bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
‘In the Company of Men’: A Reflexive Tale of Cultural Organizing in a Small Organization
Authors: Fletcher Denise
Published: March 2003

A tale of fieldwork in a small organization is discussed in this article with a view to highlighting how social processes, cultural understandings and expressions of gender are produced during fieldwork interaction. The tale is told reflexively and retrospectively, recording an ongoing conversation about fieldwork experience. Central to the tale is discussion of how the researcher is drawn into ‘culture–making’ within the organization and the ways in which fieldwork interaction creates a ‘space’ through which organizational members engage with, work through and realize work–place values. In this article there are multiple levels of reflection. At one level it is examined how the organizational–researcher role of ‘emotional nurturer’ was constructed during fieldwork. At the same time some cultural insights drawn from ethnographic inquiry and intensive interviewing within the small organization are presented. The analysis is also shaped by a further layer of post–fieldwork reflection and interpretation which draws in emotional issues and expressions of gender. It is argued that a close scrutiny of fieldwork roles is important to organizational research in that it makes explicit how the researcher–‘native’ interaction is central to the theorizing process and how the researcher can become a participant in organizational culture–making.
Market Size, Technology Choice, and Market Structure
Authors: Elberfeld Walter , Götz Georg
Published: March 2003

We introduce technology choice into a model of monopolistic competition and analyze the structural effects of changes in market size. A larger market leads to the adoption of a large-scale technology. If a technology switch occurs, the number of firms decreases, and a rationalizing effect arises: individual and aggregate output increases; prices fall. This need not benefit consumers since a technology switch is associated with a decrease in product variety.
Social Security and Growth in an Altruistic Economy
Authors: Wigger Berthold U.
Published: March 2003

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of private and public intergenerational transfers in the presence of endogenous growth. It focuses on two-sided altruism implying that individuals have both a motive to make gifts to their parents and a motive to leave bequests to their children. The growth effects of social security depend on whether children are making gifts to their parents or parents are leaving bequests to their children. Which of the transfers is operative, in turn, depends on the size of social security benefits. Social security is legislated endogenously. The introduction of a social security program which definitely reduces per capita income growth and harms future generations is contemplated by altruistic individuals even if non-altruistic individuals disapprove it.
Labor Taxation in Search Equilibrium with Home Production
Authors: Holmlund Bertil
Published: March 2003

Conventional models of equilibrium unemployment typically imply that proportional taxes on labor earnings are neutral with respect to unemployment as long as the tax does not affect the replacement rate provided by unemployment insurance, i.e. unemployment benefits relative to after-tax earnings. When home production is an option, the conventional results may no longer hold. This paper uses a search equilibrium model with home production to examine the employment and welfare implications of labor taxes. The employment effect of a rise in a proportional tax is found to be negative for sufficiently low replacement rates, whereas it is ambiguous for moderate and high replacement rates. Numerical calibrations of the model indicate that employment generally falls when labor taxes are raised.
Bid Functions in Auctions and Fair Division Games: Experimental Evidence
Authors: Güth Werner , Königstein Manfred , Ivanova-Stenzel Radosveta , Strobel Martin
Published: March 2003

In auctions a seller offers a commodity for sale and collects the revenue. In fair division games the object is collectively owned by the group of bidders who equally share the revenue. We run an experiment in which the participants face four types of allocation games (auctions and fair division game under two price rules, first- versus second-price rule). We collect entire bid functions rather than bids for single values and investigate price and efficiency of the different trading institutions. We find that the first-price auction is more efficient than the second-price auction, whereas economic rationality assuming heterogeneous bidders suggests the opposite. Furthermore, we study the structure of individual bid functions.
The Ex‐GDR Poet and the People
Authors: Owen Ruth J.
Published: March 2003

At the ‘Wende’ writers were swayed anew by abstract ideals. Such ideals at first seemed to concur with the aims of the people’s demonstrations in 1989. Ulti‐mately, however, the people sought Western‐style democracy and the end of German division, whereas many GDR writers and intellectuals opposed unification. This made them deeply unpopular, in the most literal sense of this word. To some extent, literature always contains idealised visions: none the less, for forty years these writers had thought that they were speaking for the people. At unification writers and intellectuals suddenly saw that their ideals conflicted with popular concerns. Post‐‘Wende’ poetry demonstrates how both older and younger poets are coming to terms with a new self‐understanding. Many assess in poetry their loss of social function: they express a sense of dispossession and descent from a position of presumed significance. Dialogue is an important aspect of this comparison between past and present. To the fore now come a sense of emptiness and a dread of writing into a void where literature has no resonance. Poetry seems to be lamenting the loss of the imagined relationship between the GDR poet and the GDR people.
‘Das Schreiende Amt’: The ‘Bourgeois’ Tradition and the Problem of ‘Objectivity’ in Wolfgang Hilbig’s Abwesenheit
Authors: Cooke Paul
Published: March 2003

The following article examines the text abwesenheit (1979), the East German writer Wolfgang Hilbig’s first collection of poetry. Specifically, the article explores Hil‐big’s appropriation of literary modernism in this work, a tradition which was condemned as ‘bourgeois’ and ‘formalist’ by the cultural authorities in the East. Tak‐ing the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and Georg Heym as paradigms for his engagement with this tradition, the article shows how the vision of these poets becomes a point of contact for Hilbig with a world outside the stifling East German socialist collective. Through their world‐view he attempts to gain a degree of distance from his life as a member of the working‐class masses, in order to be better able to objectify this experience and give expression to a more individual sense of identity. The article goes on to suggest, however, that ultimately he cannot gain any degree of objectivity. Indeed, his poetry merely confirms the fact that he is locked at the centre of the oppressive world he describes. Nevertheless, although he fails to find a sense of identity which is not limited by the state, the article argues that the act of failure itself gives the poet a validity. He takes over what he terms ‘das schreiende amt’, and in so doing refuses silent capitulation to the SED dictatorship. Instead, he holds his individual sense of crisis up as testimony to the larger crisis at the heart of his society.
August 1961: Christa Wolf and the Politics of Disavowal
Authors: Scribner Charity
Published: March 2003

Throughout her career Christa Wolf has circumvented any explicit reference to the Berlin Wall. Although Der geteilte Himmel reaches its climax in the summer of 1961, the Wall does not figure in this novel. None the less it provides a framework for the narrative through its absence. Wolf’s latest novel, Medea, also organises itself around the tropes of walls and borders. Today, forty years after Berlin’s division, one could easily dismiss Wolf’s writing because of her ‘blind spot’vis‐á‐vis the Wall. But to do so would forfeit Wolf’s subtle handling of literary representation, prohibition, and disavowal. This essay argues that Wolf’s elaborations of disavowal play a critical (but as yet unexamined) role in the continuing debate over the politics of memory that has come to define German studies. Freudian theories of repression and fetishism are engaged to discern the structures of disavowal that give form not only to Der geteilte Himmel and Medea, but also to Wolf’s most important writings on ethics, ‘Selbstanzeige’ and ‘Nagelprobe’. The essay concludes that authentic memory does not reconstitute a homogeneous image of the past. Rather, as Wolf demonstrates, it reawakens the antagonisms that forever thwart the resolution of and in any narrative.
Skeptischer Realismus in der Erzählkunst Rudolf Lindaus
Authors: Hillenbrand Rainer
Published: March 2003

Rudolf Lindau ist biographisch, thematisch und stilistisch eine Ausnahmeerscheinung in der deutschen Erzählliteratur des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Als Diplomat mit langjähriger Tätigkeit im Ausland bezieht er den fernen Osten, die Türkei und die internationale Gesellschaft Europas und Amerikas in seine Romane und Erzählungen mit ein. Als Nachfolger der englischen und französischen Tradition paßt er weder in den Poetischen Realismus, noch in den deutschen Naturalismus seiner Zeit. Das ästhetische Niveau seiner Erzählkunst rechtfertigt aber eine detaillierte wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit seinem Werk, wozu ein überwiegend aus ungedruckten Quellen geschöpfter Lebensabriß und die Charakteristik seiner Weltsicht und poetischen Technik eine Grundlage schaffen soll.
‘Wir stehen fest zusammen/Zu Kaiser und zu Reich!’: Nationalism Among Germans in Britain, 1871–1918
Authors: Manz Stefan
Published: March 2003

German unification in 1871 triggered a wave of enthusiasm for the fatherland amongst German migrants worldwide. Britain was no exception. National confidence and coherence received a boost through the new symbols of ‘Kaiser’ and ‘Reich’. From the 1880s onwards, more and more militaristic and chauvinistic undertones could be heard. Local branches of German patriotic and militaristic pressure groups were founded in Britain. Support for Germany’s ‘new course’ of colonialist expansion and its ambitious naval programme was, however, not confined to right–wing groups but permeated ethnic life in general. Religion and nationalism stood in a symbiotic relationship; some German academics lecturing at British universities displayed chauvinistic attitudes; social clubs were increasingly dominated by an atmosphere of ‘Reich’–nationalism. After the outbreak of war, public expressions of pro–German attitudes did not disappear and were one of numerous factors contributing to Germanophobia within the host society.
‘Der Enkel aus Berlin’: Udo Lindenberg and the German Cabaret Tradition
Authors: Blühdorn Annette
Published: March 2003

