British Ethnic Minorities and Employment Training: Redressing or Extending Disadvantage?

The reasons which have been offered to explain the low labour market success encountered by ethnic minorities in Britain include their possible lack of motivation, lack of qualification and training opportunities, and discrimination in the labour market. Whilst discrimination as a contributory factor to labour market exclusion has been widely discussed in the literature, the efficacy of Government sponsored training schemes designed to equip ethnic minorities with skills which may improve their competitiveness and reduce their disadvantage has been subjected to less scrutiny. This article provides an evaluation of the role of Government sponsored employment training programmes in reducing ethnic minorities’ disadvantaged position in the labour market. It argues that training programmes designed to improve employment opportunities are failing members of the ethnic minority communities and are in some cases helping to extend their disadvantage. It identifies the reasons for the failure as (1) the constant changes in Government policies with the development of sometimes contradictory policies, and (2) the inefficiency and prejudice of the training and employing organisations which are involved in the process. The article concludes with an assessment of the consequences of continuing discrimination against ethnic minority communities.     

Mean square error for the Leland–Lott hedging strategy: convex pay-offs

Leland’s approach to the hedging of derivatives under proportional transaction costs is based on an approximate replication of the European-type contingent claim V _T using the classical Black–Scholes formula with a suitably enlarged volatility. The formal mathematical framework is a scheme of series, i.e., a sequence of models with transaction cost coefficients k _n =k ₀ n ^−α , where α∈[0,1/2] and n is the number of portfolio revision dates. The enlarged volatility [^(s)]_n\widehat{\sigma}_{n} in general depends on n except for the case which was investigated in detail by Lott, to whom belongs the first rigorous result on convergence of the approximating portfolio value Vⁿ_TV^{n}_{T} to the pay-off V _T . In this paper, we consider only the Lott case α=1/2. We prove first, for an arbitrary pay-off V _T =G(S _T ) where G is a convex piecewise smooth function, that the mean square approximation error converges to zero with rate n ^−1/2 in L ² and find the first order term of the asymptotics. We are working in a setting with non-uniform revision intervals and establish the asymptotic expansion when the revision dates are t_iⁿ=g(i/n)t_{i}^{n}=g(i/n), where the strictly increasing scale function g:[0,1]→[0,1] and its inverse f are continuous with their first and second derivatives on the whole interval, or g(t)=1−(1−t) ^β , β≥1. We show that the sequence n^1/2(V_Tⁿ-V_T)n^{1/2}(V_{T}^{n}-V_{T}) converges in law to a random variable which is the terminal value of a component of a two-dimensional Markov diffusion process and calculate the limit. Our central result is a functional limit theorem for the discrepancy process.     

Income Shifting and International Transfer Pricing: A Three-Country Example

There is a long held belief that international transfer pricing (ITP) is used by multinational enterprises (MNEs) to minimize global tax liability. On the one hand, this is a rational economic response to market imperfections created by national governments. An alternative view decries such actions as anti-competitive and an abuse of power. This article ex-amines the potential benefit to enterprises of ITP manipulation when a real world combination of fiscal rules are simultaneously applied in practice. The countervailing impact of different national rules appears to result in ITP having a minor significance on parent after-tax income. Differential rates cause minor benefits but the absence of a form of tax, such as withholding tax, can provide substantial opportunities to maximize global after-tax income through the choice of transfer price. ITP can therefore provide benefits when national jurisdictions do not have consistent forms of taxation. In all the scenarios explored, major variations are apparent in the after-tax income of subsidiaries operating under different combinations of fiscal regimes and ITP policies. The tension between head-quarter and subsidiary management may be most pronounced when a subsidiary is located in a jurisdiction not having a complete range of tax forms.     

