What are the distributional implications of halving poverty in South Africa when growth alone is not enough?

The country risk indicator, as measured by the JP Morgan's EMBI or grades of rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's (S&P's) or Moody's, does not seem to truly reflect the fundamentals of an economy. Countries that pursue sound economic policies are frequently placed on the same level as countries with a populist orientation or with a recent history of default or debt restructuring. Such circumstance generates a feeling of unease with regard to these ratings. The objective of this article is to investigate whether these indicators truly reflect market fundamentals or whether some sort of prejudice, or intolerance towards certain countries, can be identified. We use the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to analyse the differences in country risk, measured as by EMBI+, for a group of emerging markets. This decomposition allows us to separate the ‘justified’ (differences in fundamentals) from the ‘unjustified’ differences (same fundamental differently evaluated).     

Universalism and the recognition of group proceedings under the UNCITRAL Model Law in Montenegro

Among the most topical insolvency issues in 2017 was the Croatian “Lex Agrokor”—a controversial “tailor‐made” law providing a unique restructuring opportunity for the largest Croatian conglomerate, the parent company of which was otherwise facing bankruptcy. Soon after the “extraordinary administration procedure” began, the appointed administrator started filing motions for the recognition of the alleged group insolvency as foreign insolvency proceedings in a number of neighbouring and other European countries, most of which have adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross‐Border Insolvency. It was an attempt to save the conglomerate's property from being seized in a disorderly fashion by various secured creditors, most noticeably, the largest Russian financial institution Sberbank, which contested these motions with varying success. This article, however, does not present an effort to comprehensively analyse the ongoing legal battle but rather adopts a broader approach to examining the Lex Agrokor to establish grounds for more general conclusions. More precisely, the purpose of this article is twofold. First, to offer strong arguments that, from the standpoint of typical insolvency legislation based on the Model Law, such as that of Montenegro, both the actual and future group proceedings initiated under the Lex Agrokor should fail to meet recognition requirements. Second, based on the preceding case study, to offer conclusions on how to further promote universal approach regarding group insolvencies by emphasizing exactly what the national laws regulating group insolvency should not feature so as to have the proceedings introduced therewith recognized in countries adopting the Model Law.     

Returns-to-scale properties in DEA models: the fundamental role of interior points

Attempts can be found in the data envelopment analysis (DEA) literature to identify returns to scale at efficient interior points of a face on the basis of returns to scale at points of the corresponding reference sets of the production possibility set. The purpose of this paper is to show that only an interior point of a face can identify returns-to-scale properties of points lying on this face. We consider all possible cases of dispositions of faces from this point of view. Returns-to-scale properties of the corresponding reference units are then established. We also show that to find returns-to-scale at an interior point of a face is a much easier problem than to find all vertices of this face.     

Migrant farmworkers: Resisting and organising before,during and after COVID-19

Migrant farmworkers are a ubiquitous but invisibilised, expropriated and exploited component of the global agricultural economy. Their conditions took centre-stage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear of production disruption in the migrant labour-intensive sectors led to foreign workers being deemed ‘essential’ in many countries, and exceptional procedures and regulations were instituted that further increased their exploitation, illnesses and deaths. However, the pandemic has not merely exposed the long-established structures of racialised exploitation and expropriation in the domain of farm work. Although it exacerbated the precariousness of the living and working conditions defining the reality of migrant farm workers, there is evidence that the pandemic also strengthened farmworkers' individual and collective consciousness, along with forms of organisation and resistance. The symposium ‘Migrant Farmworkers: Resisting and Organizing before, during and after COVID-19’ explores two dimensions reflected in migrant farmworkers' realities during the pandemic. First, the contributions look at the general conditions defining power structures and material outcomes within the political economy of agriculture before and during the pandemic. Second, they explore the conditions under which resistance and solidarity emerged to question established structures of exploitation.     

Investigating the Impact of SERVQUAL Dimensions on Customer Satisfaction: The Lessons Learnt from Serbian Travel Agencies

Despite the rise of online travel booking services, it seems that traditional travel agencies remain an intractable part in the process of making travel arrangements for most travelers. Nevertheless, the question remains as to what triggers travelers' satisfaction with travel agencies. In order to explore this, we focused on Serbian travel agencies and researched the impact of the five individual SERVQUAL dimensions on travelers' satisfaction. Results revealed that four SERVQUAL dimensions (reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangibility) had a significant influence on customer satisfaction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choosing between imperfect proxies for a corrective tax

Choices are sometimes distorted by internalities or externalities. This paper considers a setting in which the distortion cannot be taxed directly, and asks how a policymaker should choose a proxy variable to tax instead. We derive a criterion for when one proxy should be preferred to another, and consider a range of factors with implications for this criterion. These factors are (i) sensitivity to the tax rate, (ii) how accurately the taxed variable approximates the distorted variable, (iii) susceptibility to offsetting behavior, and (iv) consumer heterogeneity. Our analysis is illustrated with a comparison between ad valorem and volumetric taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.