The Scalability of the Shack/Slum Dwellers International Methodology: Context and Constraint in Cape Town

Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) was created by the Indian Alliance and South African partners. SDI has affiliates in 33 countries and is probably the world's largest network of community peer‐to‐peer knowledge exchange in the area of slum/informal settlement upgrading. Common to the Indian Alliance's ‘Federation Model’ and the SDI methodology are a commitment to community organization and community‐led upgrading that is undertaken in partnership with local government. In a context where it is projected that there will be two billion slum dwellers by 2030, the ambition is to enable tens of millions of households to obtain upgraded housing and services. This article questions the scalability and universality of the SDI methodology in Cape Town, where the SDI Secretariat is located.     

灾后重建中的非营利组织与非正式参与途径

在灾后重建中,人们往往重视的是政府自上而下的正式援助计划,而忽略了自下而上的民间社会非正式参与的力量。事实上,小规模之"自主性策略"取代自上而下中央集权式政策执行也是行之有效的灾后重建措施。文章认为虽然非营利组织非正式参与灾后重建的四种新途径或模式,能有效参与到灾后重建过程中来,但非营利组织能否在灾后重建工作中取得成效,除了选择适当的模式外,还需要考虑自身的"二元性"问题,尤其要注意外来的以社会服务为取向的非营利组织与本土社会系统产生冲突与抵抗的问题。     

Differences and similarities in monetary benefits for informal care in old and new EU member states

This article presents an overview of the monetary benefits available in the context of long‐term care provided by family or other informal carers in 11 old and 10 new EU member states. All but one country in our sample offer at least some monetary benefits that can be used to help finance informal care. Old EU member states tend to direct benefits to individuals in need of care, whereas new EU member states place more emphasis on benefits for carers. Among new EU member states, monetary benefits are less often means‐tested and tend to be lower compared with benefits in old EU member states. Because social policies in many countries increasingly rely on monetary benefits rather than on benefits in kind and because the share of informal care in the overall provision of elderly care will scarcely decline, monetary benefit incentives for labour market participation need to be carefully monitored.     

房地产市场信用危机的制度分析

中国目前正处于由计划经济向市场经济转型时期,新旧体制的摩擦和各种社会经济矛盾日渐凸显,其中,信用危机尤其是关乎百姓生活的房地产市场中的信用危机已成为中国现阶段备受关注的社会经济问题。从新制度经济学的视角出发对这一现象进行分析,认为中国房地产市场信用危机主要根源于正式制度约束软化、非正式制度约束缺失、制度实施机制不健全等。     

我国农村非正规金融与农民收入关系研究

理论上认为农村非正规金融的存在有利于融资效率的提高,但是否有利于农民增收,经验研究结果不一.笔者在农村资金来源中的自筹资金和其他资金大部分来源于非正规金融的假定下,构建面板数据回归模型发现:国内贷款和外资对我国农民收入的影响不显著,但非正规金融和国家预算资金的影响统计上是非常显著的,并且各地区的地区性因素对农民收入的影响差异很大.     

The Indian informal sector: The impact of globalization and reform

Globalization and economic reforms typically affect the formal sector, the informal sector existing outside regulation. Yet, numerous links between them mean the informal sector is variously affected. Traditionally, the model used to explain the impact of these forces was labour market segmentation and migration: workers laid off in the formal sector increase informal labour supply, leading to wage decline and increased poverty. The author examines whether this pattern applies in India following economic reforms in the 1990s, and finds a more appropriate model, driven by expansion both in labour supply and in demand, through outsourcing, skill transfers and new enterprises.     

Equal Division of Estates and the Exchange Motive

Abstract

Although the bequest motive is one of the most important theoretical extensions of the life-cycle hypothesis, few empirical studies have measured determinants of unequal estate division. We estimated whether several proxies that are consistent with exchange and altruism lead to unequal estate division using data from a longitudinal survey of deceased elderly persons linked to probate court records. Equal division was the rule-between 70 and 83% of estates were divided equally, depending on the strictness of the definition of equal division. Several measures of exchange were not significant predictors of unequal division. Two factors that are consistent with both exchange and altruism-writing the last will and testament within five years of death and having more children-predict unequal estate division. The models control for selection, because many decedents do not file a record in probate court.     

Urban “slums” and social mobility

Informal urban settlements determine the wellbeing of a large section of global humanity. Yet there has been little research on their role in facilitating social mobility. In theory such settlements may foster human progress by linking rural–urban migrants to the services, contacts and livelihoods concentrated in cities. The article uses longitudinal data for South Africa to explore the magnitude of social progression among people living within informal settlements compared with rural areas and formal urban areas. It finds that there may be some advantage from living in an informal settlement compared with a rural area, but the effect is not strong. The impact may be larger in the more prosperous Gauteng city‐region than in other urban regions.     

Taming the road,tamed by the road: sense of road as place among Indigenous Bedouin in an ethnic frontier in Israel

ABSTRACT

We propose the concept ‘sense of road as place’ for an Indigenous group within an ethnic frontier, specifically in the case of the Israeli Bedouin. A road in this spatial context carries far greater meanings than elsewhere, particularly when also impacted by power relationships with the state. We reveal how Road 31 was/is subjectified by the Bedouin as a place prior to and after an upgrade. Initially they were able, through their Indigenous spatiality, to tame the road into their informal mobility and make it a place, but following the upgrade their informal mobility has been tamed into formal state-regulated mobility, making the road a non-place.     

Organisation et institution: vers une socioéconomie de la firme?

The paper aims at showing that beyond its economic nature the firm is an organized social institution. The theory of the firm does not succeed in unifying in a single analytical framework both its institutional and organizational dimensions. In contrast, organization theory – notably organizational sociology – deals with the intertwining of these two existential elements of firms. The cross-fertilization which occurs between these two social sciences can be used to propose a real socio-economic theory of the firm.