Profitability and supply price in the US domestic oil industry: implications for the political economy of oil in the twenty-first century

In May 2001, the US Government's National Energy Policy DevelopmentGroup proposed to increase investment in domestic oil resourcesand to diversify further the sourcing of US oil imports by increasingproduction in new petroleum provinces. The paper argues thatboth strands of this policy are dependent upon a third, unstated,objective—to ensure that OPEC retains sufficient marketpower to prevent the sort of collapse in world oil prices thatoccurred in 1998–99. The consequences of that collapse,when the real price of US oil fell to its lowest level in 53years, are explored. Finally, it is argued that the outcomeof the crisis was a rapprochement between OPEC and the US. Itis suggested that the consensus between the US and OPEC as tothe desired range within which the world oil price should moveis likely to survive any temporary political disturbances.     

The Eisner Puzzle,the Unemployment Threshold and the Range of Equilibria

Using a two-regime model of the inflation-unemployment process for US data 1960:2 to 2000:2, this paper finds strong evidence to support the Eisner puzzle, which occurs when the short-run Phillips curve (SRPC) is flatter at low rates of unemployment than at higher rates. The puzzling aspect of this pattern is the expectation of excess demand to become apparent at very low rates of unemployment causing the SRPC to be steep rather than fairly flat. We show the puzzle can be resolved by estimating a three-regime model which reveals a steep SRPC at very low rates of unemployment. The estimates of the three regime model also reveal a horizontal SRPC at intermediate rates of unemployment, implying the existence of a range of equilibrium rates of unemployment at those intermediate rates.

世界感受中国经济放缓之痛

【美国《华尔街日报》10月21日】中国蓬勃发展的经济正在以快于大多数人所预料的速度冷却,在发达国家遭遇金融危机之际,对于那些希望中国需求有助于保持全球经济平稳增长的人来说,这不啻是当头一棒。     

Absence management and the issues of job retention and return to work

Strategies aimed at facilitating the job retention and return to work of sick and injured workers are currently the subject of growing attention. In this article the authors examine the nature and potential significance of such strategies to absence management and utilise interview findings to shed light on current employer policies and practices relating to the management of long‐term absences. They conclude that at the national level a large proportion of working days lost through sickness absence stem from relatively long spells of absence and that the adoption of a proactive approach to supporting the return to work of ill and injured workers can have beneficial consequences. However, they further conclude that few organisations appear to have comprehensive arrangements in place to handle cases of long‐term absence. A number of areas where present employer arrangements could usefully be reviewed are therefore identified.     

Evaluating the London 2012 Games’ impact on sport participation in a non-hosting region: a practical application of realist evaluation

In the literature on Olympic legacies and impacts, there is a dearth of materials that specifically address the issue of Olympic impact for non-hosting regions. The literature tends to deal with impacts at a national level, or at a hosting-city region level, neglecting in large part the degree to which benefits can be leveraged by non-hosting regions. A further limitation identified in the literature is a failure to engage in detailed formal evaluation of policy implementation where assertions of potential policy impact are based on untested assumptions. This study is intended to address both of these concerns. It presents an empirical, ‘bottom-up’ application of a Realist Evaluation framework to assess the impact of a policy initiative – Workplace Challenge – aimed at leveraging enhanced sports participation in a non-hosting region – Leicestershire – in the period leading up to the 2012 Games. In doing so, it seeks to identify which causal mechanisms worked within this particular context to produce the observed outcomes. The evaluation results demonstrate that the programme represented a positive approach to fostering regular engagement with sport and physical activities for some groups in some types of organisations, and that awareness and motivational factors associated with the London 2012 Games are, in this case, linked (albeit weakly) to an increase in sport and physical activity participation for specific groups taking part in the programme in particular organisational contexts.     

A framework for monitoring during the planning stage for a sports mega-event

This paper proposes a monitoring framework to be used during the planning stage for a sports mega-event. The research identifies a lack of monitoring and evaluation studies during the development stage for sports mega-events. Importantly, it notes the absence of research which evaluates an event systematically from the outset of the process and from the perspectives of host residents and event planners. The framework was developed on the basis of the philosophical approach of pragmatism; it focused on a sustainable development perspective, and it was applied to a case study of the Kaohsiung 2009 World Games. A survey of the views of 606 host residents about the potential impacts of the event revealed that the respondents tended to show higher levels of agreement on the host benefits. The results of 38 interviews with various stakeholders indicated big gaps in both the city's long-term development aspirations and the Games themselves and also in the event strategies adopted. Using this information, key sustainability issues can be identified and monitored during the event planning stage so that the desirable outcomes of events can be enhanced and then sustained in the longer term.     

Watching the FIFA World Cup 2010 in England: the sojourner perspective

Recent years have seen an emergence of a varied academic literature focused on the football fan, with a wealth of studies exploring issues such as hooliganism, fan behaviour and fan identification. No research, however, has documented the experiences and perspectives of the international sojourner, who follows the televised tournament far away from the home country. This paper offers a contribution to the literature on fandom by focusing on the experiences of becoming a temporary fan among a sample of nine international students in England during the period of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It shows the importance of the tournament for students away from their home nation, acting as a point of celebration and as a means of bringing sojourners of the same nationality together to support their team. It reveals how the tournament offered escape from stress, became a focal point for social interaction, provided the opportunity for recreation of home, and for the reinforcement of feelings of national identity.     

A model of serious leisure identification: the case of football fandom

Stebbins (1992) has suggested that the ‘profit hypothesis’, whereby the perceived benefits of taking part in an activity exceed the perceived costs, can be used to explain continued engagement in serious leisure activities. This argument, however, fails to explain the continued participation in such activities where the costs to the individual seem to exceed the rewards. This paper adopts a social identity perspective to identify and demonstrate the role of four compensatory behaviours – in-group favouritism, out-group derogation, unrealistic optimism, and voice – in ensuring continued participation in serious leisure. Such behaviours are described in the context of one particular serious leisure activity – that of football fandom – to explain why engagement in such an apparently unrewarding activity is maintained. A model of serious leisure participation is presented based upon these behaviours     

A conceptual model and research agenda for bidding,planning and delivering Major sport events that lever human rights

In this conceptual article, the authors propose a framework for how progressive human rights outcomes may be obtained in the context of bidding, planning and implementing major sport events (MSEs) through the implementation of four pathways, including good governance, the democratic participation of stakeholders, the formalisation of human rights agendas and the deployment of sensitive urban development. The authors argue that there is a need for adherence to internationally recognised standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights if rhetorical statements from MSE awarding bodies and host organisers are to be accountable to a wider set of actors. If researchers and practitioners want to address some of the critical issues related to human rights and MSEs, it is imperative that key actors working in the rights sphere are involved in shaping the research agenda and monitoring its implementation. Academics need to take a proactive approach aimed at achieving both theoretically grounded and practically relevant solutions, with engagement occurring over an extended period of time. This approach, avowedly political and concerned with genuine action, is a key way in which MSE stakeholders can be held to account for their actions in regard to human rights.