Post-Fordism, the welfare state and the personal social services: A comparison of Australia and Britain

The Post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary social welfare change within a wider analysis of the transformation of capitalist accumulation regimes. Whilst this analysis is useful in directing attention to macro socio-economic change, it has for the most part contained three shortcomings. First, the Post-Fordist thesis has overemphasized the role of historical 'breaks' in the development of social welfare as it purportedly passes from Fordism to Post-Fordism. Second, the thesis has assumed a degree of convergence between welfare states as a result of global economic forces. In doing so, it has underemphasized the mediating impact of existing institutional arrangements within nations. Third, the thesis has assumed, rather than demonstrated, the specific changes which are alleged to be taking place in various fields of social welfare. As a consequence, aspects of continuity in social welfare have been neglected. These three lacunae are addressed through a comparative analysis of developments in the personal social services in Australia and Britain. Services to older people are employed as the specific context of comparison in relation to three dimensions of measuring transformation along a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economy to a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the model of service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governance function of the central state. This comparative analysis suggests the need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesis concerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impact on the personal social services.

Combining the wavelet transform and forecasting models to predict gas forward prices

This paper presents a forecasting technique for forward energy prices, one day ahead. This technique combines a wavelet transform and forecasting models such as multi- layer perceptron, linear regression or GARCH. These techniques are applied to real data from the UK gas markets to evaluate their performance. The results show that the forecasting accuracy is improved significantly by using the wavelet transform. The methodology can be also applied to forecasting market clearing prices and electricity/gas loads.

Forecasting exchange rates with linear and nonlinear models

In this paper, the exchange rate forecasting performance of neural network models are evaluated against the random walk, autoregressive moving average and generalised autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity models. There are no guidelines available that can be used to choose the parameters of neural network models and therefore, the parameters are chosen according to what the researcher considers to be the best. Such an approach, however,implies that the risk of making bad decisions is extremely high, which could explain why in many studies, neural network models do not consistently perform better than their time series counterparts. In this paper, through extensive experimentation, the level of subjectivity in building neural network models is considerably reduced and therefore giving them a better chance of Forecasting exchange rates with linear and nonlinear models 415 performing well. The results show that in general, neural network models perform better than the traditionally used time series models in forecasting exchange rates.

Comparing different approach and avoidance models of learning and personality in the prediction of work, university, and leadership outcomes

Jackson (2005) developed a hybrid model of personality and learning, known as the learning styles profiler (LSP) which was designed to span biological, socio-cognitive, and experiential research foci of personality and learning research. The hybrid model argues that functional and dysfunctional learning outcomes can be best understood in terms of how cognitions and experiences control, discipline, and re-express the biologically based scale of sensation-seeking. In two studies with part-time workers undertaking tertiary education (N=137 and 58), established models of approach and avoidance from each of the three different research foci were compared with Jackson's hybrid model in their predictiveness of leadership, work, and university outcomes using self-report and supervisor ratings. Results showed that the hybrid model was generally optimal and, as hypothesized, that goal orientation was a mediator of sensation-seeking on outcomes (work performance, university performance, leader behaviours, and counterproductive work behaviour). Our studies suggest that the hybrid model has considerable promise as a predictor of work and educational outcomes as well as dysfunctional outcomes.