On the speed and boundaries of structural adjustment when fiscal policy is tight

Governments of transition economies are subject to fiscal constraints (e.g. credit constraints). However, exaggerated fiscal discipline might feed into the structural adjustment process. The government designs and times the privatisation programme, yet may find itself in a fiscal squeeze because restructuring moves costs from firms to the public budget. This paper models this problem in a simple dynamic set-up. Several distinct reform strategies, which differ in the speed and level of structural adjustment, are identified. Tight fiscal discipline in early stages of transition may delay or halt privatisation. A different sequencing of policy or different taxation, benefits, and privatisation sales rules, can rectify this problem.     

Problems of Privatisation in the USSR

How easy will it be to reform the Soviet economy? A. Zabelin, of the USSR Trade Mission in Hungary, reviews the difficulties that will have to be surmounted on the way to privatisation and the market economy.     

Privatisation or Competition?

Market competition is essential for any economy to be efficient. In order to develop competition in a transition economy, it is conventionally thought that privatisation should take place first. This wisdom has been challenged by the Chinese reform experience of the last two decades, which modified the incentive structure of state enterprises and created markets and market competition in the absence of large scale privatisation. China's experience, however, raises the question of whether its chosen type of reform is sufficient to promote competition in a market dominated by public firms. To answer this, we need to know what kind of markets were created – regional markets closed to trade or unified markets with easy access – and whether or not improved incentives for state firms have led to competition. This paper investigates these questions on the basis of a survey of both theory and empirical evidence; and finds that the Chinese reform policies did succeed in stimulating competition among state firms.     

Privatisation,corporate control and employment growth: Evidence from a panel of large Polish firms, 1996–2002

Using data on Polish firms this paper examines the relationship between corporate control structures, sales growth and the determinants of employment change. Privatised and de novo firms are the main drivers of employment growth; in the case of de novo firms, it is foreign ownership which underpins the result. Being privatised has a positive impact on employment but this is concentrated within a range of 3–6 years after privatisation. There are no systematic differences in employment response to negative sales growth across the ownership categories. Employment in state firms is less responsive to positive sales growth. From these results we infer that the behaviour of state firms is affected by both insider rent sharing and binding budget constraints.     

Accommodating a Foreign Object: Federalism,coordination and performance management in the reform of German employment administration

Abstract

This paper uses the case of the reform of the German employment administration to explore the usage of performance management approaches within multi-level governance settings. It traces the adoption and accommodation of the performance management approach to govern the joint service centres (called ‘Jobcenter’) at the local level within the multi-level administrative coordination regime in Germany’s federal system. A contribution is made to nascent debates about the potential of managerial tools in systems of negotiated decision-making. The paper shows how performance management is adapted to the institutional logic of multi-level administrative coordination and serves as a facilitator of cross-level coordination.     

Experiencing Turbulence: Competition,Strategic Choice and the Management of Human Resources In British Airways

Trevor Colling assesses the concept of ‘strategic choice’ in the light of developments in employment strategy and practice in British Airways. Contrary to the language of competition attending privatisation, it is argued that BA's celebrated decision to compete ‘upstream’ depended on their continued ability to influence their product market. Current restructuring reflects a significant weakening of this ability and is producing a different and, so far, less celebrated set of priorities. Attempts to theorise the links between competition, employment strategy and competitiveness should pay greater attention to the policy frameworks provided by local, national and supra-national states.     

论教授终身制及其在中国高校的应用问题

自20世纪初美国大学建立终身教授制度以来,该制度在维护学术自由、平衡行政权力与学术权力等方面发挥了重要作用,促进了美国高等教育的繁荣发展。中国高校有与之相似的终身制度———职称终身制,但是在实际应用过程中出现了概念不清、大学教师为职称而研究等问题,为此,国内一直在进行教师聘任制度的改革。     

Supply-Side Economics and Budgetary Policy

The meaning of 'supply side' economis has been the cause of some confusion. Martin Ricketts, of the University of Buckingham, reveals that supply-side measures encompass institutional reform as well as cuts in taxation. The Government's policy of privatisation is creating alienable property rights which will improve economic efficiency and reduce the discretionary power of the state.     

Labour under the law: a new law of combination,and master and servant,in 21st‐century Britain?

It is valuable to evaluate contemporary employment law on industrial action and trade unions, and employment protection, in relation to the 19th‐century law of combination, and master and servant. Such a historical comparison, despite differing language and legal sanctions, focuses attention on the goal of legal ‘reform’—the drive to control workers' collective organisations and enhance the managerial prerogative in order to consolidate employers' capacity to determine the terms of the contract of employment or for services, and the content of the pay–effort bargain, that is, the real subordination of labour. It is a form of class struggle from above.     

Market-Oriented Macro-Economic Policy

Command-directed economies are discredited, but governments of countries moving towards markets should eschew pro-active macro-economic policies. Deregulation, privatisation and fax reform will help restore and enhance the wealth-creating capability of markets.     

THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND SUPPLY‐SIDE ECONOMICS

The coalition has given the Liberal Democrats the opportunity to demonstrate their support for – or opposition to – supply‐side economics. The person who has done most on the supply side is Ed Davey, in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. In a remarkable legislative achievement for a Parliamentary Under Secretary in under two years in office, Davey ensured that the privatisation of Royal Mail reached the statute books, liberalised the terms and conditions for Post Office counters, and liberalised employment and retirement laws.     

The trade union campaign against water privatisation

Here the author maintains that union campaigns against privatisation should not be judged in terms of their inability to prevent privatisation taking place. In this context, he assesses the effectiveness of the trade union campaign against water privatisation, concluding that it will make future privatisation initiatives more difficult to carry through.     

Targeting fertility and female participation through the income tax

We evaluate the effect of a 2003 reform in the Spanish income tax on fertility and the employment of mothers with small children. The reform introduced a tax credit for working mothers with children under the age of three, while also increasing child deductions for all households with children. Theoretically, given the interplay of these two components, the expected effect of the reform is ambiguous on both outcomes. We find that the combined reforms significantly increased both fertility (by almost 5%) and the employment rate of mothers with children under three (by 2%). These effects were more pronounced among less-educated women. In addition, to disentangle the impact of the two reform components, we use an earlier reform that increased child deductions in 1999. We find that the child deductions affect mothers' employment negatively, which implies that the 2003 tax credit would have increased employment even more (up to 5%) in the absence of the change in child deductions.     

论高职院校职业指导的特点及作用

本文通过对高职院校职业指导的内容的阐述,说明职业指导在高职院校中具有重要性、前瞻性、指导性、理论性等特点,进一步指出职业指导对高职院校的改革与发展具有杠杆和导向作用.     

Public service restructuring in the UK: the case of the English National Health Service

This article overviews welfare state retrenchment in the UK under the Conservative‐led coalition government that formed in May 2010 and has centred its response to economic crisis on rapid public deficit reduction through public expenditure austerity targeted increasingly on the welfare benefits budget. It locates the coalition's reforms of public services and public sector employment relations in the long trajectory of public sector restructuring in the UK: the policies of New Right governments in the 1980s and New Labour from 1997 to 2010 that installed marketisation and privatisation in a permutation of forms, intensifying challenges for trade union organising. Focusing on the English NHS, the article identifies the respects in which the coalition's reforms continue and depart from New Labour's.     

Towards a strategic model of employment reform in developing countries: explaining and remedying experience to date

The article argues for the importance of employment reform as a subject for international HRM scholarship. Employment reform has been one of the most significant, but also most neglected, recent initiatives in international HRM. Explanations by the World Bank and IMF for the poorer than expected outcomes of reform to date emphasize the importance of political commitment. They are compared with explanations for the similarly poor outcomes of downsizing in industrialized country organizations, which emphasize strategy, diagnosis, incrementalism and provision for retrenchees. Further clarification is provided by the results of field interviews in Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Uganda and the UK. The article argues for a strategic approach to employment reform, one based on diagnosis and drawing on HRM expertise. It should take account of process factors in reform, make provision for the 'victims' of reform, loosen the link between employment reform and pay reform, and refine the role of donors in supporting reform. HRM practitioners and scholars have an important contribution to make to developing a new approach.     

Effects of employment protection on worker and job flows: Evidence from the 1990 Italian reform

This paper uses the Italian Social Security employer-employee panel to study the effects of the Italian reform of 1990 on worker and job flows. We exploit the fact that this reform increased unjust dismissal costs for businesses below 15 employees, while leaving dismissal costs unchanged for bigger businesses, to set up a natural experiment research design. We find that the increase in dismissal costs decreased accessions and separations for workers in small relative to large firms, especially in sectors with higher employment volatility, with a negligible impact on net employment. We also find some evidence suggesting that the reform reduced firms' entry rates and employment adjustments, but had no effect on exit rates.     

Field Perspectives on the Causes of Low Employment Among Less Skilled Black Men

This article presents findings from a unique survey that assessed explanations for low black male employment by questioning participants in a low skill labor market. Black men identified barriers to hiring—including felony convictions, drug testing, low skill levels, and bias—as major reasons for their non‐employment. Employers believed black male applicants were less likely to have the desired interpersonal skills and work ethic, and that they were less likely to pass pre‐employment drug tests.     

PRIVATISATION O F ENERGY: WAS IT NECESSARY?

The economic circumstances of the time produced a favourable climate for energy privatisation. Significant economic benefits flowed from this. Nevertheless, determining the most appropriate approach to privatisation and the structure of regulation after privatisation are not straightforward and depend on technological and economic factors.     

医学技术类专业专科毕业生就业质量调查分析

对我校近两届医学技术类专业专科毕业生的就业情况进行了及时、准确的全程跟踪调查,经过对毕业生在求职就业过程中遇到的问题以及就业质量、用人单位评价等方面进行了认真总结分析,我们认为,作为高校教育者要引导学生树立正确的择业观,确定合理的就业期望值;要以市场需求为导向,科学设置专业,扩展毕业生就业空间。通过毕业生就业质量跟踪调查,更好地为教学改革提供有力依据,为进一步加强医学专科毕业生就业指导工作提供有效措施。