Managing political imperatives in war time: strategic responses of Philips in Australia, 1939–1945

The Australian subsidiary of Dutch multi-national enterprise Philips came under secret service surveillance and faced risk of government takeover as enemy property during World War II. It was also excluded from Australian government contracts for war-related communications equipment at a time when it was forced to reduce civilian production. These threats to its assets and operations required the firm to develop an adaptive corporate strategy in order to respond to the political imperatives it faced; not just minimising political risk, but also taking advantage of the opportunities that war-related production offered during the war years and after.     

Did support for economic and political reforms increase during the post‐communist transition,and if so,why?

We study the dynamics of individual support for changes in the economic and political system, using a unique dataset for 12 transition economies over the period 1991–2004. We document that support for transition was initially lower in the CIS countries and that there has been a converging trend in the support for reforms between the CIS and the Baltic and Central and Eastern European countries. We suggest several explanations for the initial divergence and the post‐98 convergence in support for transition between these three groups of countries, and show that economic growth, declining income inequality and improving quality of governance have contributed to increase the support for transition. In addition, we find that increased support for the market economy and democracy in the CIS is accompanied by a larger increase in trust towards the political institutions. Our results also confirm the implications of Aghion et al. ( 2010 )'s model of a negative correlation between trust and the demand for government regulation.     

INCOME INEQUALITY AND POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND FRACTURALIZATION:AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF SOME EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This paper investigates the relationship between economic inequality and the distribution of votes among political parties, namely political polarization and fracturalization. Economic inequality is captured by the Gini index, whereas new measures of political polarization and fracturalization are offered. This is the first paper to calculate political polarization and fracturalization indices by a methodology previously used for ethnic, religious and linguistic polarization and fracturalization. Empirical analysis uses data for 17 European countries and for three decades, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. It is shown that increased income inequality increases political party polarization and reduces fracturalization and that political party polarization decreases with increased GDP per capita.     

Employment polarization and the role of the apprenticeship system

This paper studies the effect of apprenticeship training on technology adoption and labor market polarization. A stylized model with two key features is developed: (1) apprentices are more productive due to industry-specific training, but (2) from the firm׳s perspective, when training apprentices, technological innovation is costly since training becomes obsolete. Thus, apprentices correlate with slower adoption of skill-replacing technologies, but also less employment polarization. We test this hypothesis on German regions given local variation in apprenticeship systems until 1976. The results show little computer adoption and no employment polarization related to apprentices, but similar displacement of non-apprentices by computers as in the US.     

“Been-heres vs. come-heres” and other identities and ideologies along the rural–urban interface: A comparative case study in Calaveras County,California

The rural–urban interface is the place of transition between that which we call “urban” and that which we call “rural.” The interface is situated between two places perceived to be different, but which are indelibly linked. Although the functional differences between “rural” and “urban” people (or those seen as “been-heres” versus “come-heres”) seem to be diminishing, differing perspectives and preferences persist along the rural–urban edge. Such differences influence the way that land users, decision makers, and the community manage the environment and react to landscape change. Using a comparative case study in Calaveras County, California, I examine the differences and similarities between “been-heres” and “come-heres” along several lines: basic demographic characteristics, political party affiliations and ideologies, and conceptions of private property rights, concluding that the dichotomy is false but instructive. The been-here/come-here divide, rather than being a definitive means for characterizing stakeholders or predicting their behavior or perspectives, serves as a heuristic for understanding the starting places of certain actors. Furthermore, this kind of analysis reveals not only where and how people and perspectives contrast but also the ways that they converge. Improving our understandings differing people and perspectives is especially important as decision-makers struggle to plan for and manage livable places and sustainable environments among groups with varying preferences which may sometimes conflict.     

The tourism and peace nexus

Tourism has been heralded as a contributor to peace, however, the inconclusive findings of empirical studies render the need for a consolidation of theory that has in so far relied on case studies and the adoption of the contact hypothesis. Informed by political science theory, this paper proposes a methodological framework that can guide future research and aims to serve as a benchmark for researchers interested in temporal issues pertaining to conflict, peace and tourism. Signalling a departure from the simplistic notion that contact through travel contributes to social integration, the paper adopts a holistic conceptualisation of the multi-faceted and complex system of actors, sectors and dimensions of tourism spanning at the social, economic, political and environmental levels.     

How historical analogies in newspapers of five countries make sense of major events: 9/11, Mumbai and Tahrir Square

We analyze how historical analogies are used in the media to make sense of novel events. While earlier work focused on single case studies, this is the first quantitative analysis comparing historical analogies invoked in three events in newspapers from five countries. With very high intercoder reliability we found 881 invocations of historical analogies. We found an interesting contrast between the roles of historical analogies in foreign policy decision making vs. newspaper articles. When the task is advocacy for policy choice, a compelling historical analogy will be one in which the causal mechanisms are as similar as possible to the current situation so that similar actions are likely to lead to similar results. Instead, newspapers spend more time at the early stages of sense-making and help the audience understand just a few features of the current situation. Newspapers thus offer a much broader range of historical analogies without much regard to maximizing similarity.     

INSTITUTIONS AND PERFORMANCE IN EUROPEAN LABOUR MARKETS: TAKING A FRESH LOOK AT EVIDENCE

Abstract This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions and offers new empirical EU‐based evidence on the impact of labour market reforms on employment and labour market adjustment. Although the literature traditionally treats labour market institutions as exogenous, attention shifted recently towards understanding the underlying causes of specific institutional arrangements. As a consequence, the literature highlights the great importance of an efficient policy design exploiting these interactions wisely and identifies general principles for achieving an efficient policy design at both macro and micro levels. Although empirical evidence does not show a major change in terms of intensity of labour market reform after the setting of the Economic and Monetary Union and the creation of the euro, the reforms aiming at strengthening the labour market attachment of vulnerable groups tend to have been successful both in raising their employment and increasing labour market adjustment.     

Using Travel brochures to Target Frequent Travellers and ”Big-Spenders”

Travel brochures are used throughout the industry to promote virtually all tourist destinations. This study examines how regional travelers request and use this material, specifically focusing on the relationships between brochure use and propensity to travel and travel expenditures. The results from a mail survey of 276 marginally related to high conversions, yet those marketing destinations can distinguish between how brochures are used and travel propensity and travel expenditures.     

The Political Economy of Argentina's Debacle

In this paper I argue that political economy considerations and, in particular, the identity of the reformers, are central to understanding the Argentine crisis that culminated in sovereign default in January 2002. During the 1990s, the main political parties remained attached to populism, and no strong party emerged at the center of the political spectrum. This had two effects in the reform process. First, it severely deteriorated it (efficiency, corruption), reducing the support of the population. Second, when a series of shocks hit the economy the anti‐reform camp tried to undo most reforms, and thus convey a message to the population about the “right” model of the world.