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Prior research on economic voting generally finds that national economic performance affects incumbent support. However, the degree to which one’s personal economic situation shapes vote choice remains less clear. In this study, we use novel survey data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide more credible evidence about the effect of changes in personal economic experiences on intended vote choice. Our design uses an objective measure of change in personal economic situation by asking respondents their employment status prior to the pandemic and at the time of the survey. Given the widespread and abrupt way in which the pandemic induced unemployment, we argue that this design reduces concerns about confounders that explain both vote choice and job loss. Our analysis demonstrates that individuals whose personal economic conditions worsened during the pandemic were significantly less like to intend to vote for Trump in the 2020 election.

The development of a common standard of consumption is one goal of the ongoing harmonization of the EU member states’ economies. As a result, the degree to which household deprivation affects people’s economic stress should converge. Based on comparison theory, such convergence could be one indicator for Europe growing together (‘Europeanization’). The association between deprivation and economic stress is tested across and between 28 EU countries with EU-SILC data. Moreover, it is examined whether this association changed between 2007 and 2015, as the great recession starting in 2008 affected European countries differently. The results show that, given a certain level of household deprivation, people judge their situation differently across Europe. Whereas economic stress levels are higher in relatively poor countries, the deprivation-stress link is stronger in rich countries. Across-time comparisons suggest no decline in the extent to which a country’s deprivation level moderated the effect of household deprivation on economic stress. The findings support the persistence of national reference groups against which individuals judge their own economic situation.

It is widely acknowledged that the economic situation is of vital importance for the stability of an authoritarian regime, but it is rarely known how the public’s economic evaluation contributes to such outcomes. This study examines the effects of citizens’ retrospective and prospective evaluations of their household economic situation and the national economy on the level of regime support in China. The findings show that the national economy outweighs household economic conditions in its effects on the public’s support of the regime. However, the gap between evaluations of the national economy and individual economic situations debilitates regime support. The population in different age cohorts has distinct patterns of relationships between retrospective and prospective economic evaluations and regime support. This study elucidates the political-psychological mechanism of the public’s economic evaluation affecting regime support, and the ruling strategy in authoritarian regimes of manipulating this evaluation.

Information and communications technology can be used to improve the social and economic situation in developing countries. However, a broad range of challenges has been identified, and one of these relates to the power asymmetries in developing countries. These power asymmetries are often deeply entrenched. We conducted an in-depth critical case study of an information and communication technology for development project in India. We looked at the historical and cultural context, the roles of the actors, and the use of symbolic practices. Using Bourdieu’s theory of practice and, in particular, his concept of habitus, our findings reveal how symbolic practices can work against ICT projects in developing countries. These symbolic practices, rooted in a particular culture, are tied to and constitutive of power asymmetries. We offer a framework for studying habitus in information systems research on information and communication technology for development that may be useful for others who wish to explore similar questions in their case study research.

The world economy has been facing a huge turmoil in the last few financial years. With constant efforts some improvement was observed in the last financial year as the world economic situation strengthened itself with a lingering effect to subside the effects of slump and registering world gross domestic product of 3.2 percent, the highest since 2011. The impact of world economic growth can be clearly seen on the GDP of India. The IMF sees India as the largest growing economy with a GDP of 7.4 percent even outshining the growth of China’s GDP at 6.8 percent. This growth has presented a challenge for the HR managers to focus more on strategic policy formulation and utilize the growth in the right direction. The line managers’ implement HR functions and in doing so they also influence their team and generate response from them. On the basis of extensive review a conceptual model has been proposed to understand the impact of interpersonal trust as a mediating variable on reallocation of HR functions and HR effectiveness. On evaluating the hypotheses values of CFI = 0.909, NFI = 0.745, GFI = 0.762, CMIN/DF = 1.396, RMSEA = 0.060, and PCLOSE = 0.066, which indicate a good model fit, the model shows the impact of the mediating variable, that is, interpersonal trust on reallocation of HR functions and HR effectiveness.

