Pensions and poverty traps: Is saving worthwhile for women?

Present policy means that a private pension, unless it is substantial, may fail to bring financial gain in retirement due to means testing: the pensions poverty trap. This paper examines women's acquisition of private (occupational and personal) pensions and their risk of facing this trap. Because of the loosening link between marriage and motherhood, previous patterns of pension advantage according to marital status are shifting. The employment and pension impact of motherhood varies with socio-economic status but the pension prospects of the majority of women are poor. It is concluded that women's need for financial advice to avoid the pensions poverty trap is greater than men's. An improved basic pension, indexed to national income, would reduce the risk of mis-selling and restore confidence that saving for a pension is worthwhile.     

Thought leadership in investment banking: The beginning of a new era

The paper argues that although considerations such as industry consolidation, the role of lending and the effects of technology are still important in shaping the future of investment banking, sustainable competitive advantage necessitates that emphasis is also placed on thought leadership. This entails quite a radical change in terms of the way in which the industry approaches the problem of competition and requires emphasis on value creation for all the constituent parts of the industry: corporations, investors, the banks themselves and research departments. Accordingly, the paper provides a rationale for this change and provides inter alia a range of examples to illustrate how thought leadership could lead to a fundamental change in the future of the investment banking industry.     

A play-the-winner-type urn design with reduced variability

We propose a new adaptive allocation rule, the drop-the-loser, that randomizes subjects in the course of a trial comparing treatments with dichotomous outcomes. The rule tends to assign more patients to better treatments with the same limiting proportion as the randomized play-the-winner rule. The new design has significantly less variable allocation proportion than the randomized play-the-winner rule. Decrease in variability translates into a gain in statistical power. For some values of success probabilities the drop-the-loser rule has a double advantage over conventional equal allocation in that it has better power and assigns more subjects to the better treatment. Acknowledgments. I thank Stephen Durham, the associate editor, and the referees for their helpful suggestions.     

Is the institutionalization of urban movements inevitable? A comparison of the opportunities for sustained squatting in New York City and Amsterdam

In this article the opportunity structures of New York City and Amsterdam for organized squatting are compared. New York City knew two distinct squatting waves, with an intermission of several years. The literature on US urban movements predicts transformation through cooptation and repression. Only the first wave, in which housing activists used squatting as a tactic, fits this prediction. The second wave of squatting in New York City, and squatting in Amsterdam in general, escaped cooptation because they involved a squatters' movement proper, in which squatting was not only a tactic but also central to its existence. Compared to Amsterdam, squatting in New York was hampered by technical difficulties and political isolation. Stricter protection of private property made New York squatters restrict themselves to publicly‐owned abandoned buildings. Turf conflicts tended to develop on the neighbourhood level when these buildings were later claimed for the development of low‐income housing. In Amsterdam this type of conflict was rare because of the broad support for low‐income (re)development. Instead, Amsterdam saw citywide protest directed at the real estate sector and municipal authorities. Cet article compare la structure des opportunités des villes de New York et Amsterdam concernant les squats organisés. New York a connu deux vagues de squattage séparées de plusieurs années. Les textes sur les mouvements urbains aux Etats‐Unis prévoient une mutation par cooptation et répression. Seule la première vague, pour laquelle les militants en faveur du logement ont utilisé le squattage comme tactique, répond à cette prédiction. La seconde vague d'opérations à New York, et celles d'Amsterdam en général, ont échappéà la cooptation, car il s'agissait de mouvements de squatters à proprement parler, où le squat n'était pas seulement une tactique mais surtout un fondement de leur existence. Comparéà Amsterdam, le squattage à New York s'est heurtéà des problèmes techniques et à un isolement politique. La protection plus stricte de la propriété privée a forcé les squatters new‐yorkais à se limiter aux bâtiments publics abandonnés. Des luttes de territoires ont eu tendance à se développer entre voisins lorsque ces bâtiments ont ensuite été réclamés pour aménager des logements à faible loyer. A Amsterdam, rare fut ce genre de conflit grâce au vaste soutien favorable au (ré)aménagement social; au contraire, une protestation générale s'est élevée à l'encontre du secteur immobilier et des autorités municipales.     

An Examination of the Interaction Between Modelling and Its Relationship with Construction Kits: Lessons from the Past and for the Future

Construction kits have played a significant part in nurturing the growth and development of the minds and manipulation-based skills of children (and adults) in formal and non-formal education settings. These kits have origins rooted in the representation of the built world and now have a diversity of form and function, including technical versions with moving parts. This article examines some of the historically based ideas that lie behind the role that kits may have in terms of physical modelling. The article traces the transformation of kits from simple bricks and blocks into more complicated pieces for space-filling and achieving the transfer of forces and motion. This transformation occurred during the Victorian era when the influence of the ideas of educationalists and, perhaps rather strangely, exponents of early aviation, played major roles in determining the diversity of forms of construction kit and modelled possibilities that are now to be seen in classrooms and homes. The article ends with a review of some of the lessons from the past and present that will need to be considered in relation to concrete modelling in schools for the future. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.