Het Totius vandag nog iets te sê?

Die bo gestelde vraag kom hierop neer: Geld dit wat die Neder­ landse digter Adriaan Roland Holst in 1947 gesê het, naamlik dat Totius die volksgewete van die Afrikaner is, ook nog vir die Afrika­ ner van vandag

Betere diagnostiek voor luchtweginfecties bij kalveren

Adriaan Antonis werkt dertien jaar bij het Centraal Veterinair Instituut onderdeel van Wageningen UR in Lelystad. Daar wordt onderzoek gedaan naar de bedrijfsgebonden dierziekten, onder andere naar luchtweginfecties op kalverbedrijven. Adriaan werkt mee aan de ontwikkeling van nieuwe diagnostische tests. "Je moet weten wat er op een bedrijf aan de hand is, dan kun je gerichter behandelen"

Adriaan Van Zyl: Memorandum: Marlene Van Niekerk

This article examines the textual relationship between the paintings of Adriaan van Zyl and the novel Memorandum: a story with paintings (2006) by Marlene van Niekerk. The traditional assumptions about what constitutes the narrative as genre are subverted by the inclusion of the so-called Hospital Series 2004-2006 by Van Zyl. The novel should not be read as a commentary on the paintings as such but rather as an accompaniment to the paintings – as suggested by the author herself. From the interaction between painting and novel the reader/viewer has to rely on certain codes and conventions to analyse the text under discussion. Genette’s notion of transtextuality and in particular his notion of the architext assists the reader in deconstructing the meaning of this collaborative project on human suffering.In hierdie artikel word die tekstuele wisselwerking tussen die skilderye van Adriaan van Zyl en die roman van Marlene van Niekerk, Memorandum: `n verhaal met prente (2006) ondersoek. Wat ons tradisioneel bestempel as kenmerkend van die narratief as genre word gesuspendeer deur die insluiting van `n reeks skilderye, die sg Hospitaalreeks van Adriaan van Zyl. Die roman moet nie gelees word as synde kommentaar op die skilderye nie – soos wat die outeur self aangedui het. Uit hierdie interaksie tussen skildery en roman word die leser/kyker gedwing om sekere kodes en konvensies te gebruik om die teks te analiseer, maar wat noodwendig afwyk van sy bestaande opvattinge. Genette se konsepte soos transtekstualiteit en argiteks word ingespan om hierdie gesamentlike projek oor menslike lyding te dekonstrueerai201

A Simple Endogenous Growth Model With Asymmetric Employment Opportunities by Skill

In this paper we present the outlines of an endogenous growth model that focuses on the labour market- and skill-aspects of economic policy measures that may have an impact on technological change, and hence on the long term effectiveness of the policy measures concerned. The link between skills and technology is two-fold. On the one hand, new technology is high-skilled intensive, while on the other hand, process R&D may actively change the skill-mix of existing production technologies in the direction of a more intensive use of least-cost production factors/skills. Hence, we endogenise both product R&D and process R&D decisions. The product R&D generates new varieties of goods with a higher quality than older varieties. New and older varieties are assumed to be imperfect substitutes, so that new varieties only gradually replace older varieties. Process R&D in turn is geared towards downscaling the skill-requirements of the jobs associated with producing the different varieties of output. Because high-skilled labour has different uses (it is an input to final output production, but also into product and process R&D activities), whereas low-skilled labour is used only in final output generation, we can show how various alternative policy measures may affect R&D decisions, hence growth performance, but also the distribution of income between skills. We also show that the promotion of process R&D in particular has beneficial effects both for the employment perspectives of low-skilled workers and for growth in general. In simulation experiments with the model we show that the model, even in its present state, is able to mimic the stylised facts reported by Acemoglu (1997), who observed for the US that an increase in the supply of high-skilled labour does not necessarily imply a fall in the relative wage rate of high-skilled workers in the long run. We show that the ensuing increase in R&D activity creates its own demand for high-skilled workers when new products arrive on the market that are high-skilled intensive during the first phase of their life-cycle, as we assume it to be the case. This in turn invokes endogenous process R&D reactions that change the long term composition of the demand for labour by skill and by sector. In various experiments we found that the model generates an interesting interplay between both types of R&D that may have important consequences for the distribution of income between skills, for growth and more generally for the design of economic policy.economics of technology ;

