SOME NOTES ON THE NATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF COPPER-ORE DEPOSITS IN CENTRAL AFRICA

T he discovery and working of copper deposits in south-central Africa must not be regarded solely as a European phenomenon. It is true that there never was a Bronze Age in Africa, south of the Sahara, as there was elsewhere, the earliest metal users in south and central Africa using iron from the beginning and working it in a manner similar to that evolved by other Iron Age people in Europe and Asia. Nevertheless, where surface deposits of other metals such as copper, tin, gold or silver were found, there is no doubt that they, too, were extensively worked and the resulting ingots, ornaments and weapons not only retained for local use but also traded often to considerable distances.     

Convergence or Divergence in Final-Offer Arbitration in Professional Baseball

Many labor relations practitioners and theorists believe that final-offer arbitration by a neutral third party encourages union and management officials to resolve their bargaining differences. However, decision scientists have found that there is no median convergence between the parties. Using professional baseball in our model, we test the assumption that major league owners tend to maximize expected monetary value (EMV), finding that claims of divergence are invalidated in dispute management contexts where there is a broad range of other motivations for settling. Decision models offer even further support for the use of final-offer arbitration in such settings.     

Racial Discrimination in the Workplace: Does Market Structure Make a Difference?

For some time, social scientists have debated whether market competition reduces racial discrimination. The failure to recognize that racial discrimination may be practiced not only in hiring but also in many different ways has led to analyses that are less than complete. Workers may be discriminated against at the hiring stage and in wages, raises, promotions, and other more subtle forms of discrimination once on the job. Using the structure of the firms' product market as the measure of concentration, I find that increased competition has no impact on the number of discrimination reports, racial wage discrimination, or the racial demographics of the workforce. Business competition cannot be relied on to reduce or combat racial discrimination, as some have insisted.