Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Good Practices In Standard Setting For Domestic Worker Contracts, Piyasiri Wickramasekara

PIYASIRI WICKRAMASEKARA

The presentation discusses international good practices in model or standard employment contracts in protection of migrant domestic workers. International instruments negotiated by ILO and UN constituents are the best sources of good practices. It outlines the provisions in international instruments, particularly the ILO Convention on Domestic Workers, 2011 (No. 189). The author maintains that for maximum effectiveness, the model/standard contracts should be mutually recognized by countries of origin and destination, and duly enforced to ensure compliance by employers, and supplemented by other measures. The author concludes that there is a large unfinished agenda in ensuring decent work for domestic workers.

Declining Labour Use In Agriculture : A Case Of Rice Cultivation In Andhra Pradesh, Narasimha Reddy Duvvuri, Venkatanarayana Motkuri

Venkatanarayana Motkuri Mr.

The present paper examines the changing nature of labour use in rice cultivation in Andhra Pradesh. Rice production in India is, however, concentrated in a few pockets. A few states in India produce around two thirds of rice production. Andhra Pradesh is the third largest state in India with respect to rice production. In Andhra Pradesh too, rice is the single largest crops occupying around 30% of area cultivated. The state was one of frontrunners leading the Green Revolution, particularly in rice cultivation.

The study observed that there is a fast decline in labour use in respect of rice cultivation …

Immigration And African American Wages And Employment: Critically Appraising The Empirical Evidence, Patrick Leon Mason

Patrick L. Mason

This paper critically assesses the empirical evidence on the relationship between immigration and African American employment. Studies using various methodologies and data are reviewed: natural experiments, time series, and cross-sectional studies of local labor markets and intertemporal changes in the national labor market. We find that for African Americans as a whole, immigration may have little effect on mean wages and probability of employment. However, there is some evidence that immigration may have had an adverse impact on the labor market outcomes of African Americans belonging to low education-experience groups. However, even this modest conclusion must be qualified: the literature …

Regulation Of Recruitment Process And Reduction Of Migration Costs: A Comparative Analysis Of South Asia, Piyasiri Wickramasekara

PIYASIRI WICKRAMASEKARA

The study undertakes a comprehensive review of issues relating to recruitment processes and high migration costs in South Asia with special focus on Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The paper first highlights migration trends in South Asia, and main features of South Asian migration. Next the paper reviews the international normative framework of recruitment covering the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181), the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), and the ILO Multilateral Framework on Migration (2006).

The paper reviews the main features and practices of private recruitment agencies and the legislative and regulatory framework covering their operations.

It …

A Letter From Doug Band, Doug Band

Doug Band

A letter from Doug Band during his service on the Coca-Cola Company International Advisory Committee (the Committee). The Committee is a third-party group, which is composed of well-known, outside experts in the fields of health policy, environmental policy and public policy generally. The Committee was formed in 2012 to provide strategic guidance in support of the Company's business priorities and to strengthen a network of global opinion leaders. The Committee assists us in understanding related developments and trends in the world at large, and also in devising appropriate, responsive Company policy and action.

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …

Local Responses To Federal Grants: Evidence From The Introduction Of Title I In The South, Elizabeth Cascio, Nora Gordon, Sarah Reber

Nora Gordon

We analyze the effects of the introduction of Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a large federal grants program designed to increase poor students’ educational services and achievement. We focus on the South, the poorest region of the country. Title I increased school spending by 50 cents on the dollar in the average Southern school district and by more in districts with less ability to offset grants through local tax reductions. Title I induced increases in school budgets appear to have reduced high school dropout rates of whites, but not blacks.

Immigrants, Household Production, And Women's Retirement, Agnese Romiti, Giovanni Peri, Mariacristina Rossi

Agnese Romiti

Women contribute disproportionately to household production, especially in Southern European countries. As a consequence of population aging assistance to elderly parents, rather than child care, has become a prevalent activity in home-production services. Immigrant labor has increasingly become a substitute for women labor in those services. Their presence, therefore, may allow women over 55 to work more outside of the house and retire later. We use a unique database of Italian households to identify the effect of local availability of foreign workers on planned retirement age and labor supply of Italian women. We find that an exogenous increase by one …

A Theory Without A Movement, A Hope Without A Name: The Future Of Marxism In A Post-Marxist World, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Just as Marx's insights into capitalism have been most strikingly vindicated by the rise of neoliberalism and the near-collapse of the world economy, Marxism as social movement has become bereft of support. Is there any point in people who find Marx's analysis useful in clinging to the term "Marxism" - which Marx himself rejected -- at time when self-identified Marxist organizations and societies have collapsed or renounced the identification, and Marxism own working class constituency rejects the term? I set aside bad reasons to give on "Marxism," such as that the theory is purportedly refuted, that its adoption leads necessarily …

Mainstreaming Migration In Development Agendas: South Asia, Piyasiri Wickramasekara