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between sleep duration, overweight/obesity, and school failure using data obtained from self-reported questionnaires completed by 13- to 15-year-olds in Sweden ( n = 1,363; 50.7% female). The height and weight of the participants were measured by school nurses. A multiple logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the association between sleep duration and overweight/obesity, school failure, and perceived economic situation. A short sleep duration (

Given the mixed evidence on whether women’s economic and social empowerment is beneficial or not for reducing intimate partner violence (IPV), we explored the relationship between women’s empowerment and IPV risk. We analyzed data from baseline interviews with married women ( n = 415) from the Intervention with Microfinance and Gender Equity (IMAGE) longitudinal study in rural South Africa. IMAGE combines a poverty-focused microfinance program with a gender-training curriculum. We fitted logistic regression models to explore associations between women’s economic situation/empowerment and IPV. For the multivariable logistic regression, we fitted three models that progressively included variables to explore these associations further. Women who reported “few to many times” for not earning enough to cover their business costs faced higher odds of past year physical and/or sexual violence (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 6.1, 1.7-22.3, p = .01). Those who received a new loan experienced higher levels of past year emotional (aOR = 2.8, 1.1-7.4, p = .03) and economic abuse (aOR = 6.3, 2.2-18.5, p = .001). Women who reported that partners perceived their household contribution as not important faced higher odds of past year economic abuse (aOR = 2.8, 1.0-7.8, p = .05). Women who reported joint decision-making or partner making sole reproductive decisions reported higher levels of past year physical and/or sexual violence (aOR = 5.7, 0.9-39.4, p = .07) and emotional abuse (aOR = 3.0, 0.9-10.2, p = .08). Economic stress and aspects of women’s empowerment, alongside established gender roles within marital relationships is associated with IPV risk in rural South Africa. Although improved economic conditions for women appears to be protective against physical and sexual IPV, associations between certain indicators of women’s economic situation, empowerment, and IPV are inconsistent. We need to consider complementary programming and all types of IPV in research, intervention, and policy, as different aspects of empowerment have varying associations with different types of IPV (physical, sexual, emotional, and economic abuse).

The literature on economic voting starts from the assumptions that citizens have a sufficiently high level of knowledge about their country’s economic situation, and that they vote according to their perception of the state of the economy. However, these assumptions have been challenged as economic perceptions could be plagued by partisan bias. We use the comparative dataset of the European Social Survey to investigate partisan bias in the perception of economic performance. Firstly, we observe that the economic perceptions of both supporters and opponents of governing parties are strongly related to real-life economic indicators such as gross domestic product growth and unemployment levels. Secondly, we find that shifts in economic performance (growth and unemployment) are strongly associated with similar changes in economic perceptions among both supporters of governing parties and opposition parties. There is, however, a significant but limited partisan bias in economic perceptions in countries with high levels of unemployment.

Background: Resilience can be described as the capacity to deal with adversity and traumatic events. The current economic situation in Suriname and its social economic consequences may demand a great amount of resilience for people living in Suriname. In this explorative study, we examined the relation between strengths and resilience among the three major ethnic groups in Suriname. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 participants. We sought to gather viewpoints from community representatives, health care professionals and academic scholars about the personal resources used by people in Suriname to help them deal with the consequences of the current socio-economic crisis. Results: We identified major five strengths that were associated with resilience: religiousness, hope, harmony, acceptance and perseverance. While these strengths contribute to the development of resilience, they can under certain circumstances have an ambiguous influence. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that religiousness is the bedrock strength for the development of resilience in Suriname. We recommend that future positive psychological interventions in non-Western countries integrate positive activities with religious elements into program interventions to achieve a better cultural fit.

Individuals spread information about their lives, their career, and their recently purchased items. In addition, considering that the customer’s opinions may influence their friendship circle, neighbors, and work colleagues, they constitute a very important factor to consider in future actions of companies. In this paper, we present an approach based on probabilistic cellular automata and ordinary differential equations for modeling the consumer market, inspired by a biological system of an infectious disease-spreading model. However, instead of spreading a disease, consumers spread their opinion to other individuals, thereby having consequences on sales levels. Using marketing, the economic situation, and individual opinion as input variables of the consumer market model, simulation output (generated demand) is then used in the business game, helping the mediator (teacher) to create different scenarios and giving feedback to the student at simulation runtime, even if many players are involved in the game. Analytical and numerical simulations show that the proposed approach allows the teacher to create virtual markets for the players just by setting the parameters that describe a scenario, increasing the dynamism of the game, saving time, and allowing the mediator to focus on other important subjects, such as the teaching concepts of business strategies and decision support. Moreover, simulations are conducted to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model in real life problems, such as the electro-domestic market.

