Joint Land Titling and Household Bargaining in Madagascar

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates analytically and through numerical simulations how the intrahousehold bargaining positions of a couple are affected by the opportunity to title agricultural land, and how the couple’s choice between an individual male title and a joint title is determined. The results suggest that when land registration is offered to couples as a discrete choice between individual or joint titles, there is a risk that women with weak initial bargaining positions will be further weakened following the reform. A joint title will only be chosen if the spouses start off with relatively equal bargaining positions; otherwise a male title will be chosen. An application of the model to the situation of Madagascar, using household survey data, supports the predictions of the model.     

Tanzanian women confront the past and the future

The example of women in Tanzania is taken to illustrate their place in African society over time and their response to conditions which confront them today. Underdevelopment of the national economy and the class formation were inherited from the precolonial and colonial periods and are perpetuated by dependence on external forces. These have enhanced and continue to enhance restrictions for women. Full-scale capital accumulation in the hands of the people and a programme of rural industrialisation will provide the only kind of institutional framework within which the emancipation of women will be possible.     

Wage Discrimination Against Workers with Sensory Disabilities

We link information on occupation‐specific job demands to data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to provide first‐ever estimates of wage discrimination against workers with sensory disabilities. Estimates are derived from wage models that control for job demands related to sensory abilities, and interactions between job demands and workers' sensory limitations. Results indicate approximately one third (one tenth) of the male (female) disability‐related wage differential is potentially attributed to discrimination. The results differ from estimates of discrimination against workers with physical disabilities obtained with similar methods, underscoring the importance of accounting for heterogeneity of the disabled population in discrimination studies.     

Enhancing New Product Development Performance: An Organizational Learning Perspective

Several years ago, an editorial in a software industry journal asked readers, “Why aren’t they using all those marvelous methods?” The focus of the editorial was on software engineering methods, but the question also applies to the broader realm of new product development (NPD). Proven tools exist for gathering, disseminating, and using market information. But despite widespread recognition of the important role that market knowledge plays in NPD, most firms fail to employ these tools in a consistent manner.Marjorie E. Adams, George S. Day, and Deborah Dougherty contend that the tools for successful NPD cannot be implemented successfully until we understand the barriers that hinder an organization’s capabilities for learning about markets. To foster that understanding, they describe the results of a study that explores the organizational barriers to learning about markets for new products. The study examines 40 NPD efforts in 15 large firms, and it has the following goals: identifying the processes through which organizational barriers impede market learning, developing specific ideas for how NPD professionals can cope more effectively with these barriers, and offering suggestions for improving market tools and techniques to help overcome these barriers.The study identifies three organizational learning barriers: avoiding ambiguity, compartmentalized thinking, and inertia. For the participants in this study, these barriers persistently act in specific ways to inhibit market learning. In acquiring market information, people typically focus on less ambiguous, more easily understood technologies and business truisms. Dissemination of market information is hindered because people focus on their own goals, which are often defined within their department’s role instead of the overall goals of the project. Inertia acts as a barrier to the effective use of market information. That is, people tend to proceed as they always have, maintaining the status quo rather than adjusting actions to capitalize on market learning.By encouraging broad functional participation in the acquisition and interpretation of data, NPD organizations can reduce the perceived ambiguity of market information. However, cross-functional approaches are only one step in overcoming organizational barriers. Managers must enable teams to develop rich, vivid market data, help people extend established routines into new practices, and promote trust. Specific market research tools and methods that promote market learning are also suggested.     

The attraction paradigm in dyadic exchange

Although the marketing literature alludes to the influence of interpersonal attraction in dyadic exchange, the composition of attraction, as well as its relationship to other elements in the exchange process, has not been given adequate attention. Since substantial empirical evidence supports the impact of attraction on a variety of human responses, this article examines how attraction impacts on marketing dyads and presents a model of interpersonal attraction as a framework for empirical testing. The implications of the model are discussed, and suggestions for further research are given.     

Tying the pieces together: A normative framework for integrating sales and project operations

Synchronizing sales efforts with project operations, such that (1) there is a steady flow of work that can be completed in a non-chaotic project environment, (2) resources maintain high utilization, and (3) desired deliverables reach customers within the promised lead-time, is extremely difficult. This paper proposes a normative approach to uniting the sales process with project operations capacity by coordinating movement of potential customers through the sales funnel with the company's internal project capacity. It also addresses contingencies with respect to company throughput as a result of changes in managing the market, the sales funnel, and project operations, while taking into consideration variation in scheduling as well as in managing project task and duration uncertainty.     

The medical officer's role in critical illness insurance product development

Critical illness insurance is a new (to the US), medically sophisticated insurance product that is tantalizing some US insurers. Few have brought a product to market, but many opine that a US breakthrough is in the offing. Would you rise to the challenge and craft an opportunity to participate in the development of a new product concept? How do medical officers bring value to the product development world? Do medical officers belong in the domain of product actuaries and consultants who bring new product ideas to life? Dr. Jan von Overbeck and I presented a workshop at the 2004 AAIM meeting to discuss the role of the medical officer in the development and evaluation of critical illness insurance. This article summarizes that discussion for the Journal's readers.