New initiative,old problem: classroom assistants and the under‐valuation of women's work

Centred on classroom assistants in Scotland, this article examines the process by which an occupation dominated by female workers becomes under‐valued. The qualitative data reveals the cognitive errors made by the key actors—government, employers and unions in this process.     

Aus-und Weiterbildung für Journalistinnen und Journalisten

This article gives an overview of the historical development and the state of training of journalists in Austria. Political (and especially media political) conditions and diverging interests of the actors involved in media development have led to a journalism training better characterized by breaks than by continuities on the one hand, and to academic training gaining ground more slowly than in Germany and Switzerland on the other. A complete survey of the situation of training for journalism in the spring of 1999 not only shows the diversity in duration and quality of different tracks in training, but also the severe shortcomings and the small interest of governments and media companies to provide an adequate theoretical and practical education for the new generation of journalists.     

Micro and macro elasticities in a life cycle model with taxes

We build a life cycle model of labor supply that incorporates changes along both the intensive and extensive margin and use it to assess the consequences of changes in tax and transfer policies on equilibrium hours of work. We find that changes in taxes have large aggregate effects on hours of work. Moreover, we find that there is no inconsistency between this result and the empirical finding of small labor elasticities for prime age workers. In our model, micro and macro elasticities are effectively unrelated. Our model is also consistent with other cross-country patterns.     

Recent trends in pregnancy discrimination law

In 1978, Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) to protect the civil rights of motherhood in the workplace. Since then, the act's interpretation has been altered by various court decisions. These changes, along with more working women, make PDA compliance more complex. This challenge is reflected by a 39% increase in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints over the past decade, and a 66% increase in plaintiff victories during the same time period. These developments are discussed in this article, which attempts to help managerial decision making by exploring legal trends and their workplace implications.     

The role of the state in Central and Eastern European industrial relations: the case of minimum wages

Governments in Central and Eastern Europe are dominant players in the field of industrial relations, acting in a ‘liberalisation dilemma’ between the needs of further state regulation to compensate the shortcomings of autonomous self‐regulation by social actors and the demands of liberalised markets in the enlarged EU. Compared with the different types of industrial relation systems in Western Europe, a transitional model with specific etatist features has emerged. This becomes particularly evident when analysing the decision‐making process in Tripartite Councils and its function in determining national minimum wages. The article underlines the recent trends of differentiation and convergence of such pay principles as well as urgent tasks of the state to regulate the unsolved problems of poverty, labour markets and labour standards.     

On the informational efficiency of simple scoring rules

We study information aggregation in large elections. With two candidates, efficient information aggregation is possible (e.g., Feddersen and Pesendorfer [5], [6] and [7]). We show that this result does not extend to elections with more than two candidates. We study a class of simple scoring rules in voting games with Poisson population uncertainty and three candidates. No simple scoring rule aggregates information efficiently, even if preferences are dichotomous and a Condorcet winner always exists. We introduce a weaker criterion of informational efficiency that requires a voting rule to have at least one efficient equilibrium. Only approval voting satisfies this criterion.     

Motivational complexity of green consumerism

This paper elaborates on the motivational complexity of green consumerism using a simple model of motivation as an analytical tool. The objective is to provide insights into the challenges that environmentally concerned ‘green consumers’ may face in the markets, as well as to illustrate the limitations of framing and targeting environmental policy measures in terms of individual motivation and morally responsible decision making. On the whole, the paper argues that as a private lifestyle project of a single individual, ‘green consumerism’ is much too heavy a responsibility to bear. Therefore, the author joins the growing number of scholars who argue that in environmental policy the focus on individual consumers is limited and thus needs to be problematized.     

Changing Directions in Consumer Bankruptcy Law and Practice in Europe and USA

The consumer bankruptcy or, rather, consumer debt adjustment, is a fairly recent phenomenon in continental Europe. In the nineties, a number of European countries introduced judicial institutions in order to alleviate an excessive debt burden carried by consumer debtors. In addition to the court proceedings, the European jurisdictions often provide the debtor with debt counselling services, supervision, and payment requirements. In the United States, on the other hand, discharge of debt has been an established principle of bankruptcy law since the late 19th century, and bankruptcy is frequently used by consumer debtors. However, in the US, as well as in Canada, debtors are increasingly encouraged to opt for a payment plan. There seems to be a certain convergent trend between the two different legal cultures. Paradoxically, at the same time scholars have pointed out that the variance in local cultures seems to be a main factor in explanations of how debtors choose either a direct discharge or a payment plan. This finding gives us reason to consider the interplay of counselling and other pre-trial measures and its effect upon the rights and duties of debtors.     

The civil rights act of 1991: Legislative responses to judicial decisions

The Civil Rights Act of 1991, among other things, responded to nine different Supreme Court decisions. Seven of these dealt with issues of statutory construction, while one was concerned with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and still another with a judicial response to yet another judicial decision. With one exception, the decisional subject matter varied widely. Some of the responses bestowed employee rights directly (as with Americans abroad), while others were more remedial, dealing with court situations in which employees sought rights such as expert fee shifting. Overall, the 1991 Act importantly perpetuated an already established recent trend adding a new interactive dimension to thede jure granting of employee rights by the branches of the Federal Government.