Pesticide use among emerging farmers in South Africa: contributing factors and stakeholder perspectives

The commercial agricultural sector in South Africa has historically been dominated by large-scale operations run by white owners and managers. In redressing this imbalance, black farmers classified as ‘emerging’ are being encouraged to engage in high-input agricultural production in order to obtain ‘commercial’ status. Since existing practices in commercial agriculture rely heavily on pesticides, emerging farmers aspiring to become commercial are pressured to adopt and/or increase the use of pesticides. However, problems of access to land, finances, resources, skills and markets overshadow the health and safety of these farmers and their labour force that may be affected by exposure to pesticides. This paper presents the results of a policy study based on primary interview data with key stakeholders and secondary documentary review data, to illustrate how pesticides are used in an occupational health and safety vacuum because the focus of key institutions is rather on economic productivity.     

Phillips ‘loops’ in South Africa∗

Professor Phillips published his famous Phillips curve article in 1958. In his research, however, he observed that wages were rising more rapidly during the upswing of the business cycle, when unemployment was falling, than during the downturn, when unemployment was rising. When data on the respective variables was plotted, a distinct ‘loop’ was found. In the analysis of South African labour statistics, it was found that such a ‘loop’ existed in the White labour market. However, in the case of the Black labour market, only a weak image of a ‘loop’ was found. The real economic forces producing such a ‘loop’ were almost completely absent. This has implications not only for labour management and economic policy in general, but also for development strategies, because it implies that if Black labour had been left to market forces only, they would have been worse off than they are now.     

Some arguments for (moderately) capital-intensive development,even in labour-abundant nations

This essay suggests that there may be good reasons why some labour-abundant developing nations prefer capital-intensive economic activities. In developing nations where large amounts of time and investment would be required to achieve full employment of their labour, policy-makers may do better to seek a capital-intensive development programme that increases labour productivity, inspires technological change, and, through rapidly increasing national income, increases the demand for labour in the long run by more than a labour-intensive approach would. A diagrammatic representation is presented. The suggestion is offered that a ‘moderate’ capital-intensive strategy, in which factor prices are maintained ‘just’ — rather than ‘much’ — different from their scarcity values, should encourage labour-augmenting technological change.     

Redistribution,demand structure and factor requirements: The case of India

This paper investigates the hypothesis that a redistribution of private consumption expenditure from rich to poor, or from urban residents to rural residents, would bring about an increase in employment and reduce capital and import requirements, through its impact on the structure of aggregate demand. The simulations reported here, using Indian data, do not provide much support for the ‘redistribution promotes employment’ argument. The analysis suggests that even ‘radical’ redistributions of private consumption expenditure would have no significant impact on the level of employment, either directly through increasing labour requirements or indirectly through reducing scarce resource requirements.     

Labour Market Flexibility,Wages and Incomes in Sub‐Saharan Africa in the 1990s

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of how African labour markets have performed in the 1990s. It is argued that the failure of African labour markets to create good paying jobs has resulted in excess labour supply in the form of either open unemployment or a growing self‐employment sector. One explanation for this outcome is a lack of labour market ‘flexibility’ keeping formal sector wages above their equilibrium level and restricting job creation. We identify three attributes of labour market flexibility. First, whether real wages decline over time; secondly, the tendency for wages to adjust in the face of unemployment; and thirdly, the extent of wage differentials between sectors and/or firms of various size. Recent research shows that real wages in Africa during the 1990s may have been more downwardly flexible than previously thought and have been surprisingly responsive to unemployment rates, yet large wage differentials between formal and informal sector firms remain. This third sense of the term ‘inflexibility’ can explain a common factor across diverse African economies — the high income divide between those working in large firms and those not. Those working in the thriving self‐employment sector in Ghana have something in common with the unemployed in South Africa — both have very low income opportunities relative to those in large firms.     

Interlopers and disorderly brethren at the Stade Mart: commercial regulations and practices amongst the Merchant Adventurers of England in the late Elizabethan period

This article examines the role of merchant companies in structuring overseas trade in early modern Europe by considering the commerce of the Merchant Adventurers of England, the ‘regulated’ Company which monopolized the cloth export trade to Germany and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It examines the Company's trade to its German ‘mart’ town of Stade at the close of the sixteenth century through a detailed case study of the trade of one particular merchant, John Quarles. Using correspondence between Quarles and his factors overseas, it considers how membership of this regulated trading company impacted on the practice of its members, both through its formal regulatory regime and the informal pressures that came with corporate affiliation. However, corporate privileges also created ‘shadow economies’ inhabited by the excluded, those castigated by companies as ‘interlopers’. The article considers the connections between interlopers and those ‘disorderly brethren’ of the company who were prepared to violate corporate regulations in pursuit of opportunities. It shows how the regulatory regimes of merchant companies were shaped by the changing practices of members and non‐members as they responded to the structural changes facing European trade in the early modern period.     

