THE UNPAID LEADERS OF FRENCH VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS

ABSTRACT ** :  This paper focuses on the voluntary workers who take on responsibilities in French voluntary associations. First, drawing on a national association survey, we contrast the characteristics of leadership volunteers, especially chairpersons, with those of the French population as a whole. We show that leaders are very different from the overall population even if these differences seem to diminish for organizations created more recently. Second, from a national household survey, we compare board members with other members of associations. Among other results, we find that the former are more rooted in their local environment and they participate more frequently in several associations. They are driven by more activist motives than are the other members. They give more time to their associations and they use more skills in their voluntary tasks than do the other volunteers.     

Methods and tools for integrated assessment of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries

For stimulating sustainable development in developing countries, land use patterns and land use changes are considered critical, and therefore effective and efficient land use policies are needed. In this paper we present a methodological framework that has been developed in a joint European and developing countries project (LUPIS – Land Use Policies and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries), to assess the impact of land use policies on sustainable development in developing countries. An illustrative application is presented for a case study in China, where water pollution due to agriculture in Taihu Basin is a major problem.     

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Geographic Entrepreneurial Choices in Brazilian Franchising

In the broad empirical literature on franchising, performance outcomes of location decisions appear to be a largely forgotten issue. Yet franchising represents a rich context to study the impact of geographic entrepreneurial choices. Addressing this “blank spot” in the literature, we deal with the following question: Is it better for a chain to stay in the same geographic area, or to expand via distant franchised units? Our econometric estimations on new and unique Brazilian panel data show that spatial agglomeration of chain outlets leads to higher performance, suggesting that agglomeration gains outweigh cannibalization and spatial monopoly effects.     

Sen is not a capability theorist†

This paper aims to clarify the status of capability in Sen’s idea of justice. Sen’s name is so widely associated with the concept of capability that commentators often assume that his contribution to the study of justice amounts to a capability theory, albeit underdeveloped. We argue that such a reading is misleading. Taking Sen’s reticence about operationalization seriously, we show that his contribution is inconsistent with a capability theory. Instead, we defend the idea that the capability approach plays a heuristic role: capability is a step in his argument against alternative materials, but is not meant as a definitive end. Sen defends a critical perspective primarily to encourage public reasoning and respect for agency as regards the definition of what should count in the evaluation of social states.     

Violating the Monotonicity condition for instrumental variable—Dimorphic patterns of gene–behavior association

I document the dimorphic patterns for the association between DAT1 9R9R genotype and measures of risky behaviors including drinking, use of marijuana, cocaine, other drugs, and number of sexual partners. The associations between DAT1 9R9R genotype and risky behaviors are often in opposite signs for females and males, in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). This article sensitizes the researcher on the sexual dimorphic pattern of gene–behavior association, and its risk to violate the Monotonicity (no-defiers) condition in applications that use genetic markers as instrumental variables.     

Labor Law in China: How Does It Contribute to the Economic Security of the Workforce? A Commonsian Reading

By adopting the “reasonable value” notion applied to the labor relationship as proposed by John R. Commons, I study the way in which labor legislation in China can be understood as the search for a status of employment security for rural migrant workers. However, the Chinese labor market is experiencing growth in a particular form of informal labor: delegated and temporary labor. I analyze this contradiction not as a failure of the legislation itself, but as the product of a particular institutional context which provides a way to skirt the law, and thereby diminish its effectiveness. Finally, in a non-democratic state, labor law — which has been instrumentalized and mobilized within a form of state corporatism — reveals that very significant challenges exist for building a truly secure status for employees.