EFFICIENT USER CHARGES IN A RENT-SEEKING MODEL

This paper examines efficient user charges on governmentally provided facilities in the presence of rent seeking. We find that the efficient user charge depends upon the relative slopes of the demand curve for the use of the facility and the corresponding marginal cost curve, as well as the level of rent seeking over the revenue raised. Except for a special case, the efficient user charge is found to differ from the charge indicated by the intersection of demand and marginal cost curves. Examples show that actual user charges on government facilities are often set at inefficient levels.     

Time in the Therapeutic Domain

This paper sets out to examine theoretically the role that “time” plays in therapy. It proceeds by investigating the appearance of “time” in the therapeutic literature: specifically, research regarding the efficacy of brief therapy and attendance of clients in therapy, psychoanalytic concepts of “time”, family therapy's recent emphasis on the future and conceptualisations available about “time” and its role in problem formation and resolution. A summary of these findings precedes a discussion emphasising the problems of crisis, irreversibility and chronicity. The conclusion re-emphasises the need for a multi-modal approach to any future theorising on “time” in the therapeutic domain.     

A critique of the normative and descriptive foundations of subjective probability—with reference to agriculture

Subjective probability is currently accepted as an adequate analytical framework for research into choice under uncertainty. This study tries to challenge this on a number of grounds. We suggest that Savage's inferred probabilities do not take account of differences in uncertainty which may rationally determine behaviour. Secondly, utility functions used in economic theory may vary depending on the information content. Thirdly, it may provide an inefficient method of analysing observed economic behaviour. Fourthly, changes in utility functions may constitute part of what we think of as uncertainty, and fifthly, we mention problems with elicited subjective probabilities. Finally, some avenues for further research are suggested.     

Amplifying Deviations in Family Interactions: Guidelines For Trainees in Post‐Milan Family Therapy

Amplifying deviations in family interactions is a critical skill in family therapy, and one that can be implemented following the first reflecting team intervention. This paper will provide trainees with a series of practical guidelines for amplifying deviations, derived from an integration of several models of family therapy. Solution‐focused and narrative questions are employed systemically, with the aim of magnifying virtuous, rather than vicious cycles of interaction. A theoretical rationale for deviation amplifying and a brief case vignette will also be presented.     

Children's Vocational Development: A Research Rationale

Vocational development research and interventions have focused primarily on adolescents and young adults. The lack of attention to career development antecedents in children has led to a serious neglect of this period of life when the foundation is laid for career choices and outcomes in later life. A harmful by‐product is the frequent preclusion of gender‐atypical occupational pathways by boys and especially by girls. To address this situation, the authors recommend identifying a core set of constructs that describe children's vocational development and developing sound instruments to measure them, leading to a longitudinal study ranging from childhood to early adulthood.     

The periphery of care: Emergency services for homeless people in rural areas

Until recently, homelessness in rural areas has received little recognition because of overwhelming assumptions about the urban-centredness of homeless people and their needs. This paper seeks to build on recent research that has begun to uncover some of the problems and characteristics of rural homelessness, by suggesting two significant dynamics which together can shape the experience of different groups of homeless people in rural environments. First, rural places reflect particular local qualities which contextualise both the circumstances of homelessness and the provision of services in response to those circumstances. Secondly, the contemporary governance of homelessness unfolds rather unevenly in different rural areas, producing distinct local service environments with varying degrees of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ status in relation to joined-up responses to the needs of homeless people. These dynamics are articulated through three case studies: a remote friary in a deep rural area of southern England; a small hostel run by a vibrant non-statutory organisation in a small town in the west of England, and two advice centres in a coastal resort in the north-east of England. Through these case studies we highlight the importance of both local reactions to the homeless other, and local relations between central government funding, local authority initiatives and charitable organisations, in the production and consumption of spaces of care in settings set in, or serving, rural environments.     

Climate Change Facts,Strategies, Choices and Innovations

Canada's Action Plan is the federal response to its international obligation under the UN Framework Convention of 1992 whereby Canada must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the year 2000. The Plan is failing completely, because of its essentially voluntary nature. Overall, greenhouse gas emissions will have increased 13 per cent in Canada between 1990 and 2000, four per cent more than the population increase for that period. Five other plans studied by government agencies are projected to fail to achieve the called-for reductions in emission. An analogous plan, the Rational Energy Plan, developed by a network of nongovernment organizations, is projected to enable the federal government to achieve its obligations under the Framework Convention and also its further obligations under the 1995 Berlin Mandate. This Plan has been analyzed using the government's own analytical tools which project that it will offer Canada substantial annual increases in employment for at least ten years, more prosperous households for more than ten years, and a smaller federal deficit for at least eight years. The federal government has no viable alternative to adopting this plan as soon as practicable. This paper explains some of the needed preliminaries to introducing the Plan, together with examples of tax-shifting and of easily implemented stick-and-carrot inducements to making the Plan work in a sea of partly hostile provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Newfoundland). The Plan will not be easy to implement because of necessary changes in human habits of thinking and attitudes. A new and simple strategy for reducing fuel wastage on highways is introduced in this paper; and also the concept of extended cogeneration, the Rational Energy Plan itself being a particularly fine example.     

SHORT REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: Paul Demeny and Geoffrey Mcnicoll (eds.), Encyclopedia of Population Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild (eds.), Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030: An FAO Perspective and Summary Report Jeanne X. Kasperson and Roger E. Kasperson, Global Environmental Risk Richard Lynn, Eugenics: A Reassessment Douglas W. Maynard, Hanneke Houtkoop‐Steenstra, Nora Gate Schaeffer, and Johannes van der Zouwen (eds.), Standardization and Tacit Knowledge: Interaction and Practice in the Survey Anthony M. Messina (ed.), West European Immigration and Immigrant Policy in the New Century