Have Industrial Relations in the UK Really Improved?

Abstract. The number of strikes reported in British industry has been on a downward trend over the past two decades, falling in 1998 to its lowest level since records began. This may indicate that relations within British industry have improved; however, the same period has also witnessed a sharp increase in the number of individual ACAS and employment tribunal cases. We discuss possible reasons for the changes in the patterns of industrial unrest over time and use individual micro‐data to examine whether the observed decline in strike activity has actually been associated with an improvement in perceptions of workplace industrial relations.     

Sector Approaches,Sustainable Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction

This article examines the relationship between sector‐wide approaches (SWAps), sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLAs) and rural poverty reduction. The authors suggest that SLAs provide one means by which SWAps can focus more effectively on poverty reduction, whilst SWAps provide an entry point via which government and donor initiatives can be made supportive of the livelihoods of the poor. The article puts forward guidelines indicating the core issues upon which donors should focus to enhance the poverty impact of sector‐wide approaches.     

Processing Culture: Cognition,Ontology, and the News Media1

This article discusses how people cognitively engage with the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news in ways that yield ontological services. It treats the news as both a system of signs and a cultural object, and assesses how people mentally intercept, negotiate, and use the news in ways that foster a sense of control and order over an unstable and unpredictable social world (i.e., “ontological security”) ( Giddens, 1991 ). Based on interview data, it argues that through criticisms, consumption orientations, lay theorizing, and “ignorant othering,” all orbiting and drawing from the contemporary, mainstream, U.S. news, people cognitively sift through and simplify a broader frenzied social environment. In so doing, they are able to mentally establish at minimum a sense of rudimentary understanding and at most a sense of trusted certainty of what is real and true of the world outside their immediate social circles.     

A short-term, quasi-experimental evaluation of D.A.R.E.'s revised elementary school curriculum

We present the short-term results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the revised D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) curriculum. Study outcomes examined were D.A.R.E.'s effects on three substances, namely students' lifetime and 30-day use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as their school attendance and academic performance. The study comprised students in 17 urban schools, each of which served as its own control; 5th graders in the 2006-2007 school year constituted the comparison group (n = 1490), and those enrolled as 5th graders in the 2007-2008 school year constituted the intervention group (n= 1450). We found no intervention effect on students' substance use for any of the substance use outcomes assessed. We did find that students were more likely to attend school on days they received D.A.R.E. lessons and that students in the intervention group were more likely to have been suspended. Study findings provide little support for the implementation and dissemination of the revised D.A.R.E. curriculum.     

Unexpected Pathways Through Education: Why Do Some Students Not Succeed in School and What Helps Others Beat the Odds?

In this overview of Volume 64, Issue 1, of the Journal of Social Issues , we describe why it is important to consider the diversity of student pathways through time and in context and why it is important to focus particularly on youth who defy predictions. We describe the ways in which expectations are formed in statistical analysis and also in real-world education systems and how the structural rigidity inherent in such systems can lead to poor person–environment fit for young people in education or training and to misleading statistical analysis. Our intention is to move beyond analytic approaches that assume "one size fits all" while recognizing both that policy cannot provide fully individualized environments for everyone and that research cannot focus only on the unique characteristics of each individual. By focusing on individuals for whom our models typically do not apply, we highlight the value of research on complex but meaningful patterns of commonality among people, not in terms of the average person or effects, but in terms of coherent, distinct, and relatively homogenous subgroups of people experiencing systematic and consequential differences in their lives and lifepaths .     

Exploring the Roles of Extracurricular Activity Quantity and Quality in the Educational Resilience of Vulnerable Adolescents: Variable- and Pattern-Centered Approaches

This longitudinal study examines how extracurricular activity involvement contributes to "educational resilience"—the unexpected educational attainments of adolescents who are otherwise vulnerable to curtailed school success due to personal- and social-level risks. Educationally vulnerable youth characterized by significant risks and an absence of assets were identified during early adolescence (approximately age 14) using measures of academic motivation, achievement, and mental health as well as family, school, and peer contexts. Using a mixture of variable- and pattern-centered analytic techniques, we investigate how both the total amount time that vulnerable youth spent in positive extracurricular activities and the specific pattern of their extracurricular activity involvement during late adolescence (approximately age 17) predict their subsequent enrollment in college during early adulthood (up through approximately age 21). Educational resilience was predicted uniquely by some, but not all, activity patterns. These results suggest that positive extracurricular activity settings afford vulnerable youth developmentally appropriate experiences that promote educational persistence and healthy development .     

Perfect and total altruism across the generations

The traditional formulation of the altruism model has altruistic terms that relate solely to other parties’ felicities from consumption. But if those others are altruistic as well, their altruism benefits are being neglected. Total altruism takes the total utilities of others, rather than their mere felicities, as the basis for altruistic valuations. We assess total altruism in an intergenerational world. Perfect altruism, a concept due to Ramsey (Econ. J. 38(152):543–559, 1928), requires that a generation value itself relative to its successor as it would any two consecutive generations. Total altruism and perfect altruism prove to be incompatible concepts. Total altruism is only meaningful when there is some generational selfishness. The analysis considers both forward-looking and forward and backward-looking altruism.     

Clinic Overbooking to Improve Patient Access and Increase Provider Productivity*

The problem of patient no‐shows (patients who do not arrive for scheduled appointments) is significant in many health care settings, where no‐show rates can vary widely. No‐shows reduce provider productivity and clinic efficiency, increase health care costs, and limit the ability of a clinic to serve its client population by reducing its effective capacity. In this article, we examine the problem of no‐shows and propose appointment overbooking as one means of reducing the negative impact of no‐shows. We find that patient access and provider productivity are significantly improved with overbooking, but that overbooking causes increases in both patient wait times and provider overtime. We develop a new clinic utility function to capture the trade‐offs between these benefits and costs, and we show that the relative values that a clinic assigns to serving additional patients, minimizing patient waiting times, and minimizing clinic overtime will determine whether overbooking is warranted. From the results of a series of simulation experiments, we determine that overbooking provides greater utility when clinics serve larger numbers of patients, no‐show rates are higher, and service variability is lower. Even with highly variable service times, many clinics will achieve positive net results with overbooking. Our analysis provides valuable guidance to clinic administrators about the use of appointment overbooking to improve patient access, provider productivity, and overall clinic performance.     

A COMMENT ON THE COST OF NEW ISSUES OF COMMON STOCK

According to the constant growth model and perceived finance theory, the cost of new external equity exceeds the cost of retained earnings due to flotation costs and underpricing. Carlson and Dietz [1] have recently argued that the constant growth model is operationally inadequate whenever the net proceeds from the issuance of a new share differ from book value. Specifically, they contend that the cost of new external equity is less than the cost of retained earnings whenever the net proceeds from a new share exceed book value. We show that these conclusions stem from an error in interpretation and therefore that the constant growth model is valid regardless of the relationship between market prices and book value.