Wage indexation: Social benefits and private incentives

The question addressed in this paper is: Do social benefits from wage indexation coincide with private incentives to incorporate COLA clauses in union contracts? In general, market forces provide an “approximately correct” solution so that legislative remedies are not required. Based on the work of Gray and Fischer, full indexation is beneficial when the economy is subjected to stochastic nominal shocks, but only partial indexation is optimal when real disturbances dominate. If unions and management of firms are risk-averse they both have an incentive to adopt full indexation when monetary uncertainty exists. On the other hand, when the economy faces real shocks, union negotiators oppose indexation if the demand for labor is elastic, but insist on full indexation if demand is inelastic. Managers of firms prefer nominal wage contracts in either case. This suggests that both parties will agree to omit COLA clauses in the first case, but are likely to compromise with partial indexation in the second case. A role for government intervention is indicated only to the extent that bargaining strength may dictate a degree of indexation that deviates from the social optimum. The analysis is extended briefly to other assumptions about the utility function of the two parties at the bargaining table.     

Public subscription and private contributions

Consider a situation in which individuals post their private contributions for the financing of an indivisible public project. If their valuations for the project are private information, an efficient outcome cannot be guaranteed by just one shot of this procedure (indeed, this is also the case for any one-shot procedure that is individually rational). We focus, therefore, on the dynamic mechanism in which the described procedure is repeated indefinitely, only stopping when the project can be ensured to be inefficient. Under alternative assumptions on the type space, a unique symmetric Perfect Bayesian equilibrium is shown to exist if contributions are restricted to just two possible levels (say, some pre-specified positive contribution or nothing at all). We also show that, except for a limit case, the right decision is eventually reached along this equilibrium, although generally after some (costly but bounded) delay.I have benefited from helpful comments by A. Koffman, M. Perry, L. Corchón, C. Herrero, P. Chander and Francisco Marhuenda. Special mention deserves an anonymous referee whose careful reading of the paper improved it very significantly. The usual caveat applies. I also acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education, CICYT project no. PS90-0156.     

Public duty and private prejudice: sexualities equalities and local government

Rather than critiquing social institutions and practices that have historically excluded lesbians and gay men, as did earlier social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1990s the politics of sexuality has increasingly been about demanding equal rights of citizenship. These citizenship demands have, at least to a degree, been answered via a raft of recent legislation in the UK including the Adoption and Children Act 2002, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003, Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and by associated changes in policy making and practice that emphasize ‘Equality and Diversity’. In this article we consider how the implementation of sexualities equalities policies is related to processes of privatization and individualization. This is illustrated by using sexualities equalities work in local government as a case study to indicate how processes of change and resistance are aided by these processes. The article draws on findings from a study of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equalities initiatives in local government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which examined the views of those who now have a public duty to implement recent legislative and policy shifts and are obliged to develop equalities initiatives concerning ‘sexual orientation' and ‘gender reassignment’.     

Public and private photographs of refugees: the problem of representation

In 1948 Manivald Sein made a series of photographs as he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, illegally, on board the Walnut. He was one of 347 passengers, mostly Estonian refugees, who escaped Soviet occupation near the end of Second World War and who were again fleeing Stalin's wrath after living in Sweden for four years. This article will examine the various ways photographs taken by refugees in transit not only give a voice to their experience, but more importantly, allow outsiders to see them as complex human beings, which in turn provides a powerful counterpoint to prevailing stereotypes.     

Alone together: Public and private dimensions of a Tel-Aviv cafe

An illustrative case is presented which analyzes the temporal, physical, social and cultural borders of a Tel-Aviv cafe. The paper shows how the boundaries of a social setting change so that a private space becomes public, and vice versa, and how people themselves can feel they are in a private and public space at the same time. The findings are examined in view of the sociological discussion of public and private spaces. The conclusions point to the dynamic and elastic nature of social places as expressed in the specific cultural context of Israeli society, which is characterized by a unique blend of aloneness and togetherness. Finally, the study is related to the current theoretical debate between the interactionist and the structuralist approaches to everyday life.We would like to thank our colleagues, in particular Haim Hazan and Eviatar Zerubavel, for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. We are also indebted to our friends at Afarcemon—owners and customers—for their cooperation.     

