An essay on the agricultural production organization in former communist countries

This paper reviews and interprets existing information and transaction costs theories of firm organization and entrepreneur’s role in order to provide a consistent explanation of the farm-sector dynamics in former communist countries. Important determinants of farm restructuring are economic factors, such as relative productivity of existing human and physical capital in different organizations, risk, terms of trade, transition specific distortions, and factor intensity of agricultural production. To a large extent, however, the phenomenon of various new enterprises being established represents not just general economic and policy conditions but also a diverse population of economic agents.     

Adaptive learning,adaptive utility,and rational behavior in a repeated prisoner's dilemma

Two dimensions of learning are explored in a repeated prisoner's dilemma experiment. Subject update their perceptions of the true model of their opponent's behavior. Subjects also update their beliefs Kraft Funds at the Fuqua School of Business, helpful comments by Robert Axelrod, Michael Cohen, Fred Feinberg, J. Keith Murnighan, Kip Viscusi, Bob Winkler, and two anonymous referees, and the programming assistance of Oris Stuart and Michael Guiry.     

On Being a Strength Coach: Child Welfare and the Strengths Model

Strength coaches help athletes assess their strengths and build on them. Likewise, social workers dealing with children and families in the child welfare system, rather than looking for pathology, can learn to help clients discover and develop their strengths, even while dealing with a child welfare bureaucracy. This article gives examples of the strength coach approach.     

The Role of the Communal Voice in Constructing Meaning at the Funeral of an Infant Child in a Quaker Community in Costa Rica

This article attempts to capture the ongoing process of the construction of a “communal voice” out of the idiosyncratic “individual voices” of diverse people in a remote Quaker Community in the rainforest mountains of Costa Rica. The communal story is investigated through the rituals surrounding the death of an infant child. The constant dialogue is examined as the Cliffedgians struggle with issues of community/individualism, tolerance/conviction, and simplicity/benefit. Attention is also given to the communal construction of taboo areas of discourse.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

In the span of four weeks, from late March to early April 2008, three important technical services conferences were held: the Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference, the New England Technical Services Librarians Conference, and the North Carolina Serials Conference.     

Problem Behavior and Heart Rate Reactivity in Adopted Adolescents: Longitudinal and Concurrent Relations

The present longitudinal study examined resting heart rate and heart rate variability and reactivity to a stressful gambling task in adopted adolescents with aggressive, delinquent, or internalizing behavior problems and adopted adolescents without behavior problems (total N=151). Early‐onset delinquent adolescents showed heart rate hyporeactivity to the stress‐eliciting gambling task compared to late‐onset delinquent adolescents and adolescents without behavior problems. Heart rate, heart rate variability, and reactivity to stress were not related to environmental factors such as early‐childhood parental sensitivity, parental socioeconomic status, or adoptee's health status at arrival. We conclude that the distinction between delinquency and aggression and between childhood‐onset and adolescence‐onset delinquency is important for the study of stress reactivity in adolescents.     

Adult Career Transitions

This article reviews and analyzes the different perspectives on career transitions discussed in the September 1995 issue of The Career Development Quarterly. The articles in this issue share common threads in their perspectives on career stages, the relation of cognitive factors and career challenges, and the impact of gender differences on career transitions. This article also discusses career transitions during relocation and factors, such as being part of a dual career couple, that may buffer the financial burden of career transitions.     

Women Acting for Women

In the new country of Timor-Leste, women constituted in 2011 32 per cent of the parliament, a relatively high figure in the world and in the region. But to what extent has the presence of women in parliament contributed to progress towards gender equality? In this article we argue that the passage of a parliamentary resolution on gender-responsive budgeting in Timor-Leste was an act of substantive representation, and we draw on a range of data to examine what made it possible. We find that while ‘newness’, international norms, women's movement unity, women's machinery in government and parliament and networks linking them were important, it was the development of a cross-party parliamentary women's caucus that was crucial to success. The role of gender-focused parliamentary institutions in supporting critical actors has rarely been examined in the literature on substantive representation. This is in contrast to the rich literature on institutions such as women's policy agencies. Our study suggests that more focus on parliamentary institutions is needed to discover what enables women parliamentarians to become critical actors.