Transient Jobs and Lifetime Jobs: Dualism in the British Labour Market

How long does a job last in Britain? We find that many workers have very short jobs and many have very long jobs. We estimate that in 1990, 40 percent of men were in jobs that will last 20 years or more. On the other hand, 24 percent were in jobs lasting less than five years. We conclude that the labour market is still capable of offering ‘lifetime jobs’ to many workers. Policy analysis of issues such as reform of the welfare state, pensions, and training should take note that reports of the death of ‘jobs for life’ appear to be exaggerated.     

New Evidence of the Impact of Dividend Taxation and on the Identity of the Marginal Investor

This paper examines the impact of a major change in dividend taxation introduced in the United Kingdom in July 1997. The reform was structured in such a way that the immediate impact fell almost entirely on the largest investor class in the United Kingdom, namely pension funds. We find significant changes in the valuation of dividend income after the reform, in particular for high-yielding companies. These results provide strong support for the hypothesis that taxation affects the valuation of companies, and that pension funds were the effective marginal investors for high-yielding companies.     

Book briefs

Key variables in social investigation, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1986, vii + 276 pp.

Reproductive change in developing countries, Insights from the World Fertility Survey, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1985, xvi + 301 pp, ISBN 0‐19‐828465‐9.

The world crisis in education, The view from the eighties, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985, vii + 353 pp ISBN 0‐19‐503503‐8

Reaching the Urban Poor, Project implementation in developing countries, Westview Press, Boulder Colorado. 1986, vii + 264 pp, ISBN 0‐8133‐7129‐5

Housing policy, An international bibliography, Mansell Publishing Limited, New York, 1986, ix ‐ 398 pp, ISBN 0‐7201‐1785‐2

Agribusiness and the small‐scale farmer: A dynamic partner for development, Westview Press, Boulder, 1985

Agriculture and employment in developing countries: Strategies for effective rural development, Westview Press, Boulder, 1985

Progress in natural resource economics, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985

International agricultural trade: Advanced readings in price formation, market structure and price instability 1984

The role of markets in the world food economy, Westview Press, Boulder, 1983     

Reassessing the risk conditions for political instability in the light of the Arab Spring

In today’s globalized world, multinational firms contend with a diverse set of risk factors in their worldwide operations. The recent regime changes in northern African countries, also called the Arab Spring, have highlighted that political instability is one of these factors. As researchers and existing indices of political instability largely failed to predict those developments, firms had not incorporated them into their risk calculations and hence incurred losses while having to adapt their operations. This paper examines the conditions that contributed to the recent instability in North Africa using Tunisia and Egypt as case studies. It evaluates the extent to which existing measures of political instability incorporate those conditions. The analysis reveals that the main conditions contributing to the political turmoil can be seen in socio-economic factors, namely inequality, poverty, youth unemployment, a growing youth population, and especially in the case of Egypt an independent military. These findings reveal gaps in current measures of political instability, whose dominant focus is on factors describing violence and changes in the political system while neglecting the influence of a country’s socio-economic environment.     

The safety attitudes of people who use multi-purpose recreation facilities as a physical activity setting

Multi-purpose recreation facilities (MPRFs) are a popular setting for physical activity and it is therefore important that they are safe for all patrons. However, the attitudes of MPRF users towards safety are a potential barrier to the success of injury prevention programmes implemented within MPRFs. This article reports a survey of the safety attitudes of over 700 users of four indoor MPRFs. Factor analysis of 12 five-point Likert scale statements showed that the attitudes clustered around three major dimensions - the importance of safety, the benefits of safety and the perceptions of injury risk. Together, these three dimensions accounted for 49% of the variability in the attitudes. More than 85% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that: safety was an important aspect of physical activity participation; being injured affected enjoyment of physical activity; people should adopt appropriate safety measures for all physical activity; and individuals were responsible for their own safety. The MPRF users, particularly women and older people, were generally safety conscious, believed in adopting safety measures, and were willing to take responsibility for their own safety. Facility managers can be confident that if they provide evidence-based injury prevention interventions in these settings, then users will respond appropriately and adopt the promoted behaviours.     

Constraints to Park Visitation: A Meta-Analysis of North American Studies

The constraints that curb visitation to parks have received considerable research attention and remain an important issue. Constraints to outdoor leisure in parks include structural barriers, such as cost of entry, interpersonal barriers, for example, lack of a partner to visit with, or intrapersonal barriers, including lack of interest. Using a meta-analysis approach, this article integrates the findings of 22 North American studies with 541 estimates, conducted over a 30-year period, to determine the key constraints to park visitation based on various socio-demographic factors. The findings highlight the varying roles that constraints play in limiting the visitation of people according to race, age, gender, education and income. Gaps in the literature are identified, with implications for encouraging visitation for more constrained groups discussed. An agenda for future research is presented.     

Do Teachers Matter? Measuring the Variation in Teacher Effectiveness in England*

Using a unique primary dataset for the UK, we estimate the effect of individual teachers on student outcomes, and the variability in teacher quality. This links 7,305 pupils to the individual teachers who taught them, in each of their compulsory subjects in the high‐stakes exams at age 16. We use point‐in‐time fixed effects and prior attainment to control for pupil heterogeneity. We find considerable variability in teacher effectiveness, a little higher than the estimates found in the few US studies. We also corroborate recent findings that observed teachers’ characteristics explain very little of the differences in estimated teacher effectiveness.     

Decomposing hospital productivity changes, 1985–1988: A nonparametric Malmquist approach

Annual data on U.S. hospitals from 1985–1988 are evaluated by ownership type—profit, nonprofit, state and local government, and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—for changes in hospital productivity over time. Distance functions are used to measure Malmquist indices of productivity change, which are then decomposed into indices of efficiency change and technology change. In contrast to previous studies using this approach, we allow for variable returns to scale and use both input and output orientations. We find that changes in technology dominate changes in inefficiency in determining changes in productivity.     

The Incompatibility of Decentralized Bargaining and Equal Employment Opportunity in Australia

Profound changes have occurred in the industrial relations system in Australia since the mid-1980s as the system of centralized regulation has been replaced by collective bargaining at the level of the enterprise. This has corresponded with the considerable expansion of women's employment, mainly in part-time and temporary jobs. At the same time, recognition of the disadvantaged position of women in the work-force has resulted in the enactment of laws to promote equal employment opportunity. This article examines the ability of these laws to achieve equal employment opportunity policies alongside bargaining decentralization and a growing non-standard women's work-force.     

Maternity rights and mothers' return to work

This paper uses a cohort of 12,000 births to examine the effect of maternity rights on mothers' post-birth return to employment decisions. It uses a discrete hazard model to disentangle the effects of the terms of maternity rights entitlements from other factors that influence the timing of a mother's return to work. Mothers with rights have an underlying (but unobserved) stronger attachment to the labour market that prompts earlier return than on average. We take this into account by estimating a counterfactual distribution of return times using a sample of women who failed to qualify for maternity rights but who have similar levels of labour market attachment. Even when differential attachment is taken into account there remains a substantial impact of maternity rights on behaviour.