中国劳动力市场发育的制度经济学分析

本文分析了中国劳动力市场发育的结构特征,并对转型期中国劳动力市场分割的制度变迁和制度均衡进行了分析,认为制度非均衡已成为中国劳动力市场发育的一种“常态”。中国劳动力市场的制度非均衡又成为该市场制度变迁的诱致因素,它的轨迹也就是劳动力市场制度变迁的轨迹。     

The supplier network and aircraft production in wartime Japan

The Japanese aircraft industry, which was very small scale before the Second World War, became Japan's largest manufacturing industry by the end of the war. This article explores the basis for the growth of the aircraft industry during this time by focusing on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company's No. 5 Works. It was revealed that during the war, the supply of basic inputs increased substantially: labour force, equipment, and ‘machinery parts’ were in sufficient supply and none of these was a binding constraint on production. The binding constraint existed in the supply of ‘special parts’. In other words, aircraft production expanded as the supply of special parts increased. This increase in the supply of special parts and still faster growth in the supply of machinery parts came about through the expansion of the supplier network in terms of both the number of suppliers and the geographical area in which they were located. These findings imply that outsourcing played a key role in the growth of aircraft production in wartime Japan.     

Mining waste management: Extending sustainability options across economic,social and environmental boundaries

This article assesses the potential for using mining waste residues, such as by-products (e.g. slag) and waste rock, to establish industrial activity beyond mining to serve the country's developmental agenda. The mining industry focuses primarily on its own economic sustainability, rather than on wider socio-economic and environmental sustainability. New thinking on the issue emphasises that capitalism and sustainability have mutually excluding aims. Using a broader understanding of sustainability, this article reassesses initiatives implemented in a research and development setting to reduce mines’ atmospheric emissions through cleaner production and to minimise their mining waste residues through beneficiation. South Africa's regulations require mines to prepare social and labour plans for mine closure. Stockpiled mining residues could form the basis for economic activity in areas affected by mine closures. A collaborative, overarching framework for such activity could promote the development of an industry ‘beyond mining’ – the beneficiation of mining waste residues.     

‘Growing’ social protection in developing countries: Lessons from Brazil and South Africa

The rapid expansion of social protection in the South provides a rich diversity of experiences and lessons on how best to reduce poverty and ultimately eradicate it. Knowledge on how best to ‘grow’ social assistance, understood as long-term institutions responsible for reducing and preventing poverty, is at a premium. This article examines the expansion of social assistance in Brazil and South Africa, two of the middle income countries widely perceived to have advanced furthest in ‘growing’ social protection. It examines three aspects: the primacy of politics in explaining the expansion of social protection and assistance, the tensions between path-dependence and innovation in terms of institutions and practices, and the poverty and inequality outcomes of social assistance expansion. The article concludes by drawing the main lessons for other developing countries.     

Who are Those Misclassified As ‘Others’? A Note on Indonesian Labour Force Statistics 1

This paper examines possible kinds of misclassification of those placed in the large ‘others’ group in Indonesian labour force statistics, i.e. people registered as outside the labour force and neither attending school nor homemaking. It argues that a large proportion of those classified as ‘others’ are unemployed, unpaid workers and people attending informal education, as well as those in transition between two educational institutions. The paper discusses possible reasons for the remarkable differences between Census and labour force surveys in the reported size of the ‘others’ group, and considers the consequences for statements on trends in open unemployment if adjustment is made for the high ‘others’ share.     

The decline of child labour: labour markets and family economies in Europe and North America since 1830

This survey of the ‘adulting’ of national and family economies argues that understanding of the segmentation of labour markets and of the male breadwinner has been impoverished by a failure to consider age alongside gender, and that we are at best in a situation where contextualized studies may provide some insight into reasons for the decline of child labour. With respect to family economies, there has been very little study of the timing or cause of the diminution of children's contributions, or of how, if at all, that decline is related to the rise in married women's participation in the labour force.     

