Oiling the wheels? Flexible labour markets and the migration industry

ABSTRACT

The growing commercialisation of migration, often through a multiplicity of labour market intermediaries, is an issue of increasing academic interest. We seek to contribute to an emerging research agenda on the migration industries by exploring how one of the key actors that constitutes it, recruitment agencies, sits at the nexus between flexible labour market structures and migrant labour. Interviews with U.K. labour providers and low-wage employers form the evidence base for an analysis of the strategies developed by recruiters to derive commercial gain from connecting the so-called ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ sides of the flexible international labour market. We seek to contribute to understandings of the analytical categories within migration systems by illustrating how the migration industry interacts with other key stakeholders to structure international migration.     

Repurposing Materials and Waste through Online Exchanges: Overcoming the Last Hurdle

Online material and waste exchanges (OMWEs) provide online channels to repurpose by‐products, unused materials and waste from industrial and commercial facilities. Unfortunately, OMWE's also have challenges. First, sellers may have access to other disposal options and, as a result, may not fully commit to the exchange. Second, buyers can face high uncertainty about the product exchanged and the transaction being undertaken. Overcoming these challenges is the “last hurdle” to making OMWEs successful. This study investigates the factors that reduce the buyers' uncertainty and increase the sellers' commitment to the OMWE. We analyze novel transaction‐level data from an online exchange (MNExchange.org) combined with other archival public records on county‐level repurposing and disposal statistics. First, we find that regional repurposing policies and alternatives have a complementary effect on sellers' commitment toward OMWEs, resulting in increased OMWE exchanges. However, regional disposal policies and alternatives have a substitution effect on sellers' commitment, resulting in reduced exchange success. Further, greater product and transaction information reduce the buyer's uncertainty and increase exchange success. Finally, the analysis shows that users' (buyers and sellers) heavily rely on their prior experience with OMWEs. Specifically, higher familiarity between the buyer–seller pair and familiarity with the OMWE system leads to higher likelihood of exchange success. This study lays the foundation for understanding OMWEs and has important implications for developing policies and operations to increase online transactions of by‐products, materials and wastes.     

网络教育软件产业发展

本文通过对我国网络教育软件市场规模分析和针对网络教育软件系统的应用情况调查,得出网络教育软件发展趋势,提出网络教育软件产业需要走集成化、协作化、统筹规划、资源共享道路,要形成以学生为中心的授课、练习、测验、答疑全面协调互动的网络教学体系,并通过技术手段进行强化网络教育的教学质量。     

Ordering competition: the interactional accomplishment of the sale of art and antiques at auction

Auctions provide an institutional solution to a social problem; they enable the legitimate pricing and exchange of goods where those goods are of uncertain value. In turn, auctions raise a number of social and organizational issues that are resolved within the interaction that arise in sales by auction. In this paper, we examine sales of fine art, antiques and objets d'art and explore the ways in which auctioneers mediate competition between buyers and establish a value for goods. In particular, we explore how bids are elicited, co-ordinated and revealed so as to rapidly escalate the price of goods in a transparent manner that enables the legitimate valuation and exchange of goods. In directing attention towards the significance of the social interaction, including talk, visual and material conduct, the paper contributes to the growing corpus of ethnographic studies of markets. It suggests that to understand the operation of markets and their outcomes, and to unpack issues of agency, trust and practice, we need to place the 'interaction order' at the heart of analytic agenda.     

Reinvigorating the social contract and strengthening social cohesion: Social protection responses to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of those who are inadequately covered by social protection in more and less developed countries alike, and has exacerbated the fragility of a social contract that was already under strain in many countries. A weak social contract in the context of an exceptional crisis poses a very real risk to social cohesion. Nevertheless, many States have reasserted themselves as the guarantor of rights by protecting public health and incomes. By sustaining these measures, economic recovery will be supported which will help minimize risks that may weaken social cohesion. However, this is a fast-moving, inherently unstable and protracted crisis. Social protection stands at a critical juncture. Decisive policy action will be required to strengthen social protection systems, including floors, as one of the cornerstones of a reinvigorated social contract.     

Environmental practices and firm performance in emerging markets: the mediating role of product quality

Environmental practices have not received as much research attention in emerging market contexts as traditional topics like quality. However, the importance of environmental practices for a firm’s production strategy has been increasing at an unprecedented level across the globe. Our research objective is, therefore, to investigate the interplay between environmental practices and quality in the pursuit of firm performance. Relying on 492 responses from Turkish manufacturers to test our hypotheses, we show that environmental practices directly improve the quality of products over and above the effect of quality management practices in emerging markets. Product quality, in turn, is important for increasing firm performance, acting as a mediator for the positive effects of environmental practices on performance. Thus, we reveal that product quality functions as an instrumental conduit between environmental practices and firm performance in emerging markets like Turkey where stakeholder pressures are weak, and regulations are often not properly enforced.     

Large,But Adaptable? A Successful Population Policy and Its Long Term Effects

A restrictive population policy led to almost doubling the number of newborns from one year to another in Romania in the 1960s. Twenty years later, this large generation (of women) enters a marriage market with few eligible older mates, in a society where marriage is a must. In this article, I analyze this social experiment within the broader frame of the marriage squeeze/two sex models. Using various data from censuses and surveys, I argue that the marriage market is flexible even when is confronted with disproportionately large cohorts. If the social pressure toward marriage is strong, the marriage rates do not necessarily fall, but the mating age patterns change.

关于经济合作机制与经济整合概念的讨论——兼论海峡两岸经济合作机制问题

两岸经济合作机制逐步成为海峡两岸经济合作的核心概念与内容。经济合作机制有广义与狭义之分,也有功能性经济合作机制与经济整合机制（区域经济一体化）之分。两岸经济整合机制是两岸经济一体化的建构机制,是一个阶段性的发展过程,有低度经济整合机制、中度经济整合机制与高度经济整合机制,而在不同阶段会有不同的整合机制与模式。海峡两岸建立了不少功能性经济合作机制,但两岸经济整合机制建设尚处于起步阶段。海峡两岸签署的《海峡两岸经济合作框架协议》（ECFA）属于优惠贸易区性质,未来在完善两岸自由贸易区基础上,建立高层次的两岸经济整合机制目标即两岸经济共同体。     

从“中间制度消失论”看我国汇率制度的取向

简述了汇率制度的作用及涵义,论述了"中间制度消失论"的基本思想及发展过程,分析了汇率稳定、货币政策独立和金融市场国际化三者之间的关系,探讨了"亚洲金融危机"中东亚五国汇率制度的安排,并对比了各种汇率制度在抵御金融危机中的能力。在此基础上指出:在金融全球化的今天,各国可供选择的汇率制度只有完全自由的浮动汇率制度和"硬"的钉住汇率制度,强调我国现有的汇率制度已不适应未来经济发展的需要,提出了我国汇率制度的取向和应采取的对策。     

两岸加入世界贸易组织对台商投资的影响

两岸加入世界贸易组织后 ,台商在祖国大陆的投资商机明显增加 ,两岸经济合作关系的发展空间随之扩大。随着双方经贸政策的调整 ,阻挠两岸经济资源相互流动的各种障碍将逐步清除 ,尤其是台湾当局的限制政策将不得不进行调整。在新的形势下 ,台商第三波投资大陆的热潮将持续升温 ,投资布局将发生重大变化 ,逐渐形成以高新技术项目为主流、大企业为主导、市场拓展为导向、长江三角洲为重心的新格局