Business as usual: the UK national daily press and the Occupy Central movement

This essay reviews the coverage of the Occupy Central movement in the UK national daily press from the first notice of the growing movement in July 2013 to the time of writing in January 2015. This is a relatively small subset of the total mentions of Hong Kong in the UK press, which cover a wide range of cultural, leisure, sport, and business stories. Hong Kong is very far from invisible to the UK press in “normal” times but, given that the UK is the former colonial power in Hong Kong, and that the terms under which the territory was returned to China were formalized in an inter-state agreement between the UK and China (the Joint Declaration, ratified in 1985), it is reasonable to assume that developments in the constitutional situation would attract very considerable attention on the part of the UK government. Studies of foreign news suggest that nationally specific factors tend to influence news salience so we would concomitantly expect that the UK newspaper press would devote substantial amounts of space to reporting and discussing the issues raised by these developments.     

Large sample properties and confidence bands for component-wise varying-coefficient regression with longitudinal dependent variable

Longitudinal studies with repeatedly measured dependent variable (out-come) and time-invariant covariates are common in biomedical and epidemi-ological studies. A useful statistical tool to evaluate the effects of covariates on the outcome variable over time is the varying-coefficient regression, which considers a linear relationship between the covariates and the outcome at a specific time point but assumes the linear coefficients to be smooth curves over time. In order to provide adequate smoothing for each coefficient curve, Wu and Chiang ( 1999 ) proposed a class of component-wise kernel estimators and determined the large sample convergence rates and some of the constant terms of the mean squared errors of their estimators. In this paper we calcu¬late the explicit large sample mean squared errors, including the convergence rates and ail the constant terms, and the asymptotic distributions of the kernel estimators of Wu and Chiang ( 1999 ). These asymptotic distributions are used to construct point-wise confidence intervals and Bonferroni-type confidence bands for the coefficient curves. Through a Monte Carlo simulation, wre show that our confidence regions have adequate coverage probabilities. Applying our procedures to a NIH fetal growth study, we show that our procedures are useful to determine the effects of maternal height, cigarette smoking and al¬cohol consumption on the growth of fetal abdominal circumference over time during pregnancy.     

Discounting Compensation for Injuries

The reasons commonly given for discounting future costs and benefits are doubtfully applicable to future injuries: in particular, time preference justifies neither inter- nor intragenerational discounting. The cost of future injuries could be discounted on grounds that a smaller sum, invested at interest, is needed to pay a given level of ex post monetary compensation the further in the future the injury occurs. This effect is offset, however, by the diminishing marginal utility of compensation, if consumption is otherwise increasing. Depending on the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, on whether consumption is growing at an optimal rate, and on the time period considered, the implicit discount rate may be positive, zero, or negative (even indefinitely so). There is no prospect of conventional discounting dealing appropriately with the cost of injuries to either future or present generations.     

The development and Reform of Social Security Pensions:The Approach of the International Labour Office

The reform and the development of pension schemes are affected by the values society places on the provision of income security in old age and the resources it is prepared to allocate for the purpose. This paper examines those values and the issues arising from them. The objective is to propose reforms which will simultaneously provide full coverage with good governance, prevent poverty in old age, and result in indexed, guaranteed and reliable pensions for those onaverage incomes, all with minimum economic distortion or adverse economic effects. The question of the most appropriate design has to be weighed against these other factors, which will determine not only what is feasible and what is not, but also where the most desirable balance lies. The optimum structure would seem to involve a mix of defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.     

Are Subsidies to be Blamed? A Reexamination of U.S. Countervailing Duty on Hog Imports From Canada

A dramatic increase in U.S. hog imports from Canada triggered a successful countervail action against Canada in 1985, and resulted in an import tariff. This paper finds Canadian subsidies were not a major factor explaining increased hog exports, rather, the depreciation of the Canadian dollar played a larger role. More importantly, we find that hog imports from Canada did not “injure” the U.S. industry. These results imply the U.S. hog countervail duty was the outcome of rent-seeking activities rather than due to economic factors.     

Strengths-based practice: social care’s latest Elixir or the next false dawn?

There has never been such a consensus that social care is in crisis in England. However, it cannot be assumed this will result in fundamental rethinking of the future. Social care continues to search for a miracle cure that will painlessly transform it into a system both personalised and will cost less. The current ‘elixir’ is ‘strengths based practice’. This article suggests, however, that the current depersonalising and wasteful practices which strengths based practice is meant to replace are a product of the system within which practitioners work. There is unlikely to be significant change until that system has changed. If the current sense of crisis translates only into short-term action to keep the system afloat, the elixir will most likely be the prelude to the next false dawn.     

Promoting Healthy Routes Back to Work? Boundary Spanning Health Professionals and Employability Programmes in Great Britain

Between 2003 and 2011, the Pathways to Work (PtW) initiative was established across Great Britain, as policymakers sought to address the ‘health‐related, personal and external barriers’ faced by people who were out of work and claiming incapacity benefits (IBs). In the first 18 districts that PtW was rolled‐out, the Public Employment Service (Jobcentre Plus) and National Health Service (NHS) organizations worked in partnership to deliver ‘condition management programmes’, which helped IB claimants to cope with health problems. Evaluation research has identified significant health benefits associated with these condition management programmes, but there has been less discussion of the role of frontline NHS professionals in ensuring that services worked effectively on the ground. This article deploys the concept of ‘boundary spanning’ to explore the role of NHS professionals within PtW. Drawing on more than 50 in‐depth interviews, the article concludes that these NHS staff played a key boundary spanning role in facilitating partnerships, based on an ability to engage with the values/practices of other partner organizations (especially Jobcentre Plus) and a willingness to challenge established professional boundaries and ways of working. The article notes that recent policy initiatives have abandoned the PtW partnership approach in favour of more familiar models of contracting out, and that NHS professionals have been excluded from the delivery of health/employability services. It is argued that these recent changes may negatively affect the quality and range of health‐related services available to people on IBs.