In recent years contemporary German popular music has received a fair amount of academic attention. However, the issue of its specifically German roots and origins has been largely neglected. For the most part German popular music is still regarded as an uninspired copy of American and British models. Aiming to redress this misperception, this article focuses on the chanson and cabaret culture of the Weimar era and its significance for the work of Udo Lindenberg. Lindenberg, one of the veterans of German popular music, has described himself as Marlene Dietrich’s ‘Enkel aus Berlin’ and as ‘Vermächtnisnehmer’ of the 1920s’ and 1930s’ chanson and cabaret culture. By exploring the legitimacy of this proud self–description, the article seeks to contribute to the study of German popular music and, more specifically, to show that the work of Udo Lindenberg deserves to be taken more seriously than it has been so far.
The Strength of Perpetrators—The Holocaust in Western Europe, 1940–1944
Authors: Seibel Wolfgang
Published: March 2003

On average, two‐thirds of the Jews in German‐controlled territory during World War II did not survive. However, the degree of victimization varied considerably, depending on the area examined. In Poland, the Baltic States, the Protectorate of Bohemia‐Moravia, Greece, the territories of Yugoslavia and the Netherlands, more than 70 percent of Jews were killed. In Hungary and the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, the number of Jews killed was close to the average. In Belgium, Norway, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Denmark, a majority of the Jews survived. At the same time, the structure of Nazi rule over Europe before and during World War II was characterized by a wide variety of administrative regimes. So far, research has not systematically linked different degrees of Jewish victimization to different kinds of administrative regimes. Did different forms of administrative regimes result in differing degrees of Jewish victimization during the Holocaust? The present paper presents both evidence and an operationalization for a related general hypothesis.
Environmental Regulation and International Sourcing Policies of Multinational Firms
Authors: And GEOFFREY DOBILAS , MACPHERSON ALAN
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the role of environmental factors in the contract‐allocation decisions of European and North American multinational corporations (MNCs). Particular attention is given to the motivations and experiences of selected MNCs that have recently adopted environmental policies to guide specific aspects of their international purchasing procedures. The results of a pilot survey of 12 MNCs suggest that environmental issues are beginning to enter into the strategic decision‐making fields of corporate planners, notably with regard to supplier selection and evaluation. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of possible directions for future empirical research.
Corporate Response to Environmental Issues: Packaging
Authors: LABATT SONIA
Published: March 2003

Among the environmental issues that have come to dominate social concerns, the amount of packaging sent for disposal in landfills has gained increased prominence in Canada, with the issuance in 1990 of the National Protocol on Packaging (NAPP). Recognizing the increased demands for improved environmental performance on the part of corporations, this study seeks to understand why some companies respond more quickly than others to concerns about packaging‐waste reduction. The paper links concepts found in the Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovation Theory literatures, in order to explore corporate response patterns to pressures for change and to develop a measure of corporate performance with regards to packaging‐waste reduction efforts. Bivariate and linear logit analyses of data were undertaken, and confirm that variations in a company's response pattern can be explained in terms of factors such as company size, product orientation, and existence of an environmental affairs function, as well as external policies, such as NAPP.
Higher Education in the Republic of Ireland: Participation and Performance
Authors: Clancy Patrick
Published: March 2003

This paper describes the expansion and diversification of higher education in the Republic of Ireland and examines some of the principal characteristics of higher education entrants. It is estimated that in 1995, some 43 per cent of the age cohort entered the full‐time higher education system in the Republic of Ireland with a further 5 per cent enrolling in UK colleges. While these increasing admission rates have been fuelled by rising completion rates at second level they reflect, primarily, rising transition rates into higher education from those who complete the Leaving Certificate. The greater part of the expansion has taken place in the non‐university sector which is characterised by a preponderance of sub‐degree programmes, heavily concentrated in the areas of Business Studies, Engineering and Applied Science. A noticeable feature of higher education admissions is the low percentage of older students. The great majority come directly from school with increasingly high levels of attainment in the Leaving Certificate reflecting stiff competition for places, especially in the university sector. While there continues to be large disparities by socioeconomic group in access to higher education, the most recent data point to some reduction in equality. Western counties have consistently had higher third level admission rates with lower rates in eastern counties, including Dublin, and border counties.
Who Will Speak for the Universities? The Committee of Vice‐Chancellors and Principals in the Age of Mass Higher Education
Authors: Tapper Ted , Salter Brian
Published: March 2003

