Resource allocation and productivity of cereal state farms in Ethiopia

Using a translog production function, cereal production on state farms in Ethiopia between 1980 and 1985 was analyzed. The farms were found to be operating at constant returns to scale. Manual labor was under-utilized, while machinery and other modern inputs were over-utilized. Elasticities of substitution between labor and these over-utilized inputs were low.     

'You don't know what you've got till it's gone': re-contextualising the origins, development and impact of the call centre

This paper locates the emergence of call centres within the broader political economy. We demonstrate how British Gas responded to privatisation, restrictive regulation and the need to deliver shareholder value by radically changing work organisation. Using documentary evidence and oral testimonies, we show how the call centre was pivotal to tightening control over the labour process, to intensifying work and transforming the experience of work.     

Striking the Regulatory Balance in the Unique Case of the Voluntary Sector

This article considers the requirement for a regulatory regime for the UK voluntary sector that is sensitive to the unique features of the sector, while also maximizing public trust and safeguarding the interests of wider stakeholders. Regulatory Impact Assessments are important mechanisms in the achievement of this complex and delicate balance. However, these and other regulatory instruments need to be underpinned by a deep understanding of the voluntary sector 'persona', including and most particularly the voluntary ethos that is its core.     

Vanishing income redistributions: Keynesian clues about model surprises in the short run

A compact, one-sector version of recent large-scale income distribution models is presented. Different specifications of endogenous and exogenous variables in the model (or assumptions about how it is closed) change its qualitative behavior directly. A ‘Keynesian’ closure in which investment is exogenous and nominal changes in prime cost are passed along into price increases demonstrates relative insensitivity of the functional income distribution to factor prices. An alternative ‘neoclassical’ closure in which investment is endogenous (determined by savings) and output prices are fixed is much more responsive. The large-scale models are closed on Keynesian lines, and also have relatively insensitive functional distributions. If these models adequately describe real economies, causes besides general equilibrium price response must be invoked to explain distributional change.