Two zs are Better than One

Given only a random sample of observations, the usual estimator for the population mean is the sample mean. If additional information is provided it might be possible in some situations to obtain a better estimator. The situation considered here is when the variable whose mean is sought is composed of factors that are themselves observable. In the basic case, the variable can be expressed as the product of two, independent, more basic variables, but we also consider the case of more than two, the effect of correlation, and when there are observation costs.     

Examining the relationship between commuting patterns,employment growth and unemployment in the NSW Greater Metropolitan Region

This paper employs the Labour Market Accounts framework to explore how employment growth and commuting patterns interacted to determine changes in the spatial distribution of unemployment in Statistical Local Areas within the NSW GMR over the period 1996–2001. Separate regression models (including control variables) for men and women provide estimates of the relative strength of the relationships between these labour market adjustment responses and the percentage local employment change. The results show that employment growth between 1996 and 2001 has elicited substantial changes in commuting behaviour. Men reveal greater in‐commuting and migration responsiveness to employment growth. Unemployment changes in local areas of the Greater Metropolitan Sydney region have been swamped by commuting responses, potentially posing problems for locally targeted employment strategies.     

A response to the BPA evaluation plan: Some modest but utilitarian considerations

In response to the complex and expensive Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) evaluation plan, this article attempts to identify some pragmatic issues and alternative approaches to conservation program evaluation. In particular, the need for simpler, lower-cost evaluation options and the importance of process evaluation to program management are emphasised. This is followed by the delineation of several key principles to be observed in conducting a more modest, but still methodologically sound and managerially useful, evaluation of energy conservation programs.     

Sustaining People Right Through Their Lives: Interview With Graham Martin

In this interview Graham Martin reflects on his long career in child and adolescent mental health. He shares his formative experiences with some of the pioneers in the field of attachment theory and the many varied ways that this information has influenced his work in the provision of care to children in hospital, health promotion, understanding the distress of suicidal youth, and his ongoing therapeutic work with families.     

Human Smuggling as a Transnational Service Industry: Evidence from Austria

Les auteurs présentent une approche nouvelle pour interpréter les mécanismes du trafic d'êtres humains. En s'appuyant sur les révélations obtenues lors d'entretiens approfondis avec des migrants clandestins en Autriche ainsi que sur un large éventail d'autres sources, les auteurs démontrent que le trafic d'êtres humains peut être considéré comme une industrie de service transnationale, avec d'un côté des prestataires de service (les passeurs) et de l'autre, des clients (les migrants clandestins). Ils examinent la façon dont certains aspects de cette industrie de service d'un genre particulier, notamment le manque d'informations qui règne sur le marché, induisent diverses stratégies de réduction des risques chez les migrants clandestins, qui recherchent avant tout chez les passeurs une ⇐ bonne réputation ⇒ et une certaine ⇐ loyauté⇒. Du fait de ces facteurs et des autres spécificités de ce marché, le trafic de migrants constitue une activité criminelle structurellement différente des autres telles que la traite des êtres humains ou la contrebande de marchandises illicites, et des méthodes nouvelles s'avèrent donc nécessaires pour s'y attaquer.     

Integrated Social Accounting for Nonprofits: A Case from Canada

Whereas social accounting has been strong in its critique of conventional accounting, to date it has not been as effective in developing accounting frameworks consistent with its principles. This is particularly true for nonprofit organizations. The costs of nonprofits can be easily measured; however, not captured by conventional accounting is the value of their nonmonetized resources such as volunteers. This paper argues that social accounting for nonprofits would benefit by creating accounting statements that combine the economic and social impact of an organization (referred to as an integrated approach). After discussing some historic examples of integrated social accounting, the paper presents a Canadian case study in which the value added by volunteers of a nonprofit organization is combined with its financial statements in an Expanded Value Added Statement. By combining social and economic information, a very different performance story of the organization emerges.     

Voluntas: an editorial statement

Helmut Anheier is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA     

The initial effects of immigration reform on farm labor in California

Agriculture was the major industry singled out for preferential treatment in the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Farmers argued that their traditional reliance on unauthorized workers and the seasonal nature of work in perishable commodities required extra time for them to adjust to immigration reforms.A February 1989 survey of California farm employers indicates that these employers had not yet adjusted to IRCA. Instead of revising their personnel policies to retain newly legalized farmworkers, farmers expected to hire more workers through labor contractors if the seasonal workforce contracts in the years ahead.     

Human Motivation and Professional Practice: of Knights, Knaves and Social Workers

Efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of public services by harnessing the self‐interest of professionals in state agencies have been widely debated in the recent literature on welfare state reform. In the context of social services, one way in which British policy‐makers have sought to effect such changes has been through the “new community care” of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. Key to this is the concept of care management, in which the identification of needs and the provision of services are separated, purportedly with a view to improving advocacy, choice and quality for service users. This paper uses data from a wide‐ranging qualitative study of access to social care for older people to examine the success of the policy in these terms, with specific reference to its attempts to harness the rational self‐interest of professionals. While care management removes one potential conflict of interests by separating commissioning and provision, the responsibility of social care professionals to comply with organizational priorities conflicts with their role of advocacy for their clients, a tension rendered all the more problematic by the perceived inadequacy of funding. Moreover, the bureaucracy of the care management process itself further negates the approach's supposedly client‐centred ethos.