Moving up the Ladder or Stuck on the Bottom Rung? Homeownership as a Solution to Poverty in Urban South Africa

In the global South, policies providing property titles to low-income households are increasingly implemented as a solution to poverty. Integrating poor households into the capitalist economy using state-subsidized homeownership is intended to provide poor people with an asset that can be used in a productive manner. In this article the South African "housing subsidy system" is assessed using quantitative and qualitative data from in-depth research in a state-subsidized housing settlement in the city of Cape Town. The findings show that while state-subsidized property ownership provides long-term shelter and tenure security to low-income households, houses have mixed value as a financial asset. Although state-subsidized houses in South Africa are a financially tradable asset, transaction values are too low for low-income vendors to reach the next rung on the housing ladder, the township market. Furthermore, low-income homeowners are reticent to use their (typically primary) asset as collateral security for credit, and thus property ownership is not providing the financial returns that titling theories assume.     

Charity shops on the high street: complementarity or unwanted neighbour?

Within the last ten years there has been substantial growth of the charity retailing sector. This increased retail presence and sophistication of marketing practices have led to the contention by mainstream retailers that charity shops, which enjoy specific fiscal arrangements, have an unfair competitive advantage. Utilising evidence from a range of town centre locations, this paper examines whether this allegation can be substantiated. Three sources of primary research are used: the profile of charity shops within a town centre context; the attitudes and perceptions of mainstream retailers and their organisational bodies; and finally, the perspective of town centre managers towards charity retailing. Analysis and subsequent discussion suggests that charity retailers can perform a complementary role within town centres, thus reducing the potential of conflict with mainstream retailing. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications     

Influence of economic crisis on new SME survival: reality or fiction?

The aim of this research was to analyse the survival of new ventures during periods of economic crisis. The article compares survival probability during growth and crisis periods. An empirical study was used to analyse new venture survival probability. Results show that new firms have a greater likelihood of surviving during crisis periods than they do during growth periods. An additional aim of the study was to analyse the survival probability of opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs during crisis periods. Results show that gaps in survival likelihood between opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship are bigger during times of crisis than they are during growth periods.     

Which Has Stronger Impacts on Regional Segregation: Industrial Agglomeration or Ethnolinguistic Clustering?

Abstract

We investigate how regional segregation patterns are affected by industrial agglomeration and ethnic clustering, by adding the externality of ethnicity to the model of agglomeration and trade proposed by Ottaviano et al. (2002. Agglomeration and trade revisited, International Economic Review, 43, 409–436). We show that ethnic segregation patterns are persistent, while ethnic mixing distribution appears only when trade costs are intermediate and ethnicity clustering preferences are less intense. Further, discrepancies of the social optimum and equilibrium are caused because the social optimum is less sensitive to a change in trade costs, when the population of farmers (immobile factors affecting ethnicity utilities) is sufficiently large.     

The state: Agent or proprietor?

This paper addresses the following question: Does characterizing the state to be an agent of its citizens provide a useful "as if" framework for positive analysis of economic policy? Or, can we understand economic policy only by explicitly characterizing the state as proprietary, the instrument of the ruling elite?     

Hirschman's loyalty: Attitude or behavior?

Over the past two decades there has been much controversy over what Hirschman intended by the term loyalty in his bookExit, Voice, and Loyalty. Some have interpreted Hirschman's loyalty as an attitude that deters exit and promotes voice. Others have interpreted Hirschman's loyalty as a distinct behavior, like exit and voice, that results from dissatisfaction. This article examines both views of loyalty simultaneously. First, comprehensive and reliable scales to measure the behavioral responses to dissatisfaction are developed. Second, the relationship between loyalty and the behavioral responses to dissatisfaction are examined. Results of this research indicate that both interpretations are important and together help us better understand how employees behave when they are dissatisfied.     

黎瑞刚:All in or NOT?

黎瑞刚这次的职务变动再次成为大家关注的焦点。近日,上海市人民政府发布了关于上海文化广播影视集团有限公司人事任免通知,免去黎瑞刚总裁职务,任命王建军为上海文化广播影视集团有限公司总裁。消息一出,众人哗然。黎瑞刚对此表示,他的职务调整是实至名归。黎瑞刚曾任上海文广新闻传媒集团总裁、上海第一财经传媒有限公司董事长。2002年10月,出任上海文广新闻传媒集团(SMG)总裁后,他一手主导了SMG的体制内改革,被媒体认为是体制内最像企业家的台长,在熟悉他的     

Workfare: Servitude or success formula?

Neither welfare nor workfare is much of a choice. But workfare leads to real choices, freedom, and autonomy. Welfare represents the state's acceptance of its duties to honor the welfare claim rights of those citizens in real need of temporary public assistance. In contrast, workfare recognizes additional claim-rights, namely, those that enable full agency and autonomy through education for employment, with a view toward ensuring that the dependency period is indeed temporary. Critics of workfare cannot be unaware of the educational resources—especially those of open-access community colleges, open days, evenings and weekends—that taxpayers have put at the disposal of everyone who is at all serious about self-improvement.     

Institutional convergence: exit or voice?

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of economic freedom. This paper contributes to this literature in two ways. First, it is empirically shown that β-convergence in economic freedom occurred from 1980 to 2010. Countries with low levels of economic freedom in 1980 “catch up” at a rate of 0.7 percent a year on average, ceteris paribus. Second, the structural characteristics that contribute to this institutional convergence are documented. Conditional convergence estimates suggest democratic institutions do not con- tribute to conditional convergence. Exitability, a variable that captures how easy it is for citizens to “vote with their feet” is related to the change in economic freedom from 1980 to 2010 in a statistically significant manner across all specifications. This provides some preliminary evidence as to the importance of “exit” versus “voice” with respect to the question of institutional change.     

Treasury auctions: Uniform or discriminatory?

There has been much discussion of the relative merits of selling government bonds using a uniform-price auction rather than the traditional discriminatory-price auction. Arguments in favor of the former have won the day in respect of the newly instituted auctions of index-linked bonds in the USA and UK. This short paper assesses the evidence and concludes that the advantages of uniform-price auctions have been oversold. Received: 28 May 1999 / Accepted: 27 September 1999     

Job creation and labour market flexibility: miracle or mirage on the Polish labour market?

Poland's post‐communist economic performance has been generally good. However, for many years, its growth was jobless; it exhibited very high unemployment rates and made little progress towards the targets set for EU Member States and accession countries. Unexpectedly, in 2003, the country's labour market began to exhibit a new dynamism, with employment growing strongly and unemployment tumbling. This apparent improvement coincided with a liberalisation of its Labour Code. Unfortunately, the measures introduced to increase flexibility are at variance with the EU's Fixed‐term Work Directive and will likely need to be modified, which may conceivably reverse the recent developments that form the focus of this article.     

The impact of initial public offerings on innovations: Short-termism or initial governance force exit?

We study the impact of initial public offerings (IPOs) on corporate innovations in China. The findings suggest that going public significantly impedes corporate innovations by lowering overall innovation quality. For firms with shareholders selling or pledging less shares after IPO, the number of patents increases, but the nonself-citations per patent decrease relative to matched non-IPO firms. In contrast, for firms with shareholders selling or pledging more shares after IPOs, both the number of patents and nonself-citations per patent decrease. The magnitudes of impact in the latter are stronger than those of former, supporting the initial governance force exit hypothesis.