Is There a Size-Induced Market Failure in Skills Training?

A skilled and educated workforce can support the competitiveness of enterprises of all sizes. However, smaller firms may face greater challenges in developing human capital. We explore differences between smaller and larger firms in offering skills training and in hiring workers with more formal education. Drawing on a dataset of enterprises in five Asian countries, we find major size-based differences in education and training. While smaller firms train less, they also are less inclined to view an inadequately skilled workforce as a major constraint on their operations. It may be that smaller firms are content to occupy niches in a low-skills equilibrium. Our empirical results do offer the possibility, however, that a size-induced market failure in skills training may coexist with a lower regard for skills. The policy implications are not only that governments can reduce the costs for firms to train, but also that micro and small firms need to be sensitized to the benefits of skills upgrading

Access to and Affordability of Care in Massachusetts as of Fall 2008: Geographic and Racial/Ethnic Differences

Based on a fall 2008 survey, compares access to and affordability of health care, including prescription drugs and dental care, for adults by geography and race/ethnicity. Explores factors behind unmet needs and financial burdens from healthcare costs

State and green crimes related to water pollution and ecological disorganization: water pollution from publicly owned treatment works (POTW) facilities across US states

Green criminologists often refer to water pollution as an example of a green crime, but have yet to produce much research on this subject. The current article addresses the need for green criminological analyses of water pollution problems, and draws attention to an overlooked issue: water pollution emissions from state owned public water treatment facilities or POTWs. Legally, POTWs may emit certain quantities and kinds of pollutants to waterways following treatment. This does not mean, however, that those emissions have no adverse ecological or public health impacts, or that those emissions cannot also be employed as examples of green crimes or green-state crimes. Indeed, from the perspective of environmental sociology and ecological Marxism, those emissions generate ecological disorganization. Moreover, POTW emissions contain numerous pollutants that generate different forms of ecological disorganization. The current study uses POTW emissions data drawn from the US EPA’s Discharge Monitoring Report system for 2014 to illustrate the extent of pollution emitted by POTWs in and across US states as one dimension of ecological disorganization. To contextualize the meaning of those data, we review US water pollution regulations, review the health and ecological impacts of chemicals emitted by POTWs, and situate those emissions within green criminological discussions of green crime and green-state crimes

The Work of Culture

A review of Tony Bennett and John Frow (eds), The Sage Handbook of Cultural Analysis (Sage, 2008)

Moral Foundations of Academic Freedom in the Community College: Professional Right or Public Benefit?

Abstract Academic freedom, broadly understood as the right of faculty members and researchers to appropriately investigate fields of knowledge and express views without fear of restraint or reprisals (Brown, 2006) is a traditional and cherished moral value to faculty and instructional administrators in American institutions of higher education. Historical challenges to academic freedom, both external and internal, continue today. This study worked from the premise that academic freedom is an important moral principle to higher education. The ultimate objective was to determine the moral justification for academic freedom. The two primary theories of ethics, a rights-based, and consequentialist paradigms, were offered as the potential resolution to the question. A community college was the setting for the study. The project employed a phenomenological method as the primary means for extracting qualitative data from community college faculty and administrators. This illuminated the purpose of academic freedom as a principle that is grounded primarily in a consequentialist moral theory, and thus a justification that supports public benefits