Efficiency wage theory, labormarkets, and adjustment

Conventional labor theory argues that wages are determined by the interaction of labor supply and demand. Policy analysis on wage rigidity has emphasized distortions arising from exogenous intervention. One emphasis in adjustment lending has been deregulation of labor markets. Efficiency wage models of unemployment try to explain persistent real wage rigidities when unemployment persists. Their central assumption is that higher real wages can improve labor productivity. A major implication of these theories is that wages (and hence labor markets) may be unresponsive to typical macroeconomic policies that seek to lower real wages, change resource allocation, and reduce open unemployment. The three central macroeconomic implications of efficiency wage theory are : 1) there is an equilibrium"natural"level of open unemployment, which differs among groups in the labor force and cannot be affected by demand management policies; 2) when reducing the level of production, the typical firm will resort to laying off labor instead of reducing wages, thereby introducing a significant wage inertia and an overshooting of open unemployment; and 3) wages do not respond to clear the labor market and are not responsive to macroeconomic policies and microeconomic deregulation. The authors conclude that applying the theory in developing countries requires suitably defining labor costs and tackling the problem of segmentation of the labor market.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Youth and Governance

Macroeconomic reform and growth in Africa : adjustment in Africa revisited

The 1994 World Bank study,"Adjustment in Africa: reforms, results, and the road ahead,"assessed the extent of, and economic payoffs from, policy reform in 29 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in the mid-1980s and 1990s. Here, the authors update the results of that report with 1992 macroeconomic data and explore some issues in more detail. The conclusions of the earlier report still hold: improved policies are still associated with improved performance, but countries fall short of having sound policies. In fact, the 1991-92 policy stance was not as strong as the 1990-91 stance, reflecting the slow, fragile, and often reversal-prone nature of macroeconomic reform in Africa. Getting the real exchange rate right and reducing the fiscal deficit should be the top priority for restoring growth. Countries that significantly reduced their budget deficits and reduced the black market premium (by devaluing) enjoyed the greatest payoffs from reform. Devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994 represents a real opportunity for the CFA franc zone countries to restore growth. Many countries have made considerable progress in moving toward competitive real exchange rates. There still remains the challenge of reducing budget deficits in ways consistent with poverty-reducing growth. Hence, the need to reorient public spending to the essential tasks of government, especially providing social services. Reform in two areas will be important to sustaining fiscal reform: implicit subsidies to public enterprises must be cut, and the cost of restructuring the banking sector must not be absorbed by the budget. Policy reforms undertaken so far have paid off in higher growth rates, but the level of growth is still too low to sustain rapid rates of poverty reduction. Increased growth seems to have come more from efficient use of existing capacity than from new investments. Only steady and increased policy reform will convince investors of the credibility of reform and thus of a more favorable investment climate.Economic Stabilization,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies

Trade and Financial Interdependence in the World Economy

With regard to the trading order, questions have arisen about the benefits from freer trade at a time when more countries are turning to managed trade and protectionist sentiment is on the rise. Some believe that the international financial system, for its part, no longer facilitates the transactions of goods but dominates them. This article discusses these issues and addresses the policy options available to government leaders

The impact of energy price changes in Moldova

In January 2006 the price of natural gas supplied to Moldova increased from $80 to$110 per thousand cubic meters (mcm). Prices may increase further in the near future, putting additional pressure on the economy and leading to adverse effects on the poorest households. This study examines the potential impact of higher energy prices on the economy of Moldova by simulating the likely macroeconomic consequences of recent and future price increases. Moreover, it estimates the direct impact on individual households using data drawn from the 2004 Household Budget Survey. It assesses the distributional implications of the price shock, noting how the social impact may vary depending on the intensity of energy use, geographic location, and the relative share of energy in household expenditure. The results suggest that energy price changes could dampen economic growth while putting additional strains on the current account deficit. The impact on the poorest households could be significant and protecting them may require resources in the amount of 0.7 to 1.7 percent of GDP. This study identifies possible policy responses to dampen the shock of the energy price increase and to promote the longer-term objective of reducing energy vulnerability.Energy Production and Transportation,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Energy and Environment,Markets and Market Access,Transport and Environment

Situating interventions to bridge the intention-behaviour gap: A framework for recruiting nonconscious processes for behaviour change