Since the demise of the University Grants Committee (UGC) the Committee of Vice‐Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) has had an opportunity to forge a new relationship to the state. While the Committee has continued to engage in elite negotiations with state institutions such as the funding and research councils, it has also become an active pressure group exerting its influence upon the political process in general. Perhaps more interesting than the recent change in the CVCP’s role is the way in which, given the expansion of the university sector following the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act, 1992, it will develop in the future. This future role, so the article argues, is dependent upon the interaction of two factors: the nature of the funding context imposed by government, and the ability of the Committee to sustain its own internal cohesion. The article poses alternative outcomes dependent upon contrasting interpretations as to how these two variables could develop.
Dearing on Governance –The Wrong Prescription
Authors: Shattock Michael
Published: March 2003

The Dearing Report takes a very active interest in questions of institutional governance but seems to have done so without taking into account the context of increased central controls which emerge from other recommendations. It recommends the recognition and encouragement of institutional diversity while at the same time urging the adoption of a model of institutional governance which rests heavily on the concept applied to the post‐1992 universities. But the merits of this model against others is not discussed, merely asserted, nor is there evidence of any research into effective university governance that might have underpinned the recommendations. In fact, the implied parallel between university governance and the corporatist model deriving from business is seriously flawed: no company could be run in this way. The Report is highly prescriptive about governnance issues and recommends that a failure to comply should be reflected in financial penalties to be levied by the Funding Councils. This seems to contradict the Report’s stated support for institutional autonomy.
Assessing the Extent of Use of Part‐time Teachers in British Higher Education: Problems and Issues in Enumerating a Flexible Labour Force
Authors: Husbands Christopher T.
Published: March 2003

This article first describes the several types of part‐time teacher in higher education in the United Kingdom and laments the paucity of data about them. It discusses how the Higher Education Statistics Agency [HESA] was founded and the extent of its coverage of part‐time academic staff, focusing specifically upon how the criterion for submission of an individual staff record was developed and the implications of this criterion for enumerating the numbers and use of part‐time teachers. Then are presented approximate survey‐derived estimates of the numbers of various types of part‐time teacher in United Kingdom higher education. There may be as many as 75,000 teaching positions, and probably more, in six particular categories of part‐time teacher and it is suggested that perhaps 50,000 of the persons performing this work are not individually enumerated by HESA. Various reasons are suggested why many institutions might have been reluctant to compile full data on their part‐time teaching staff, before a conclusion is given which stresses how contemporary developments in employment law are making it increasingly incumbent upon institutions to have adequate data on all their teaching staff, including those employed on different types of part‐time basis.
Re–Balancing Modern Concepts of University Governance
Authors: Shattock Michael
Published: March 2003

The paper considers the corporate–dominated and the academic–dominated forms of university governance, and the extent to which the position of these models has fluctuated over time. It argues that it is now time to move back to the concept of ‘shared governance’, but that this requires some reform of academic decision–making and that the corporate and the academic sides need to create machinery to realise effectively their respective contributions to university governance.
Moral Choice and Economic Change: Britain in the Twentieth Century1
Authors: Supple Barry
Published: March 2003

Moral choice is involved, even if implicitly, in many aspects of economic policy‐making, since positive intervention or even the absence of intervention have important consequences for the distribution of resources. Changes in that distribution tend to be unequal as between groups of people at any one period or over time. On the other hand, policies (such as those relating to interest rates) tend to accept that some groups bear the costs of change so that others, or the generality of people, may benefit. This article considers this theme in terms of the social costs of three policy issues which have characterized British economic history in the twentieth century: financial and fiscal orthodoxy; the reactions to changes in industrial structure; and the use of the fruits of growth for the collective provision of welfare services. It is argued that in many respects the costs of change are inevitable, but that their distribution has been unfair, or their realistic amelioration neglected by ideological prejudice, vested interests or apprehension about political backlash. The last is based on subjective views about the ‘affordable’ limits of government expenditure and taxes. Heroic solutions to the consequent problems are unlikely.
Capital and the Lagos Presidency: Business as Usual?
Authors: Silva Eduardo
Published: March 2003

Business‐state relations in Chile's new democracy had been relatively tension‐free for the first two governments of the centre‐left Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. However, during the first two years of the third Concertación administration, under the presidency of Ricardo Lagos, the relationship soured dramatically. At first glance, an ideological shift in the ruling coalition's centre of gravity would seem to explain the change in business‐state relations. During the first two governments more conservative factions of the centrist Christian Democratic party had controlled the Concertación. Lagos, on the other hand, represented the left pole of the coalition and his socialist credentials brought the long shadow of the past on his presidency. This, however is an insufficient cause, three additional conditions must also be taken into account. The first one considers changes in the institutional and economic context that eroded the private sector's confidence in the Concertación's commitment to maintain the free‐market socioeconomic model imposed under military rule. The second and third conditions are a decline in the electoral fortunes of the Concertación in favour of conservative parties and a shift in power relations among employers' associations towards more confrontational factions.
Place, space, networks, and the sustainability of collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo
Authors: Bosco Fernando J.
Published: March 2003

