A case‐study of an organisation for creche teachers in a rural area of South Africa

Early childhood educare programmes can aid development through their impact on young children, their mothers and the community. The stages of development of the Hlanganani Crèche Teachers’ Organisation are outlined. The lessons for development and the effectiveness of the organisation in addressing educare issues are examined. An organisation for educare workers can be effective in dealing with problems facing educare workers if it is approached with the aim of developing and empowering its members.     

Repositioning fundraising in the 21st century

Albert Einstein noted ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result’.[Einstein, A., www.brainyquote.com ] Unfortunately, too many fundraisers continue to employ the same old methods even when the outcomes are disappointing. (Direct mail not working … add another mailing. Foundations not responding … up the number of proposals going out.) Because change is inevitable, those responsible for development decisions must understand the larger trends that are fuelling the paradigm shift in advancement strategies. This paper provides the background to understand the philanthropic, economic, societal and technological trends that have an impact on fundraising today. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

PRE-TEST ESTIMATION AND TESTING IN ECONOMETRICS: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Abstract. This paper surveys a range of important developments in the area of preliminary-test inference in the context of econometric modelling. Both pre-test estimation and pre-test testing are discussed. Special attention is given to recent contributions and results. These include analyses of pre-test strategies under model mis-specification and generalised regression errors; exact sampling distribution results; and pre-testing inequality constraints on the model's parameters. In many cases, practical advice is given to assist applied econometricians in appraising the relative merits of pre-testing. It is shown that there are situations where pre-testing can be advantageous in practice     

Reviews

REGIONAL POLITICS: GERMAN AND BRITISH.

Anderson, Jeffrey J. 1992: The Territorial Imperative: Pluralism, Corporatism and Economic Crisis. Cambridge University Press, £35 hardback.

COMMUNITIES ON THE PERIPHERY: THAMESMEAD AND AAMSTERDAM NORTH.

Coping with Social and Economic Change at Neighbourhood Level: Final Reports on the Netherlands and the UK of Research carried out for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.

GETTING A NEW START?

White, M. and Lakey, J. 1992: The Restart Effect — Does Active Labour Market Policy Reduce Unemployment? Policy Studies Institute.

JOB SEARCH AND MISMATCH IN CITIES.

Simpson, W. 1992: Urban Structure and the Labour Market: Worker Mobility, Commuting, and Underemployment in Cities. Oxford: Clarendon Press, £25 hardback.     

Voluntary export restraints and the prices of UK imports of footwear

Zusammenfassung Freiwillige Exportbeschr?nkungen und die Preise für britische Importe von Schuhwaren. — Freiwillige Exportbeschr?nkungen gestatten es den Exporteuren, die Preise zu erh?hen, die sie von den Abnehmern ihrer Produkte verlangen. In diesem Aufsatz wird dieser Preiseffekt für die Ende der siebziger Jahre von Gro?britannien eingeführten Beschr?nkungen der Einfuhr von Schuhwaren quantifiziert. Dabei werden die Ver?nderungen der relativen Preise für Exporte nach Gro?britannien denen auf anderen M?rkten gegenübergestellt. In den F?llen, in denen die Exporteure anscheinend nur wenig in der Lage waren, ihre Lieferungen zwischen den M?rkten zu verschieben, wurden die Vergleiche erst nach Berücksichtigung der Ver?nderungen der realen Wechselkurse angestellt. In den anderen F?llen gelten die Vergleiche für die nominalen Preise. Die Untersuchung ergab, da? die freiwilligen Exportbeschr?nkungen die Preise der britischen Importe von Schuhwaren aus den wichtigsten Lieferl?ndern um 15-25 vH erh?hten und im Jahre {dy1980} die britische Volkswirtschaft mindestens 25 Millionen Pfund kosteten.

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Résumé Les restrictions volontaires à l’exportation et les prix des importations britanniques pour les chaussures. — Les restrictions volontaires à l’exportation permettent aux exportateurs d’augmenter les prix qu’ils prélèvent aux importateurs pour l’approvisionnement des marchandises. Cette étude quantifie cet effet des restrictions britanniques à l’importation des chaussures imposées à la fin des années 70, en comparant les changes des prix relatifs à l’exportation vers le Royaume-Uni avec des changes de tels prix vers les autres marchés. Là, où les exportateurs semblent avoir peu de possibilitiés d’offrir leurs biens sur d’autres marchés, on fait des comparaisons après avoir permis les mouvements du taux de change réel. Mais là, où les exportateurs peuvent facilement substituer entre les marchés différents, les comparaisons se réfèrent aux prix nominaux. D’après les calculations, les restrictions volontaires à l’exportation ont augmenté les prix des importateurs pour les chaussures britanniques par 15-25 pour cent en ce qui concerne les fournisseurs majeurs des pays qui appliquent les restrictions volontaires à l’exportation. En 1980, ces restrictions ont co?té aux minimum ￡25 million à l’économie britannique.

