CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE STATE: THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN COOPERATION AND MINIMUM WAGE REGULATION

In a cross‐section of countries, state regulation of labor markets is negatively correlated with the quality of labor relations. In this paper, we argue that these facts reflect different ways of regulating labor markets, either through the state or through the civil society, depending on the degree of cooperation in the economy. We rationalize these facts with a model of learning of the quality of labor relations. Distrustful labor relations lead to low unionization and high demand for direct state regulation of wages. In turn, state regulation crowds out the possibility for workers to experiment negotiation and learn about the potential cooperative nature of labor relations. This crowding out effect can give rise to multiple equilibria: a “good” equilibrium characterized by cooperative labor relations and high union density, leading to low state regulation; and a “bad” equilibrium, characterized by distrustful labor relations, low union density, and strong state regulation of the minimum wage.     

Rapid Social Change and the Turmoil of Adolescence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This article is a selective literature review, viewing adolescence in a cross-cultural perspective. Starting with the Mead/Freeman controversy, it centers on the following question: Which are the cultural contexts that best ensure a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood? The review covers some of the ethnographic research, both case studies and work using the hologeistic method (those using the Human Relations Area Files), and some of the research in cross-cultural and developmental psychology, but neither cross-national comparisons nor studies with migrants in multicultural societies. It is found that social adolescence is a universal life stage, but that it takes very different forms in different societies. Its extension into a youthperiod occurred in societies with an age-grade system, and is nowadays linked to urbanization, industrialization, and formal education. Adolescence does not need to be a period of storm and stress, and the generation gap and problem behaviors considered a “normal” part of adolescence are in fact culturally produced. In many situations, these problematic aspects of adolescence are linked to rapid social change or acculturation, most often in the form of westernization. Societies that manage to keep some continuity, cultural identity, and basic values such as family solidarity, often also manage to avoid importing the problems of adolescence despite social change. Of importance are the tolerance and flexibility of adults, close contact between generations, appropriate role-learning and acceptance into the adult community, including in the economic sphere.     

Income taxation of couples and the tax unit choice

We study the optimal income taxation of couples. We determine the resulting intra-family labor supply allocation and its implication for the choice of the tax unit (individual versus joint taxation). We provide a general condition for full joint taxation to arise. We also study how the spouses’ respective labor supply decisions are distorted when the condition does not hold. In particular, we show that, depending on the pattern of mating, the celebrated result according to which the spouse with the more elastic labor supply faces the lower marginal tax rates may or may not hold in our setting.     

Politics and Growth

Theories of growth have made progress in understanding the mechanisms of growth in economic terms. However, there is less understanding of the political processes that enable or obstruct these mechanisms. This article provides a four‐stage framework to clarify and analyse the connections between politics and growth: (i) discussing the basic conditions essential for growth; (ii) suggesting that whether or not these conditions emerge depends on specific forms of public‐private interaction; (iii) linking these relationships to the incentives facing those in political power and investors; and (iv) considering the factors at country level that may help to push incentives in a pro‐growth direction.     

The Impact of Liberalization on Female Workers in Quebec: Four Case Studies

Cet article explore l'impact de la libéralisation des marchés sur la main‐d'?uvre féminine au Québec. Il cherche à valider une intuition formulée par Brunelle, Beaulieu and Minier ( 2004 ) en guise de conclusion d'un rapport de recherche mettant en relief l'essor et la prolifération des marchés périphériques du travail dans le capitalisme mondialisé. Parce qu'elles sont surreprésentées dans le travail atypique, les auteurs se demandaient alors si la restructuration des marchés du travail avait des impacts négatifs les femmes. En nous appuyant sur quatre études de cas dans différents secteurs de l'économie (habillement, commerce de détail, télécommunications, services d'aide à domicile), l'article valide l' hypothèse d'une rehiérarchisation genrée du marché du travail sur la base de statuts d'emploi dans le sillage du processus de libéralisation. The article explores the impact of market liberalization on Quebec's female workforce in a context of global capitalism by testing a hypothesis formulated by Brunelle, Beaulieu, and Minier ( 2004 ) as a concluding remark of a research that exposed the burgeoning of secondary labor market: “Is liberalization leading to an employment‐statuses‐based restructuration of labor markets that would have negative impacts on women?” Using four case studies in key sectors of the economy (garments, retail, telecom, home‐care services), the article suggests a genderized rehierarchization of labor markets based on employment statuses in the wake of the liberalization process.     

Coping with climatic shocks: local perspectives from Haiti’s rural mountain regions

Population and Environment - Haiti’s agrarian society is highly sensitive to changes in weather and climate conditions. Little is known about Haitian farmers’ perceptions of...     

The dynamic stochastic topic block model for dynamic networks with textual edges

Statistics and Computing - The present paper develops a probabilistic model to cluster the nodes of a dynamic graph, accounting for the content of textual edges as well as their frequency. Vertices...     

The recent history of the IEA: an analysis of IEA Congress presentations since 1961

In this paper we review historical material relating to the growth and coverage of past IEA meetings and congresses. In particular, we report on presentations at IEA Congresses dating back to the first one in Stockholm in 1961. A content analysis of Congress proceedings was carried out and we present findings on changes since 1961 covering: numbers and nationalities of conference participants and the types of topics presented at Congresses. Our findings point to evidence of widening participation at the conferences, in particular delegates drawn from Asia, South East Asia and the Far East. In addition, some topics (e.g., physiology, methodological papers and studies of workload) appear to have waned in popularity over the period, whereas some topics (e.g., ODAM, Cognitive Ergonomics) have grown in popularity. We discuss these findings in the light of other evidence covering historical trends and developments within human factors and ergonomics.