Tourism, dutch disease and welfare in an open dynamic economy

This paper examines the effects of an expansion in tourism on capital accumulation, sectoral output and resident welfare in an open economy with an externality in the traded good sector. An expansion of tourism increases the relative price of the nontraded good, improves the tertiary terms of trade and hence yields a gain in revenue. However, this increase in the relative price of nontraded goods results in a lowering of the demand for capital used in the traded sector. The subsequent de-industrialization in the traded good sector may lower resident welfare. This result is supported by numerical simulations.

Emerging trends in the use of drugs to manage the challenging behaviour of people with intellectual disability

Background Concerns about the pharmacological management of the behaviour of individuals with intellectual disability have resulted in the development of legislative and procedural controls.
Method This Australian study provided a comparison of 873 reported cases where drugs were administered to manage behaviour in March 2000, with 762 cases reported in March 1993. Drug use in individuals who remained medicated across time (n = 316: recurrent sample) was also compared with those who were reported only in 1993 (n = 329: limited sample).
Results A small decrease in the proportion of individuals who were reported to have received medication was evident over time (from 5% to 4.5% of total population). However, this was accompanied by an increase in drug diversity and interclass polypharmacy. An increase in antidepressant use was evident (from 7.4% to 13.8% of reported drugs), and there was a trend towards greater reporting of medication for acute behavioural problems and medication use with children. Greater use of antipsychotic drugs was evident in individuals who remained medicated across time compared with those who did not.
Conclusions The findings suggest the need for continuous research into practice. The fact that many individuals receive medication over long periods makes it incumbent on service providers to engage in regular, comprehensive and individualized review and evaluation of medication regimes.

Tourism, trade and domestic welfare

Tourism has been regarded as a major source of economic growth and a source of foreign exchange. It has also been viewed as an activity that imposes costs on the host country. Such costs include increased pollution, congestion and despoliation of fragile environments, and intra-generational inequity aggravation. One aspect that has been ignored is the general equilibrium effects of tourism on other sectors in the economy. This paper presents a model that captures the interdependence between tourism and the rest of the economy, in particular agriculture and manufacturing. An important result obtained is that the tourist boom may 'immiserize' the residents.

Global social justice at the WTO? The role of NGOs in constructing global social contracts

Over the past decade, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been contesting the neo-liberal economic order in international politics by campaigning for normative conditions to bring about what Richard Falk calls 'humane governance'. However, the degree to which NGOs have contributed to the formation of global social contracts remains controversial. While NGO activists and various scholars advocate the establishment of such contracts, empirical testing of this normative argument is underdeveloped. Drawing upon this lack of empirical support, critics dismiss the global social contract concept and question the roles played by NGOs in international politics. This article addresses the controversy through a review, refinement and application of global social contract theory and an empirical study of two prominent international NGO campaigns directed at the World Trade Organization (WTO), an institution that represents a 'hard test case'. It explores the ways in which NGOs and their networks are challenging the neo-liberal basis of WTO agreements and contributing to the emergence of global social contracts. The article concludes that in some circumstances, NGOs have the capacity to inject social justice into international economic contracts and there is some basis for optimism regarding the formation of global social contracts involving NGOs, nation-states and international organizations.

A psychological perspective on Australia's asylum policies

This paper discusses mental and psychological impacts of Australia's temporary protection visa (TPV) policy on individual asylum seekers. The paper is based on personal narratives constructed by individual asylum seekers during one-on-one interviews and aims principally to sketch the discursive manifestations of stressful events in the lives of TPV holders. The fact that refugees exhibit signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not entirely new or surprising given the level of trauma, and in many cases torture and persecution, endured in the pre-migration phase.

What is particularly revealing among many TPV holders is the fact that their pre-migration traumatic experiences are compounded by a post-migration condition of being in indefinite "temporary" protection. This is further exacerbated by an awareness of the exclusionary discourses and policies advocated by the host government. Past trauma and persecution, combined with present family separation and social exclusion, further compounded by uncertainty about the future, results in almost chronic states of anxiety and depression among a significant number of TPV holders.

A review of international human resource management : integration, interrogation, imitation

International human resource management (IHRM) represents an important dimension of international management. Over the past three decades, there has been considerable growth in research and practice in IHRM. While there have been extensive developments in this field, numerous scholars have identified aspects requiring review and revision. Hence, this paper reviews and interrogates the progress in IHRM's theoretical development. The review leads to the conclusion that research in IHRM has tended to emphasize integration over other forms of progress. In response, and in provocation, imitation rather than integration is suggested as an approach for the development of future theoretical and conceptual directions in IHRM.