Joining forces: the benefits of integrating schools and community providers

Reforms aimed at expanding learning for low-income children must do more than add hours and days to the school year; they must push beyond the traditional boundaries of school-based learning and find ways to maximize and integrate the assets that cities, districts, and communities can offer. This article reviews research on how schools are using extended learning time to promote student engagement and achievement. A key finding is that successful efforts use partnerships with outside organizations to provide academic support and enrichment activities that build students' skills and connections with an expanded network of supportive adults. The challenge is to ensure that these partnerships are not mere add-ons, designed only to plug extracurricular holes and seen as peripheral to the core academic work of schools. They must be part of a larger system that integrates in-school and out-of-school learning and improves outcomes for youth.     

Public relations and community: A persistent covenant

In the 21st Century global public relations professional community, the need for a postmodern reformation is compellingly evident. Most theorizing begins with basic assumptions about the three main social actors for which public relations has been practiced: (1) corporations, (2) nongovernmental and civil society organizations (NGOs and CSOs), and (3) governments. Questions about society itself are rarely examined, but when they do come up, scholars and practitioners tend to assume generally accepted values and mores. Neglected has been a robust criticism of the concepts upon which such paradigms have been built.     

Public education provision,private schooling and income redistribution

Availability of free public education induces a transfer in kind among households with school age children. We provide evidence of the redistributive character of public education provision. We estimate structural quantile treatment effects of household income on the distribution of expected educational transfers in kind. Under the assumption that education quality is a normal good, better services (ancillary to the core education mission) supplied by private schools increase quality therein and reduce the incentives for wealthy households to enroll in public education. Because of these incentives, rich families benefit less from educational transfers in kind and the public education system is redistributive. Using household survey data from Italy, we find that an increase in net income reduces the value of the expected educational in kind transfers for compulsory education.     

Public/private: Gender – social and political citizenship in Eastern Europe

Theory and Society -     

Public good and private good valuation for waiting time reduction: a laboratory study

In a laboratory experiment, subjects were endowed with money and waiting time. Preferences for waiting time reduction were elicited with salient rewards both as a private good and as a public good. The allocations of the public good that were theoretically predicted by the Nash equilibrium and the Lindahl equilibrium, respectively, were computed from the individual private good valuations and compared with the subjects?? actual contributions. We found a significant positive correlation between private good valuations in terms of willingness-to-pay and public good valuations in terms of voluntary contributions. Group contributions to public waiting time reduction significantly exceeded the non-cooperative prediction and were close to the socially optimal level. However, for a majority of subjects, the Lindahl equilibrium was not able to predict the observed contributions.     

Public and private employment over the business cycle: A ratchet theory of government growth

Previous researchers have attempted to explain the growth in the size of government over time. Some have observed a “ratchet” effect and have attributed these observed jumps in the relative size of government to ideological shifts in response to severe crises. We explain these observed ratchets as the consequence of asymmetries in the response of government employment to the business cycle. A public-choice oriented model of the employment response to the cycle is developed and applied to state and local government employment data. The data confirm the presence of ratchet effects that correspond to the business cycle. Moreover, virtually all of the growth in the ratio of state and local government employment to private employment has occurred during recessions. The authors greatly appreciate the extensive comments of Randall 0. Holcombe and the late Richard McHugh on an earlier draft of this paper. Don Bellantés work on this paper was aided by a grant from the John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy.     

Gendered economies: Transferring private gender roles into the public realm through rural community development

This paper considers the important issue of women's economic participation in rural community development and regeneration. The paper explores the economic lives and actions of women residents in “Ilston”, a village in the Northumberland Rural Coalfield. The women's narratives illustrate the economic connections between private and public spheres, represented respectively by the household and community-led regeneration initiatives. The connections were realised through a female responsibility for household budget management, which incorporated the protection and maintenance of their personal and household economic status within the community. This role was extended into the public sphere through female responsibility for community group and project fund raising, management and subsequent maintenance of the community group's economic status. This practice formed part of the women's constructed economic identity(ies) within the community, and in turn feminised economic practices regarding community-led development and regeneration in the village.