CONTRACTING CONVICTS: THE CONVICT LABOUR MARKET IN VAN DIEMEN's LAND 1840–1857

The place of penal transportation in Australia's economic history has always been controversial. Convict workers were frequently denigrated as worse than useless, yet without convicts the settlements would have lacked sufficient labour for development. In Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s, convicts constituted more than half the labour supply, and if emancipists are included it was more like three-quarters. After transportation to New South Wales was halted in 1840, amidst claims that the assignment of convict labour was akin to slavery, Van Diemen's Land continued to receive transportees but adopted a new form of labour management: the so-called 'probation system'. To distinguish the new probation system from the 'slavery' of assignment, wages were paid to convict workers. This study uses 17,997 convict employment contracts to explore the labour market for convict passholders at the probation period. Actions speak louder than words, and irrespective of what might have been said about convict quality, by the end of transportation in 1853 convict workers were eagerly engaged at rising wages by employers desperate for labour.     

Skills in South Africa: The journey towards credible planning

ABSTRACT

Since 1994 the state has instituted active labour market policies to redress the apartheid skills legacy. The skills planning challenge continues to be how to coordinate efforts for the provision of the right skills to support inclusive economic growth, ensuring an alignment is achieved between what is required in the labour market and the supply from the education and training system. This article traces the South African journey of skills planning from late apartheid until the current time period in 2014 through a historical analysis of the political economy. The analysis reflects on the relationship between state formation in South Africa and the role of the state in directing skills development, and in the more recent period how skills planning responds to both the demands of the economy and ameliorating the historical legacies of education and skills exclusion.     

Evolution of Education Premiums in Cambodia: 1997–2007

This paper evaluates education premiums in Cambodia over the past decade using data from the 1997, 2003–2004 and 2007 Socio‐economic Surveys of Households. The Cambodian labor market has undergone a transformation over the past decade. In 1997, the earnings of workers employed for wages exhibited limited association with education and skills. The picture was dramatically different by 2003 and more so by 2007. The profitability of education had increased sharply, especially for women. There is evidence that the human capital model is now applicable to both men and women, resulting in a wider distribution of earnings. Instrumental variables estimates of the return to an additional year of schooling for male wage earners are found to be higher than the corresponding OLS estimates, but only in the private sector.     

THE MEASUREMENT OF EMPLOYMENT STATUS IN SOUTH AFRICA USING COHORT ANALYSIS, 1994‐20041

We analyse trends in employment, unemployment and labour force participation by simple graphical techniques, using all the October Household Surveys and the September Labour Force Surveys. We show that African male employment in 1995 seems high, when compared to all the other surveys. Furthermore much of the increase in African female labour force participation is concentrated in the period 1998 to 2000, which suggests that measurement and sampling changes may be partially responsible for the trend. We track cohorts of individuals over the eleven years for which we have data. We show that young people are leaving school earlier, while being better educated than their elders. They are not, however, being absorbed into employment at a faster rate. This has led to a spike in youth unemployment.     

RATES OF RETURN TO EDUCATION IN BOTSWANA: RESULTS FROM THE 2002/2003 HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND EXPENDITURE SURVEY DATA SET

Using the most recent Household Income and Expenditure Survey data (2002/2003), this paper presents current rates of return to education for Botswana. The results show that the rates of return have in general declined by one percentage point on average between the periods as shown in Table 2 . If we, however, look at the averages for the different school cycles, the fall in the average rates is quite significant at about six percentage points between the periods. The biggest fall is for secondary education, especially upper secondary education, which fell by 28 percentage points between the periods. The rates of return to tertiary education, however, rose by more than 50 percentage points. Ignoring upper secondary, the pattern of rates of return has remained similar to the results of the study based on the 1993/1994 data. Rates are higher for tertiary education and lower for secondary than for primary education. This results are still consistent with rates of return generally rising with level of education. At policy level, the results continue to support sharing of costs between Government and beneficiaries or their parents especially at tertiary education level. Second, the results indicate the need for the country to continue to vigorously pursue job creation and reorient the education system from emphasis on white collar jobs.

