Poverty, Inequality And Ethnicity: A Note to Policy Makers on Latin America

During 2005 the international policy agenda, including that of the EU, has come to include the fight against global poverty. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have catalysed the interest of policy makers, public and media in poverty reduction, partly because of the simplicity and ease of communication of the 'one-dollar-a-day' income target for poverty reduction. However, there is more to poverty reduction than reaching the one-dollar-a-day threshold: other MDG indicators which matter are the poverty gap ratio and the share of the poorest 20 per cent in national consumption - because they are indicators not just of poverty but of inequality. Of the major regions of the world, inequality is greatest in Latin America. At a time when the focus of attention is on poverty reduction in Africa and Asia, it is important that Latin America should not fall off the poverty map. The high levels of inequality associated with Latin American poverty are politically and socially divisive, particularly because of the disproportionately high ethnic representation among the poorest. Because of the geographic, cultural, social, demographic context, such poverty is highly intractable. For reasons of equity, therefore, EU researchers and policymakers need to retain a broad view of the poverty-reduction agenda.     

Severance Payment: Incentive or Lethargy Effect?

The aim of the paper is to determine the impact of severance payment on the motivation of the worker to make an effort, when there is a risk for him to be dismissed once his effort was made. We highlight through a two‐stage model the various factors which influence the dismissal decision by the firm and the worker's effort, such as the initial wage, the litigation costs and the relative bargaining powers of the parties when the relationship ends or goes on. In this context, we show that the impact of the severance payment paid ex post in case of dismissal on the level of effort chosen by the worker ex ante may depend on such characteristics.     

The political economy of roll-call voting in the “multi-party” congress of the United States

The Congress of the United States can be characterized as a “multi-party” system where each legislator has a unique position on a liberal-conservative dimension. This dimension correctly classifies over 80 percent of individual roll-call votes. Previous attempts to explain roll-call voting by economic characteristics of constituencies have not been developed within a spatial model of choice. Within the context of a spatial model, constituency characteristics representing state “averages” do not succeed as explanatory variables and add little, if anything, to the explanatory power of liberal-conservative position. This point is documented by the analysis of 568 Senate roll calls for 1977 and a specific set of coal strip-mine roll calls previously analyzed by Kalt and Zupan.     

The Credit Crunch of 2007–08: Lessons Private and Public

The current financial crisis has much in common with past crises. Poor investment strategies with respect to risk as well as poor evaluation have contributed to the current crisis. This paper presents the lessons to be learned by the private and public sectors. Why do crises keep happening? Mismatch of assets—long-term liabilities offset by short-term assets—can be profitable but is risky, and robust strategies must be able to cope with the risk. A number of measures can and should be taken by private financial entities for their own sake as well as that of the entire financial system. With respect to the public sector, one should be wary of expanding the role of regulation. What should be done, however, is to make sure that public policies are pursued through on-budget spending and taxation rather than through off-budget initiatives, such as encouraging government-sponsored enterprises to accumulate subprime debt in order to further public policy objectives. It would also be useful to reduce overall levels of private debt by reducing tax incentives to borrow.     

Stuck in a rut: emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru and the factors that influence their performance

Agri-cooperatives play an important role in helping resource-poor farmers reach high-value markets. In addition to linking smallholders to markets, cooperatives provide their members with various services, such as extension, credit, input subsidies, and social programmes. While the literature contains many examples of success, there has been limited discussion on the often long and turbulent process by which cooperatives develop over time and the viable options for shortcuts. This study examines four emerging cocoa cooperatives in Peru to determine their overall business viability, the key factors that advanced their development, and their capacity to address the needs of their members. Our findings suggest that strategies for supporting cooperative development have largely failed to address major internal weaknesses and the challenges posed in the external environment. The cooperatives have received time-bound, uncoordinated, and often small-scale, interventions, which have focused on infrastructure expansion and technical assistance. Important areas related to business management and governance structures, trust relationships with buyers, and sufficient working capital have largely been ignored. Shortcuts may be achieved through improvements in access to business development and financial services, deeper engagement by private sector to support the development process, and commitment by stakeholders to monitoring and critical reflection for strategy refinement.     

Transfer of marketing knowledge to Catholic primary schools

While the role and importance of marketing have grown in nonprofit organizations, marketing knowledge in nonprofit education organizations, specifically primary schools, is sparse. This paper reports the research findings of an exploratory study designed to examine the transfer of marketing knowledge to Catholic primary schools. It identifies and explores what school leaders know about marketing, how they acquire that knowledge, and what factors contribute to or impede its development. Qualitative data gathered from Catholic school educational leaders reveal that while marketing is viewed in schools as an important management function, marketing knowledge is slow to transfer. Findings reveal that marketing knowledge is primarily developed unintentionally, as a result of trial and error, and that a lack of formal marketing training results in a heavy dependence on volunteers. Findings also indicate that school leaders have minimal autonomy under the Diocese, which, along with economic, cultural, and structural barriers, functions to limit marketing knowledge development. It was also found that, although cross‐sector cooperation is desired among educational leaders, it is not pursued, further limiting the transfer of marketing knowledge. Theoretical and managerial implications for resource‐strapped primary schools in competitive environments are discussed.     

Aircraft routing under different business processes

Given a set of scheduled flights that must be operated by the same aircraft type, the aircraft routing problem consists of building anonymous aircraft routes that respect maintenance requirements and cover each flight exactly once. This paper looks at the nature of the problem and introduces a classification according to three business processes that are used to assign the anonymous routes to the specific aircraft tail numbers. Furthermore, we compare the aircraft routing problem variants resulting from these three processes with regard to their adaptability to different contexts, the difficulty of solving them, the cost of the computed solutions, and the robustness of these solutions.