Unions and Discriminatory Hiring: Evidence from New Zealand

This study examines the effects of unions on employer compliance with antidiscrimination legislation in New Zealand, using a sample of 227 employers. The results do indicate that unions do reduce discriminatory practices. More specifically, higher levels of unionization do increase the level of employer compliance. However, other union characteristics, such as union size and strike propensity, appeared to have no influence on employer practice.     

Linking Tax Refunds and Low‐Cost Bank Accounts: Early Lessons for Program Design and Evaluation

This article describes a pilot program encouraging low‐income workers to have their tax refunds directly deposited into low‐cost bank accounts. Although the program did not lead to substantial saving in the short‐term, it did seem to facilitate account ownership among the unbanked and to serve as a bridge to other financial services and products. Early lessons for the design and evaluation of related programs are discussed.     

THE CAMBRIDGE CONTROVERSIES: OLD WAYS AND NEW HORIZONS--OR DEAD END?

‘[T]he established critics of a theory have nearly asmuch interest in the survival of the theory they criticize asits supporters; for when it is abandoned they are transportedfrom the exciting forefront of current scientific debate toa dignified but unexciting position in the museum of the historyof the subject’ (Nuti [1974, p. 364]). ‘If anything explains the heat of debates in growth [andcapital] theory, it is the difficulty thinkers in the scholastictradition have in appreciating that, for workers in the scientifictradition, it makes sense to entertain a model and use it withoutbeing committed to it; while the scientists cannot imagine whymere models should be the object of passion’ (Mirrlees[1973, p. xxi]).