Social rationality and scales of action: inter-ethnic relations in cockfighting and game-fishing, Raiatea, French Polynesia

This article challenges the notion of economic rationality as a criterion for explaining ethnic boundary maintenance. It offers an ethnographic analysis of inter-ethnic relations in the context of games (cockfights and game-fishing contests) in the island of Raiatea (French Polynesia). Although all players engage in the same basic gambling practices, money is differentially scaled and mobilized by the Tahitian and Chinese participants. Building on recent pragmatic approaches to rationality, it is shown that the players' rationalities differ not from the point of view of economic maximization, but only in so far as they participate in social relations at different scales.

Union activism in an inclusive model of industrial relations : evidence from an Spanish case

In this article we analyze the reasons, within the context of Spanish industrial relations, for trade union members’ active participation in their regional union. The case of Spain is particularly interesting as the unions’ main activity, collective bargaining, is a public good. The text, based on research involving a representative survey of members of a regional branch of the “Workers” Commissions” (Comisiones Obreras) trade union, provides empirical evidence that the union presence in the workplace has a significant influence on members’ propensity for activism. By contrast, the alternative hypothesis based on instrumental reasons appears of little relevance in the Spanish industrial relations context.

Un tango de neutres sur fond de guerre : les relations économiques entre la Suisse et l'Argentine (1938-945)

Cet article porte sur les relations économiques entre deux pays restés neutres durant la guerre. Fondé sur des documents d'archives encore inexploités, il vise à comprendre comment la Suisse et l'Argentine sont parvenues à maintenir, et même à renforcer, leurs échanges malgré les obstacles liés au conflit. La guerre offre à la Suisse l'opportunité de gagner des parts importantes du marché argentin pour les produits phares de son industrie d'exportation. Au-delà des circonstances de la guerre, ce sont aussi les stratégies volontaristes mises en oeuvre par les milieux dirigeants helvétiques qui permettent ce résultat. Parmi ces stratégies, un crédit de 40 millions de francs suisses octroyés par les milieux financiers au Gouvernement argentin est au coeur de l'analyse.

Intergovernmental Transfers and Elementary Education: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Brazil

Whether providing additional resources to local communities leads to improved public services and better outcomes more generally, given existing management capacity and incentive and accountability structures, is an unresolved yet important question for public policy. This paper uses a regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the effect of unrestricted fiscal transfers on local spending (including on education), schooling and learning in Brazil. Results show that transfers increase local public spending almost one for one with no evidence of crowding out own revenue or other revenue sources. Extra per capita transfers of 1000 Reais lead to about 0.42 additional years of elementary schooling and student literacy rates increase by about 5.6 percentage points on average. Part of this effect arises through higher teacher-student ratios in municipal elementary school systems. Results also suggest that additional resources have stronger effects in more rural and less developed parts of Brazil.

Public Employment Relations Board - Notification Letter, July 26, 2006

State Audit Reports - Notification Letter

Report of recommendations to the Public Employment Relations Board for the year ending, June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Public Employment Relations Board for the year ended June 30, 2006

Asymptotic robustness in multi-sample analysis of multivariate linear relations

Standard methods for the analysis of linear latent variable models oftenrely on the assumption that the vector of observed variables is normallydistributed. This normality assumption (NA) plays a crucial role inassessingoptimality of estimates, in computing standard errors, and in designinganasymptotic chi-square goodness-of-fit test. The asymptotic validity of NAinferences when the data deviates from normality has been calledasymptoticrobustness. In the present paper we extend previous work on asymptoticrobustnessto a general context of multi-sample analysis of linear latent variablemodels,with a latent component of the model allowed to be fixed across(hypothetical)sample replications, and with the asymptotic covariance matrix of thesamplemoments not necessarily finite. We will show that, under certainconditions,the matrix $\Gamma$ of asymptotic variances of the analyzed samplemomentscan be substituted by a matrix $\Omega$ that is a function only of thecross-product moments of the observed variables. The main advantage of thisis thatinferences based on $\Omega$ are readily available in standard softwareforcovariance structure analysis, and do not require to compute samplefourth-order moments. An illustration with simulated data in the context ofregressionwith errors in variables will be presented.

Labor Relations Information and News, October 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.

Labor Relations Information and News, July 2007

The purpose of this newsletter is to inform and update State agencies on relevant labor relations issues and employment law on a monthly basis, and to focus on topics or questions agencies would like more information about.