Being Good Parents or Being Good Citizens: Dilemmas and Contradictions of Urban Families in Middle‐Class Enclaves and Mixed Neighbourhoods in Germany

In recent years, cities have become ever more attractive to middle‐class families. On the one hand, middle‐class families tend to withdraw into (often newly built) socially homogeneous middle‐class neighbourhoods. On the other hand, they are also known to move into inner‐city and socially mixed areas, thus triggering processes of gentrification. Academic literature has often denounced these housing choices as being either ‘separatist’ or ‘revanchist’, more broadly categorized as strategies of ‘middle‐class disaffiliation’. Although there is a grain of truth in these interpretations, the reality is certainly more complicated. In our research on middle‐class parents’ housing and neighbourhood choices as well as their patterns of neighbourhood use, carried out in each of the two types of residential area mentioned above, we have only very rarely found an explicit desire to draw boundaries that exclude those ‘beneath’ them. We rather argue that the housing choices and neighbourhood‐related activities of middle‐class family households are heavily influenced by the specific dilemmas the interviewees face as (working) urban parents. While a significant number of respondents worry about the social sustainability, justice and cohesion of urban society, they are also concerned about the future prospects of their children. Many find it difficult to reconcile these conflicting normative demands under the prevailing circumstances.     

Khat-chewing in liminal leisure spaces: British-Somali youth on the margins

Khat-chewing, a controversial leisure activity within the Somali diaspora in Britain, has received little attention within the academic field of Leisure Studies. This paper reports on ethnographic research to provide insights into the unique locations where young British-Somali men chew khat, exposing the liminal qualities of such localities. The paper begins with an overview of the contentious position khat-chewing occupies within Somali communities in Britain, highlighting reasons why young British-Somali men hide their association with the leisure practice. The discussion that follows considers how young male khat users conceptualise spatial environments, exposing how these locations temporarily produce a dual sense of privacy and sociality. The ambiences of such temporary leisure spaces remain open to the prospect of discovery, resulting in the use of discretionary tactics to maintain a sense of secrecy. In this context, we discuss how khat-chewing offers a sense of cultural identity and belongingness while also marking young British-Somali men as outsiders – even within their own communities.     

Qualitätserwartungen und ethischer Anspruch bei der Lektüre von Blogs und von Tageszeitungen

Besides classical journalistic products, media users increasingly tend to read texts on the internet published by other users, as in weblogs. How do users navigate among these offers, how do they evaluate the quality, and which standards in terms of media ethics do they apply when reading weblogs compared to newspaper articles? Two empirical studies address these questions. In a survey, 702 internet users rated their theoretical expectations in terms of journalistic quality and compliance with ethical standards, comparing weblogs and daily newspapers. In a consecutive 2 × 2 experimental design, 120 participants read a journalistic text with varying source information (weblog/daily newspaper) and varying degree of adherence to ethical standards (ethically questionable/neutral). Participants then rated the quality of the text and its ethical standards. Results indicate that daily newspapers more than blogs are expected to deliver journalistic quality. But when read, texts are evaluated according to their content rather than their source. Ethically questionable texts in newspapers are disapproved as much as ethically questionable blog postings.     

Rent, risk, and replication: Preference adaptation in winner-take-all markets

We study the evolution of an economy where agents who are heterogeneous with respect to risk attitudes can either earn a certain income or enter a risky rent-seeking contest. We assume that agents behave rationally given their preferences, but that the population distribution of preferences evolves over time in response to material payoffs. We show that, in particular, initial distributions with full support converge to stationary states where all types are still present. Although rents are perfectly dissipated in material terms at a steady state, efficiency is greater than if everybody had been risk neutral, since risk lovers specialize in rent seeking.     

Comparing Sunspot Equilibrium And Lottery Equilibrium Allocations: The Finite Case*

Sunspot equilibrium and lottery equilibrium are two stochastic solution concepts for nonstochastic economies. We compare these concepts in a class of completely finite, (possibly) nonconvex exchange economies with perfect markets, which requires extending the lottery model to the finite case. Every equilibrium allocation of our lottery model is also a sunspot equilibrium allocation. The converse is almost always true. There are exceptions, however: For some economies, there exist sunspot equilibrium allocations with no lottery equilibrium counterpart.     

External Monitoring of Property Appraisal Estimates and Information Asymmetry

Finance theory proposes that firms' cost of capital increases when market makers set wider spreads due to perceived higher information asymmetry across traders. Using a sample of UK investment property firms and controlling for firms' non-random selection of external monitors, we find evidence that market makers perceive information asymmetry across traders to be lower for firms employing external appraisers versus those employing internal appraisers. This evidence is consistent with liquidity-motivated traders being unable to overcome such reliability differences using asset value information from sources other than accounting. We fail to find a similar difference for firms employing Big 6 versus non-Big 6 auditors. Our findings contribute to the debate over the recognition of fair value estimates for long-lived tangible assets by documenting that reliability differences attributable to differential monitoring by appraisers can affect information asymmetry, and therefore firms' cost of capital.     

Political feasibility of structural adjustment in africa: an application of SAM mixed multipliers

The implementation of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) has often been undermined by opposition from politically powerful groups who are favored by existing policies. To assess the political sustainability of SAPs this paper uses social accounting matrices for three African countries to model the income effects of stylized SAPs on different socioeconomic groups. The analysis reveals wide variation in the likelihood for typical SAPs to be acceptable to political elites while generating growth in the rest of the economy. The presence of a rural elite or strong farm-nonfarm linkages can enhance the political sustainability of SAPs.     

Relationships among pay inequity,perceptions of procedural justice,and organizational citizenship

This study explored relationships between employee dissatisfaction with pay, perceptions of procedural justice, and organizational citizenship behavior. It was hypothesized that pay inequity would be negatively related to citizenship, while favorable perceptions of procedural and interpersonal justice would be positively related. Results provided strong support for the hypotheses only with regard to a dimension of citizenship labeled “compliance.” Implications for employee behavior in the workplace and the expression of grievances are discussed; future research directions are also offered.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Decline of Trade Union Organisation, P.B. Beaumont Improving Industrial Relations – the Advisory Role of ACAS, Eric Armstrong and Rosemary Lucas The State of the Unions, Barrie Sherman The Trade Unions and the Labour Party, Andrew J. Taylor New Technology at Work, Arthur Francis Dictionnaire Canadiert des Relations du Travail, Gérard Dion Socialist Enterprise: Reclaiming the Economy, Diana Gilhespy, Ken Jones, Tony Manwaring, Henry Neuburger, Adam Sharpies     

BOOK REVIEWS

THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF STRIKES: by Eric Batstone, Ian Boraston and Stephen Frenkel EXECUTIVE EASE AND DISEASE: by Dr. Beric Wright THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS HANDBOOK: by Bowes Egan TRADE UNIONISM UNDER COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: A Theroy based on comparisons of six countries: by H. A. Clegg INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY IN WESTERN EUROPE: A North American perspective PERSONNEL AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: A MANAGERIAL APPROACH: J. B. Miner and M. G. Miner POLICY ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY PERSONNEL AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: M. G. Miner end J. B. Miner “PENSIONS AND INDUSTflIAL RELATIONS”: Harry Lucas