Enabling the language of accessible tourism

The growing body of literature on “accessible tourism” lacks a critical scholarly debate around its specific language use and nomenclatures. To fill this gap, this paper provides a first examination of language. Language provides a unique capability to resist, strengthen and reframe identities of individuals and groups, yet can also reinforce, weaken and perpetuate dominant worldviews of disability. A content analysis examined previous accessible tourism literature with results illustrating that diversity exists amongst the varying terminologies adopted by scholars. Terms were employed loosely, inconsistently and interchangeably, euphemistically with erroneous understandings and nuances. The paper concludes with critical discussion about the power of researchers to (re) produce oppression through language that maligns and misrepresents, or to (re) conceptualise and (re) construct the world we live in with liberating language that facilitates positive social change.     

Bitcoin price and its marginal cost of production: support for a fundamental value

This study back-tests a marginal cost of production model proposed to value the digital currency Bitcoin. Results from both conventional regression and vector autoregression (VAR) models show that the marginal cost of production plays an important role in explaining Bitcoin prices, challenging recent allegations that Bitcoins are essentially worthless. Even with markets pricing Bitcoin in the thousands of dollars each, the valuation model seems robust. The data show that a price bubble that began in the Fall of 2017 resolved itself in early 2018, converging with the marginal cost model. This suggests that while bubbles may appear in the Bitcoin market, prices will tend to this bound and not collapse to zero.     

Are patent fees effective at weeding out low‐quality patents?

The paper investigates whether patent fees are an effective mechanism to deter the filing of low‐quality patent applications. The study analyzes the effect on patent quality of the Patent Law Amendment Act of 1982, which resulted in a substantial increase in patenting fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Results from a series of difference‐in‐differences regressions suggest that the increase in fees led to a weeding out of low‐quality patents. About 10% of patents in the lowest quality decile were filtered out, with the effect concentrated in the patents of firms whose overall patent portfolio was medium to large (more than 20 patents). The study has strong policy implications in the current context of concerns about declines in patent quality.     

Uncertainty,story-telling and transformative learning: An instructor’s experience of TEFI’s Walking Workshop in Nepal

ABSTRACT

This article recounts three stories from TEFI’s walking workshop in Nepal: the construction of a road through what was once a trekking path; a dance-floor encounter at a Himalayan party; and the arrival of one participant, fatigued by jet lag and disoriented by the new surroundings. These stories of confusion, discomfort and fear are linked by one common theme: the potential of uncertainty to foster deep reflection and nuanced conclusions. The premise that uncertainty is to be valued and even cultivated has been explored in educational theory, spiritual traditions, and research on transformative learning. These sources affirm the role of uncertainty in the process of knowledge creation. However, accepting this role can be challenging for educators because it requires they assume a new identity, one which they may perceive as being at odds with their status as “teacher” the identity of learner. One way for the educator to address this challenge may be through recounting their own stories of uncertainty. Stories of being immersed in unfamiliar situations that challenge, confuse and even frighten – stories, in other words of being a tourist – can foster reflection on an intellectual, emotional and spiritual level, engaging the “whole” person, and thus initiating the educator/learner’s transformative journey.     

Practitioners' Corner

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. The year 1982 was not a particularly good period for the worldeconomy. At year's end, the Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD) revised its growth figures for membernations from slightly over 1% to –0.5%, with some 32 millionunemployed in its 24 member states. In the United States thejobless rate was 11% and 30% of plant capacity stood idle. OttoEckstein found the economy in its worst shape in nearly halfa century. Truly the year belonged to Scrooge. Yet 1982 was a very good year indeed for financial econometrics,the debut of an explosion of activity in the area that continuesvigorously 20 years later, as the emergence of the Journal ofFinancial Econometrics attests. In fact, it can convincinglybe argued that 1982 heralded the beginning of our subject, andperhaps with the recent awarding of the Nobel Prize in Economicsto Robert Engle . . . [Full Text of this Article]     

Consumer behaviour and the purchasing of dental services: Influences on selection and evaluation of health care services

This paper examines the process of interaction between consumers and providers of dental services in terms of the key selection and evaluation criteria employed by consumers. Focusing on the United Kingdom, it examines the impact of changes in both pricing and provision on the utilisation and evaluation of dental services. Based on a questionnaire survey of dental patients, in the context of the evolving body of literature concerned with consumer behaviour in respect of services, the paper attempts to improve the current understanding of the key factors shaping consumer choice in respect of professional services. Specifically, it argues that the highly complex nature of professional services impacts on patterns of consumer behaviour, resulting in the relationship between the individual service professional and the consumer being the focus of consumer evaluation. This in turn has significant implications for the effective marketing of such professional services.     

Urbanisation and urban management in KwaZulu Natal

Urbanisation and population movements in KwaZulu Natal from 1980 to 1991 and their implications for urban management are examined. People moved out of Natal rural areas and most small towns and into urban and rural KwaZulu areas. The most rapid growth has been in the Durban Functional Region, especially its KwaZulu districts. There has been movement into KwaZulu rural areas, both around urban centres and in outlying areas. A number of the larger towns have experienced population in‐migration even where employment and growth in output have been static or have declined. These trends raise questions about the explanatory value of urban transition models and suggest rather more complex patterns of movement.     

Corporate environmental policy and abnormal stock price returns: An empirical investigation

This paper examines the correlation between the excess stock market returns and the adoption of an environmental protocol by companies. The underlying hypothesis that I test is whether evidence of the adoption of environmental policy, prosecution by an environmental agency or the routinized training of staff in environmental protocols, which proxies for the willingness of managers to invest for the long term, is associated with superior economic returns to shareholders. I find that both the adoption of an environmental policy and prosecution for breach of environment standards have significant explanatory power in an analysis of excess returns. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment     

The Evolution of the Social Contract

Two transitions in the evolution of the social contract are considered, the first from the dominance hierarchies of the great apes (used as a proxy for our prehuman ancestors) to the egalitarian political structure of non-sedentary hunter-gatherer bands, and the second, to the reintroduction of hierarchical institutions of governance, primarily a result of living in fixed settlements after the inception of agriculture. The first transition was a product of biological and cultural evolution, which brought about big brains, language, higher consciousness, and a lower rate of time preference that enabled early man to sustain an egalitarian social contract and thereby escape the domination that confronted his prehuman ancestors. The second transition was a product of cultural evolution alone. The high costs of enforcing the hunter-gatherer social contract caused it to break down and be replaced by hierarchy when the domestication of plants and animals gave rise to a sedentary existence and increased populations. However, it is shown that the very biological and cultural adaptations that made hunter-gatherer egalitarianism possible were a necessary foundation for the spontaneous creation of complex culture and the evolution of institutions that would once again eventually make freedom possible and economic prosperity possible.     

Gender Earnings and Part-Time Pay in Australia, 1990–1998

This paper studies the effects of enterprise bargaining on the pay position of women and other target equity groups. Contrary to a priori expectations the paper shows a convergence in full‐time and part‐time gross gender pay gaps following the adoption of decentralized wage bargaining. Convergence in the latter reflects compositional (human capital) effects: the entry of less qualified and less experienced males into part‐time employment. Overall the results show a deterioration in the pay position of men employed full‐time relative to women and part‐timers (men and women) brought about by slower wage growth amongst men in full‐time employment.