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Resumen Restricciones voluntarias a las exportaciones y los precios de las importaciones británicas de zapatos. — Las restricciones voluntarias a las exportaciones (VERs) permiten a los exportadores elevar los precios que los importadores extranjeros pagan para poder ofrecer los bienes. En este trabajo se cuantifica este efecto para el caso de las restricciones británicas a las importaciones de zapatos impuestas a fines de la década del setenta, aislando las variaciones de los precios relativos de las exportaciones al Reino Unido y a otros mercados. Donde los exportadores parecen carecer de la abilidad de substituir insumos de diferente origen, la comparaciones toman en cuenta movimientos en las tasas de cambio reales. Donde, por otro lado, los exportadores logran substituír fácilmente a los proveedores, las comparaciones se refieren a los precios nominales. Las VERs aumentan los precios de las importaciones británicas de zapatos en un 15-25 por ciento para los proveedores más restringidos; en el a?o 1980 ocasionaron un costo de al menos 25 millones de libras esterlinas para la economia británica.

     

UP IN STEM,DOWN IN BUSINESS: CHANGING COLLEGE MAJOR DECISIONS WITH THE GREAT RECESSION

We use the American Community Survey (ACS) to investigate the extent to which college major decisions were affected during and after the Great Recession with special attention to business and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as well as the heterogeneity across demographic groups. Several conclusions are reached. First, the Great Recession increased the frequency of STEM majors but decreased the frequency of business majors. Second, the increase for STEM fields spreads across several detailed STEM majors, while the decrease in business majors is especially concentrated among finance and management. Third, we find strong heterogeneous effects of the Great Recession by gender and race/ethnicity. (JEL I20, J24)     

Outsourcing child care,home cleaning and meal preparation

In this paper, the outsourcing of child care, home cleaning and meal preparation is analysed by means of a socio‐economic model that incorporates household‐economic, life cycle, lifestyle and health variables. The data (n = 700) were collected during a telephone survey in the Netherlands. About 10% of the households did not use any of the three outsourcing types. About 70 to 90% of households outsourced meal preparation at least once per month. In each household life cycle stage, the average monthly expenditures on outsourcing meal preparation were the highest of the three outsourcing categories. Factors affecting expenditures were generally the same for each type of outsourcing studied. In general, household economic variables including wage and working hours were unimportant in explaining the incidence and expenditures of outsourcing. The same holds for self‐reported health. All expenditure types were affected by life cycle variables. There was an indication that a traditional lifestyle and traditional family type affected outsourcing expenditures negatively. Education appeared as an important factor: regardless of gender, both medium‐ and higher‐educated people were more inclined to spend money on outsourcing than the lower educated. Especially, people younger than 44 years outsourced meal preparation. Outsourcing was neither restricted to nor especially practised by couples.     

Race,Gender, and Familial Status: Discrimination in One US Mortgage Lending Market

This paper, using data from the 1992 Boston Federal Reserve study of mortgage lending, reports preliminary evidence of patterns of gender and familial status discrimination that differ markedly by race in the US. White couples with children experienced familial status discrimination if the female partner was in the labor market, but not if she was at home raising her children. However, African-American or Hispanic couples with children suffered familial status discrimination if she stayed home to raise her children, but much less so, if at all, if she was in the labor market. This pattern of racial differentiation may reflect social norms dating back to slavery that have favored labor force participation for African-American and Hispanic mothers but not white mothers. On the other hand, it was true across racial groups that single women, more than single men, were disadvantaged in the mortgage market by children.     

Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: the role of sustainability-focused events

Tourism is a potential setting for encouraging sustainable behaviour. One popular mechanism is to stage events with a sustainability focus, aimed at fostering behaviour change amongst attendees. This paper reports on a study of a sustainability-focused event in Australia. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) was used to explore if and how this event could potentially promote pro-environmental behaviour change amongst attendees. TTM provides a five-stage framework, linked to a series of 10 processes of change, with both attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. The stages comprise pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Findings suggest that this event attracts individuals already significantly committed to sustainable behaviour who are using the event as a source of encouragement and positive feedback for their lifestyle choices. They are not the audience that the organisers need to reach in order to achieve their aim of behaviour change on a broader scale. This event did, however, support the processes of change, particularly for those in the “action” and “maintenance” stages. This paper considers the implications of these findings and TTM as a research tool for the future promotion and marketing of these events to tourists, possible applications to tourism fairs and exhibitions, and to behavioural change in tourism generally.