This article provides a framework for analysing social movements and explaining how collective action can be sustained through networks. Drawing on current relational views of place and space, I offer a spatialized conception of social networks that critically synthesizes network theory, research on social movements, and the literature on the spatial dimensions of collective action. I examine the historic and contemporary network geographies of a group of human rights activists in Argentina (the Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and explain the duration of their activism over a period of more than two decades with regard to the concept of geographic flexibility. To be specific, first I show how, through the practice of place‐based collective rituals, activists have maintained network cohesion and social proximity despite physical distance. Second, I examine how the construction of strategic networks that have operated at a variety of spatial scales has allowed the Madres to access resources that are important for sustaining mobilization strategies. Finally, I discuss how the symbolic depiction of places has been used as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. I conclude by arguing that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism account for their successful development of geographically flexible networks, and that the concept of geographic flexibility provides a useful template for studies of the duration and continuity of collective action.
Case Study: The Treatment of Auditory Hallucinations in Children with Emotional Disorders
Authors: Vickers Bea
Published: March 2003

The nosological status and treatment of auditory hallucinations in children who have either emotional or behavioural disorders is an area that is poorly researched. Auditory hallucinations are associated with a wide range of emotional and behavioural disorders, and are likely to be present in between 1% to 5.7% of children seen in out‐patient clinics by child and adolescent psychiatrists. A case study of a 12‐year‐old boy with a 14‐month history of second‐person auditory hallucinations associated with a diagnosis of severe depression is presented. In terms of age, gender, family history and symptomatology, this case is typical of children with non‐organic, non‐schizophreniform hallucinations. In this case, successful treatment comprised both cognitive‐behavioural techniques, aimed at alleviating the mood disorder, and neuroleptic medication.
The Adjustment of Children in Stepfamilies: Lessons from Community Studies
Authors: Dunn Judy
Published: March 2003

Evidence from community studies on the adjustment of children in stepfamilies is described. The diversity of stepfamilies, and the importance of taking account of this diversity are stressed. Children in stepfamilies are on average more likely to have adjustment problems, but average differences are small and individual differences are great. Key risks for children's outcome include family conflict, parental mental health, economic and social stress, multiple family transitions, and parental life‐course patterns; much of the impact on children is mediated through parent‐child relationships, and the links between family relationships. The importance of taking account of children's perspectives on their family lives, and of biological relatedness rather than family type, are highlighted.
Cranks, conventionalists and geomorphology
Authors: Huggett R
Published: March 2003

Hypotheses in geomorphology may be conventional or unconventional. It is argued that outrageous hypotheses produced by conventional thinkers with a streak of unconventionality occasionally shift paradigms and are invaluable alternatives to conventional hypotheses, which tend merely to shore up seemingly safe and secure ruling paradigms.
Constructing ‘the geographical archive’
Authors: Withers Charles W.J
Published: March 2003

The recent success of the RGS–IBG in securing funds to develop the Society’s archives provides a moment in which those interested in the history of geographical knowledge and of geography as an academic discipline might reflect on the nature of ‘the geographical archive’ that is constituted in and by the academic department. Drawing, in part, upon the work of Derrida and of Foucault, the paper firstly examines what an archive is and what it does. Secondly, the paper raises questions about the process of archiving and the practices of being in the archive, using the example of a research project on the history of disciplinary geography in the author’s university department. In conclusion, the paper calls for wider collective attention to the nature of ‘the geographical archive’ in institutions teaching and researching geography in the UK.
The Exports Transmission Mechanism of Foreign Business Cycles to Australia
Authors: De Roos Nicolas , Russell Bill
Published: March 2003

The present paper examines the impact of foreign business cycles on Australian exports. After accounting for the effect of domestic activity on exports it has been found that foreign activity has at times had a large impact on Australian exports and, therefore, also on Australian GDP. Evidence is also found that the US and Japan have a high output elasticity of demand for Australia’s exports. Consequently, their business cycles have a larger impact on Australia’s exports than that suggested by their market shares of Australian exports.
Will Subsidising Private Health Insurance Help the Public Health System?
Authors: Vaithianathan Rhema
Published: March 2003

