The care-less marketplace: exclusion as affective inequality

ABSTRACT

The care-less marketplace is a discrete site which reinforces structural inequality in the affective domain of life. Drawing on the work of pro-care feminist theory, this empirical paper explores marketplace exclusion from the perspective of economic disadvantage and its impact on relations of love, care and solidarity. Adopting a voice-centred-relational approach, this interpretative study examines the narrative accounts of a diverse group of women living in diverse poverty contexts. Articulating marketplace exclusion as a series of affective burdens, material struggles and disconnections embedded within the relational web of family, friends and community – these experiences mirror participants’ imposed exclusion in the marketplace due to chronic economic hardship. Through the diffusion of an alternative theoretical lens, affective inequality surfaces the importance of care and how it is often most visible in the lives of vulnerable consumers when it is absent or broken.     

How do European firms adjust their labour costs when nominal wages are rigid?

Although workers' nominal wages are seldom cut, firms have multiple options available if they require adjustments in their wage bills. We broaden the analysis of relative (in)flexibility in labour costs by investigating the use of other margins of labour cost adjustment at the firm level beyond base wages. Using data from a unique survey, we find that European firms make extensive use of other components of compensation to adjust the cost of labour. Interestingly, firms facing base wage rigidity are more likely to use alternative margins of labour cost adjustment; therefore there appears to be some degree of substitutability between wage flexibility and the flexibility of other cost components. Changes in bonuses and non-pay benefits are some of the potential margins firms use to reduce costs. We also show how the margins of adjustment chosen are affected by unionisation and firm and worker characteristics.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Zum Lachen auf die Station gehen</Emphasis>

Das kann ja heiter werden — Schlauchender Schichtdienst, Krach mit der Kollegin und zuhause tanzen die M?use Tarantella. Wer dabei gelassen und fr?hlich bleibt, wei? wahrscheinlich, dass Lachen die beste Medizin gegen Stress ist. Ein Pl?doyer dafür, Humor im Pflegedienst viel ernster zu nehmen.     

Neither passive nor powerless: reframing economic vulnerability via resilient pathways

ABSTRACT

Resilience, as an emerging construct within the contemporary field of consumer vulnerability, has received limited empirical attention within the context of economic adversity. This paper examines how low-income women strive to reframe their relationship to the market via resilient pathways. It establishes how through active agency, self-care practices and relational coping, women maximise care of self and care of others with limited economic means. Comprised of multidimensional coping resources for positive adaptation, resilient pathways offer vulnerable consumers distinct trajectories to well-being and overturn deficit-focused views about how those facing chronic economic disadvantage, (re)assert themselves in vulnerable consumption contexts.     

Testing the trade credit and trade link: evidence from data on export credit insurance

Trade finance has received special attention during the financial crisis as one of the potential culprits for the great trade collapse. Several researchers have used micro level data to establish the link between trade finance and trade, especially so during the financial crisis, and have found diverting results. This paper analyses the effect of trade credit on trade on a macro level through a whole cycle. We employ Berne Union data on export credit insurance, the most extensive dataset on trade credits available at the moment, for the period of 2005–2011. Using an instrumentation strategy we can identify a significantly positive effect of insured trade credit, as a proxy for trade credits, on trade. The effect of insured trade credit on trade is very strong and remains stable over the cycle, not varying between crisis and non-crisis periods.     

Early Tracking and the Misfortune of Being Young

Recent research suggests that the relative age of a student within a grade has a causal effect on educational achievement, and that this effect fades with the duration of schooling. In this study, we estimate the causal relative‐age effect on track choice in Austria, a country where students are first tracked in grade 5 (at the age of 10 years), and again in grade 9. We find a strong positive relative‐age effect on track choice in grades 5–8. The age effect persists beyond grade 8 for students from less‐favorable socioeconomic backgrounds and students in urban areas.     

On Two Existing Approaches to Statistical Analysis of Social Media Data

Using social media data for statistical analysis of general population faces commonly two basic obstacles: firstly, social media data are collected for different objects than the population units of interest; secondly, the relevant measures are typically not available directly but need to be extracted by algorithms or machine learning techniques. In this paper, we examine and summarise two existing approaches to statistical analysis based on social media data, which can be discerned in the literature. In the first approach, analysis is applied to the social media data that are organised around the objects directly observed in the data; in the second one, a different analysis is applied to a constructed pseudo survey dataset, aimed to transform the observed social media data to a set of units from the target population. We elaborate systematically the relevant data quality frameworks, exemplify their applications and highlight some typical challenges associated with social media data.     

Retirement and Healthy Eating

This paper investigates the effect of retirement on healthy eating using data drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We estimate the causal effect of retiring from work on daily fruit or vegetable consumption by exploiting policy changes in eligibility rules for early and statutory retirement. Our results show that changes in eating behaviour upon retirement are gender-specific: retirement induces men to reduce healthy eating; it has no effect on women. We further show that, for men, retirement increases the probability of becoming obese.     

How dynamic can organizational capabilities be? Towards a dual‐process model of capability dynamization

The recent discussion in the field of strategic management broadly favors the idea of dynamic capabilities in order to overcome potential rigidities of organizational capability building. The major question addressed in this paper is whether capabilities can actually be conceived as being in flux—and if so, to what extent and in which way? After briefly recapitulating the distinguishing features of organizational capabilities, path dependency, structural inertia, and commitment are identified as the main capability‐rigidity drivers causing a managerial dilemma. In the search for a resolution of this dilemma different approaches of dynamic capabilities are identified and discussed. The analysis shows that the approaches suffer from inherent conceptual contradictions: the dynamization runs the risk of dissolving the original idea and strength of organizational capability building. Ultimately, capabilities would lose the strategic power attributed to them in the resource‐based view. The last section of this paper therefore aims to develop an alternative approach, which aims at preserving the original merits of organizational capability and solving the rigidity issue not by integrating a dynamic dimension into the capability construct but rather by establishing a separate function (‘capability monitoring’). The suggestions mount up to a tier solution. Its logic builds on the dynamics of countervailing processes and second‐level observation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Key study of bank accounts for young people with using multi-criteria optimization and fuzzy analysis

Using multi-criteria optimization and fuzzy analysis this article aims to select the most suitable bank account for young people. Two scientific questions are asked: Is the same type of student account suitable for an active as well as an inactive client? Are there any free of charge student accounts?

The first part focuses on the introduction to the topic, a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of student accounts and modelling of two target groups. The second part describes the methodology of decision-making by using a fuzzy set theory. Selection of the optimum student account will be made by the transformation matrix. Subsequently, the retransformation matrix is set. The most suitable student accounts are again selected for each profile and the results are compared with the analysis in the first part. To complete the solution, the last part of the article focuses on decision-making with the uncertainty of input information. Due to ignorance of their own monthly needs and the number of payments, fuzzy sets are used. In addition to the active and passive client, a third profile will be newly created and can be identified with some of the profiles to a certain extent.