INCOMPLETE OWNERSHIP, RENT DISSIPATION, AND THE RETURN TO RELATED INVESTMENTS

The welfare loss from free access resource use is examined in a general equilibrium model. Actions that intensify competition for the resource, either by lowering the private cost or raising the private benefit of using it, can raise this loss above the rent the resource would earn if owned. Such 'excess dissipation'is illustrated with examples applicable to unowned groundwater. Regulatory policies that fix inputs needed to acquire the resource work by transferring part of the resource's rent to controlled inputs. The resulting welfare effect depends on the elasticity of substitution between, and relative prices of, controlled and uncontrolled inputs.     

A graduate course in marriage and family enrichment

Legislation aimed at decreasing the divorce rate and the resurgence of interest in marriage and family enrichment have propelled educators to consider how well they are training new therapists in the preventive approaches to therapy. In this article, we present a graduate course to educate students about the enrichment movement and skill- and competency-based approaches to family intervention. We provide a general outline for teaching the course as well as specific resources and guidelines that can be of value to all marriage and family therapy practitioners.     

'Sod off and find us a boffin': journalists and the social science conference

Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professional conference and seeks to explain the tensions that exist. It concludes that the two cultures of journalist and academic are in conflict where they converge.     

The voluntary sector in ‘the information society’: a study in division and uncertainty

At a time of rapid social, political and economic change in Britain, voluntary and community groups are being encouraged to assume a more prominent role in general welfare provision. Accordingly, their need to know has never been more acute. Yet the information environment of the voluntary sector is also in a state of flux and transition. Profound changes in the institutional world of information provision hold significant implications for the way voluntary and community groups seek and disseminate information. In this paper these structural changes are outlined and the findings presented of an extensive investigation into information needs and usage in the voluntary sector.     

Curtain Down on Act One: Practice Learning in the First Year of the New Social Work Award

The curtain has come down on the first year of the new social work degree in England. This paper presents the findings of a survey of social work educators in academic and practice settings to find out how practice learning in this year has been experienced and the shape of plans for the rest of the new degree. The paper reflects on the enormous diversity of arrangements for practice learning, in terms of patterns of delivery, assessment, funding, and service user and carer involvement. One pattern that is emerging strongly is a more experimental flavour to this first year, with new practice learning sites being developed, and the use of group arrangements to supervise and support students. However, there is also the potential for inconsistency in standards, especially in the ways that students are judged as ‘fit for practice learning’. There are concerns that the new partnerships are increasingly driven by universities and colleges, with some agency partners unclear about what is happening and why. There are also indications that the postgraduate programmes will have less room for experimentation than the three‐year undergraduate courses and this may become a source of divergence between the two routes.     

Patterns in macroinvertebrate taxonomic richness and community assembly among urban wetlands in Cape Town,South Africa: implications for wetland management

Urbanization has significantly increased globally during the last century and has far-reaching consequences for biodiversity and their associated habitats, particularly wetland ecosystems. Previous studies have focused primarily on wetlands in non-urban areas, and urban wetland biodiversity patterns are currently not well understood, particularly across Africa. Here, we investigate two highly transformed urban wetlands in Cape Town, South Africa, and determine the relative importance and influence of local environmental variables as drivers of macroinvertebrate richness and community structuring. We also determine the influence of local environmental variables for patterns of species turnover and nestedness within and among these wetlands, and provide management recommendations based on our findings. We found that few macroinvertebrate species were associated with these wetlands, yet community variation was driven by a combination of local environmental variables. Our results also indicate that the turnover component of beta diversity, rather than nestedness, was responsible for most of the variation in the overall macroinvertebrate community. We identified two major problems regarding the current ecological state of the investigated wetlands. Firstly, high nutrient loads originating from the surrounding land uses which reduced wetland biodiversity, and secondly, the transformation of these wetlands from seasonal to perennial water bodies. We recommend local and regional scale approaches to limit urban waste from entering these systems, and management of water levels simulating natural Mediterranean-type climate dynamics more closely are required to ensure that the maximum possible diversity can be supported in these wetlands.