional and site-specific dependency. © 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.