Modeling linkages between climate policy and land use: an overview

Agriculture and forestry play an important role in emitting and storing greenhouse gases. For an efficient and cost-effective climate policy, it is therefore important to include land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) explicitly in economy-climate models. This article gives an overview and assessment of existing approaches to include LULUCF into partial and general equilibrium economy-climate models. For each class of models, we describe different examples, their treatment of land, and their potential for and applicability to policy analysis, as well as their shortcomings. We identify data requirements and conceptual problems, and provide suggestions for future research.     

Flexicurity – a European Approach to Labour Market Policy

Although linguistically somewhat strange, “flexicurity”, the combination of labour market flexibility and security for employees, has become a much praised cornerstone of European labour market policies. Obviously, in an environment with rapid technical progress and frequently changing market conditions, employers need to manage their labour force flexibly. In order to achieve this flexibility without creating an unbearable situation for employees, security is the second pillar of the concept. Security refers, however, to “employability” rather than safety from dismissal. As such, the concept looks like an innovative European way of consolidating economic and social interests, although some argue that much flexibility is gained while the security aspect is being neglected. The concept has been successfully adopted in some European countries, notably Denmark and the Netherlands. However, each country has to find its own concept of “flexicurity” using a distinct combination of instruments that fit the national institutional, social and civic context.     

Accounting for privatisation in Africa? Reflections from a critical interdisciplinary perspective

The interrelation of privatisation and accounting constitutes a wide-ranging focus for research that is attractive from a critical theoretical and interdisciplinary perspective. A number of studies may be considered part of this focus in holding themselves out as types of evaluation of – or as an accounting, or accountability, for – privatisation. For us, the evaluation of privatisation programmes is properly a concern of critical accounting research and of those interested in the development of more holistic forms of accounting and auditing for appraisal, such as is envisaged in forms of social accounting and social auditing. Indeed the assessment of privatisation has been deemed within the ambit of the social audit movement. Privatisation in Africa is controversial. In today's context it is often integral to the particular form of the globalisation process and carries related ambiguities. Apparently something of a panacea for its advocates, it is problem-ridden for its critics. How should we account for privatisation in Africa? We promote the delineation of a holistic accounting evaluation model by reflecting on a critical review of research constituting accounts of privatisation in Africa. Of course such research, to the extent that it is holistic or comprehensive, would include attention to the mobilisation in context of various accountings as well as related practices of governance at micro- and macro-levels—in turn reflecting the sense in which accounting, along with related systems of governance, is pervasive in privatisation processes. While we find strengths in the research analysed and acknowledge its contribution, we point to deficiencies and gaps from a critical theoretical and interdisciplinary perspective. These gaps and deficiencies delimit policy discourse and praxis vis-à-vis privatisation in Africa and beyond. They also point to a more holistic accounting model of appraisal. We acknowledge the particularities of Africa, and indeed of the differing nations, cultures and regions of Africa, but also suggest the model's relevance not only for African contexts but beyond.     

OPTIMAL MIGRATION: A WORLD PERSPECTIVE*

We ask what level of migration would maximize world welfare. Welfare is assumed to be a weighted average of the utilities of the world’s various citizens, but the weights are also country specific. Using a calibrated one‐sector model, we find that unless the weights are heavily biased toward the natives of rich countries, the extent of migration that would be optimal far exceeds the levels observed today. The claim remains true in a two‐sector extension of the model. All versions of the model assume that migration is the only redistributive tool.     

Educating and Training Accountants in Syria in a Transition Context: Perceptions of Accounting Academics and Professional Accountants

This study focuses on accounting education in the Syrian transition context and in the international context of globalization. It offers insights into accounting education and into the interrelationship in this respect between the accountancy profession and academia in this context. We elaborate an historical and contextual analysis of the Syrian context in relation to accounting education. We report on a series of interviews (conducted in 2002 and 2005) of professional accountants and accounting academics in Syria that elaborates the views of these key parties on a number of interrelated matters: the current limitations of tertiary accounting education in Syria; the role of the accountancy profession in providing education and training; and the developing interrelationship between the profession and academia. In concluding, we summarize some key insights and elaborate on the relevance of the study and the future research it suggests.     

Continuing the Discussion on Coping as a Conceptualization for Constraint Negotiation and Accommodation: Responses to Little,Samdahl, and Walker

Abstract

The relationship between perceived crowding and the desire to further limit established carrying capacities is examined from a study of users of the Sylvania Recreation Area. The relationship is found to be weak, especially among those users with low education. Possible explanations in terms of expressed crowding as a status group convention are discussed. It is concluded that user limitation decisions cannot be directly derived from studies of perceived crowding.     

How tensions between specific Chinese and American interests affect China's entry into the WTO

The USA regularly stresses that it is in favour of China's admission to the World Trade Organization, given the country's growing network of international relations and its increasing political and economic significance. China's own political leadership has been driving home its demand to be readmitted to the GATT (WTO) since as long ago as July 1986. Yet in spite of the apparent concurrence of interests the two countries convey to the outside world, China's entry negotiations have not yielded any evidence of a positive outcome.     

Wage differentials and state‐private sector employment choice in Yugoslavia*

In this study we use the newly available Yugoslavian Labor Force Survey data to investigate wage differentials and employment decisions in the state and private sectors in Yugoslavia. For the analysis we use three empirical models that rely on different statistical assumptions. We extend the standard switching regression model to allow non‐normality in the joint distribution of the error terms. After correcting for the sector selection bias and controlling for workers’ characteristics we find a private sector wage advantage. The wage premium is largest for workers with low education levels and declining for workers with higher educational levels. Given the regulatory and tax policies that pushed the private sector into the informal sphere of the economy during the period covered by our data, we argue that the state/private wage gap is likely to grow in the future. This will make it increasingly difficult for the state sector to attract and retain highly skilled employees.     

Who's got the balance? A study of satisfaction with the work–family balance among part-time service sector employees in five western European countries

Working part-time is frequently considered a viable strategy for employees to better combine work and non-work responsibilities. The present study examines differences in satisfaction with work-family balance (SWFB) among professional and non-professional part-time service sector employees in five western European countries. Part-time employees were found to be more SWFB than full-time employees even after taking varying demands and resources into account. However, there are important differences among the part-timers. Employees in marginal part-time employment with considerably reduced working hours were the most satisfied. Professionals were found to profit less from reduced working hours and experienced lower levels of SWFB than non-professionals. No significant differences in SWFB were found between male and female part-time workers.