EXAMINING THE LINK BETWEEN JAPAN'S DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION OF FEMALES

Abstract.   This paper studies the role of education of females in Japan's development process. It analyses the pre-war years (1888 to 1940) as well as the five decades following the war and Japan's rise to economic power (1947 to 1990). This paper finds that Japan's pre-war growth was fuelled primarily by agricultural growth and primary education (of males in particular). The story is different in the post-war period, however. Capital accumulation, secondary and tertiary education of females, and tertiary education for males seem to provide the driving forces of growth.     

Market failure and stagflation: Some aspects of privatisation in Poland

The paper investigates causes of the stagflation phenomena which appeared in Poland in the period after the shortageflation, i.e. after February 1990. It is conjectured that one of the primary reasons for the appearance of the stagflation was substantial market uncertainty, which led to a market failure. The theoretical analysis is based on the Newbery-Stiglitz model of futures trading. This reveals that, in the presence of huge price variations a market is likely to fail if a substantial backwardation accompanies negative correlation between prices and quantities. The empirical evidence consists of testing market efficiency (weak and semi-strong forms) and the rational expectations hypothesis for the Polish consumption market and inflation in the period of shortageflation. It is found that the market survives the tests for weak efficiency but fails the test for semi-strong efficiency and rational expectations.     

Agricultural technology and child labor: evidence from India

Child labor continues to be a major problem in developing countries, particularly in agricultural countries. The latest ILO global report points out that nine out of every ten child laborers is involved in the agricultural sector. The focus of this article is on the rural sector in India, a country where child labor continues to be prevalent. A number of factors have been found to significantly influence the extent of child labor. This article will focus on the type of technology utilized in the agricultural sector. Technology is divided into two types: biochemical and mechanical. The empirical results indicate that biochemical technology has both positive and negative effects on child labor. However, mechanical technology is found to have a statistically significant and negative impact on child labor.     

MEASURING THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF VOLUNTEER WORK GLOBALLY: CONCEPTS,ESTIMATES, AND A ROADMAP TO THE FUTURE

ABSTRACT: This article explores alternative approaches for measuring the economic value of volunteer work, develops a methodology for producing global estimates of this value using existing data sources, and identifies a new data source that promises to yield significantly improved data on which to base such estimates in the future at both the global and national levels. Both volunteering through organizations and directly for individuals are considered. Different approaches to valuation, including the replacement cost, opportunity cost, and social benefits approaches and both observed and reported market proxies, are examined. Based on a number of criteria, the replacement cost method using observed market wages is recommended. Using this method, the article estimates that ‘volunteerland,’ if it were its own country, would have the second largest adult population of any country in the world, and would be the world's seventh largest economy. The article concludes by discussing a new International Labour Organization Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work that adopts the basic method for defining and valuing volunteer work outlined here and promises to generate a much more robust and coherent body of data on volunteer work than has ever been available both globally and nationally.     

Interdependent self-construal in collectivist cultures: Effects on compliance in a cause-related marketing context

This study is a replication and extension of prior work on the effectiveness of cause-related marketing efforts. We show that compliance behavior across cultures can be different depending on the dominant self-construal paradigm prevalent in a given society. The original study had shown that people in independent self-construal societies (individualist countries such as the USA) are unwilling to follow up on their original commitment (to support rainforest protection) if compliance involves bearing the cost of such action (paying a higher price for a product where part of the price is donated to rainforest protection). This study, drawing on a sample of students at a mid-sized university in northern Poland, shows that commitment–consistency works in collectivist, interdependent self-construal societies in a different way: if the cause being supported is of a pro-social nature, people in such societies are willing to pay the higher product price to support it.     

The politics of rapid growth

Institutions are thought to be the critical antecedents of rapid economic growth. However, the effectiveness of similar institutions varies dramatically from country to country or even from region to region or from time to time. The differences in the effectiveness of institutions are attributed to the political process (the exercise of leadership in constructing coalitions that give policy legitimacy). Political processes resulting in elite coalitions with narrow interests are not likely to result in rapid growth, whereas elite coalitions where interests are encompassing in nature are likely to create states that are developmental and innovative. Whether elite coalition interests are encompassing or not depends on the extent to which political processes result in the incorporation of the developmental needs of the agricultural sector into the interests of the ruling coalition. This is most likely to occur when an agricultural technology backlog has accumulated over time. These ideas are illustrated with an analysis of the Vietnamese experience.     

Global stability of dynamic models

A necessary and sufficient condition for global stability of dynamic models is summability to one of the long-run elasticities and cointegration. The short-run coefficients automatically satisfy the homogeneity condition. A relevant restriction has to be imposed in the parameter estimation process; otherwise, the ratios of variables appearing in the model will tend to either infinity or zero, which is economic nonsense in most cases. This conclusion is particularly important for the ECM or VEC (SVEC) models that decompose behavior into long and short-run parts.     

Training and the application of computer- based technology : The Case of Ontario Manufacturing

The reality of global market has challenged Canadian manufacturing companies to improve their competitiveness, primarily through the introduction of computer-based technologies. It is our contention that, in order to benefit from the use of technology, consistent attention is required to employee skills and training. Focusing on the Ontario manufacturing sector, this article explores, within an organizational context, the role of employee skills and training in relation to technology, product, and market changes. It concludes with a discussion of the contextual pressures on management and the likely future developments.