This paper challenges the argument that expanding private health insurance coverage in Australia will reduce the demand for public hospitals. We construct a simple model to illustrate that although a premium subsidy might expand insurance coverage, it may not reduce the demand for public health services. The reason is that, under certain conditions, government subsidies only increase insurance coverage among self–insured consumers; that is, consumers who are uninsured but purchase private health care if they fall ill. We argue that subsidising private health care rather than insurance is a more effective way of reducing the demand for public health services.
Drought, desiccation and discourse: missionary correspondence and nineteenth‐century climate change in central southern Africa
Authors: Endfield Georgina H. , Nash David J.
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the role that representatives of the London Missionary Society in central southern Africa during the nineteenth century may have played in the development of geographical debates concerning the long‐term desiccation of the African continent. Observations on climate included within missionary documents are used to reconstruct a chronology of intra‐decadal climatic variability for the period 1815–1900. This reveals six drought periods and seven wet phases that affected large areas of the region, but identifies no evidence for progressive desiccation. The chronology is then used as a framework within which to view missionary perspectives on drought and desiccation. Major influences upon the development of desiccationist theory appear to include the prevalence of contemporary moral economic explanations of climatic variability, as well as the uptake and acceptance of indigenous understanding of climate change. Significantly, many of the key observations by eminent missionaries used as supporting evidence for progressive desiccation are identified as having been made during periods of severe drought. This is used to suggest that the most widely propagated evidence for desiccation may, therefore, simply be the end‐product of periods of short‐term drought rather than long‐term climatic deterioration.
Self‐reliance in Kiribati: contrasting views of agricultural and fisheries production
Authors: Thomas Frank R.
Published: March 2003

Aid and remittances have long defined the economies of Pacific Island ‘micro states’ as part of the MIRAB approach to development. However, these sources of support now face an uncertain future. While recognizing that atoll nations, such as Kiribati, are constrained in terms of their agricultural potential, particularly on urban South Tarawa, there is still room for improvement of both traditional and exotic crop production to help reverse the trend of increasing imported food dependency and the rising incidence of nutritionally related non‐communicable diseases. By contrast, the inshore fisheries sector currently satisfies both subsistence and local commercial needs. This paper examines extant agricultural and nearshore fisheries activities on South Tarawa and analyzes the impact on health and nutrition and on the environment.
Does a critical mass exist? A comparative analysis of women's legislative representation since 1950
Authors: Studlar Donley T. , McAllister Ian
Published: March 2003

Abstract.It has often been argued theoretically that a ‘critical mass,’ ranging from 10 to 35 per cent women, is needed before major changes in legislative institutions, behaviour, policy priorities and policy voting occurs. This paper examines one of the less‐explored dimensions of the critical mass concept: Is there a process by which women reaching a critical mass of the legislature accelerates the election of further women? Using data from the Inter‐Parliamentary Union and International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, we analyze this question for 20 industrialized democracies over a period of half a century, longer than any other relevant research. Descriptive results indicate that gains in women's representation have been incremental rather than a critical mass accelerating the election of women to legislatures. In a multivariate analysis of the percentage of women in the lower house of the legislature, the critical mass is tested against established explanations of women's gains in seats: institutional rules, egalitarian political culture, political parties and economic development. Of two measures of the critical mass theory, one has no impact and the second results in only a small increase in women's gains. Far from being clearly demonstrated, critical mass theories need empirical testing.
The globalized, generous welfare state: Possibility or oxymoron?
Authors: Kite Cynthia
Published: March 2003

Abstract. Arguments about the incompatibility of globalization and generous welfare spending have given way to more nuanced analyses of how domestic‐level institutions mediate the impact of globalization. This article discusses and compares two models – the labour‐partisan politics model and the labour‐monetary politics model – that identify national‐level institutions that are said to make it possible for states to combine generous welfare spending and good economic performance. The empirical analysis shows that the labour‐monetary politics model performs better for the period 1973–1989. However, institutional conditions that existed during these years are shown to be rather poor predictors of economic performance in the 1990s. The article goes on to discuss what this suggests for the continued viability of generous welfare spending and argues that while globalization might undermine some institutional settings conducive to continued generosity, there is evidence that other ones remain viable.
From nation‐building to building identification with political communities: Consequences of political decentralisation in Spain, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, 1978–2001
Authors: Martínez‐Herrera Enric
Published: March 2003

Abstract. Many multiethnic polities suffer from a deficit of citizens' support for their political communities. Hence, their governments may think of political decentralisation as a solution. This article analyses the effects of that policy on citizens’ identification with their political communities in Spain: on identification with the Basque Country, Catalonia or Galicia (its most conspicuous ‘nationalities’) once they have become ‘autonomous communities’, and on identification with the overall Spanish political community. To study the processes of transformation of such attitudes, nation‐building theories are interpreted from the political socialisation approach and applied to the autonomous institutions. It is also suggested that the state strictu senso, by contrast, may be developing an alternative method of forging identification with its own political community. Survey time‐series evidence shows that although those autonomous communities are engaged successfully in a local but standard nation‐building, the whole political system may be fostering its own diffuse support by recognising and institutionalising cultural diversity and self‐government.
Assessing Population Health Care Need Using a Claims‐based ACG Morbidity Measure: A Validation Analysis in the Province of Manitoba
Authors: Reid Robert J , Roos Noralou P , MacWilliam Leonard , Frohlich Norman , Black Charlyn
Published: March 2003

Objectives.To assess the ability of an Adjusted Clinical Group (ACG)‐based morbidity measure to assess the overall health service needs of populations.

