TEACHING TOOLS: A POLLUTION RIGHTS TRADING GAME

This article describes a classroom game in which students simulate the US. EPAS market for emission allowances to understand the efficiency benefits of market-based incentives for pollution control. It can be used in either a principles or environmental economics course. Acting as managers of coal-fired power plants facing different clean-up costs, students compare the cost of pollution reduction to the cost of acquiring permits to emit pollution. The game can be conducted in one 50-minute class period with discussion of the results carried over to the next class. (JEL A2)     

Social Work Influence on Juvenile Court Disposals

Summary A study was made of the contents of 120 social enquiry reportswritten by social workers in relation to a sample of 50 juvenileoffenders. The criterion for inclusion in the sample was thatthe offender was subject to a supervision order made during1977, in one social services department. The analysis of the contents of the reports indicated that thesocial workers, with their own individual differences of emphasis,adhered closely to the intended welfare values of the 1969 Act;they worked for, with and on behalf of the offenders and theirfamilies; their recommendations, particularly when argued withconviction, were listened to and acted upon by the magistrates. It appeared that there might be significant decision pointsin the career of a juvenile offender: the first court appearance,when either a welfare measure or deterrent measure might beused; and the later stage where a boy of 14+ years faced thecourt following a number of convictions and the failure of previousmeasures. At both points it seemed to be the social worker recommendationwhich was influential, and which could therefore have a significanteffect on the direction of a child's future.     

THEORIES OF COMMITMENT, ALTRUISM AND RECIPROCITY: EVIDENCE FROM LINEAR PUBLIC GOODS GAMES

Theories of commitment, altruism, and reciprocity have been invoked to explain and describe behavior in public goods and social dilemma situations. Commitment has been used to explain behaviors like water conservation and voting. Altruism has been applied to explain contributions to charities and intergenerational transfers and bequests. Reciprocity has been invoked to explain gift exchange and labor market decisions. This paper describes a set of experiments, which distinguish between these competing theories by testing their comparative statics predictions in a linear public goods setting. Results provide strong support for reciprocity theories over either theories of commitment or of altruism. ( JEL C9, D64, H41, C72)     

Igbo professional migratory orders,hometown associations and ethnicity in the USA

In this article I examine ethnographically the discursive means by which Igbo speakers in hometown associations in the USA are crafting lives and communities abroad to express a territory‐bound sense of ethnic group membership. I contend that Igbo speakers living abroad are undergoing a process of ethnic formation or ethnification that is structured by increased rates of immigration and recent historical and political change in Nigeria. In response to these events, shifting representations of self and group identity incur an essentialist quality from abroad. Such essentialism is a paradoxical earmark of globalization for the brain‐drain Igbo professional.