Co-integration and error-correction modelling of agricultural export supply in Cameroon

Estimates of factors influencing Cameroon^,s exports of cocoa, coffee and cotton are derived in a system of equations using the Engle-Granger and Johansen co-integration and error-correction representation procedures. Two co-integrating vectors involving cocoa and coffee exports as endogenous variables are identified in the system while tests for exogeneily of cotton exports are consistent with the independence of cotton from the other two commodities. These findings are corroborated by estimates of a restricted error-correction model which lead to acceptance of the hypothesis that cocoa and coffee exports are-indeed determined endogenously to the system and not linked to cotton exports. Statistical significance of the error-correction terms for cocoa and coffee validates the existence of an equilibrium relationship among the variables in each of these co-integrating vectors. The combined short run dynamic effect of lagged quantities of cocoa and coffee, export/domestic price ratio and GDP jointly explain changes in exports of cocoa whereas lagged quantities exported do not seem to have a significant short-run dynamic effect on changes in coffee exports.     

Aid,Aid Volatility and Sectoral Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Finance Matter?

This article examines the impact of aid and its volatility on sectoral growth by relying on panel dataset of 37 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 1983–2014. Findings from the system-generalized methods of moments show that, while foreign aid significantly drives sectoral growth, aid volatility deteriorates sectoral value additions impacting heavily on non-tradable sectors with no apparent effect on the agricultural sector. The deleterious effect of aid volatility on sectoral value additions in SSA is weakened by a well-developed financial system with significant impact on the tradable sector. Evidently, development of domestic financial markets enhances aid effectiveness.     

WAGNER'S LAW: AN ECONOMETRIC TEST FOR SOUTH AFRICA, 1960‐2006

The main objective for this paper is to test Wagner's law by analysing the causal relationships between real government expenditure and real income for South Africa for the period 1960‐2006. The paper tests the long‐run relationship between the two variables using the autoregressive distributive lag approach to cointegration suggested by Pesaran et al. We use the Granger non‐causality test procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto, which uses a vector autoregression model to test for the causal link between the two. Evidence of cointegration is sufficient to establish a long‐run relationship between government expenditure and income. However, support for Wagner's law would require unidirectional causality from income to government expenditure. Therefore, cointegration should be seen as a necessary condition for Wagner's law, but not sufficient. This research does find a long‐run relationship between real per capita government expenditure and real per capita income. Results for the short‐run causality find bidirectional causality. On the basis of empirical results in this paper, one may tentatively conclude that Wagner's law finds no support in South Africa.     

French Cultural Decentralization and International Expansion.Towards a Geometrically Variable Interculturalism?

For a long time French local and regional authorities were largely excluded from debates on cultural policy, and even more so from international cultural exchanges. Their intervention in this second area, in its most conventional forms to its contemporary networks, occupies a special place in the present issues. Being sustained by large increases in local and national budgets for culture, such an evolution necessarily raised certain strategic issues and debates, which are discussed in the paper. The international element of local cultural policies has only recently appeared as a potential area for local strategy development. It can be seen as the result of the cultural generation of the 1980s, from the point of view of actors in both the public and professional domain. This paper examines the three following aspects: the forms taken by cultural decentralization in its main stages, through the conferral of negotiated powers; the modifications in centre-periphery relations brought about by this decentralization; and the emergence of an international exchange dynamic as a result of these first two processes.     

Effect of Management Practices on Actual ICT Application in Kenyan Hotels: A PLS-SEM Approach

Advances in information communication technology (ICT) has seen many hotels invest huge sums of money in ICTs to enhance their performance. However, this has never been the case for most hotels in economically developing countries due to poor ICT implementation. This study sought to establish how ICT-related management practices influence actual ICT application by hotels in Kenya. A total of 194 hotel managers drawn from 36 hotels were surveyed. The data collected was analyzed quantitatively. The outcomes show that though operational management and human resource management practices significantly predict actual ICT application, HRM practices have the biggest effect in explaining the variance in actual ICT application. The study finding offer insights to best management practices and how they influence actual ICT use in hotels.     

Ghana's agricultural food policy: Operation feed yourself

Prompted by food shortages, the newly ensconced Ghanaian military regime in 1972 initiated ‘Operation Feed Yourself’, a national programme directed at increased production of food crops. The authors attempt to determine how effective Operation Feed Yourself has been in attaining its goals. The bureaucracy which was set in place to implement the programme is assessed. Building on personal interviews conducted in Ghana with persons responsible for and affected by it, the authors discuss the successes and shortcomings of Operation Feed Yourself and suggest areas in which improvement might be made.