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The Changing Face Of Conservation: Commodification, Privatisation And The Free Market, Sharon Beder Jun 2006

The Changing Face Of Conservation: Commodification, Privatisation And The Free Market, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

Environmentalists in the late 1960s and 1970s argued that the exponential growth of populations and industrial activity could not be sustained without seriously depleting the planet’s resources and overloading the planet’s ability to deal with pollution and waste materials. They argued that new technologies and industrial products, such as pesticides and plastics, also threatened the environment. Following the protest mood of the times, they did not hesitate to blame industry, western culture, economic growth and technology for environmental problems. They questioned western paradigms of development and industrialisation, and criticising the inequitable distribution of wealth and resource use.


Does Privatization Hurt Workers? Lessons From Comprehensive Manufacturing Firm Panel Data In Hungary, Romania, Russia, And Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Álmos Telegdy Feb 2006

Does Privatization Hurt Workers? Lessons From Comprehensive Manufacturing Firm Panel Data In Hungary, Romania, Russia, And Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Álmos Telegdy

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We estimate the effects of privatization on firm-level wages and employment in four transition economies. Applied to longitudinal data on manufacturing firms, our fixed effect and random trend models consistently fail to support workers' fears of job losses from privatization, and they never imply large negative effects on wages; only for domestic privatization in Hungary and Russia are small (3-5%) negative wage effects found. Privatization to foreign investors has positive estimated impacts on both employment and wages in all four countries. The negligible consequences of domestic privatization for workers result from effects on scale, productivity, and costs that are large …


Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov Feb 2006

Wages, Layoffs, And Privatization: Evidence From Ukraine, J. David Brown, John S. Earle, Volodymyr Vakhitov

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates the effects of privatization on worker separations and wages using retrospective data from a national probability sample of Ukrainian households. Detailed worker characteristics are used to control for compositional differences and to assess types of observable "winners" and "losers" from privatization. Preprivatization worker-firm matches are used to control for unobservables in worker and firm selection. The results imply that privatization reduces wages by 5 percent and cuts the layoff probability in half. Outside investor ownership reduces separations but leaves wages unaffected. Winners from privatization tend to be higher-skilled employees of larger firms, but there is no discernible …


Power Play: The Japanese Situation, Sharon Beder Jan 2006

Power Play: The Japanese Situation, Sharon Beder

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Japanese electricity industry is currently being gradually deregulated in the hopes that high electricity prices can be reduced. At the same time the government is keen to encourage more use of nuclear power. It is aiming to reuse nuclear fuel in order to close the nuclear fuel cycle and thereby reduce Japan’s reliance on imports to fuel electricity generation.1 However deregulation in other parts of the world has not brought prices down, nor has it been conducive to investment in nuclear power. More importantly, the competitive pressures encouraged by deregulation do not encourage reliability and safety, issues which are …