When the public good conflicts with an apparent preference for unsustainable behaviour

The example of peatlands is used to demonstrate the challenges facing the sustainable management of natural resources in situations where the fragility of an environment is not appreciated by all stakeholders. We reveal, through the use of a survey applying both contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments, that many local people and others within the wider population, value peatlands as an example of a cultural landscape. However, there is a reluctance to stop extracting peat for domestic fuel even though the activity is undermining the ecological sustainability of this same landscape. This resistance is shown to arise because the cutting of peat is a well-established land use and a cessation of peat cutting is perceived to require the abandonment of traditional rights. In addition, the activity is widely regarded as more benign than industrial scale cutting for energy. The value attached to the landscape is an opportunity for conservation policy, but for this to succeed there must be an acknowledgement of local interests.     

Rethinking Trade Preferences: How Africa Can Diversify its Exports

This paper argues that the contribution of trade preferences to economic development needs to be reappraised in light of the growth of globalised trade in manufactures. Trade preferences may be able to act as a catalyst for manufacturing exports, leading to rapid growth in exports and employment. To do so, preferences need to be designed to be consistent with international trade in fragmented ‘tasks’ (as opposed to complete products) and need to be open to countries with sufficient levels of complementary inputs such as skills and infrastructure. Recent experience with the African Growth and Opportunities Act shows that, in the right conditions, Sub‐Saharan African countries have had large manufacturing export supply response to trade preferences.     

On Kin Groups and Wages in the Ghanaian Labour Market

A common feature of African societies is that individuals belong to kin groups which impose reciprocal obligations upon their members. In the modern economy, where large scale production is required, forms must employ multiple kin groups. In such cases kin groups will try to favour their own members in the assignment of good jobs. We analyze the effects of kin group patronage in the modern sector. We set out a model in which kin group favouritism is shown to give rise to a wage premium for the largest kin group. We then use an unusually rich data set from Ghana to test for kin group favouritism, empirically distinguishing it from 'taste for discrimination'. We find that in the private sector there is no evidence for kin group patronage and earning functions (corrected for selection into the various sectors) reveal that workers are paid according to their human capital attributes. By contrast, public sector workers are rewarded for their credentials and membership of the right kin group, not for their productive characteristics. The kin group premium is about 25 percent and is statistically robust to alternative specifications.     

Corporate social responsibility and employee commitment

Effective corporate social responsibility policies are a requirement for today's companies. Policies have not only to be formulated, they also have to be delivered by corporate employees. This paper uses existing research findings to identify two types of factors that may impact on employee motivation and commitment to CSR 'buy-in'. The first of these is contextual: employee attitudes and behaviours will be affected by organizational culture and climate, by whether CSR policies are couched in terms of compliance or in terms of values, and by whether such policies are integrated into business processes or simply an 'add-on' that serves as window-dressing. The second set of factors is perceptual. Motivation and commitment will be affected by the extent to which they can align personal identity and image with that of the organization, by their perceptions of justice and fairness both in general and in terms of how CSR performance is rewarded, and by their impressions concerning the attitude of top management to CSR issues and performance.     

Risk Sharing in Labor Markets

Empirical work in labor economics has focused on rent sharingas an explanation for the observed correlation between wagesand profitability. The alternative explanation of risk sharingbetween workers and employers has not been tested. Using a uniquepanel data set for four African countries, we find strong evidenceof risk sharing. Workers in effect offer insurance to employers:when firms are hit by temporary shocks, the effect on profitsis cushioned by risk sharing with workers. Rent sharing is asymptom of an inefficient labor market. Risk sharing, by contrast,can be seen as an efficient response to missing markets. Ourevidence suggests that risk sharing accounts for a substantialpart of the observed effect of shocks on wages.     

Aid allocation and poverty reduction

This paper derives a poverty-efficient allocation of aid and compares it with actual aid allocations. The allocation of aid that has the maximum effect on poverty depends on the level of poverty and the quality of policies. Using the headcount, poverty-gap, and squared poverty gap measures of poverty, alternatively, all yield similar poverty-efficient allocations. Finally, we find that the actual allocation of aid is radically different from the poverty-efficient allocation. With the present allocation, aid lifts around 10 million people annually out of poverty in our sample of countries. With a poverty-efficient allocation, the productivity of aid would nearly double.     

INCASE: SIMULATING EXPERIENCE TO ACCELERATE EXPERTISE DEVELOPMENT BY KNOWLEDGE WORKERS

INCASE, a web‐based electronic learning (e‐learning) environment, has been built to enable rapid expertise development in novice‐level professional knowledge workers. This paper describes the theoretical underpinnings (constructivist epistemology) behind INCASE and uses a design science methodology to describe its design, construction, instantiation, and validation. The INCASE system addresses a fundamental problem in knowledge worker domains where experience is a necessary component of expertise development and a barrier to the rapid development of domain experts. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.