Table 2. Mincerian earnings function: overall Ψ
Dependent variable (ln monthly earnings)

HIDDEN DISCIPLINES IN MALAYSIA: THE ROLE OF BUSINESS HISTORY IN A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK

Business history plays a crucial role in the understanding of the history and socioeconomic development of Malaysia. This paper analyses that role through an assessment of the most relevant colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary literature. Malaysian business history adopts a multidisciplinary approach, which has the potential to propel the discipline to address potentially sensitive political issues in Malaysia, though in the past business history's assimilation into other disciplines has discouraged, with notable exceptions, its potential to explore sensitive topics. In conclusion, the paper outlines the challenges faced by Malaysian business history academics and argues for extending the discipline's boundaries.     

THE RISE AND FALL OF INDUSTRIALIZATION: THE CASE OF A SILK WEAVING DISTRICT IN MODERN JAPAN

The production of habutae, a simple silk fabric, expanded rapidly between 1890 and 1918 in Japan's Fukui Prefecture, with large exports to Europe and the United States. The production of habutae, initially woven by hand, was labour intensive, but it gradually became capital-intensive after the introduction of power looms. Production and export of this fabric declined precipitously from 1918. In this paper, we attribute the rise and then fall of Japan's production and export of habutae to its changing comparative advantage, which is associated with shifts from labour-using to capital-using production technology initiated in the United States.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYMENT: A SECTORAL ANALYSIS FOR TURKEY

This paper analyzes the effects of wages, openness, and demand on employment in the private manufacturing industry in Turkey based on panel data for the period of 1973–2001. The wage elasticity of employment increases after trade liberalization. Nevertheless, output elasticity of labor demand is higher than wage elasticity in the total manufacturing sector for the whole estimation period, and in the high- and medium-skilled sectors in the post-1980 period. Trade effects, after controlling for output, seem to have a low economic significance. The positive effects of exports on the labor intensity of production are low or are offset by labor saving effects of foreign trade, particularly in the high- and medium-skilled sectors. On the other hand, there is some evidence of a negative import effect in the low-skilled sectors, whereas in the high- and medium-skilled group a complementary relation between domestic labor and imported inputs dominates the effects.     

THE ROLE OF THE HIGH COURT IN FEDERAL ARBITRATION DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION: PRESERVING A FUTURE FOR ‘REASON AND MORAL SUASION’?

Between 1929 and 1933 the Australian federal system of conciliation and arbitration came under economic and political strain. This article reveals that arbitration proved to be an adaptable industrial relations framework for dealing with economic depression. While the monetary entitlements of workers were reduced, the legal instrumentality that conferred the wage cuts, the Arbitration Court, itself defied abolition and evolved to be a protective body. There was a subtle and previously unremarked interaction in the regulatory functions of the High Court, the Arbitration Court, and the Commonwealth Parliament characterised by the purposeful abstention of the High Court and Scullin Government and the activism of the Arbitration Court.     

THE ROLE OF HUMAN CAPITAL IN CHINA'S TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: A CROSS‐PROVINCE ANALYSIS

This paper studies the role of human capital in China's provincial total factor productivity (TFP) growth over 1985–2004. The stochastic frontier approach is employed to measure the productivity growth of Chinese provinces. Human capital is measured both qualitatively and quantitatively. In particular, enrolment rates at various levels of schooling are used to represent human capital composition. After controlling for endogeneity, we find that human capital has significant and positive effects on the TFP growth of Chinese provinces. However, when education quality is incorporated, productivity growth appears to be significantly enhanced by quality improvements in primary education only. Regional impacts of human capital are found to differ at various levels of schooling. In the eastern region of China, productivity growth is significantly associated with secondary education. TFP growth in the central region is mainly promoted by primary and university education. Yet in the western region, primary education plays the most prominent role.