Privatizing Museum Services In Uk Local Authorities

This article investigates the extent to which ‘privatization’ has taken place in museum services provided by local authorities in Britain. Three aspects of privatization are examined: change in the legal status of museums to charitable trusts; contracting-in and buying-in private service providers for specific work; and market- and marketing-orientation. All of these have a resonance in new public management in general and are of increasing significance to the international museum community. In the empirical site chosen for this article, privatization has progressed in varying degrees in relation to the three areas concerned, but overall only to a limited extent despite central government's pressure promoting this policy. Reasons suggested for this gap between the political context and the findings are the distinctiveness in the institutional arrangement of policy and the nature of the service. A good understanding of a polrcy arena along these llnes is needed for effective policy application.     

Extensions of linear diagonal-parameter symmetry and quasi-symmetry models for cumulative probabilities in square contingency tables

For square contingency tables with ordered categories, CAUSSINUS [Annales de la Faculté des Sciences de l'Université de Toulouse (1965) Vol. 29, pp. 77–182] and AGRESTI [Statistics and Probability Letters (1983) Vol. 1, pp. 313–316] considered the quasi-symmetry and the linear diagonal-parameter symmetry models, respectively, which have multiplicative forms for cell probabilities. This paper proposes two kinds of models that have the similar multiplicative forms for cumulative probabilities that an observation will fall in row (column) category i or below and column (row) category j (> i ) or above. The endometrial cancer data are analyzed using these models.     

Has Abe's Womanomics Worked?

The present paper estimates the effect of the Abe Cabinet's Womanomics policies that aimed to increase female labor supply and keep women on a career path. The policies are surveyed, and the effects are estimated using microdata from the Labor Force Survey combined with data at the prefectural level on day care provision. A difference‐in‐difference (DD) method is applied to uncover the impacts of the Abe Cabinet's policies. The rapid increase in the provision of infant care, especially in the urban area, has contributed to a strong increase in the labor participation of mothers with young children. In addition, DD method estimates show a strong increase in mothers with infants staying in permanent‐contract regular employment. A significant shortening of work hours of workers, especially of parents with infants, is observed, which enabled working mothers to maintain their employment status. A change in the gender wage gap in the Japanese labor market is observed, but much progress is still required to close the large wage gap.     

Wage Differentials and Labour Supply of Married Women in Japan: Part-time and Informal Sector Work Opportunities

This paper studies the pattern of labour supply of Japanese married women. The study develops and tests a discrete work choice model with a differing level of fixed cost of work and equalizing wage differential s. This accounts for differences in work characteristics of the regular status and part-time status work at firms, the family and self-employment. A 20 to 30 per cent hourly wage differential was obser ved between work categories with control on skills, region and other variables. Different effects are studied of the numbe r and ages of children, a grandmother's presence and the wife's educational attainments on the category of work selected.
The data employed come from The Occupational History and Mobility Survey of Women 1983 (OHMS), conducted by the National Institute for Vocational and Occupational Research, and allow detailed wage regression and consideration of different work categories which were not feasible in previous works. Empirical regulari ties of the Japanese labour market, such as the absence of growth in labour participation for mothers with small children, are better explained when work categories are dealt with separately.     

Lookism in the Chinese Nursing Industry: A Content Analysis of Online Recruitment Advertisements

This study investigated the prevalence of lookism through a content analysis of nursing recruitment advertisements in China. Lookism or physical appearance-based discrimination is prevalent in roles predominantly occupied by women. This attributive bias assumes greater significance in the context of a patriarchal society like China within industries such as nursing that are highly feminized. Nevertheless, few studies explore the existence of lookism within the nursing industry in China. Reporting on the intent of Chinese health care employers to discriminate based on physical appearance, this article argues for awareness of and sensitivity toward the implications of workplace lookism in China.     

Time-varying Armington elasticity and country-of-origin bias: from the dynamic perspective of the Japanese demand for beef imports

Elasticities of substitution, often called Armington elasticities, reflect incomplete substitutability because of perceived product characteristics. This study divides the determinants of the Japanese demand for beef imports into two factors: (i) substitution elasticity and (ii) country-of-origin bias, and demonstrate how these measurements are associated with trade policy and food scare events. The Japanese beef industry serves as a case study to evaluate the multifold impact of import liberalisation and a series of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreaks. A time-varying parameter model is used to shed light on the dynamic effects of the import liberalisation and BSE outbreaks on the measurements. The estimation results reveal that the estimated substitutability and country-of-origin bias are very sensitive to the BSE cases, but not to the process of trade liberalisation. The results also confirm that as a result of the BSE outbreaks, the major factor of the Japanese demand for beef imports has changed from relative prices to the country-of-origin effect, thereby emphasising the importance of a traceability system and promotional activities, which would help in the formation of the country-of-origin effect.     

A comparative study of eating‐out behaviour between Japan and Korea by fuzzy regression

The Japanese and Korean dietary styles are the most similar in the world. The dietary changes of two Asian countries, which are concomitant with their economic growth, have also followed a similar course. Exteriorization is progressing in eating habits, which is connected with a change of lifestyle and food consciousness. The environment surrounding consumers is changing, and consumption behaviour is gradually changing too. Generally, human action depends on a subjective judgement and involves uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the consumer's eating‐out behaviour from 1976 to 1998 by fuzzy regression, which is able to deal with a vague and uncertain phenomenon, and to show the effect of this method between the two countries. As a result, the fuzzy parameters showed fairly similar trends both in Japan and Korea. The relative price and habit‐formation effect influenced the expenditure of eating‐out directly, whereas income had an indirect influence on eating‐out expenditure. Moreover, Korean consumer behaviour had become much more vague and complicated than that in Japan.     

Product differentiation,prices, and market structure

We examine the effect of cost reductions and advertising on equilibrium prices and the equilibrium market shares. Our equilibrium has the following characteristics; the aggregate demand is the integral of individual demand over consumers, goods are differentiated in the sense of Novshek and Sonnenschein (1979), production functions are constant returns to scale.Cost reductions of a firm, which are due to R&D activity of the firm, lead to declines of equilibrium prices. Advertising of a firm, which is supposed to influence consumers' preferences in favor of the firm, cannot necessarily cause equilibrium prices to go up; one firm can raise its prices, but the other cannot. Contrary to our intuition, cost reductions cannot always enable a firm to capture a larger share.     

The emerging non‐profit sector in Japan: Recent changes and prospects

This paper hopes to map out the historical, legal and political contexts of the non profit sector and explore some of the recent developments which have helped expand voluntary activities and promote the changes the NPO sector has been experiencing over the last five years or so. Then, the paper goes on to raise some of the issues which need to be addressed for the further development of the NPO sector.