Data Sources/Study Setting.Three population‐based secondary data sources: registration and health service utilization data from fiscal year 1995–1996; mortality data from vital statistics reports from 1996–1999; and Canadian census data. The study included all continuously enrolled residents in the universal health care plan in Manitoba.

Study Design.Using 60 small geographic areas as the units of analysis, we compared a population‐based “ACG morbidity index,” derived from individual ACG assignments in fiscal year 1995–1996, with the standardized mortality ratio (ages <75 years) for 1996–1999. Key variables included a population‐based socioeconomic status measure and age‐ and sex‐standardized physician utilization ratios.

Data Extraction Methods.The ACGs were assigned based on the complement of diagnoses assigned to persons on physician claims and hospital separation abstracts. The ACG index was created by weighting the ACGs using average health care expenditures.

Principal Findings.The ACG morbidity index had a strong positive linear relationship with the subsequent rate of premature death in the small areas of Manitoba. The ACG index was able to explain the majority of the relationships between mortality and both socioeconomic status and physician utilization.

Conclusions.In Manitoba, ACGs are closely related to premature mortality, commonly accepted as the best single indicator for health service need in populations. Issues in applying ACGs in settings where needs adjustment is a primary objective are discussed.
Competition among Hospitals for HMO Business: Effect of Price and Nonprice Attributes
Authors: Young Gary J , Burgess James F , Valley Danielle
Published: March 2003

Objective. To investigate patterns of competition among hospitals for the business of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). The study focused on the relative importance of hospital price and nonprice attributes in the competition for HMO business.

Data Sources/Study Setting. The study capitalized on hospital cost reports from Florida that are unique in their inclusion of financial data regarding HMO business activity. The time frame was 1992 to 1997.

Study Design. The study was designed as an observational investigation of acute care hospitals.

Principal Findings. Results indicated that a hospital's share of HMO business was related to both its price and nonprice attributes. However, the importance of both price and nonprice attributes diminished as the number of HMOs in a market increased. Hospitals that were market share leaders in terms of HMO business (i.e., 30 percent or more market share) were superior, on average, to their competitors on both price and nonprice attributes.

Conclusions. Study results indicate that competition among hospitals for HMO business involves a complex set of price and nonprice attributes. The HMOs do not appear to focus on price alone. Hospitals likely to be the most attractive to HMOs are those that can differentiate themselves on the basis of nonprice attributes while being competitive on price as well.
A Relational Approach to Measuring Competition Among Hospitals
Authors: Sohn Min‐Woong
Published: March 2003

Objective. To present a new, relational approach to measuring competition in hospital markets and to compare this relational approach with alternative methods of measuring competition.

Data Sources. The California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development patient discharge abstracts and financial disclosure files for 1991.

Study Design. Patient discharge abstracts for an entire year were used to derive patient flows, which were combined to calculate the extent of overlap in patient pools for each pair of hospitals. This produces a cross‐sectional measure of market competition among hospitals.

Principal Findings. The relational approach produces measures of competition between each and every pair of hospitals in the study sample, allowing us to examine a much more ``local'' as well as dyadic effect of competition. Preliminary analyses show the following: (1) Hospital markets are smaller than thought. (2) For‐profit hospitals received considerably more competition from their neighbors than either nonprofit or government hospitals. (3) The size of a hospital does not matter in the amount of competition received, but the larger hospitals generated significantly more competition than smaller ones. Comparisons of this method to the other methods show considerable differences in identifying competitors, indicating that these methods are not as comparable as previously thought.

Conclusion. The relational approach measures competition in a more detailed way and allows researchers to conduct more fine‐grained analyses of market competition. This approach allows one to model market structure in a manner that goes far beyond the traditional categories of monopoly, oligopoly, and perfect competition. It also opens up an entirely new range of analytic possibilities in examining the effect of competition on hospital performance, price of medical care, changes in the market, technology acquisition, and many other phenomena in the health care field.
Using Administrative Data to Identify Indications for Elective Primary Cesarean Delivery
Authors: Gregory Kimberly D , Korst Lisa M , Gornbein Jeffrey A , Platt Lawrence D
Published: March 2003

Objective. To develop a methodology to identify indications and normative rates for elective primary cesarean delivery using administrative data.