PIYASIRI WICKRAMASEKARA

The presentation addresses the issue of mainstreaming labour migration into development agendas of South Asian countries. Starting with definitions, it identifies tools which can be used for mainstreaming: national development plans, PRSPs, national labour migration policies, and sectoral policies, among others. It reviews the role of remittances, return migration and diaspora engagement as mechanisms for mainstreaming. It raises some contradictions and ambiguities in the regional and international discourse on the issue. finally it raises the role of migration in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Opting For Innovation: Selecting Highly Skilled Workers As A Competitive Strategy In The Jamaican Economy, Patrick Leon Mason

Patrick L. Mason

This paper empirically examines the relationship between a firm’s financial success and its innovation strategy, that is, how it utilizes or does not utilize professional service workers and researchers. Our empirical analysis uses a survey administered during 2006 to 324 Jamaican business and governmental organizations. We empirically investigate two questions: 1) what factors determine a firm’s innovation strategy; and, 2) which innovation strategies increase the financial success of firms. We find that sets of critical economic factors, alternatively group as market factors, human resource factors, production/service delivery factors, and other factors, are important determinants of the competitive strategy of Jamaican …

Growth And Structure Of Workforce In India : An Analysis Of Census 2011 Data, Venkatanarayana Motkuri, Suresh Naik Veslawath

Venkatanarayana Motkuri Mr.

Census 2011 brings new dimension to ongoing debate on the decline in the growth of employment from the last two decade. The census 2011 result gives better picture when compared with NSSO estimation of workforce. It is observed that there is a fast decelerating rate of growth in overall workforce, particularly that of females, between 2001 and 2011. But the work participation rate has not declined, if not increase, as the rate of growth in workforce is not less than that of population. Secondly, incremental workforce especially the male is getting reduced to marginal workers category whereas the high concentration …

Heterogeneous Preferences And Provision Of Public Goods, Francesco Scervini, Luna Bellani

Francesco Scervini

This paper examines the role of social classes’ cleavages on in-kind redistribution. In presence of heterogeneous income as well as heterogeneous preferences over the types of public goods provided, the total amount of redistribution depends on the distance between those preferences. Under very general assumptions, we describe an environment in which the more a society is fractionalized, the less redistribution we can expect. In particular, with respect to the baseline model with heterogeneous incomes but homogeneous preferences over public goods, social distance decreases the amount of public goods preferred by all individuals. Our paper innovates the previous literature on this …

Unemployment And Endogenous Reallocation Over The Business Cycle, Ludo Visschers, Carlos Carrillo-Tudela

Ludo Visschers

We build an analytically and computationally tractable stochastic equilibrium model of unemployment in heterogeneous labor markets. Facing search frictions within markets and reallocation frictions between markets, workers endogenously separate from employment and endogenously reallocate between markets, in response to changing aggregate and local conditions. Empirically, using the 1986-2008 SIPP panels, we document the occupational mobility patterns of the unemployed, finding notably that occupational change of unemployed workers is procyclical. The heterogeneous-market model yields highly volatile countercyclical unemployment, and is simultaneously consistent with procyclical reallocation, countercyclical separations and a negatively-sloped Beveridge curve. Moreover, the model exhibits unemployment duration dependence, which (when …

Wat Is Coöperatief Ondernemen?, Lieve Jacobs, Wim Van Opstal

Wim Van Opstal

De discussie van wat een echte coöperatie is en hoort te zijn, is haast zo oud als de coöperatieve beweging zelf en lijkt soms wel op de zoektocht naar de heilige graal. Toch beschikt de internationale coöperatieve beweging, vertegenwoordigd door de Internationale Coöperatieve Alliantie (ICA), over een referentiekader met een gemeenschappelijke definitie, principes en waarden. Dit referentiekader is zelf het compromis tussen vele verschillende visies en stromingen binnen het coöperatieve denken. Net daarom is het verstandig om dit eerder als een kompas in plaats van als een keurslijf te beschouwen. In deze bijdrage illustreren we de praktische grondslagen en gevolgen …

Coöperaties In België. Top 100 Van De Grootste Belgische Coöperatieve Vennootschappen In 2011, Wim Van Opstal

Wim Van Opstal

In deze publicatie presenteren we de top 100 van de grootste Belgische coöperatieve vennootschappen in 2011. We bespreken de grootste coöperaties volgens hun economische activiteit en geven zo een venster op de rijke diversiteit aan coöperatieve initiatieven in ons land.

High School Graduation In The Context Of Changing Elementary And Secondary Education Policy And Income Inequality: The Last Half Century, Nora Gordon

Nora Gordon

Goldin and Katz (2008) document the key role that the educational attainment of native-born workers in the U.S. has played in determining changing returns to skill and income distribution in the twentieth century, emphasizing the need to understand the forces driving the supply of educated workers. This paper examines stagnation in high school graduation rates from about 1970 to 2000, alongside dramatic changes in elementary and secondary educational institutions and income inequality over those years. I review the policy history of major changes in educational institutions, including but not limited to the massive increase in school spending, and related literature. …