Preaching in and out of season

Reviewed Book: Long, Thomas G. Preaching in and out of season. Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Pr, 1990

The Firing Cost Implications of Alternative Severance Pay Designs

Economists have concerns about the firing cost implications of mandated severance plans. Analysis reveals that predicted severance plan consequences depend critically on the precise structure of the plan. Whether governments mandate (i) severance insurance plans or (ii) severance savings plans is important; savings plans have no "firing cost" effects on employer layoff decisions. The firing cost implications of insurance plan are sensitive to the types of job separations that qualify a worker for benefits. Plans that pay benefits across all separations are functionally severance savings plans. The variety of plan types is illustrated using U.S. and international examples.job displacement, worker turnover, severance pay, firing costs

Double-Sided Moral Hazard in Job Displacement Insurance Contracts

Job displacement insurance typically includes both unemployment benefits and lump-sum severance pay, and each has provoked policy concerns. Unemployment insurance concerns have centered on distorted job search/offer acceptance decisions by the worker, severance-induced firing cost concerns on excessive labor hoarding by firms. A single period private contracting model is used to investigate the interaction of these two seemingly distinct issues. Viewed singly, familiar results emerge. The absence of separation benefits of any kind leads to excessive labor hoarding as a primitive form of earnings insurance. In a limited information environment, the distribution of job displacement insurance between the two benefit types becomes important. Unemployment insurance benefits must be limited (relative to first-best levels) and severance pay made more generous. Firing cost considerations are less familiar. Because the firm wants to provide benefits, they cannot be "contracted around." Although formally driven by the sum of (unsubsidized) severance pay and expected unemployment benefits, the second-best firing cost program limits severance pay only. Together the two constraints create an unpromising contracting environment. The firing cost constraint is the more easily relaxed by government action – subsidies of sufficient size to one or another of the separation programs will work. Offer acceptance requires restrictions on leisure (workfare). Unfortunately, if first-best benefits are mandated, efficiency requires that both be eased.job displacement, unemployment insurance, severance pay, moral hazard, firing costs

Economic Well-Being and Child Labor: The Inter action of Family and Industry

How did industrialization in the nineteenth century affect the well-being of children among American working class families? Two revealing surveys from 1890 and 1907 are used to examine the implications of child labor on schooling decisions and on possible offsetting intrafamily transfers, in the form of current "retained" earnings or future asset transfers. Both issues are analyzed within the context of a formal model of family labor supply, in which returns to schooling accrue after the youth has left the household and thus the interests of the parents and the child need not coincide. Parents working in the industries examined did not, it appears, compensate their children for the reduced future earnings implied by child labor, in either the current or in future time periods. But, in addition, the migration of families in which parental altruism was weak may have eliminated much of the apparent increase in family income due to higher child earnings. We end with a note reconciling our findings with the long term trend away from child labor.

Ferric oxyhydroxide microparticles in water

Mineralogy and specific surface area are major controls on the stabilities of ferric oxyhydroxide microparticles in natural waters. The thermodynamic stabilities of ferric oxyhydroxides, as described by the activity product in solution pK = −log [Fe(3+)] [OH(−)](3) range from pK = 37.1 for freshly precipitated amorphous oxyhydroxide to pK = 44.2 for well crystallized goethite. The sizes of suspended oxyhydroxide particles in natural waters range from less than 0.01 μm to greater than 5 μm. Oxyhydroxides precipitated in the laboratory from solutions simulating high-iron natural waters are needlelike or lathlike in shape and have mean thicknesses as small as 60 Å. Large specific surface areas resulting from the small sizes of ferric oxyhydroxide particles cause increased solubilities and thus decreased pK values. Specific surface areas of 40–170 m(2)/g determined for laboratory precipitates gave computed decreases in pK of 0.4 to 1.6 units

Ferric oxyhydroxide microparticles in water

This is the published version. Copyright Central Ornithology Publication OfficeMineralogy and specific surface area are major controls on the stabilities of ferric oxyhydroxide microparticles in natural waters. The thermodynamic stabilities of ferric oxyhydroxides, as described by the activity product in solution pK = -log [Fe3+] [OH J3 range from pK = 37.1 for freshly precipitated amorphou oxyhydroxide to pK = 44.2 for well crystallized goethite. The sizes of suspended oxyhydroxide particles in natural waters range from less than 0.01 Am to greater than 5 Mm. Oxyhydroxides precipitated in the laboratory from solutions simulating high-iron natural waters are needlelike or lathlike in shape and have mean thicknesses as small as 60 A. Large specific surface areas resulting from the smali sizes of ferric oxyhydroxide particles cause increased solubilities and thus decreased pK values. Specific surface areas of 40-170 m2/g determined for laboratory precipitates gave computed decreases in pK of 0.4 to 1.6 units

When All the World\u27s a Stage: The Impact of Events on News Coverage of South Africa, 1979-1985

A time series analysis was used to investigate: (1) whether a significant increase in news coverage of South Africa occurred during the critical years of 1979-1985 ; (2) whether the geographic origin and/or sociopolitical impact of events, rather than deaths per se, caused the increase; and (3) the manner in which the increase occurred. Results indicated that two symbolic events (i.e., a series of riots in twenty-one South African townships, internal to South Africa; and the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Bishop Desmond Tutu, external to South Africa) cumulatively were responsible for a significant rise in news coverage of South Africa. The relationship of these symbolic sociopolitical events to the forces that shape short-term news headlines and long-term social change in general, including the imminent demise of apartheid in particular is discussed