The Benjamin Loan Mills

Although there was a time when the Benjamin Loan Mills were alive with activity, those days are now gone. They ended a century ago when the gristmill and the sawmill closed in 1901 after yet another fire. When the smoke cleared, Christian Deardorff, the mills\u27 last owner, may have sighed with relief, for he had been trying sporadically to sell the mills for thirteen years, ever since he had rebuilt them after an earlier fire. In 1901, when again faced with fire-damaged mills, Deardorff decided not to rebuild them. In doing so, he also closed the last chapter in the history of these mills. [excerpt

Civil service reform and the World Bank

The emphasis placed by the World Bank in recent years on the major overhaul of developing country economies has accentuated the importance of adequate public sector administrative capacity, especially within the central core of government, that is, the civil service. This paper surveys recent Bank experience in civil service reform, and begins to assess the progress made. The paper focuses on two separate but related aspects of civil service reform work. One deals with the shorter term, emergency steps to reform public pay and employment policies. These reforms usually focus on measures to contain the cost and size of the civil service, mostly in the context of structural adjustment lending. The other set of reforms are those dealing with longer range civil service strengthening efforts, some of which may support various nearer term cost containment measures, but most of which are directed toward ongoing, sustained management improvements. Many of these reforms have been included in technical assistance projects, either those that stand alone as"development management"operations or those that constitute direct institutional support for specific actions taken in SALs.Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Management and Relations,National Governance

Space education: Deriving benefits from industrial consortia

As the number of spacefaring nations of the world increases, so does the difficulty of competing in a global economy. The development of high technology products and services for space programs, and the economic exploitation of these technologies for national economic growth, requires professionals versed in both technical and commercial aspects of space. Meeting this requirement academically presents two challenges. On the technical side, enrollment in science and engineering is decreasing in some of the spacefaring nations. From the commerce perspective, very few colleges and universities offer specific courses in space business

The importance of economic expectations for retirement entry

This paper analyses how strongly anticipated economic circumstances might impact on individuals retirement decisions. Abstract We estimate hazard rates of retirement entry as a function of the option value of work. The individuals’ expectations about the future economy are incorporated in the option value of work, through which they can impact on the timing of retirement entry. In a scenario where individuals expect a strong upturn, the annual hazard rate of retirement entry (average 8.4%) is reduced by 6.0% or half a percentage point compared to a scenario where they expect a downturn. Had individuals been able to anticipate the Global Financial Crisis, the mere expectation of this downturn would have increased retirement entries by 8.7%

The Emergent Middle Classes in Timor-Leste and Melanesia: Conceptual Issues and Developmental Significance

The emergence of a middle class has been identified as an important factor driving economic and political transitions in Asia and Africa. Class has been 'happening' in the broader Pacific region1 for some time, as Gewertz and Errington (1999:2) observed of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Nevertheless, to date, little systematic policy attention has been given to questions of class. We believe that the concept of an emerging middle class provides a useful entry point for understanding significant developmental and political transformations in Timor-Leste and Melanesia and is important for informing development policies. However, in order to explore the potential consequences that an emergent middle class may have, it is necessary to first consider how such a class can be identified in the region. We have chosen to focus on Timor-Leste, PNG and Solomon Islands because these countries are undergoing comparable social and economic transitions, many of which correlate strongly with the emergence of a middle class. Such changes include rapid economic growth driven by resource booms in Timor-Leste and PNG, associated formalisation of regional economies, deepening urbanisation, increasing social integration with metropolitan powers through growing diaspora communities, changing consumption patterns, and the transformative impacts of social media following recent internet and mobile telephone penetration. This paper has three substantive sections. First, it considers contemporary discussions of class and development in Asia and other developing regions. Second, the paper develops a multidimensional framework for identifying an emergent middle class, drawing on a range of economic, political and social criteria. Finally, the paper uses these criteria to examine recent developments in each of three case study countries and then draws some conclusions on the developmental and political significance of an emergent middle class in the broader Pacific region with a view to establishing a longer term research agenda.AusAI

The perils of automaticity

Classical theories of skill acquisition propose that automatization (i.e., performance requires progressively less attention as experience is acquired) is a defining characteristic of expertise in a variety of domains (e.g., Fitts & Posner, 1967). Automaticity is believed to enhance smooth and efficient skill execution by allowing performers to focus on strategic elements of performance rather than on the mechanical details that govern task implementation (Williams & Ford, 2008). By contrast, conscious processing (i.e., paying conscious attention to one’s action during motor execution) has been found to disrupt skilled movement and performance proficiency (e.g., Beilock & Carr, 2001). On the basis of this evidence, researchers have tended to extol the virtues of automaticity. However, few researchers have considered the wide range of empirical evidence which indicates that highly automated behaviors can, on occasion, lead to a series of errors that may prove deleterious to skilled performance. Therefore, the purpose of the current paper is to highlight the perils, rather than the virtues, of automaticity. We draw on Reason’s (1990) classification scheme of everyday errors to show how an overreliance on automated procedures may lead to 3 specific performance errors (i.e., mistakes, slips, and lapses) in a variety of skill domains (e.g., sport, dance, music). We conclude by arguing that skilled performance requires the dynamic interplay of automatic processing and conscious processing in order to avoid performance errors and to meet the contextually contingent demands that characterize competitive environments in a range of skill domains

Youth unemployment

The rise in joblessness among young people began long before the recession - Barbara Petrongolo and John Van Reenen consider potential explanations.unemployment compensation, job search, youth, recession