Bureaucracy and Power without Responsibility

The pressures on the politician frying to impfement his party's election manifesto are often at variance with the interests of the departmental bureaucracy he expects to design his policies. Dr Keith Hartley, Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of York, examines the direct interests of bureaucrats in their departmental budgets.     

Defence markets

Although defence is a classic example of a public good, there are extensive opportunities for applying market solutions to the armed forces and defence industries. There are possibilities for beneficial inter-service rivalry and for creating profit centres within the armed forces; substitution is possible between parts of the armed forces, and competition can be used for purchasing weapons and for market-testing activities traditionally undertaken'in-house'by the armed forces. The analysis has implications for the UK strategic defence review.     

Segmented Labour Markets: Theory and Evidence

This paper examines the possibility of accepting the labour market segmentation approach as a valid alternative to the classical and neo-classical analysis of labour markets. It consists of three main parts. The first part contains a historical analysis of both the distant and recent origins of the labour market segmentation hypothesis. Part two outlines the central ideas of both segmentationalists and radical theorists who attempted to explain the fragmented nature of labour markets and the importance of institutional and social influences upon pay, employment and mobility of individual workers between different labour market sectors. The third part examines the case for labour market segmentation using four alternative techniques and discusses the issue of mobility among different labour market segments. It is thereby concluded that the lack of agreement among the segmented labour market theorists on both theoretical and methodological issues has prevented them from developing a consistent and convincing argument based on verifiable empirical evidence to validate their thesis.     

Markets and Islam: A Nervous Alliance

Religious restrictions on the operation of markets in Islamic countries do not necessarily depress consumer welfare in the view of Rodney Wilson, Senior Lecturer in the Economics of the Middle East at the University of Durham Traditional Islamic sanctions on free-market activity may bring satisfaction in other forms, if at a cost the capitalist West might not find tolerable     

Competition and UK Defence Policy

Defence is a 'public good' that economists (until recently) have regarded as necessarily supplied by government. But it can use the market to maximise efficiency and minimise costs. Dr Hartley shows how, and with what results.     

科层制对人发展的影响

人的发展应该是各个方面都得到发展,并贯穿于人的整个一生。韦伯的科层制,作为一种管理模式,在提高效率上确实起到了积极的作用,但因其本身所固有的非人格化和集权化等特点,对人的     

国有企业文化中领导人“官本位”主义研究

本文对国有企业文化领导人"官本位"主义从国有企业领导人的选拔、使用及退出等具体环节上进行了阐述.针对存在的问题,本文在完善国有企业法人治理结构和建立健全国有企业领导人选任、培育、考核、激励约束机制等方面提出了可行的解决方案.     

Bureaucracy, monopoly, and the demand for municipal services

A model of municipal budget allocation is constructed. It is assumed that municipalities elect mayors whose preferences reflect those of their constituents and that the bureaucrats heading the public agencies are private-wealth maximizers. Following Niskanen it is argued that bureaucrats exploit their mayors in order to maximize their salaries which implies that the price-elasticity for municipal services will be unitary. A price index is constructed, and the implication is tested on a sample of 81 U.S. cities over the period 1951–1973. The time-series estimates of price, population, and income elasticities are compared with those of Bergstrom and Goodman and Borcherding and Deacon.     

Capital Markets

The efficiency of security market is necessary for the harmonious growth of capital market, and more particularly in an emerging economy. This paper looks at the case of the Thai stock market, and uses statistical tests based on stratified samples of stocks on weekly data over a four year period. The tests check the normality of the price lag and the correlations over a 6 period lag. As a conclusion, the tests indicate* that only few stocks conform to the weakform efficiency market hypothesis. The authors make specific recommendations to improve the efficiency of the market as a whole.     

In Defence of Gower

Len Ross's condemnation of the Gower Report that it was too protective of suppliers of financial services is questioned by Edgar Palamountain on the ground that freedom of entry by new competitors can be excessive, leading to decline in standards and avoidable confusion for the consumer. Len Ross defends his argument.     

Unlikely allies: Bureaucracy as a cultural trope in a grassroots volunteer organization

This article investigates the role of bureaucratic organizing in a grassroots volunteer organization, which emerged during the so-called refugee crisis in an emergency refugee shelter in Germany. Most research agrees that this type of organization is by definition counter-bureaucratic. In the organization I studied, however, volunteers adopted, accepted and acclaimed bureaucratic organizing as the only, natural and self-evident way of making the grassroots work. Drawing on ethnographic research, my analysis unravels how bureaucracy became a common frame of reference that allowed the volunteers to self-organize despite their different motivations, attitudes and social backgrounds. To theorize these findings, the paper draws on the concept of a cultural trope. In so doing, it offers a more nuanced understanding of bureaucracy in grassroots volunteer organizations that might stimulate scholars to rethink its role in other fluid, dynamic and value-driven organizations.     

Speculative Markets and Economic Complexity

The dramatic movements in share prices in the world's stock markets this autumn have provoked unrest among normally enthusiastic advocates of the free-market economy. Ludwig Lachmann, formerly Professor of Economics and Economic History at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and one of the doyens of the Austrian School of economic analysis, suggests that although the defenders of capitalism must not argue away the drawbacks of speculative markets, they should not neglect the advantages of such activity in a reaction against recent volatility.     

Educational Development and Labour Markets

For over a century and a half, there have been cyclical phases ofsaturation and shortage in the numbers of students enrolled at German and Prussian universities. Starting from thisobservations, this article constructs a neoclassical glutting theory. A two-fold hypothesis is put forward. Firstly,the behaviour of students in their choice of curriculum depends on the expected rewards. Indeed, the allocation of studentsto the various faculties depends on the comparative yields of the latter in terms of expected earnings and job availabilityin the corresponding professional sectors. Thus, the rewards expected by a student are represented by the earnings on thelabour market at a given moment and that he or she considers to be sustainable in time. Secondly, an attraction phenomenonmay appear for certain curricula when a shortage occurs in different professional sectors. Once the shortagehas been made up, the demand effect continues as a result of delay in the perception of the situation by young people.This may gradually lead to comparative over-production of qualifieduniversity leavers. This unbalanced situation diverts new cohorts ofstudents to other sectors ofeducation and may cause a new shortage, finally resulting in acyclical movement modulated according to job availability.