Household satisfaction: Past,present and future perspectives

In the past two decades South African quality of life has been measured at the individual level in nationwide surveys and studies of special groups using happiness and satisfaction measures. In 1993 the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (Saldru) pioneered a satisfaction measure to capture subjective well‐being at the household level for the Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD). The article assesses the usefulness of the new indicator by comparing present household satisfaction with individual‐level satisfaction trends and with PSLSD measures of past and projected future satisfaction and household income and expenditure. It is concluded that the household satisfaction measure is a useful social indicator in that it yields consistent and readily interpretable results and is sensitive to income and expenditure differentials. In confirmation of findings from a recent cross‐national study, the higher income households in the Saldru study reported higher levels of perceived well‐being.     

民主化比较研究：一些广泛的和局部性的结论

民主化的比较研究已经产生了两类普遍结论:一类几乎一般的适用,一类则仅适用于一定地区内的某些国家。第一类包括良好的经济发展在保证民主持续稳定发展中的作用、政治精英在建立和毁掉民主制度中的重要作用、法治和国家能力对新生民主的质量和巩固发展的重要性等等。第二类是前东欧社会主义国家与拉丁美洲和南欧的民主化的对比:例如民主化与经济转型的关系、从过去的政治经济体制快速或缓慢转型对于巩固新生民主制度的利与弊等。这两类结论对比较政治学者有两个方法论上的启示:一是怎样理解理论的普遍性,二是如何衡量事件的长期性的和直接性的原因哪个更重要。     

Accompaniment,Workplace Representation and Disciplinary Outcomes in British Workplaces — Just a Formality?

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 provides data that, for the first time, measure the extent to which workforce representation is part and parcel of grievance and disciplinary processes in British workplaces. This article explores the impact of the introduction of the statutory right to accompaniment at grievance and disciplinary hearings on rates of disciplinary sanctions, dismissals and employment tribunal applications. It concludes that there is little evidence to suggest that either the right to accompaniment or the operation of formal grievance and disciplinary procedures moderates disciplinary outcomes. Instead, it argues that trade union and employee representatives may be influential in facilitating the resolution of workplace disputes.     

Temporary and permanent migrant selection: Theory and evidence of ability‐search cost dynamics

We integrate two workhorses of the labor literature, the Roy and search models, to illustrate the implications of migration duration—specifically, whether it is temporary or permanent—for patterns of selection. Consistent with our stylized model, we show that temporary migrants are intermediately selected on education, with weaker selection on cognitive ability. In contrast, permanent migration is associated with strong positive selection on both education and ability, as it involves finer employee–employer matching and offers greater returns to experience. Networks are also more valuable for permanent migration, where search costs are higher. Labor market frictions explain observed network–skill interactions.     

Monitoring quality of life in cities: The Durban case

South Africans were promised a better life for all in the run-up to the first democratic elections in 1994. Local governments throughout South Africa are seeking to improve service delivery to underdeveloped areas in line with the new policy. The seven councils of the Durban Metropolitan Area have a vision for the city, to be realised by the year 2015, that residents will live in acceptably serviced housing and will enjoy a generally high quality of life that can be sustained. To monitor performance towards achieving this vision, the Urban Strategy Department of the Durban Metropolitan Council initiated a project to guide budget allocations and measure the impact of local government actions on residents' perceptions of quality of life. This article reports on results from the pilot study for the project, which included a sample survey of 300 residents and in-depth interviews with a cross-section of 60 residents. The baseline study revealed vast differences in living conditions, access to services and life satisfaction across neighbourhoods. Satisfaction with housing and the neighbourhood, as indicated by disinclination to move, were major factors contributing to life satisfaction of Durban residents.     

The monetary model strikes back: Evidence from the world

We revisit the dramatic failure of monetary models in explaining exchange rate movements. Using the information content from 98 countries, we find strong evidence for cointegration between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals. We also find fundamentals-based models very successful in beating a random walk in out-of-sample prediction.     

Labor‐saving technologies and structural transformation in northern Ghana

Labor‐saving technologies played a fundamental role historically in the structural transformation of agrarian economies. We focus on an emerging labor‐saving trend in Ghana, use of motorized tricycles (MTs), which provide an affordable alternative to manually transferring crops from plots to homestead. A household survey collected in 2017 in northern Ghana is used to shed light on how the time savings made available by using MTs may be converted into activities that enhance agricultural productivity and/or diversify the household away from agriculture. Detailed information collected on the agricultural production and agro‐processing behavior of 1,400 households allows us to examine the above transformative channels. Ordinary least squares and instrumental variable regressions are applied to quantify the effect of MTs on related outcomes. We find households are able to diversify their farming activities into selling processed agricultural goods with the time savings provided through MT adoption. Policies aimed to foster the diffusion of MTs elsewhere in Ghana may expedite structural change and, hence, economic growth.