Over‐indebtedness and microcredit in Cambodia: Moving beyond borrower‐centric frames

Over the past two decades, Cambodia has experienced an unprecedented credit boom, a growth in lending so rapid that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) referred to it as “one of the fastest financial deepening episodes by historical cross‐cultural standards” (IMF, 2016, p. 4). This deepening has been driven by the expansion of microcredit. In tandem, over‐indebtedness has increased among microcredit borrowers, and debt has become a significant political and economic concern. This article explores how over‐indebtedness is understood and explained by stakeholders across microcredit value chains. To do so, we draw on interviews with microfinance institution (MFI) executives, investors, branch managers, partners, financial literacy trainers, loan officers and borrowers in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. We find that across the sector, dominant framings of over‐indebtedness privilege borrower‐centric explanations, while discounting the structural drivers of excessive lending and borrowing. As a consequence, current efforts to limit over‐indebtedness are unlikely to produce the kinds of solutions that are most needed to reduce the debt stress among borrowers. These arguments have implications across the Global South, particularly for contexts where microfinance is rapidly expanding.     

FOOD PRICES,WAGES, AND WELFARE IN RURAL INDIA

With soaring food prices in recent years has come alarm about rising poverty in the developing world. Less appreciated, however, is that many of the poor in agricultural economies may benefit from higher wages. This study finds that wages for manual labor in rural India, both within and outside agriculture, rose faster in districts growing more of those crops with large producer price run‐ups over the 2004–2009 period. Based on a general equilibrium framework that accounts for such wage gains, rural households across the income spectrum are found, contrary to more conventional welfare analysis, to benefit from higher agricultural prices. (JEL Q17, Q18, F14)     

Management attitudes toward two-tier pay plans

Two-tier pay plans, under which new hires are paid on a lower pay scale than existing employees, have been used with increasing frequency in union-management contracts. The two-tier phenomenon appears to be associated with the wider concession bargaining movement that began in the early 1980s. In this study, management attitudes toward and forecasts about two-tier pay plans are explored by means of a questionnaire survey. In general, the management community is found to be optimistic about the spread and utility of two-tier pay plans in the near term. Managers in firms that actually have two-tier plans are more enthusiastic about their impacts than other managers. Over a longer term, however, the managers surveyed tend to believe that separate wage scales under two-tier plans will eventually be merged into a unified scale. The authors would like to thank Maury Pearl and Gwang-Gi Baek for research assistance on this study.     

The role of acculturative stress and cultural backgrounds in migrants with pathological gambling

The objective of the present study was to differentiate specific migration-related factors that can account for an increased vulnerability to pathological gambling (PG) among migrants in Germany. One hundred and six gamblers (61 migrants, 45 Germans) with varying degrees of gambling problems participated in the study. We analysed (1) differences between migrants and Germans regarding gambling patterns, severity of gambling problems, motivation and craving; influence of (2) acculturative stress; (3) acceptance and popularity of gambling in the culture of origin on gambling problems; (4) differences between migrants and Germans regarding family gambling and peer gambling; and (5) differences in religiosity and its influence on gambling problems. Results suggest no differences between migrants and Germans regarding gambling patterns and the severity of gambling problems. However, findings indicate that migrants have higher motivation and craving to gamble. Findings further suggest that acculturative stress is associated with more severe gambling problems. In contrast, acceptance and popularity of gambling in the country of origin was not a significant predictor of gambling problems. At the same time, family gambling and peer gambling was significantly more prevalent among migrants, constituting an additional risk factor in the present sample. On the other hand, migrants in the sample benefit more often from a protective influence of religiosity.     

Labor market contracting and wage dispersion

This paper uses a variety of data sources to document the effect of long-term contracts (LTCs) on wage dispersion. The paper first shows that LTCs are responsible for the decrease in wage dispersion observed as labor markets tighten; absent LTCs (as in most other advanced nations outside North America), this effect does not exist. The paper next examines the relationship between cost-of-living escalators (COLAs) and wage dispersion. COLAs are typically found only in those countries that rely on LTCs, although the incidence of COLAs in these nations is affected by inflation variability. Thus, in the United States, COLAs became much more prevalent in long-term contracts during the 1970s, which caused an increase in wage dispersion, particularly between the union and nonunion sectors. The paper concludes that, despite some suggestions that we ban LTCs and COLAs because of their perverse effects on wage dispersion and other economic outcomes, such a ban would be unwise in light of historically high levels of industrial strife in those nations that rely on these contractual devices.     

Current prospects for employee representation in the U.S.: Old wine in new bottles?

A major issue currently being debated in the U.S. is whether to allow employers to establish works councils, employee committees, or other representational systems not permitted under the current labor laws. I bring economic, political, and historical analysis to bear on this issue and recommend an experimental relaxation of current law proscribing employer assistance to labor organizations. This is likely to improve the quality of employee participation, although it is unlikely to raise the amount of it.     

What Does Non-standard Employment Look Like in the United States? An Empirical Typology of Employment Quality

Despite significant interest in the changing nature of employment as a critical social and economic challenge facing society—especially the decline in the so-called Standard Employment Relationship (SER) and rise in more insecure, precarious forms of employment—scholars have struggled to operationalize the multifaceted and heterogeneous nature of contemporary worker-employer relationships within empirical analyses. Here we investigate the character and distribution of employment relationships in the U.S., drawing on a representative sample of wage-earners and self-employed from the General Social Survey (2002–2018). We use the multidimensional construct of employment quality, which includes both contractual (e.g., wages, contract type) and relational (e.g., employee representation and participation) aspects of employment. We further employ a typological measurement approach, using latent class analysis, to explicitly examine how the multiple aspects of employment cluster together in modern labor markets. We present eight distinct employment types in the U.S., including one resembling the historical conception of the SER model (24% of the total workforce), and others representing various constellations of favorable and adverse employment features. These employment types are unevenly distributed across society, in terms of who works these jobs and where they are found in the labor market. Importantly, women, those with lower education, and younger workers are more likely to be in precarious forms of employment. More generally, our typology reveals limitations associated with binary conceptions of standard vs. non-standard employment, or insider–outsider dichotomies envisioned within dual labor market theories.