The Institution,the Economy and the Market: Karl Polanyi's Institutional Thought for Economists

This paper aims to clarify the logical structure of Karl Polanyi's concept of institution, especially with regard to his most important contribution to political economy—the conception of self-regulating markets as institutions. Although Polanyi did not provide a well-developed concept of institution, this article argues that such a concept exists in his work. Moreover, there is in Polanyi's work a sophisticated institutionalist account of the self-regulating market that has been largely overlooked as Polanyi does not present it explicitly. Analyzing the economy as an institutionalized process, as Polanyi does, reveals that the market is neither a natural nor a spontaneous phenomenon—a conclusion that runs counter to conventional economic thinking. Polanyi's approach enables us to view capitalism (the ‘market society’ in Polanyi's language) through a highly specific cultural fact: the fiction of the self-regulating market. This institutional perspective needs to be reassessed beyond new-institutionalist theoretical constructions.     

Upstream Competition between Vertically Integrated Firms

We propose a model of two‐tier competition between vertically integrated firms and unintegrated downstream firms. We show that, even when integrated firms compete in prices to offer a homogeneous input, the Bertrand logic may collapse, and the input may be priced above marginal cost in equilibrium. These partial foreclosure equilibria are more likely to exist when downstream competition is fierce or when unintegrated downstream competitors are relatively inefficient. We discuss the impact of several regulatory tools on the competitiveness of the wholesale market.     

Capital Constraints and Employmen

Abstract
This article considers whether capital is a significant constraint on employment in Australia. We calculate the level of capital-constrained employment for seven sectors of the Australian economy. The calculations suggest that the manufacturing; transport, storage and communication; and recreation, personal and other services sectors have sufficient capital installed to increase employment. In two other sectors, mining and wholesale and retail trade, the potential for increases in employment through increased capital utilisation may be constrained by surplus labour (as of June 1993). While some sectors are capital constrained at the moment, we find that the investment requirements to increase employment in these sectors are not onerous. We also project investment requirements in each of the sectors for employment growth over the next five years. These projections suggest that a jump in investment followed by relatively modest growth is required to sustain growth in employment.     

Russian commodity exchanges: A case study of organized markets in the transition process, 1990-96

Few developments are more significant in transitional economics than the development of organized commodity and financial markets. Working from a transaction costs framework, this paper analyses a set of these markets, the Russian commodity exchanges, and their attempts to order trade in commodities in the period 1990-96. These exchanges have incurred high transaction costs both in defining the property rights involved in trading and in overcoming the problems of agent search and 'immediacy'. Parallels between Russian commodity exchanges and other organized markets in Eastern Europe are drawn and remedies for the problems encountered are suggested.     

Tourism and crime in the Caribbean

This study reviews the general literature on tourism and crime and the recent history of violent and property crime in several Caribbean destinations. It highlights the failure of most previous research to discriminate crimes against tourists vs. residents. Annual crime data for Barbados for 1989–93 are analyzed and reveal that overall guest victimization rates are higher than host rates. Residents are significantly more likely to be victimized by violent crime while tourists are significantly more likely to experience property crime and robbery. Monthly data on guest victimization for 1990–93 show similar patterns. The paper concludes with a number of measures to enhance tourist safety.     

The Tourism Penetration Index in Large Islands: The Case of the Dominican Republic

The Tourism Penetration Index (TPI) (McElroy & de Albuquerque, 1998) provides an overall measure of economic, social and environmental impact in small islands. Thus far it has not been used to gauge tourism’s spatial concentration in different regions within a given destination. This study develops a TPI for four regions in the Dominican Republic (DR), and these regional scores are compared with a sample of 42 small islands. Results place Punta Cana in the east among the most penetrated islands/ regions, Puerto Plata/Samana in the north among the intermediate, and La Romana/San Pedro and Santo Domingo in the south among the least developed. Results are also compared with surveys on visitor satisfaction, perceptions of safety, and propensity to return. Planning and research implications are discussed.     

Perceptions of restaurant employees in Asia Pacific on sexual harassment in the hospitality industry

A major issue facing all of the hospitality industry is that of sexual harassment and the explosion of the number of sexual harassment lawsuits being filed. According to the National Restaurant Industry (U.S.) in 1998, in certain states there are more sexual harassment lawsuits than slip and fall cases filed within the restaurant industry. With the cost of litigation and the dollar amount of settlements both increasing substantially, it is with a pro‐active view to look at the perspective of sexual harassment by restaurant employees. The purpose of this study was to measure the perceptions and attitudes of service personnel, specifically restaurant employees in Hawaii on sexual harassment.     

Assessing the burden of illness from cervical dystonia using the Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale scores and health utility: a meta-analysis of baseline patient-level clinical trial data

Purpose:

This study aimed to explore the burden of illness associated with cervical dystonia (CD), including possible demographic and humanistic correlates of baseline disease severity.

Methods:

The analysis involved the five multinational randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials that had evaluated the efficacy and safety of Dysport® in patients with CD, including assessment using the Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale (TWSTRS). Patient-level TWSTRS scores from the individual studies were meta-analysed to estimate disease severity at baseline. One of the studies had reported Short Form-36 (SF-36) Health Survey quality-of-life measures, and these data were used to investigate whether the severity of CD was associated with humanistic outcomes, as measured by health utility. A generalized regression model was then applied to explore potential correlation between TWSTRS scores and utilities.

Results:

The estimated pooled mean baseline severity of CD in clinical trial entrants, as measured by TWSTRS score, was 43.23 (95% CI?=?39.31–47.15). In general, disease severity was significantly greater in patients aged over 40 years (compared to the reference group aged 18–30 years). However, there was no correlation between disease severity and other demographic characteristics (e.g., weight, height, gender). Higher TWSTRS scores correlated with worse health-related quality of life as perceived by patients and was reflected in health utility (R^2?=?0.133).

Conclusions:

This study was able to define TWSTRS scores in patients with CD in terms of associated utility. This approach could help in capturing the disease’s burden through measures that are more tangible than TWSTRS scores to patients, carers, clinicians, and healthcare payers.