Tourism and local economic development: The case of the Highlands Meander

Local economic development (LED) planning is of major policy importance in post-apartheid South Africa. Although issues surrounding LED have attracted considerable policy attention, one neglected theme has been the role of tourism as a lead sector for LED. The aim of this article is to examine the planning and workings of one tourism-led LED initiative in South Africa. The case study is that of the Highlands Meander in Mpumalanga province, where five towns are collaborating in their LED initiatives in order to promote the area's tourism products. A key finding is that this growing tourism initiative is currently not benefiting local black communities. Recommendations are offered for developing a pro-poor tourism initiative.     

Unemployment insurance: Risk sharing versus efficiency

Two models of spot labor markets are presented in which labor suppliers have heterogeneous attitudes towards effort and in which uncertainty prevails on labor productivity and growth. The problem of selecting efficient rules to manage unemployment insurance (UI) systems is considered. We show that there does not exist any system which combines an efficient allocation of labor with an efficient allocation of risks among employees, unemployed workers and capital-owners. Pareto-efficient policy rules are a best compromise between these two conflicting objectives. It implies that productive efficiency could be improved in periods of mass unemployment by reducing UI benefits. That would be at the expense of more inefficiencies in the sharing of macroeconomic risks. At the optimum, the UI benefit is positively correlated to growth and it is negatively correlated to labor productivity.     

The division of labour and market structure

Most firms produce most of the time under conditions of substantial economies of scale. The division of labour, according to Adam Smith the mainspring of wealth, is intrinsically an economies of scale phenomenon. Market structure in most industries in characterized by a small number of suppliers and a larger number of customers. I explain this law of small numbers as the equilibrium of two forces: the deconcentration effect of imitation and the market spliting effect of further refinements in the division of labour by innovation. A deconcentrated market creates larger incentives for market splitting (product differentiation) by innovation than a concentrated market. But market splitting raises concentration in the market and it raises the number of different markets in the economy. Before the economies of scale of old products are fully exploited, new products are being offered which again are produced under conditions of economies of scale.     

Daylight saving effect

Kamstra et al. [Kamstra, M.J., Kramer, L.A., Levi, M.D., 2000. Losing sleep at the market: the daylight saving anomaly. The American Economic Review 90, 1005–1011] argue that the mean weekend return following the changes in daylight saving time is less than the mean weekend return throughout the rest of the year. Opposing studies, such as Pinegar [Pinegar, J.M., 2002. Losing sleep at the market: comment. The American Economic Review 92, 1251–1256), reason that the observed results depend upon methodology. We extend the ongoing discussions by providing further evidence for equity markets and bond markets in Germany and across Europe. We further demonstrate that the daylight saving effect does not serve as a potential rationale for the weekend effect.     

Constructivist Negotiation Ethics

The success of Discourse Ethics is premised on the discovery and use of shared values. If this is true what type of negotiation style, especially when used in an intercultural setting, is best suited to make use of shared values. Research focusing on moral arguments between Germans and Americans uncovered an array of shared values. But the existence of shared values, by itself, was not an adequate predictor of a negotiation's success. What did prove to be a predictor of success was the use of a Constructivist style of negotiation by both parties.     

Triangulation: Validity and empirically-based hypothesis construction

The essay focuses on the opportunities and strengths of a multi-method approach, widely called methodological triangulation, in which different investigative methods are applied to one research object. In practice, this can be realized with the coupling of quantitative structural data concerning the life course and the interpretation and evaluation of life course data collected with qualitative methods. This approach is examined in order to shed light on the problem that research findings often show different phenomena and not the different aspects of one phenomenon. The discussion of the relationships of the findings to one another (congruent, complementary or divergent) shows that in this context a multi-method approach can nevertheless be used to increase validity and to test hypotheses. Further, its particular strengths are the empirically induced modification of existing models and theories, as well as the development of new explanations.