Endogenous Technical Change and Skill Biases in Employment Opportunities

In this paper we present a model that addresses the issue of the uneven distribution ofemployment opportunities over low- and high-skilled workers in a context of skill-biasedendogenous technical change. In our model, technical change consists in part of productinnovation. There is also process innovation to the extent that new products can be producedin two different ways, either using high-skilled workers, or using low-skilled workers afteradapting the production process of a new product. The model combines elements fromKrugman’s (1979) North-South framework, Vernon’s (1966) life-cycle hypothesis andAghion and Howitt’s (1992) work on creative destruction. We show that from a growth pointof view, lowering the relative wages for low-skilled workers does indeed reduceunemployment in the short run, as expected, but it also lowers growth. This is reminiscent ofKleinknecht’s (1998) contention that moderate wage growth makes for slow technical change.economics of technology ;

Negotiating freedom: the free black farmers of Jonkershoek, 1697-1710

During the late seventeenth century, a section of Cape Town's ‘free black' (vrijzwart) population, a group comprised primarily of formerly enslaved people, took up farming in the Jonkershoek Valley of Stellenbosch. Despite initial prosperity, these free black farmers ceased to exist as an independent socio-political entity by the 1720s. Scholars of the Dutch Cape Colony, such as Hermann Giliomee and Karel Schoeman, have attributed this decline to a lack of capital, high labour costs, the distance from the market and the specialised nature of wheat farming at the Cape. Yet white farmers, confronted by similar obstacles, managed to transcend them and coalesce into a permanent agrarian class. This thesis attempts to account for this disparity by examining hitherto unexplored socio-economic factors that contributed to the rise and fall of free black farmers in Jonkershoek, particularly the patronage network between the free blacks and the Van der Stel dynasty. An extensive perusal of archival sources and secondary literature has facilitated two key observations. Firstly, the influx of free black farmers into Jonkershoek was contingent on the direct intervention of Governor Simon van der Stel, who hoped to supplant the recalcitrant white farmers with a more compliant group of agriculturalists. Imperatively, Van der Stel's policy of encouraging free black settlement in Jonkershoek via land grants was maintained by his son and successor, Willem Adriaan van der Stel. Secondly, the association between the Van der Stels and the free black farmers left the latter vulnerable to economic exclusion when Willem Adriaan van der Stel became embroiled in a dispute with the white settler faction and was subsequently dismissed on corruption charges in 1707. These findings demonstrate that, despite their status as free individuals, free black farmers occupied a precarious position within Cape society and were constantly compelled to negotiate their freedom

ICT-Investment, Knowledge Accumulation and Endogenous Growth

In this paper we present an endogenous growth model based on Lucas (1988). We have extended the Lucas model by incorporating ICT-capital next to human capital. We take account of spillovers from ICT use in human capital formation to final output production. The effects on growth of these spillovers depend very much on whether they are external or completely internalised. We find that welfare is positively affected, the stronger these spillovers are, but also the more these spillovers are internalised. In addition, we find that in the case of limited internalised knowledge spillovers, we may face a multiple equilibria steady state growth situation, that has an inherent tendency to select the non-optimum (high growth) equilibrium in which all types of capital are ‘over accumulated’, including ICT-capital. This suggests that there is room for policy intervention here, because there exists an ‘optimum’ value of the knowledge-spillover parameter where both equilibria coincide and over accumulation does not happen.economics of technology ;

WP 21 - A two-step first-difference estimator for a panel data tobit model

This study formulates an easy-to-use two-step first-difference estimator for a panel data Tobit model. In the first step a bivariate Probit is estimated, using all observations. These estimates are used to construct correction terms that are added to the first-difference equation. This equation is estimated by Least Squares on a sub-sample of observations for which the dependent variable is positive in both periods. Most of this study is concerned with the derivation of the corrections terms.