Organisational participation and women - an attitude problem?

Employee participation is a dynamic and contested area of organisational behaviour, attracting continuing academic, practitioner and policy interest and debate. This chapter focuses on organisational participation and women

The Diffusion of IT in Higher Education: Publishing Productivity of Academic Life Scientists

This study investigates widening access to the Internet and other advancements in IT across institutions of higher education and how these advances have affected the publishing productivity of academic life scientists. What distinguishes this study is that institutional IT access is measured across a wide range of institutions and multiple IT indicators are considered: 1) the adoption of BITNET; 2) the registration of domain names (DNS); 3) the availability of the electronic journal database, JSTOR; and 4) the availability of electronic library resources. Data on life scientists are drawn from the 1983, 1995, 2001, and 2003 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. Universities and colleges are classified into several tiers, depending upon research intensity. Three hypotheses are tested: 1) IT enhances the careers of faculty, independent of tier; 2) IT improves the careers of faculty at lower-tiered relative to higher-tiered institutions; and 3) within tier, the IT revolution increases women’s publication rates relative to their male counterparts. The study finds that the diffusion of IT in higher education follows the standard S-curve, with highertiere

THE LIBERAL PEACE: CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY AND SOFT POWER

The term “liberal” peace refers to the absence of fatal conflict between democratic nations, which are also economically interdependent. This chapter sketches the ideal and economic versions of the liberal peace theory. Policies promoting globalization may engender social conflict risks, as they produce inequality. In developed countries, we are witnessing the rise of populism, and the rolling back of the liberal aspects of democracy in developing countries. The avoidance of these problems requires careful management such that growth is broad-based, and policies promoting greater openness are sufficiently cushioned to protect losers. It is also necessary to manage globalization, and limit its negative impact on domestic social contracts, particularly when it comes to inequality, worker rights, and fiscal austerity

Economic integration and security in the Middle East and North Africa: what prospects for a liberal peace?

Since the late 1980s governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have created commercial institutions in order to promote regional economic integration. The primary aim of this policy has been regarded as the promotion of economic welfare gains at the national level. A second, albeit less-emphasized goal, has been to promote regional peace through economic interdependence. This study examines the prospects for a liberal peace in the MENA by analyzing two stages of the commercial institutional peace. Firstly, the study considers whether commercial institutions have promoted intra-regional trade in the MENA. Secondly, it examines if economic interaction has had an impact on promoting peace within the region. Twenty states are considered here and the unit of analysis is the dyad-year over a 25-year period from 1990-2014. This study finds that commercial institutions in the MENA have only a limited positive correlation with trade volume and while there is a direct positive correlation between economic integration and peace in the region, this is quite limited. These findings suggest that the conclusions made by previous studies that demonstrate a direct positive correlation between commercial institutions (and economic integration more generally) and peace, may be less applicable to some regions such as MENA

Regional population structure and young workers' wages

This paper estimates the effect that changes in the size of the youth population have on the wages of young workers. Assuming that differently aged workers are only imperfectly substitutable, economic theory predicts that individuals in larger age groups earn lower wages. We test this hypothesis for a sample of young, male, full-time employees in Western Germany during the period 1999-2010. In contrast to other studies, functional rather than administrative spatial entities are used as they provide a more accurate measure of the youth population in an actual labour market. Based on instrumental variables estimation, we show that an increase in the youth share by one percentage point is predicted to decrease a young worker's wages by 3%. Our results also suggest that a substantial part of this effect is due to members of larger age groups being more likely to be employed in lower-paying occupations

Mapping Marginality Hotspots: Geographical Targeting for Poverty Reduction

This mapping approach aims to make the marginalized and poor visible by identifying areas with difficult biophysical and socio-economic conditions. Mapping using different data sources and data types gives deeper insight into possible causal interlinkages and offers the opportunity for comprehensive analysis. The maps highlight areas where different dimensions of marginality overlap - the marginality hotspots - based on proxies for marginality dimensions representing different spheres of life. Furthermore, overlaying the marginality hotspots with the number of poor shows where most of the poor could be reached to help them to escape the spiral of poverty. Marginality hotspots can be found in particular in India and Nepal as well as in several countries in Central and Eastern Africa, such as Eritrea, Mozambique, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Sudan and large parts of Niger. Maps showing the overlap between marginality and poverty highlight that the largest number of marginalized poor are located in India and Bangladesh, as well as in Ethiopia, Southeastern Africa and some parts of Western Africa

Occupational Sex Segregation and Management-Level Wages in Germany: What Role Does Firm Size Play?

The paper analyzes the gender pay gap in private-sector management positions based on German panel data and using fixed-effects models. It deals with the effect of occupational sex segregation on wages, and the extent to which wage penalties for managers in predominantly female occupations are moderated by firm size. Drawing on economic and organizational approaches and the devaluation of women's work, we find wage penalties for female occupations in management only in large firms. This indicates a pronounced devaluation of female occupations, which might be due to the longer existence, stronger formalization, or more established old-boy networks of large firms

Genes, Education, and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

Recent advances have led to the discovery of specific genetic variants that predict educational attainment. We study how these variants, summarized as a genetic score variable, are associated with human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We demonstrate that the same genetic score that predicts education is also associated with higher wages, but only among individuals with a college education. Moreover, the genetic gradient in wages has grown in more recent birth cohorts, consistent with interactions between technological change and labor market ability. We also show that individuals who grew up in economically disadvantaged households are less likely to go to college when compared to individuals with the same genetic score, but from higher socioeconomic status households. Our findings provide support for the idea that childhood socioeconomic status is an important moderator of the economic returns to genetic endowments. Moreover, the finding that childhood poverty limits the educational attainment of high-ability individuals suggests the existence of unrealized human potential

State Control and the Effects of Foreign Relations on Bilateral Trade

Do states use trade to reward and punish partners? WTO rules and the pressures of globalization restrict states’ capacity to manipulate trade policies, but we argue that governments can link political goals with economic outcomes using less direct avenues of influence over firm behavior. Where governments intervene in markets, politicization of trade is likely to occur. In this paper, we examine one important form of government control: state ownership of firms. Taking China and India as examples, we use bilateral trade data by firm ownership type, as well as measures of bilateral political relations based on diplomatic events and UN voting to estimate the effect of political relations on import and export flows. Our results support the hypothesis that imports controlled by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) exhibit stronger responsiveness to political relations than imports controlled by private enterprises. A more nuanced picture emerges for exports; while India’s exports through SOEs are more responsive to political tensions than its flows through private entities, the opposite is true for China. This research holds broader implications for how we should think about the relationship between political and economic relations going forward, especially as a number of countries with partially state-controlled economies gain strength in the global economy