Guatemalan tourism and the efficacy of wage employment in Panajachel

Although tourism's apparent financial benefit to the Guatemalan economy in terms of earning foreign exchange is well known, there has been little micro-economic research done on how the country's third largest export industry affects individual communities. Therefore, this study compares price and wage data to provide initial leads on how tourism affects the food purchasing power of wage earners in the developing tourist community of Panajachel. Research shows that between 1964 and 1978, tourist-industry demands on local food supplies helped inflate food prices far above wage increases, and contributed to a wage laborer's loss of food-purchasing power. Thus in most cases, wage-labor employment in Panajachel is not efficacious in terms of maintaining or increasing the ability to purchase food.     

Current accounts of Japanese airports

The paper examines the current account of 41 major airports. When we exclude depreciation costs, only seven airports are profitable. When depreciation is excluded, only three airports are making profits. Airports managed by local governments are very difficult to sustain financially without subsidies. Airports with more than 5.2 million passengers are profitable when depreciation is taken into account, however most local airports have fewer than 2.5 million passengers. When depreciation costs are excluded, airports need at least 2.7 million passengers to be viable.     

Long-range strategic planning in Japanese R and D

Until the early 1970s Japanese industry did not employ strategic corporate planning. Rather, a working textbook setting out national industrialization goals provided the basis for government and industrial policy, and its influence persists. Through a historical analysis this article traces the development in the past decade of long-range strategic planning in Japanese R and D, and identifies the distinction between ‘leader’ countries (such as the USA) and ‘follower’ countries (like Japan) as being more vital to understanding Japanese industrial policy/structure and corporate strategy, than cultural factors.     

Is the Government Failure Theory Still Relevant? A panel analysis using US state level data

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the robustness of the government failure theory. A core feature of the government failure theory is demand heterogeneity. Previous studies have brought into question the robustness of the government failure theory, due to inconsistent results concerning the explanatory power of demand heterogeneity. Therefore, in this paper we revisit this important research agenda using US state level panel data. We find the two‐way fixed effects model a suitable model for testing the government failure theory's robustness and present findings which indicate that observable demand heterogeneity has a positive effect on the size of the nonprofit sector. This paper also empirically examines the relevance of the complementary financing hypothesis in terms of the cooperative nature of the governmental and nonprofit sector relationship; that is where governments delegate the production of quasi‐public goods to the nonprofit sector.     

Performative Achievement of Routine Recognizability: An Analysis of Order Taking Routines at Sushi Bars

The concept of performativity, a central theme in routine dynamics research, suggests that a routine does not first exist as a recognizable phenomenon, and then actions are taken subsequently. On the contrary, actions themselves need to achieve the recognizability of the routine. This paper revisits recognizability in light of routine interdependence and materiality. Focusing on order taking routines at sushi bars, the analysis reveals that participants constantly achieve the beginning of a routine performance by drawing on performances of other routines and materiality, both of which are seemingly unrelated to the focal routine. Prior to routine initiation, much material and embodied work is conducted in order to make the routine recognizable. Once initiated, the routine performance makes subtle use of materiality, allowing participants to engage in a seemingly unrelated routine while they remain subordinately attentive to the focal routine. While a routine appears to exist on its own once it is recognized, the achievement of this recognition relies largely on factors that are not part of the routine.     

Employment Systems in Japan's Financial Industry: Globalization,Growing Divergence and Institutional Change

This article examines growing divergence and change in the employment systems of Japan's financial industry from the early 1990s until shortly after the so‐called Lehman Shock. This was a period which saw accelerated deregulation and globalization strongly impact the country's financial markets, leading to intensified competition over human resources. Foreign multinational corporations introduced into Japan's local product and labour markets new global ‘rules of the game’; in response, some native firms were forced to alter core aspects of a traditional employment model. The result was the emergence of diverging patterns of employment. The present study will demonstrate that the interaction of two key factors — national ownership and variation among core products and services offered — is shaping employment diversification, mediated by firms’ individual policies and practices. This research contributes to the debate on the effects of globalization on the divergence and change of employment systems.     

Rice productivity improvement in Cambodia through the application of technical recommendation in a farmer field school

Innovation in rice (Oryza sativa) productivity improvement is a major goal for rice research. However, many studies have tended to analyse the various factors that affect productivity separately, while farmers invest their scare resources in farm inputs that impact on multiple factors in the real farm. This study assessed the effectiveness of integrated pest management practised during farmer field school (FFS) training in Cambodia on the production efficiencies, yields and profitability of rice farming. In total, 270 FFSs on rice cultivated in the early wet, wet and dry seasons were randomly selected from three provinces in 3 years to analyse the production practices and productivity using six cost-related factors: seed, planting methods, field management, fertilizer use, pesticide application and harvesting. It was found that yields and profits were significantly higher with the technically recommended practices (TRs) than with traditional farmer practices (FPs). However, the reverse was true for production costs due to the overuse of seed and pesticides in FP, neither of which are correlated with yield increase for both FP and TR. Thus, the FFS approach is a knowledge-intensive field management tool that enables the rational use of farm inputs and that is expected to be highly effective for sustainable rice production improvement.     

Rising wages,mechanization, and the substitution between capital and labor: evidence from small scale farm system in China

This article aims to investigate major factors that led to the observed pace of mechanization and the substitution between labor and machines in rural China. We used commodity‐wise province‐level panel data for more than a quarter of a century from 1984 to 2012. The analysis demonstrated a dramatic increase in real agricultural wages in recent years, especially after 2003, in contrast to a relatively stable real machine price. The relative price of machines against agricultural labor has declined in an accelerating way, which contributed to the observed rapid introduction of machines. The elasticity of substitution between labor and machines was large in some commodities, which contributed to a fast substitution of labor by machines.     

Innovation responses of Japanese firms to Chinese import competition

This paper examines innovation responses of a panel of Japanese firms to the intensified import competition from China in the period 1995–2005. We build a comprehensive firm-level dataset linking patents and R&D merged to cross-industry measures of Chinese import competition. Accounting for a simultaneity bias between innovation and importing and the possible heterogeneous effects across firms, we found that patenting has increased in response to an influx of Chinese imports, but it has adversely affected the quality of innovation, measured by forward citations received. These effects are only observed for globally engaged firms, not for firms focusing on the domestic market.