This paper presents a situated cognition framework for creating social psychological interventions to bridge the intention–behaviour gap and illustrates this framework by reviewing examples from the domains of health behaviour, environmental behaviour, stereotyping, and aggression. A recurrent problem in behaviour change is the fact that often, intentions are not translated into behaviour, causing the so-called intention–behaviour gap. Here, it is argued that this happens when situational cues trigger situated conceptualizations, such as habits, impulses, hedonic goals, or stereotypical associations, which can then guide behaviour automatically. To be effective in changing such automatic effects, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change situational cues through cueing interventions such as priming, nudging, upstream policy interventions, or reminders of social norms. Alternatively, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change the underlying situated conceptualizations through training interventions, such as behavioural inhibition training, mindfulness training, or implementation intentions. Examples of situated behaviour change interventions of both types will be discussed across domains, along with recommendations to situate interventions more strongly and thus enhance their effectiveness to change automatic behaviour. Finally, the discussion addresses the difference between tailoring and situating interventions, issues of generalization and long-term effectiveness, and avenues for further research

FES-UPP: A Flexible Functional Electrical Stimulation System to Support Upper Limb Functional Activity Practice

There is good evidence supporting highly intensive, repetitive, activity-focused, voluntary-initiated practice as a key to driving recovery of upper limb function following stroke. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) offers a potential mechanism to efficiently deliver this type of therapy, but current commercial devices are too inflexible and/or insufficiently automated, in some cases requiring engineering support. In this paper, we report a new, flexible upper limb FES system, FES-UPP, which addresses the issues above. The FES-UPP system consists of a 5-channel stimulator running a flexible FES finite state machine (FSM) controller, the associated setup software that guides therapists through the setup of FSM controllers via five setup stages, and finally the Session Manager used to guide the patient in repeated attempts at the activities(s) and provide feedback on their performance. The FSM controller represents a functional activity as a sequence of movement phases. The output for each phase implements the stimulations to one or more muscles. Progression between movement phases is governed by user-defined rules. As part of a clinical investigation of the system, nine therapists used the FES-UPP system to set up FES-supported activities with twenty two patient participants with impaired upper-limbs. Therapists with little or no FES experience and without any programming skills could use the system in their usual clinical settings, without engineering support. Different functional activities, tailored to suit the upper limb impairment levels of each participant were used, in up to 8 sessions of FES-supported therapy per participant. The efficiency of delivery of the therapy using FES-UPP was promising when compared with published data on traditional face-face therapy. The FES-UPP system described in this paper has been shown to allow therapists with little or no FES experience and without any programming skills to set up state-machine FES controllers bespoke to the patient’s impairment patterns and activity requirements, without engineering support. The clinical results demonstrated that the system can be used to efficiently deliver high intensity, activity-focused therapy. Nevertheless, further work to reduce setup time is still required

Listening carefully: increased perceptual acuity for species discrimination in multispecies signalling assemblages

Communication is a fundamental component of evolutionary change because of its role in mate choice and sexual selection. Acoustic signals are a vital element of animal communication and sympatric species may use private frequency bands to facilitate intraspecific communication and identification of conspecifics (acoustic communication hypothesis, ACH). If so, animals should show increasing rates of misclassification with increasing overlap in frequency between their own calls and those used by sympatric heterospecifics. We tested this on the echolocation of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus capensis, using a classical habituation-dishabituation experiment in which we exposed R. capensis from two phonetic populations to echolocation calls of sympatric and allopatric horseshoe bat species (Rhinolophus clivosus and Rhinolophus damarensis) and different phonetic populations of R. capensis. As predicted by the ACH, R. capensis from both test populations were able to discriminate between their own calls and calls of the respective sympatric horseshoe bat species. However, only bats from one test population were able to discriminate between calls of allopatric heterospecifics and their own population when both were using the same frequency. The local acoustic signalling assemblages (ensemble of signals from sympatric conspecifics and heterospecifics) of the two populations differed in complexity as a result of contact with other phonetic populations and sympatric heterospecifics. We therefore propose that a hierarchy of discrimination ability has evolved within the same species. Frequency alone may be sufficient to assess species membership in relatively simple acoustic assemblages but the ability to use additional acoustic cues may have evolved in more complex acoustic assemblages to circumvent misidentifications as a result of the use of overlapping signals. When the acoustic signal design is under strong constraints as a result of dual functions and the available acoustic space is limited because of co-occurring species, species discrimination is mediated through improved sensory acuity in the receiver

Pro - Sententialization and the 'Do It' Construction in English

292 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1969.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD