Global Trade Models and Economic Policy Analyses: Relevance,Risks and Repercussions for Africa

Computable general equilibrium models are widely used for trade policy analyses and recommendations. There is, however, increasing discomfort with the use of these models, especially in Africa. This article demonstrates that the results of several such studies of the impact of trade reforms in Africa differ drastically in terms of both magnitude and direction, failing to take account of key features of African economies. It also outlines potential consequences of the misuse of CGE models for policy evaluation and suggests pitfalls to be avoided.     

Agriculture,communities, and new social movements: East European ruralities in the process of restructuring

This paper examines the usefulness of the new social movements (NSMs) paradigm in the changing context of East European post-communist societies and their agricultural systems and rural communities. Starting with statements formulated in Western sociology in the context of Western democratic societies about NSMs as a protest against modernity, the paper analyses the role of such movements in the still modernizing Eastern European reality. The first part of the paper briefly examines some basic elements of the NSMs paradigm in European and American social science. The goal of this section is not only to identify the basic characteristics of NSMs, but also to identify the typical frames used by them. The second part of the paper focuses on the presence of NSMs in the communist era. Drawing on the idea of NSMs as indicators of a ‘post-materialist shift’ as well as of ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘pro-participatory democracy’, the paper examines the frames of democratic opposition in Eastern Europe before 1989. The final part of the paper considers several selected examples from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to explore the role of NSMs in the process of shaping new ruralities during the post-communist transformation.     

Cellular-Only Substitution in the United States as Lifestyle Adoption: Implications for Telephone Survey Coverage

Historically, the coverage bias from excluding the United Statescell-only population from survey samples has been minimal dueto the relatively small size of this group. However, the unrelentinggrowth of this segment has sparked growing concern that telephonesurveys of the general public in the United States will becomeincreasingly subject to coverage bias. While there is evidencethat demographic weighting can be used to eliminate this bias,the availability of the weights lag behind the rapidly changingcell-only population. To explain the extent of the problem,we propose a reliable model to forecast cell-only populationsize and demographics. This model posits that a stable behavioralprocess, the rate of habit retention, can be estimated fromprior wireless lifestyle adoption in the United States and mayalso describe adoption of the cell-only lifestyle. Using measuresof incentive and habituation, we test this assumption by predictingchanges in the cell-only population size and changes in agedemographics. The accuracy of predictions confirms the two adoptionbehaviors are similar. We then develop forecasts of age demographicsthrough 2009, and show how cell-only lifestyle adoption leadsto potential coverage bias that is better addressed throughthis type of modeling rather than weighting from historicaldata.     

Wer spielt die Musik?

Media play a crucial role in the development of children and young people, together with the influence of parents, family and peer groups. Looking at an important topic in adolescents’ lives, i.e. contemporary music, this pilot study analyzes the relationship between media and interpersonal communication. Its theoretical grounds refer to the notion of a multi-step flow of communication. Based on a snowball sample of 72 pupils, aged between 14 and 16 and coming from different schools in Germany, 687 relations between respondents and their communication partners could be identified. Interviews were conducted face-to-face and by telephone in 2001. The questionnaire included a network generator based on seven items, an assessment of relationship characteristics and communication roles taken with each partner and several controls such as media use patterns or relevance and expertise in the field of music. According to our results, the concept of opinion leadership can be applied to the roles of pupils in the classroom, and the social network approach allows for a distinct view on their communication patterns. The size of pupils’ networks was between seven and 12 persons in average, most of the networks being dense and consisting of strong relationships. Due to the still important role of the parents, the homogeneity in age and education was rather low. The results also indicate the presence of opinion leaders among groups of adolescents, characterized by central positions within the communication network in class. The case study could identify several roles, e.g. stars, bridges, liaisons, structural holes and isolated persons. On the other hand, there is no evidence for a substantially different type of media use by opinion leaders, which challenges the original assumption of a multi-step-flow of communication.     

Increasing inter‐generational social mobility: is educational expansion the answer?

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy‐makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility.