Functional capacity evaluation: An essential component of South African occupational therapy work practice services

South African occupational therapists have been involved in the delivery of work practice services since the inception of the profession in this country. Initial development in this area of practice appeared slow but following the acceptance of South Africa's first democratic Constitution in 1996, many opportunities for service delivery were facilitated by the implementation of disability equity legislation. One of the key services offered by practitioners is Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE). Although the outcomes of FCE are many, the process in essentially the same. This entails: referral, the initial interview, evaluation of performance components and ADL, vocational evaluation, obtaining collateral and the closure interview, the work visit, hypothesis testing and reporting. This article reports on the Functional Capacity Evaluation process as followed by South African occupational therapists in various contexts.     

Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

The establishment of autonomous public bodies during the past two decades has created a highly fragmented public sector. Using a dataset with more than 200 Dutch public sector organisations, this article examines three related sets of questions: to what extent a relationship exists between formal and de facto autonomy; the level of influence that interested parties exert upon those organizations; whether a relationship exists between levels of formal and de facto autonomy and the level of influence exercised by these parties. We find that formal autonomy does not reinforce de facto autonomy; organizations with less autonomy report higher levels of political influence when policy autonomy is concerned; and that organizations with more autonomy report higher societal influence on their financial autonomy.

Client acceptance decisions of Dutch auditing partners

A vignette study of 567 client acceptance decisions by 67 Dutch auditors showed that the prospect of acquiring additional assignments significantly increases the likelihood that auditing partners accept an audit assignment from a new client, thereby violating a rule of the auditing profession. Audit firm strategy was found to moderate the effect of the acquisition of additional assignments: partners working in audit firms emphasizing a professional orientation are less likely to accept such risky assignments, whereas a commercial orientation of audit firms was found to exacerbate the effect of acquiring additional services. Contrary to expectations, punishment severity for professional mistakes increases the likelihood of client acceptance.

Overcoming the Problems of Inconsistent International Migration data: A New Method Applied to Flows in Europe

Due to differences in definitions and measurement methods, cross-country comparisons of international migration patterns are difficult and confusing. Emigration numbers reported by sending countries tend to differ from the corresponding immigration numbers reported by receiving countries. In this paper, a methodology is presented to achieve harmonised estimates of migration flows benchmarked to a specific definition of duration. This methodology accounts for both differences in definitions and the effects of measurement error due to, for example, under reporting and sampling fluctuations. More specifically, the differences between the two sets of reported data are overcome by estimating a set of adjustment factors for each country’s immigration and emigration data. The adjusted data take into account any special cases where the origin–destination patterns do not match the overall patterns. The new method for harmonising migration flows that we present is based on earlier efforts by Poulain (European Journal of Population, 9(4): 353–381 1993, Working Paper 12, joint ECE-Eurostat Work Session on Migration Statistics, Geneva, Switzerland 1999) and is illustrated for movements between 19 European countries from 2002 to 2007. The results represent a reliable and consistent set of international migration flows that can be used for understanding recent changes in migration patterns, as inputs into population projections and for developing evidence-based migration policies.     

TURBULENCE AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN A JOB MATCHING MODEL

According to Ljungqvist and Sargent (1998), high European unemployment since the 1980s can be explained by a rise in economic turbulence, leading to greater numbers of unemployed workers with obsolete skills. These workers refuse new jobs due to high unemployment benefits. In this paper we reassess the turbulence‐unemployment relationship using a matching model with endogenous job destruction. In our model, higher turbulence reduces the incentives of employed workers to leave their jobs. If turbulence has only a tiny effect on the skills of workers experiencing endogenous separation, then the results of Ljungqvist and Sargent (1998, 2004) are reversed, and higher turbulence leads to a reduction in unemployment. Thus, changes in turbulence cannot provide an explanation for European unemployment that reconciles the incentives of both unemployed and employed workers. (JEL: E24, J64)     

Subjective Probability Weighting and the Discovered Preference Hypothesis

Numerous studies have convincingly shown that prospect theory can better describe risky choice behavior than the classical expected utility model because it makes the plausible assumption that risk aversion is driven not only by the degree of sensitivity toward outcomes, but also by the degree of sensitivity toward probabilities. This article presents the results of an experiment aimed at testing whether agents become more sensitive toward probabilities over time when they repeatedly face similar decisions, receive feedback on the consequences of their decisions, and are given ample incentives to reflect on their decisions, as predicted by Plott’s Discovered Preference Hypothesis (DPH). The results of a laboratory experiment with N = 62 participants support this hypothesis. The elicited subjective probability weighting function converges significantly toward linearity when respondents are asked to make repeated choices and are given direct feedback after each choice. Such convergence to linearity is absent in an experimental treatment where respondents are asked to make repeated choices but do not experience the resolution of risk directly after each choice, as predicted by the DPH. I thank Peter P. Wakker for useful comments and suggestions.     

Maternal Sensitivity Moderates the Relation between Negative Discipline and Aggression in Early Childhood

Three models regarding the relation between maternal (in)sensitivity, negative discipline, and child aggression were examined in a sample of 117 mother–child pairs with high scores on child externalizing behavior: (1) Sensitivity and discipline are uniquely related to child aggression (the additive model); (2) the relation between discipline and aggression is moderated by maternal sensitivity (the moderating model); (3) the relation between sensitivity and aggression is mediated by maternal discipline (the mediating model). Parenting and child aggression were observed when the children were on average 26.71 months old (range of 13.58 to 41.91 months) and again one year later. Results supported the moderating model. More negative discipline was related to more child aggression one year later, but only when mothers were insensitive. This finding supports the idea that the affective context is important for the impact of negative discipline on child development.