Data Sources/Study Setting. All delivery discharges in 1995, as reported to the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (secondary data).

Study Design. Retrospective population based study.

Data Collection/Extraction. Data were entered into a recursive partitioning algorithm to develop a hierarchy of conditions by which patients with multiple conditions could be sorted with respect to the binary outcome of labor or elective primary cesarean without labor. This hierarchy was examined for its clinical consistency, validated on a second sample, and compared with results obtained from logistic regression.

Principal Findings. Four percent (19,664) of delivery discharges in 1995 underwent elective primary cesarean. Twelve clinical conditions contributed to the hierarchy, and accounted for 92.9 percent of all women experiencing elective primary cesarean delivery. The remaining 7.1 percent of the elective primary cesarean cases were classified as “unspecified.”

Conclusions. A standardized methodology (utilizing recursive partitioning algorithms) for assigning indications for elective primary cesarean is presented. This methodology relies on administrative data, classifies women with complex comorbidity patterns into clinically relevant subpopulations, and can be used to establish normative rates for benchmarking specific indications for cesarean delivery.
Determinants of HMO Formulary Adoption Decisions
Authors: Dranove David , Hughes Edward F. X. , Shanley Mark
Published: March 2003

Objective. To identify economic and organizational characteristics that affect the likelihood that health maintenance organizations (HMOs) include new drugs on their formularies.

Data Sources. We administered an original survey to directors of pharmacy at 75 HMOs, of which 41 returned usable responses. We obtained drug‐specific data from an industry trade journal.

Study Design. We performed multivariate logistic regression analysis, adjusting for fixed‐drug effects and random‐HMO effects. We used factor analysis to limit the number of predictors.

Data Collection Methods. We held initial focus groups to help with survey design. We administered the survey in two waves. We asked respondents to report on seven popular new drugs, and to describe a variety of HMO organizational characteristics.

Principal Findings. Several HMO organizational characteristics, including nonprofit status, the incentives facing the director of the pharmacy, size and make‐up of the pharmacy and therapeutics committee, and relationships with drugs makers, all affect formulary adoption.

Conclusions. There are many organizational factors that may cause HMOs to make different formulary adoption decisions for certain prescription drugs.
Henry George’s Land Reform: The Distinction between Private Ownership and Private Possession
Authors: Pullen John
Published: March 2003

Henry George stated that the taxation of land rent would amount to the abolition of the institution of private ownership of land, thereby alienating all those who, whether for economic or ideological reasons, regard the private ownership of land as essential for social order and progress. George believed that under his proposed reform the private ownership of land would be replaced by private possession. But his distinction between ownership and possession appears to have been based on a misconception of the nature of private ownership. His proposed reform could have been more logically described as a conditional, modified, or restricted private ownership of land, rather than as the abolition of private ownership of land.
The Evolution of the Sophisticated Quantity Theory: Marshall vs.Wicksell on Transaction Demand
Authors: Gootzeit Michael J.
Published: March 2003

When the money supply increased exogenously, Marshall’s vs. Wicksell’s versions of short run inflation transmission are shown to be different because of their ideas on money demand. During the approach to monetary equilibrium, the implication was that the demand for transactions cash balances would have to increase in order for inflation to stop. Marshall focused on the real, while Wicksell focused on the nominal, demand for such balances; Marshall assumed velocity of money was constant, while Wicksell assumed it to be pro‐cyclic. These assumptions about money demand caused them to make different predictions on how much prices would eventually rise: Marshall described a price‐undershoot, while Wicksell described a price‐overshoot mechanism.
Opting‐Out: the Constitutional Economics of Exit
Authors: Kurrild‐Klitgaard Peter
Published: March 2003

The central aspect, which makes markets operate differently than governments, is the ability of market actors to “exit” from future interactions. This point is applied to constitutional analysis, with an emphasis on the constitutional possibility of individuals or groups in a society “exiting,” wholly or partly, from the political community or from specific institutions within such. Hobbesian and Lockean states‐of‐nature are sketched using a common framework of some simple games, and the Lockean solution to the danger of tyranny is formalized. This solution is compared to the typical interaction in a market economy, where the possibility of “exit” from future interactions with disagreeable parties introduces severe restrictions on the possible exploitation. This analysis is extended to the political sphere, and it is argued in general terms that a constitutional set‐up utilizing a semi‐Lockean right to “exit” (e.g., federal structures with rights of secession, voucher systems, etc.) could be an efficient guarantee against sub‐optimal solutions and function so as to reduce redistributive conflicts and make welfare‐increasing transactions possible.