Au service du marechal?:French documentary under German occupation

Following the fall of France in June 1940 and the installation of the Vichy Regime, government set about establishing its own New Order. A reprogramming of national consciousness was attempted through an emphasis on a return to traditional values which was disseminated in various fora. Despite publications on divers aspects of Vichy's propaganda machine, work on film production of the period has merely touched on mainstream documentary without further analysis. Such a lacuna appears inexplicable in light of the production of 550 or so documentaries between 1940 and 1944, especially in view of a 1948 comment by the film writer Roger Régent that documentary in many ways provided a focal point for the regime's wishes for "moralisation collective". This thesis sets out the first steps of a new evaluation of the role of documentary during the Occupation. After an overview of the changes to the industry and the ideological framework of the Révolution nationale, the thesis discusses theories of propaganda together with direct examples of Vichy propaganda documentary. The 'control' thus established is then applied to an examination of the 'Arts, Sciences, Voyages' series of documentary screenings (1941-43) and the Premier congrès du film documentaire (1943), tracing thematic and ideological consonances and evaluating the use of documentary film of the Occupation in the Service of the Marshal.

Real options and demographic decisions:empirical evidence from East and West Germany

Iyer and Velu (2006) have convincingly argued that contemporary analyses of fertility behaviour fail to explain why a woman (or a couple) will choose to postpone childbirth, and in particular to consider the role of uncertainty in this regard. They have addressed this lacuna in the literature by using a real options approach to model fertility decisions by relating uncertainty experienced by individuals to the likelihood of childbirth. However, they did not present empirical evidence. Since the theory implies the existence of two offsetting effects of uncertainty on fertility decisions, a positive insurance effect and a negative option value effect, it is not easy to reject the theory on the basis of empirical analysis, when one of these effects offsets the other. We construct such a test for East (and also West) Germany during that country's reunification, which takes advantage of the fact that because of the country's strong welfare system, the insurance effect should be dominated by the option value effect, thereby suggesting that the net relationship should be negative. The results provide rather strong support for the real options link, especially for Eastern Germany.

Is education the panacea for economic deprivation of Muslims? Evidence from wage earners in India, 1987-2005

Few researchers have examined the nature and determinants of earnings differentials among religious groups, and none has been undertaken in the context of conflict-prone multi-religious societies like the one in India. We address this lacuna in the literature by examining the differences in the average log earnings of Hindu and Muslim wage earners in India, during the 1987–2005 period. Our results indicate that education differences between Hindu and Muslim wage earners, especially differences in the proportion of wage earners with tertiary education, are largely responsible for the differences in the average log earnings of the two religious groups across the years. By contrast, differences in the returns to education do not explain the aforementioned difference in average log earnings. In conclusion, we discuss some policy implications.

Rationality as a barrier to peace:micro-evidence from Kosovo

Despite a significant expansion of the literature on conflicts and fragility of states, only a few systematic attempts have been made to link the theoretical literature on social conflicts to the available micro-level information about the people who are involved in these conflicts. We address this lacuna in the literature using a household-level data set from Kosovo. Our analysis suggests that it is individually rational for competing ethnic communities, Kosovar Albanians and Kosovar Serbs, to resist a quick agreement on a social contract to share the region's resources.

Determinants of entry mode choice of MNCs in emerging markets:evidence from South Africa and Egypt

It is now stylized that the importance of foreign direct investment for developing countries and emerging markets arises from the impact of the presence of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the host country on the productivity of local firms, by way of technology diffusion and competition. There is also general agreement that the extent of technology transfer by an MNC to a developing country affiliate depends on the extent of its control on the local affiliate and that, in turn, the extent of this control depends on the mode of entry of the MNC into the host country. However, the existing literature is based on the experience of developed countries and as such does not contribute to the literature on development economics. This article addresses this lacuna using unique firm-level data from South Africa and Egypt. Our results indicate that the determinants of entry mode choice not only differ between developed and developing countries, but also among developing countries. They also bring into question the role of MNCs in fostering productivity growth in developing countries.

Intergroup leadership in organizations:leading across group and organizational boundaries

Intergroup leadership-leadership of collaborative performance of different organizational groups or organizations-is associated with unique intergroup challenges that are not addressed by traditional leadership theories. To address this lacuna, we describe a theory of intergroup leadership. Firmly grounded in research on social identity and intergroup relations, the theory proposes that effective intergroup performance rests on the leader's ability to construct an intergroup relational identity. We describe key leadership actions to establish such an identity. © 2012 Academy of Management Review.