Did closures do any good? Labour productivity,mine dynamics,and rationalization in interwar Ruhr coal mining

Throughout the late 1920s, German coal mining saw an exceptional surge in labour productivity, led by the performance of the Ruhr coal mines. It is commonly accepted in the relevant literature that the economy‐wide ‘rationalization boom’ explains that pattern. This study tests the related hypothesis that ‘negative rationalization’, in the form of a massive wave of mine closures over the period 1924–9, played a significant role in stimulating aggregate labour productivity in the Ruhr coal district. Using an original dataset for the totality of Ruhr coal mines, the causes of productivity change over the broader period 1913–38 are identified, using the decomposition method of Foster, Haltiwanger, and Krizan. Results suggest that labour productivity was driven largely by improvements at individual mines, attributable to the intensified mechanization of underground operations. In sharp contrast, turnover effects were marginal, overall, compared to the effects stemming from the producer dynamics among surviving mines. Thus, the practical productivity implications of mine closures during the rationalization boom are negligible and overrated in the literature. These findings indicate the necessity of testing the relative importance of ‘negative rationalization’ in the form of plant closures in other branches of the Weimar economy.     

Unions and firm innovation in China: Synergy or strife?

The ‘monopoly face’ of unions suggests that the rent-seeking activities of unions discourage research and development investment and that the collective bargaining rules may restrict management flexibility, thus deterring innovations. On the other hand, the arrival of unions in the workplace may ‘shock’ the management into adopting more systematic rather than ad hoc management practices and that such innovative workplace practices may enhance an organization's ability to introduce new products and/or new processes. Further, the ‘voice face’ of unions argues that the independent ‘questioning’ of the management deliberations by the unions can also lead to better, more creative and, hence, more productive solutions. This paper investigates the link between unions and firm innovations in China. Different from their counterparts in advanced economies, Chinese unions are found to encourage firm innovations and R&D investment.     

American agricultural assistance and the new international economic order

Combining ethical, political and economic elements, this paper studies the relationship between American food aid and agricultural assistance and the evolution of demands made by developing countries for a new international economic order. The ethical viewpoint is based on John Rawls' theory of ‘distributive justice’ and argues that the ‘Right to Food Resolution’ does not meet the developing countries' calls for redistribution. After analysing the political and economic differences in outlook of the developed and developing countries, it is concluded that the conduct of American agricultural assistance policies towards the developing countries has failed to appreciate the needs expressed in their demands for a new order.     

Management Quality, Ownership, Firm Performance and Market Pressure in Russia

We investigate whether management quality explains firm performance in Russia. We find that it explains relatively little in terms of firm performance, but it does explain some of the differences between firms in Russia’s Far East and the rest of Russia. Firms that have always been in private ownership perform better than state-owned firms. While management practices may not yet affect firm performance in a measurable way, they may do so in the future. This conjecture motivates us to look at the determinants of firms’ adoption of good management practices. We find that market pressure, both in the product and the labour market, has some impact on adoption of management practices, in particular in the Far East. It thus appears that the economy in Russia’s Far East may function according to different rules than in the rest of Russia, as market forces seem to be stronger there, in particular, because the Far East is more exposed to foreign competition than the rest of Russia.     

THE THOMBO TREASURE. COLONIAL POPULATION ADMINISTRATION AS SOURCE FOR THE HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY OF EARLY MODERN SRI LANKA

During their occupation of Sri Lanka (1640–1796) and following Sinhalese and Portuguese practices, the Dutch created an elaborate registration of people, estates, and labour services. The administrative records known as the thombos are incomparable in their level of detail, yet they have hardly been used for the purposes of demographic or economic history. This article describes the challenges involved in ‘decoding’ the thombos, that is, reconstructing the meaning of particular variables in the light of the prevailing legal pluralism in which Sinhalese common law and Roman-Dutch law co-existed uncomfortably. It also summarises research findings from a pilot study involving about two hundred small villages in Colombo province. Finally, it sketches research horizons, as the thombo ‘treasure’ holds great prospects for (comparative) studies into family systems and the impact of colonial rule on fertility and mortality.     

Ethnic group returns to education during the early post‐colonial period in Malaysia

The paper examines the returns to education for ethnic groups in the Malaysian labour market during the early 1960s' post‐colonial period. The analysis is based on data from the West Malaysia Family Survey of 1966–67. It is found that individual returns to education were positive during the period examined. However, the returns to education of particular ethnic groups differed. The findings suggest that ‘equal education for all’ does not guarantee that each ethnic group will receive equal wages unless there are other interventions in the labour market.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND RESERVATION WAGES IN WORKING-CLASS CAPE TOWN

Are the unemployed in South Africa ‘pricing themselves out of the labour market;’? This paper explores this proposition through an analysis of reservation wages in Cape Town's working class district of Khayelitsha/Mitchell's Plain. It argues that reservation wages are not out of line with predicted wages. This, in turn, suggests that unemployment in the area is not attributable to job seekers having unrealistically high reservation wages.