Reflexive Interdisciplinary Research: The Making of a Research Programme on the Rural Economy and Land Use

This paper provides an account of the origins and formation of the UK Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme and its approach to promoting interdisciplinary working between social and natural scientists. The programme is set in the context of broader developments in science policy, including a policy discourse centred upon sustainable development and the knowledge economy and associated demands for greater accountability in science. Interdisciplinarity promises research that will be more relevant and responsive to public needs and concerns. In describing the provenance of the RELU programme, therefore, the paper seeks to lay out the different stages in its initiation and design to show how, to varying degrees, these were open to external scrutiny and influence. The process of developing the programme illustrates that it is not straightforward to make research agendas and funding more transparent and accountable. It also provides insights into the challenges that interdisciplinarity and accountability present to established science institutions.     

Masakhane case studies

The Masakhane Campaign in South Africa has received a fair amount of criticism, largely because its high media profile has not been accompanied by delivery and improvement of services at the local level. Contrary to this generally negative perception, there are a number of local authorities that have greatly improved the situation in their areas through pragmatic strategies and programmes under the banner of Masakhane. This article presents information on the current status of the campaign in a sample of local authorities, and attempts to interpret this information so as to ascertain those factors that influence on the success or failure of local authorities as service providers.     

What can we learn from a race with one runner? A comment on Foreman‐Peck and Zhou, ‘Late marriage as a contributor to the industrial revolution in England’

Foreman‐Peck and Zhou's claim that late marriage was a major contributor to the industrial revolution in England cannot be sustained. They consider neither other influences on English industrialization nor other European economies where marriage age was high throughout the early modern period but industrialization came much later. It is not possible to argue that late marriage age was a major contributor to English industrialization without analysing other possible contributing factors. Any consideration of this question must assess marriage age alongside other causes of industrialization and explain why other European economies with a higher marriage age industrialized much later than England.     

The productivity–wage relationship in South Africa: an empirical investigation

This article investigates the relationship between labour productivity, average real wages and the unemployment rate in South Africa at the macroeconomic level, using time‐series econometric techniques. There is strong evidence of a structural break in 1990, after which time all three variables rose rapidly. The break appears to have negatively affected the level of employment in the first instance, and subsequently fed through into per worker wages and productivity. A long‐term equilibrium (cointegrating) relationship was found between real wages and productivity, but unemployment was apparently unconnected to the system, which lends support to the insider–outsider theory. A long‐term wage–productivity elasticity of 0,58 indicates that productivity has grown more rapidly than wages, which is consistent with the finding that labour's share of gross output has been shrinking over the past decade. These trends may be explained plausibly by the adoption of job‐shedding technology and capital intensification.     

Bubbles for Fama

We evaluate Eugene F. Fama's claim that stock prices do not exhibit price bubbles. Based on US industry returns (1926?2014) and international sector returns (1985?2014), we present four findings (1) Fama is correct in that a sharp price increase of an industry portfolio does not, on average, predict unusually low returns going forward; (2) such sharp price increases predict a substantially heightened probability of a crash but not of a further price boom; (3) attributes of the price run-up, including volatility, turnover, issuance, and the price path of the run-up, help forecast an eventual crash; and (4) these attributes also help forecast future returns. Results hold similarly in US and international samples.