POLITICAL PROCESS AND THE FORMATION OF ECONOMIC POLICY

Institutional economics has some useful things to say about government policy-forming processes. It focuses attention on the structural components of government institutions which shape the direction of policy formation and its delivery. In this article, the author discusses how institutional models of government decision-making may be adapted to parliamentary systems of government. This approach has some merit because it rescues analysis of government processes from models based on the US constitutional system.     

Estimation of sons' intergenerational earnings mobility in the presence of censoring

Based on intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I provide estimates of income mobility across generations for men. Special attention is paid to issues of censoring caused by a son's unemployment. Employing non‐parametric bounds estimates, I illustrate that previous income mobility estimates rely heavily on (unjustified) assumptions of exogenous selection. Assuming a son's potential income is instead a function of his reason for unemployment and work history, I re‐estimate mobility. Allowing for sampling variability, the range of feasible slopes consistent with these modified bounds restrictions is 0.27 to 0.55. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐help in housing and chengzhongcun in China's urbanization

This article focuses on the housing issues of rural migrants arising from urbanization, with particular reference to chengzhongcun, a topic with considerable impact on policymaking. An attempt is made to understand the underlying rationale of self‐help in housing and the important role of chengzhongcun in sheltering rural migrants in the context of China's rural‐urban dichotomy. As demonstrated in this study, chengzhongcun accommodate, with little in the way of government resources and assistance, millions of rural migrants because of their social accessibility and affordability. While not denying their social problems, we argue that chengzhongcun in fact act as an innovative and positive agent to promote urbanization in present day China by housing massive numbers of rural migrants and assimilating them into cities. Current government policies towards chengzhongcun have generated a wide range of interest conflicts and confrontations. The consequences of such conflicts show that the government policies were problematic and unworkable, as they violated basic market principles as well as citizen rights. Policy strategy towards the redevelopment of chengzhongcun must acknowledge their credibility in the Chinese road to urbanization and requires more thoughtful and prudent consideration of migrants' demands for affordable housing.     

Role transitions in older adults: A marketing opportunity

Consumers act out roles throughout their lives. Marketers assist in this role playing by providing the wardrobes, props, and sets in the form of products and services. They also help people understand acceptable role behavior by portraying roles in their communication programs. Consumers assume new roles as they age. This article is designed to enhance understanding of the often-ignored roles that accompany aging and provides examples of and suggestions for effective marketing for these role transitions.     

'Technoscience' Education: Empowering Citizens Against the Tyranny of School Science

The status quo for school science and technology is unacceptable. While the former often is required for admission to university engineering, as well as to science programmes, the latter is deemed most appropriate for less able, concrete thinkers. This situation persists, despite the fact school science tends to generate large groups of citizens who are relatively scientifically and technologically illiterate, largely as a result of its preoccupation with identifying and training potential scientists and engineers. This practice is tyrannical. It must be abandoned forthwith. A realistic alternative is a combined technology and science programme – perhaps called 'technoscience' education – that would treat science and technology as equals. Such courses may, as well, be more democratic in the sense that technological problem solving often is more natural to everyday situations that everyone may find useful, not just future scientists or engineers. A framework for combined technology and science courses is described and defended here. Originally developed through collaborative action research amongst practising teachers of science, the approach appears to be feasible, under certain – perhaps ideal – conditions. A number of changes to science and technology education may be necessary for broader implementation, not the least of which is a general retrenchment in expectations for pre-determined learning, along with adjustments to teacher education. Nevertheless, the approach is recommended because of its emphasis on: personalization, inclusion, problematization, explicitness, apprenticeship, authenticity, contextualization and freedom. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Internal labour markets in the Australian banking industry: their nature prior to the Second World War and their recent decline

This paper uses evidence from late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century personnel records of two Australian banks to examine the nature of internal labour markets prior to the Second World War. It is argued that the industry possessed all the classic features of internal labour markets: limited ports of entry, internal promotion, long careers, and assignment of wages by well-defined rules. The paper then examines the reasons why banks adopted internal labour markets. Finally, the paper examines the recent decline of internal labour markets and examines the role of technological and social changes in this decline.     

Technical Efficiency Estimates of Scottish Agriculture: A Note

Within the UK there has been a lack of studies of technical efficiency at the Scottish level. This note compares the results obtained using Scottish data with a recent study by Hadley [Journal of Agricultural Economics (2006) Vol. 57, pp. 81–100] for English and Welsh farms. Four major sectors are investigated, namely: (i) cereals, (ii) dairy, (iii) sheep and (iv) beef over the period 1989 to 2004. Some distinct differences in efficiencies, returns to scale and causes of efficiency are found.