CONSUMPTION, WEALTH, AND FINITE HORIZONS: TESTS OF RICARDIAN EQUIVALENCE

We find strongly non-Ricardian results when we re-estimate Evans's [1988] model using a better approximation of the market value of wealth. We also examine the long-run properties of the data and find results consistent with our regression evidence when we allow for declining labor income as modeled by Gali (1990]. Our findings in support of non-Ricardian behavior by consumers stand in sharp contrast to those of both Evans and Gali.     

‘MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK’: TEENAGE WOMEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR MARKET, 1947 TO 1992

Teenage women have been particularly disadvantaged by the collapse of the youth labour market over the last 20 years. This article outlines the dimension of that problem, comparing the position young women held in the teenage labour market in the late 1940s with their position today. While the 1950s and 1960s saw growth in some areas of paid work for teenage women, the 1970s marked a watershed. With the major exception of saleswork in the retail industry and clerical work in banking, teenage women saw their place in the labour market dramatically shrink during that decade. Nearly 30,000 full-time jobs disappeared during the 1970s, to be replaced by nearly the same number of part-time jobs. The 1980s has seen these developments reach crisis proportions. In the late 1980s, nearly 40,000 clerical jobs were lost to teenage women, and again the only significant employment growth was in casualised service sector jobs, such as cashiers and sales workers. This article concludes by exploring the structural reasons behind these dramatic long-term changes.     

协商民主制度化: 民主创新与协商体系

协商民主如何实现制度化,尤其是如何通过民主创新直接吸收公民参与政治过程,这一问题受到了学界的广泛关注。认识、理解和分析协商民主制度化能够为当前有关协商民主体系的争论提供一个重要的、批判性的视角。以往任何一种制度都无法包容所有价值,协商民主的价值有时会相互冲突,权衡和妥协在制度设计中是必要的,只有实现各制度之间的配合才能最大限度地调和这些价值。因此,探讨如何使协商民主能更有效地嵌入整个政治系统,并与其他制度形成配合,是当前研究工作所面临的重要挑战,而其中最关键、最具实践意义的便是对制度化策略的研究。     

Spirit Possession and Exorcism in the Treatment of a Bedouin Psychiatric Patient

A male Bedouin psychiatric patient was initially misdiagnosed and treated as a paranoid schizophrenic. The modern mental health care system correctly understood the form of the patient's symptoms, auditory and visual hallucinations. It did not however at first appreciate their content, or cultural significance. The patient had unresolved anger toward his family which was manifested in an angry exchange with his mother. This exchange created guilt and the belief that the patient had sinned against God and was possessed by demons. A psychiatric social worker was able to reconcile the patient with his mother and to incorporate a traditional Bedouin healer, the Dervish, to exorcise the patient. The patient was cured by the Dervish, re-diagnosed as a neurotic by the modern system, and continued successfully with both systems for several months in follow-up treatment before being discharged.     

Birth control and abortion in France since 1939

This paper describes developments in French policy on contraception and abortion during the occupation and since the liberation. It includes an account of the relevant legislation and the resulting medical, judicial and police activity, as well as some information regarding abortees and abortionists. The latter, of necessity, relates only to cases which have come to the attention of the authorities or the public.     

Maintaining the Gains: What Worked in the Year after Brief Family Therapy

Brief family therapy, including single session therapy, is widely used to provide a timely and responsive service for children with emotional and behavioural problems. However, there is surprisingly little information about how these children and families fare in the longer term. The brief family therapy program described here was directed toward children with problems of moderate severity. Child Behaviour Checklists (CBCL) were completed by parents before, three months after, and twelve months after therapy; 110 parents also participated in semi‐structured telephone interviews twelve months after therapy. Parents' CBCL ratings showed a significant decrease in children's problems after therapy, which were maintained over the subsequent year, although some children continued to experience difficulties. Parents generally found brief therapy a helpful experience. Ways to strengthen the preventive possibilities of brief therapy work will be identified at both a practical and conceptual level.     

Between Church and State: a Christian Brotherhood’s Faithful Claims to Secularity in Mexico City

Qualitative Sociology - The Good News Businessmen’s Brotherhood (GNBB) is a Christian organization with evangelical commitments, charismatic practices, and whose members insist that their...     

‘Fuck It,Shit Happens (FISH)’: a social generations approach to understanding young people’s imaginings of life after school in 2016–2017

ABSTRACT

This article uses a social generations approach to explore the lives of young people transitioning to life after schooling. Drawing on ethnographic research in England during the geopolitical uncertainty of 2016–2017, we track the trajectories and narratives of six individuals. The research begins with final year pupils in schools talking about their futures, during and after their A-Level exams. We then follow these individuals on routes to Higher Education and employment, exploring how they are socialised into imaginings of the future and/or struggle to inhabit these futures. A deeply ingrained, modernist, neoliberal reckoning of future time is normalised through experiences of schooling. However, this logic is troubled profoundly in the transition to life after school. Young people’s experiences in an unpredictable present run in stark contrast to the ordered trajectory of future action they have been socialised to expect. Amidst this uncertainty, ambivalence towards shaping the future (‘Fuck It, Shit Happens’) can in some ways feel like the most agentic stance to take. Furlong et al.’s (2011) social generations approach to understanding youth transitions reveals how we must critique the very concept of ‘the future’ if we are to understand the reality of youth transitions in the present.     

Remuneration Committees,Pay Consultants and the Determination of Executive Directors' Pay

This paper explores how Board Remuneration Committee (Remco) decisions about executive pay are influenced by pay consultants. Drawing on resource dependency theory and case study evidence from five companies, the paper illuminates the complexities of the pressures and processes confronting both Remcos and pay consultants in the determination of executive pay awards. In contrast to ‘managerial power’ arguments, it demonstrates that the Remcos are proactive in managing pay policy, conscientious in seeking to ensure that pay is appropriate and not over‐generous, and that pay consultants are independent and take their instructions entirely from the Remco. Nevertheless, Remcos' understandings of the wider pay environment, informed by the comparative data supplied by pay consultants, constructs a climate in which the Remcos come to perceive a need for periodic upward pay adjustments to ensure that executive remuneration is consistent with external benchmarks if they are to avoid recruitment and retention problems.     

Taste uncertainty and status quo effects in consumer choice

We use reference-dependent expected utility theory to develop a model of status quo effects in consumer choice. We hypothesise that, when making their decisions, individuals are uncertain about the utility that will be yielded by their consumption experiences in different ‘taste states’ of the world. If individuals have asymmetric attitudes to gains and losses of utility, the model entails acyclic reference-dependent preferences over consumption bundles. The model explains why status quo effects may vary substantially from one decision context to another and why some such effects may decay as individuals gain market experience.