Charity box collection schemes: The retailers' view

Most UK charities, both national and local, place boxes in outlets such as shops, bars, cafés, filling stations, banks and building societies. Usually the box is placed by a representative of the charity visiting the potential site and inviting whoever is on duty to accept the box. This research sampled 2,308 UK retailers in order to determine their perceptions of the boxes held on their premises, the number of boxes held, their location and security. From the responses to the survey the authors discuss the distribution of boxes over different retail types and analyse retailers perceptions.     

An investigation into sexual orientation discrimination as an explanation for wage differences

This study explores the effects of sexual orientation on earnings. It is found that, ceteris paribus, men living with male partners tend to earn less than other men, and women living with female partners tend to earn more than other women. These earnings differentials tend to vary by region. They also vary by education and occupation for men, and with the presence of minor children for women. In addition, the age-earnings profiles of women living with female partners tend to be higher, flatter, and less concave than those of other women.     

Publicly Provided Goods and Intrafamily Resource Allocation: Female Child Survival in India

The paper examines the problem of excess mortality of females in India. The determinants of gender–specific child survival are investigated through the traditional household production model pioneered by Becker, which is extended to include publicly provided goods as fixed inputs in production decisions. The introduction of government–provided goods provides an avenue for investigating the influence of the state on household decisions. Gender–specific child survival equations are estimated using a robust "seemingly unrelated regression" method. Results using 1981 Indian Census data indicate that increases in female literacy and female labor force participation increase female child survival in rural India. Furthermore, higher ratios of female to male medical technicians are associated with higher female child survival relative to males. This paper demonstrates that a large and effective role exists for government to address excess female morality.     

Delisting from EU HACCP certification: Analysis of the Philippine seafood processing industry

This paper employs firm level benefit-cost and supply chain analyses to explore the reasons why a majority of Philippine seafood processing firms discontinued EU HACCP between 2004 and 2005. Results indicate that only 38% of firms remained certified, as they gained significantly from retention of EU markets, gained access to US markets, captured new buyers, and reduced product wastage. However, 62% of the initially certified firms abandoned certification, as they did not realize most of the anticipated benefits from certification and continuing certification was not economically viable. Delisting by some processors led to profit losses among their raw fish and input suppliers amounting to $4–6 million per year, representing approximately 6–9% of the value of Philippine seafood exports to the EU and mainly affecting small aquaculture fish suppliers.     

Myth-busting and entrepreneurship policy: the case of high growth firms

Abstract

Promoting high growth firms (HGFs) has become a strong fixation within enterprise policy. This is a debate article seeking to examine and challenge the mythology perpetuated by policy makers and embedded within high growth entrepreneurship policy frameworks. Within the article we argue that a number of distinctive ‘myths’ have become deeply embedded within these policy frameworks. Such myths have been built on misconceived preconceptions of HGFs, which has resulted in policy-makers taking a myopic view of these firms. A key aim of the paper is to highlight how false perceptions of HGFs translate into inappropriate policy interventions. The paper challenges some of the most commonly held myths about these firms (that they are predominantly young, small, high-tech, VC-backed, university spin-outs, who grow in an orderly organic fashion, operating similarly irrespective of location) and identifies a clear mismatch between how policy makers perceive HGFs and what they actually look like in reality. Suggestions for the design of future policy approaches are forwarded.     

Animating the Urban Vortex: New Sociological Urgencies

The current era of global urbanization is defined by a convergence of economic and political crises requiring urgent sociological reflection on the meaning of the ‘urban' today. This article responds to the current rethinking of worldwide processes of urbanization sparked off by Brenner, and Brenner and Schmid, arguing for a renewed sociological approach to urban formations that probes beyond the economic logic of urban ‘de‐territorialization', towards the capricious life‐worlds and forms of planetary organization that define the urban. We pursue a theory of the ‘urban vortex' to capture the maelstrom of disorienting crises since 2008, and explicate the social formations implicated in the construction, materialization and practice of power and transgression in cities today. Our aim is to consider what forms of social change emerge in volatile, intense and centralized dynamics (the urban vortex), and how this might relate to arrangements of interconnectivity, particularity and variegation (the planetary). The article highlights three prominent processes of urban social formation: accumulation, stratification and hyper‐diversity—reinstating the need to theorize the centrality of the city within the formations of twenty‐first century capitalism.     

Consumption externalities, rental markets and purchase clubs

Summary. A premise of general equilibrium theory is that private goods are rival. Nevertheless, many private goods are shared, e.g., through borrowing, through co-ownership, or simply because one persons consumption affects another persons wellbeing. I analyze consumption externalities from the perspective of club theory, and argue that, provided consumption externalities are limited in scope, they can be internalized through membership fees to groups. Two important applications are to rental markets and purchase clubs, in which members share the goods that they have individually purchased.Received: 2 June 2003, Revised: 8 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D11, D62.This paper was supported by the U.C., Berkeley Committee on Research, and the Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen. I am grateful to Birgit Grodal for her collaboration on the theory that underlies this paper, and for her helpful and motivating comments about these particular extensions. I also thank Hal Varian, Doug Lichtman, Steve Goldman, Karl Vind, anonymous referees, and members of the Berkeley Microeconomics Seminar for discussion.     

Constitutional Rules of Exclusion in Jurisdiction Formation

The rules under which jurisdictions (nations, provinces) can deny immigration or expel residents are generally governed by a constitution, but there do not exist either positive or normative analyses to suggest what types of exclusion rules are best. We stylize this problem by suggesting four constitutional rules of admission: free mobility, admission by majority vote, admission by unanimous consent, admission by a demand threshold for public goods. In a simple model we characterize the equilibria that result from these rules, and provide a positive theory for which constitutional rules will be chosen.