Recent developments in Remote Document Supply (RDS) in the UK – 3

A review of recent developments in remote document supply and related matters in the UK. With the decline in remote document supply the future participation of a key institution is called into question. While there are few other realistic options, the two leading alternatives are engaged in a battle for the same market. Furthermore, the future of a key standard underpinning transactions is also uncertain

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Developmental signals in skin morphogenesis

Non peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

How Damaging is Part-time Employment to a Woman's Occupational Prospects?

This paper investigates the causes of the well documented association between part-time employment and low occupational attainment amongst British women. In particular, the relative importance of structural factors and unobserved heterogeneity to the occupational attainment of women who choose to work part-time is investigated. he results indicate that, depending on observed individual characteristics, structural factors explain between 56% and 87% of the difference in the occupational attainment of full-time and part-time workers. The remainder of the difference in the occupational attainment of full-time and part-time workers is attributed to differences in the unobserved characteristics of the two groups of workers.Dynamic labor supply, Heterogeneity, Occupational attainment, Part-time employment.

A comparative value chain analysis of burley tobacco in Malawi - 2003/04 and 2009/10

This article conducts a value chain analysis of smallholder burley tobacco production in Malawi for the 2003/04 and 2009/10 agricultural seasons. The comparison suggests in 2003/04 smallholder profits from growing burley were limited by two main factors: first, the practices of leaf merchant companies on the auction floors who operated as a cartel (and governed the burley supply thread); and secondly, by inefficient marketing arrangements. By the 2009/10 season the rents, governance and systemic efficiency within the supply thread had changed considerably: there was greater competition on the auction floors largely due to direct state intervention (which increased growers' net margins in nominal terms), improvements in marketing arrangements, tighter state regulation (including the introduction of minimum prices for grades of burley) and increased systemic efficiency (through a rapid expansion of contract farming). The article concludes by highlighting some of the opportunities and threats that this form of vertical integration poses smallholder growers.

Becoming a bwana and burley tobacco in the Central Region of Malawi

Smallholders now grow most of Malawi's main export crop – burley tobacco. Based on nineteen months' fieldwork in the Central Region, this article offers a sociological interpretation of why some smallholder growers spend a proportion of burley income on conspicuous consumption in rural towns and trading centres. This practice can be seen as a form of inculcated behaviour whereby smallholders reproduce elements of one model of success in this region: that of the Malawian tobacco bwana (boss/master). The article discusses implications from this form of potlatch behaviour by describing the contrasting fortunes of two non-farm rural enterprises, examining data on how tobacco production and „cooling off? is viewed by wives, and comparing the crop preferences of husbands and wives. It concludes by suggesting that the concept of conspicuous consumption may provide an alternative prism through which to view apparently unintelligible investment decisions in African economies to the instrumental lens of neo-patrimonialism.

Alternative methods of corporate control in commercial banks

Banking structure

A century of growth? A history of tobacco production and marketing in Malawi 1890-2005

During the past century tobacco production and marketing in Nyasaland/Malawi has undergone periods of dynamism similar to changes since the early 1990s. This article highlights four recurrent patterns. First, estate owners have either fostered or constrained peasant/smallholder production dependent on complementarities or competition with their estates. Second, rapid expansion of peasant/smallholder production has led to three recurrent outcomes: a large multiplier effect in tobacco-rich districts; re-regulation of the marketing of peasant/smallholder tobacco by the (colonial) state; and, lastly, concerns over the supply of food crops. The article concludes by arguing that whilst the reform of burley tobacco production and marketing in the 1990s engaged with the first two issues, it may have benefitted from paying greater attention to the latter two issues as well.

Estimating Time Demand Elasticities Under Rationing

A multivariate extension of the standard labour supply model in presented. In the multivariate time allocation model leisure is disaggregated into a number of non market activities including sports, volunteer work and home production. Using data from the 2000 UK Time Use Survey, a linear expenditure system is estimated, allowing corner solutions in the time allocated to market work and non market activities. The effects of children, age, gender and education are largely as expected. The unusually high wage elasticities are attributed to a combination of the functional form of the linear expenditure and the treatment of the zero observations.Time use, Labour supply, Corner solutions, Simulation inference

State Dependence in a Multi-state Model of Employment

A multinomial choice framework is used to investigate the nature of women's transitions between full-time employment, part-time employment and non-employment. The stochastic framework allows time varying and time invariant unobserved preferences, and also controls for the possible endogenity of education, fertility and non-labor income. Significant positive true state dependence is found in both full-time and part-time employment. This finding is robust to the specification of unobserved preferences. The results are used the assess the dynamic effects of three temporary wage subsidies. All three policies have substantial effects on employment behavior for up to 6 years. However, obtaining a permanent increase in employment requires sustained or repeated interventions.Dynamic labor supply, Heterogeneity, Multinomial choice, State dependence.