Scottish Economic Thought and the High Wage Economy: Hume, Smith and MCCulloch on Wages and Work Motivation

This article examines the work of Hume, Smith and McCulloch on wages and work motivation, and finds a clear and detailed case made for high wages within Scottish political economy. This analysis, through Hume and Smith, is based on key aspects of Scottish Enlightenment thought, and represents the culmination of the liberalization of thought regarding labour which developed in the eighteenth century. McCulloch, whose work on wages, incentives and motivation is more detailed and interesting than that of his 'post-Smithian' classical colleagues, is shown to be, in this area at least, clearly in the Scottish tradition.     

Using “Rapid Response” as a competitive tool

New technology allows companies to respond quickly to customer demands that differ from country to country. In the international arena, time and flexibility are competitive weapons.     

The evaluation of educational programmes

This paper addresses a problem which is at the forefront of educational debate in the Southern African economy. It attempts to set out the nature and processes of evaluators and the qualities necessary in evaluators if their task is to be accomplished with integrity. The article could be used to draw up basic guidelines that may be regarded as prerequisites for evaluating educational programmes in this country and promotes evaluation as a powerful means of refining educational programmes while they are in operation.     

Sub-optimal saving and the shadow price of labor The public good argument

One argument for the incorporation of a ‘premium on saving’ into calculations of the shadow price of labor has been the claim that aggregate inter-generational savings are a public good and the individual savings decisions lead to sub-optimal provision of savings. This paper shows that even if this claim was true, the incorporation of a ‘premium on savings’ into benefit-cost analysis calculations would be inappropriate. The shadow price of labor relative to project output shoud still be set at the relative effects on aggregate income of hiring a worker on the one hand and producing output on the other.