5 research outputs found
Iowa History and Culture : A Bibliography of Materials Published Between 1952 and 1986, 1989
No full textThis bibliography was compiled by two reference librarians, Patricia Dawson and David Hudson with the goal of making it easier of tracking down material on Iowa history and culture. This supplements the Iowa History Reference Guide published in 1952 by William Petersen
Firm Performance and the Political Economy of Corporate Governance: Survey Evidence for Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia
Get PDFUsing survey data for 220 traditional manufacturing firms over 7 years of transition and 4 CEE countries, we find firms that produced for the EU market under planning consistently outperform those that produced for the CMEA market. Within the previously CMEA market, the best firms were selected to outside privatisation and outperformed insider/state owned firms. Outside privatisation was resisted in EU oriented firms and ownership was found to have no effect on performance. We argue that insider/state ownership in previously CMEA and EU markets builds up political support for the market system during its initial stages, ensuring its long-term success.firm performance, political economy, privatisation and demand shocks
Equilibrium Wage Arrears: Institutional Lock-In of Contractual Failure in Russia
Get PDFWe present a model of managerial choice of wage delays that implies a possibility of multiple equilibria in the level of arrears. Positive feedback arises because each employer's wage arrears choice has externalities for other employers by affecting worker quit, effort and protest behavior and the probability of legal penalties. We study the case of three equilibria, distinguishing two that are stable - the "punctual payment equilibrium" and the "late payment equilibrium" - and one unstable "critical mass equilibrium," a threshold of arrears in the local labor market beyond which even profitable firms may adopt the practice. Our econometric analysis of linked employer-employee data for Russia provides evidence that workers' responses to wage delays are attenuated by local labor market arrears, that the wage arrears reaction function exhibits positive feedback, and that the theoretical conditions for multiple equilibria under symmetric local labor market competition are satisfied empirically in 1995 and 1998. Simulation results imply clustering of regions around two stable levels of arrears, with the late payment equilibrium characterized by six months overdue wages for a typical worker in 1995 and nine months in 1998.
Volunteer Tourism, an ambiguous phenomenon: An analysis of the demand and supply for the volunteer tourism market
Get PDFOne of the more recent forms of tourism to emerge from the continuing fragmentation of tourism into many different forms is what has become known as Volunteer Tourism. Although itself taking on a number of variations, it is essentially the practice of individuals going on a working holiday and volunteering their labour for worthy causes. The concept of volunteer work has existed for several decades since its origins immediately following the First World War, but the idea of combining this activity with tourism is relatively new and has already changed considerably over a very short period. This thesis reviews the process by which volunteer tourism has developed, focusing on its transformation from an individual altruistic endeavour to a more commercial form of conventional tourism. As such, volunteer tourism has mirrored in many ways the development and commercialisation of opportunities for individuals to engage in ecotourism, another form of tourism which also began on a small scale with compassionate and non-economic priorities. This thesis provides a twin pronged approach to the study of volunteer tourism focusing both on the demand and the supply of volunteer tourism. The demand is investigated through an observation of a group of volunteer tourists in Mexico over a three week period and a new conceptualization of participation in volunteer tourism as a balancing act between commitment and hedonistic pursuits is developed. This thesis also reviews the growth in number of websites devoted to the various forms of volunteer tourism that now exist, and discusses the changes that have taken place in the content and focus of these websites and the organisations they represent over the last two decades. In relation to this analysis, it also examines the location of destinations which are being made available to volunteer tourists and providing the opportunity to engage in this activity. As a part of this analysis, the thesis examines the changes in the distribution of these locations and the relationship between location and the relative need of the respective destinations for assistance. The current distribution pattern of volunteer tourist opportunities now bears little similarity to the acute need for assistance that one might expect if the real motivation for providing this assistance was altruistic rather than commercial. In proposing a new approach of viewing volunteer tourism participation as a balancing act, but also by showing that the organizations involved vary in terms of their commitment and expectations, this study presents clarification on the role, expectations and motivations of the main players in volunteer tourism
