DOES THE PUBLIC SECTOR IMPLODE FROM BAUMOL'S COST DISEASE?

The root of the Baumol cost disease is higher productivity increases for manufactured goods than for services. The implied increase in relative costs of service production is widely claimed to have devastating implications for the public sector as a provider of tax‐financed services such as health, education, and care. To match the increasing costs it appears inevitable that tax rates would be ever increasing. It is shown that this inference does not follow under standard assumptions when accounting explicitly for service provision from both the private and public sectors. Strikingly under assumptions often made in the literature, the welfare maximizing tax rate for a utilitarian policy maker would remain constant despite the Baumol cost disease, and by implication the share of public employment in total employment will remain constant. (JEL H5, H11, O41)     

The Effect of Solution‐Focused Versus Problem‐Focused Questions: A Replication

In therapeutic conversations, questions can be considered as interventions in their own right. This study is a cross‐cultural replication of Grant (Journal of Systemic Therapies, 2012, 31, 2, 21) study on the effects of different types of questions on various clinically relevant variables. A total of 204 students of a Spanish university described a real‐life problem that they wanted to solve and were then randomly assigned to either a solution‐focused or a problem‐focused questions condition. Before and after answering the questions, they completed a set of measures that assessed positive and negative affect, self‐efficacy, and goal attainment. Solution‐focused questions produced a significantly greater increase in self‐efficacy, goal approach, and action steps than problem‐focused questions, and a significantly greater decrease in negative affect, providing further empirical support to solution‐focused practices.     

Social Enterprise Among University-Based Centers in US Schools of Social Work

Globally, social enterprise is used increasingly by nonprofit organizations to create new funding streams in the face of dwindling public funds. In light of evidence that institutions of higher education are making similar adaptations, this study explores the extent to which academic centers in US schools of social work are using social enterprise strategies to fund mission efforts. Interviews with the directors of 16 social work research centers in 14 states reveal incentives and barriers that exist at multiple levels and considerably impact the potential viability of social enterprise in the social work academic setting. Implications for institutions of higher education and social work scholars are discussed.     

Pure Gold for Broken Bodies: Discursive Techniques Constructing Milk Banking and Peer Milk Sharing in U.S. News

Technological advances provide increased ability to transfer human tissues—blood, organs, milk—from one body to another. This article analyzes mechanisms of reality construction in U.S. news to construct shared human breast milk. Articles used typifications and human interest stories to convey participants as victims, lay heroes, and villains. Milk banking was portrayed as institutionally integrated through associations, expert testimonies, and formalized procedures, making banked milk “pure gold.” Peer sharing was portrayed as institutionally opposed through institutional warnings, expert testimonies, informal procedures, and hypothetical atrocities, making peer milk “fool's gold.” Findings suggest that “biovalue” of human milk is interconnected with institutional processing.     

The Impact of Formal and Informal Respite Care on Foster,Adoptive, and Kinship Parents Caring for Children Involved in the Child Welfare System

This paper reports the results of a quantitative 42-item survey that explored foster, adoptive, and kinship parents’ (N = 160) utilization of different types of respite services (formal, informal, and a mixture of formal and informal), as well as their impressions of the impact of respite care on aspects of their lives related to family cohesion and stability, caring for their children, and their personal wellbeing. An exploratory cross-sectional, survey design was used to assess both the formal and informal respite care experiences of the foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers. Two-tailed Fisher’s exact tests were used to examine the relationship between the type of respite received and caregivers’ respite experiences. Findings indicated that parent experiences differed depending on the type of respite services they received. Specifically, parents who used a mixture of formal and informal respite reported positive experiences related to respite more frequently than the other two types of respite groups, while those who received only informal respite reported less benefit than others. Parents who used formal respite (either alone or mixed with informal respite) reported greater stress reduction. The greatest increase in family stability was reported by parents who received a mix of informal and formal respite. While this study revealed clear benefits for families to using both informal and formal respite services, the findings suggest that formal respite care was helpful to parents regardless of whether used alone or in combination with informal care.     

Gaining by giving? Peer research into service user and carer perceptions of inclusivity in Higher Education

Abstract

Service users and carers (SUAC) have made significant contributions to professional training in social work courses in Higher Education (HE) over the past decade in the UK. Such participation has been championed by government, academics and SUAC groups from a range of theoretical and political perspectives. Most research into the effectiveness of SUAC involvement at HE has come from the perspectives of academics and very little SUAC-led research exists. This qualitative peer research was led by two members of the University of Worcester’s SUAC group. Findings were that SUAC perceived their involvement brought benefits to students, staff, the University and the local community. Significant personal benefits such as finding a new support network, increased self-development and greater confidence to manage their own care were identified in ways that suggested that the benefits that can flow from SUAC involvement at HE are perhaps more far-reaching than previously recognised. Barriers to inclusion were less than previously reported in the literature and the humanising effects of SUAC involvement are presented as a partial antidote to an increasingly marketised HE culture.     

Agents for Change or Conflict?

In today’s Latin America, governments implementing public policies for development and against poverty and inequality meet with social movements that engage in practices for social change, poverty reduction, and empowering. In this context, we analyze the interplay between both processes, describing its conflicts in three specific dimensions: the material, the democratic, and the environmental. Social movements are permanently contesting and challenging public policy when they autonomously appropriate public policy resources; yet, governments respond with criminalization and cooptation strategies. In a setting where social conflict takes place in response to existing poverty and inequality levels, movements challenge development and poverty reduction projects of an ‘assistentialist’ and extractivist nature, and propose an integral understanding of development and the emergence of new relationships among individuals, society, and the environment.     

The Relationship Between Corporate Volunteering and Employee Civic Engagement Outside the Workplace in Russia

This paper discusses the relationship between corporate volunteering and civic engagement outside the workplace in Russia, proceeding from a mixed-method approach. The quantitative findings are based on a comparison between employees in 37 Russian companies who participated in corporate volunteering (N = 399) and those who did not (N = 402). Using binary logistic regression analysis, we demonstrate that employee participation in corporate volunteering is positively related to four forms of civic engagement outside the workplace: informal volunteering, formal volunteering, formal monetary donation, and informal monetary donation. In addition, we draw on information obtained from interviews with 10 corporate volunteers, as well as with all 37 company corporate volunteering managers, to develop a general explanation for why corporate volunteering might lead to civic engagement. We identify three primary explanations. First, trust in companies can be converted into increased trust in social institutions. Second, corporate volunteering can expose employees to other realities, thereby leading them to rethink their priorities. Third, corporate volunteering socializes employees to volunteering, thus making them more likely to incorporate volunteering into their personal repertoires of activities. Corporate volunteering appears to be an effective mechanism for stimulating civic engagement and volunteering infrastructure in post-communist countries.