The role of dualities in arbitrating continuity and change in forms of organizing

A substantial body of literature on new forms of organizing has forecast the end of bureaucracy. More recent empirical studies, however, indicate that high-performing organizations are adopting dual forms of organizing in which the controllability advantages associated with traditional forms work to complement and support the responsiveness attributes of new forms of organizing. The paradox is that, if organizations discard the key planning, co-ordinating and direction-setting mechanisms of traditional forms of organizing, they also remove the stabilizing dimensions of organizational form that are essential in periods of uncertainty and change. The challenge for organizations lies in learning how to manage the tensions or dualities between traditional and new forms of organizing, a process demanding the arbitration of continuity and change. This paper explores the concept of dualities and its salience in the management of organizing forms. First, the nature of dualities is explained; secondly, a set of characteristics is developed to describe the behaviour of dualities; and thirdly, suggestions are presented for arbitrating the tensions that exist in organizing form dualities. These three contributions are relevant because they signal the route to the effective creation and management of organizing form dualities, the benefit of which is the constructive combination of dynamic capabilities (underpinning innovation and responsiveness, the hallmarks of new forms of organizing) and operational capabilities (underpinning stability and efficiency, the hallmarks of traditional forms of organizing).

Testing convergence of Fiji's tourism markets

The convergence hypothesis for tourism markets is based on the tenet that when tourism markets are converging the difference between total international visitor arrivals to a country and international visitor arrivals from a particular country will be stationary. We argue that if this is true, then convergence can also be tested through examining whether total visitor arrivals and visitor arrivals from a particular market are cointegrated. We test the convergence hypothesis by examining visitor arrivals to Fiji from eight tourist source markets, using both unit root and cointegration tests. We find strong statistical evidence that Fiji's tourism markets converge.

Protection versus promotion: an empirical investigation

Using Turkish industry-level data from 1983 to 1990, we find that politically organized industries receive both higher protection and promotion than unorganized ones. Tariff rates are decreasing (increasing) in the import-penetration ratio and the absolute value of the import-demandelasticity for organized (unorganized) industries. Subsidy rates are decreasing (increasing) in the output-supply elasticity for organized (unorganized) industries. The results are consistent with the predictions of the Grossman–Helpman model and its extension in this paper. The mix of protection and promotion is inversely related to the ratio of their respective marginal deadweight cost measures.

Embodied women at work in neoliberal times and places

In this article five women explore (female) embodiment in academic work in current workplaces. In a week-long collective biography workshop they produced written memories of themselves in their various workplaces and memories of themselves as children and as students. These memories then became the texts out of which the analysis was generated. The authors examine the constitutive and seductive effects of neoliberal discourses and practices, and in particular, the assembling of academic bodies as particular kinds of working bodies. They use the concept of chiasma, or crossing over, to trouble some aspects of binary thinking about bodies and about the relations between bodies and discourses. They examine the way that we simultaneously resist and appropriate, and are seduced by and appropriated within, neoliberal discourses and practices.

Decision making effectiveness in wildfire incident management teams

During large scale wildfires, suppression activities are carried out under the direction of an Incident Management Team (IMT). The aim of the research was to increase understanding of decision processes potentially related to IMT effectiveness. An IMT comprises four major functions: Command, Operations, Planning, and Logistics. Four methodologies were used to study IMT processes: computer simulation experiments; analyses of wildfire reports; interviews with IMT members; and cognitive ethnographic studies of IMTs. Three processes were important determinants of IMT effectiveness: information management and cognitive overload; matching component function goals to overall goals; and team metacognition to detect and counter task-disruptive developments. These processes appear to be complex multi-person analogues of individual Incident Command processes identified previously. The findings have implications for issues such as: creating IMTs; training IMTs; managing IMTs; and providing decision support to IMTs.

Influencing the public and efficiency in bureaucratic provision

In the present paper a public bureau can extract additional budgetary allocations, not only by misreporting its production cost to its oversight committee but also by 'influencing' the perceptions of the public at large. I juxtapose the bureau's ability to influence the public with its ability to misreport to the oversight committee, and find that influencing the public might support an efficient level of production by invoking a separating equilibrium. However, a pooling equilibrium involving either overproduction or underproduction of output cannot be ruled out. Accordingly, overproduction could occur even when the bureau cares only about extracting excess budget and not increasing output per se.

Financial crime in South Africa

During the 1990s economic crime began to spiral in South Africa. This phenomenon coincided with the country's transition to a democratic state. The article outlines a number of steps that South Africa took to align its laws with international standards and to improve the legal tools of law enforcement to address the crime wave. A number of successes, for instance the improvement in tax morality, are pointed out but it is argued that co-ordination and co-operation between law enforcement agencies require more attention.

'I get by with a little help from my friends' : adults with intellectual disability discuss loneliness

Background This study explored 'loneliness' as experienced by adults with intellectual disability, with 'intermittent' to 'limited' support needs.

Method A measure of loneliness was piloted, and qualitative techniques used to develop a greater understanding of the participants' experience.

Results The Loneliness Scale proved valid and reliable and the participants reported loneliness in ways comparable with the general population.

Conclusions The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of combining quantitative and qualitative techniques to enhance understanding of people's perspective when developing support systems to promote their quality of life. Based on participant perspectives, recommendations are made concerning the issues and types of support families and professionals could consider when seeking to assist people with intellectual disability address loneliness. Further investigation of the effects of differing educational and vocational opportunities on people's post-school social networks appears warranted.