Based on the empirical data of two sociological studies conducted in accordance with the uniform methodology using the personal questionnaire method in April 2012 and May 2018 (almost immediately after the election of the President of the Russian Federation), the article analyzes the structure of values of Russian urban voters, influencing their attitude to participation in the presidential elections and to the competing candidates, as well as the nature of the changes that took place in the structure during 6 years. The socio-economic and socio-political conditions in Russia in 2012 and in 2018 and their influence on the structure of values of urban voters are considered in the article. The article reveals the reasons why the fewer urban voters participated in the elections and a much larger number of them voted for Vladimir Putin when the economic situation of voters deteriorated in 2012 compared to 2018. It is revealed that within the framework of the “materialistic” value structure of urban voters, the value of material wealth does not play a significant role when voters choose the future development of Russia. The value of unselfish patriotism and family is in the first place. The difficult political conditions in Russia in 2018 gave the voters patriotism a militant character that was absent in 2012.

The objective of this article is to improve the understanding of mood and judgment effects evoked by major televised sport events like national football matches. According to disposition theory of sport spectatorship, viewers’ affective experiences, specifically their moods, are assumed to be affected by the outcomes of the matches they watch. This study tests whether these mood effects depend on viewers’ team identification as well as viewers’ sex. Moreover, past research has indicated that mood changes as effects of sport viewing could influence viewers’ subsequent judgments in line with feeling-as-information theory. Based on this line of arguments, a quasi-experimental pre-post-test study with 180 participants was conducted to assess the moods and judgments (self-confidence, evaluation of the economic situation, government satisfaction) of viewers before and after a win and a defeat of the German national football team during the 2011 women’s FIFA World Cup. The results support disposition theory of sport spectatorship as well as feeling-as-information theory and give new insights into the moderating role of team identification and sex.

The triple helix of university–industry–government relations has been accepted as a significant determiner of innovation. For the economic progress of the industrialised nations, the cooperation between academia and industry is terribly crucial. For the purpose of profit maximisation by means of such cooperation, achieving a healthy and productive cooperation is of vital importance. Science and technology (S&T) cooperation platform is an original cooperative mode in East China, which is similar to the technology transfer office. This article researches the cooperation relation and makes a thorough inquiry of the influence of cooperation on high-tech firms. Based on an investigation of 552 high-tech firms and 56 universities, we found that the high-tech firms can improve economic situation via the cooperation with universities on the platform. Moreover, principal discoveries demonstrate that the economic performance of high-tech firms is positively related with the co-operation projects. Furthermore, with a view to making policies and raising probable improvements to cooperative efficiency between academia and industry, this study also finds that high-tech firms selecting distinct cooperation models on the platform will bring different effects on the economic performance of firms.

Objective: The study examined the relationship of self-rated health and self-rated economic situation with depressed mood, and life satisfaction as mediator of this relationship among older adults in Costa Rica. Method: A longitudinal study was conducted with a subsample (N = 1,618) from the Costa Rican Longevity and Healthy Aging Study (CRELES). Self-rated health, self-rated economic situation, depressed mood, and life satisfaction were measured at baseline, and depressed mood was reassessed 18 months later. Putative mechanisms for changes in depressed mood were examined by means of conditional process analysis. Results: Self-rated health was negatively associated to depressed mood. This effect took place via life satisfaction. An interaction showed that better economic situation compensated the effect of a low self-rated health on life satisfaction. Discussion: This study suggests that subjective variables such as self-rated health, economic situation, and life satisfaction should be considered when addressing the onset of depressed mood. Wellcome Trust/[072406/Z/03/Z]//Estados Unidos UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Centro Centroamericano de Población (CCP)

The effect of economic distress on public opinion is well studied in political science. This research, however, tends to focus on one’s personal economic situation or national economic conditions, with considerably less scholarly attention directed toward understanding how intermediate levels, such as citizens’ local economic environment, shapes mass economic policy preferences. In response, this article develops a theory of the effect of local economic context on policy preferences which posits national economic events as a moderating factor and views toward the fairness of the economic system as an intervening factor. Drawing upon over a decade of survey data, and focusing on the 2008 Financial Crisis and public views toward business corporations, this article demonstrates that the Crisis polarized citizens across affluent and poor areas with respect to perceptions of corporate-led maldistribution, which in turn, had an indirect polarizing effect on economic policy mood.

The authors analyse the determinants of business failure in micro-, small- and medium-sized Spanish hotel companies during 2008–2011. They consider accounting variables representative of the economic and financial situation and other variables of lodging activity. This approach is important because several previous studies have highlighted the need to develop empirical models tailored to an industry, especially when it is as significant in the national economy as the hotel industry is in Spain. The article also examines whether the models developed to date remain valid in the new economic environment characterized by the economic crisis. The results obtained confirm the influence on the probability of business failure of profitability, debt, economic structure, economic and financial stability and liquidity. Moreover, significant influence is identified with regard to the number of delegations, the level of employment, seasonality and competitive concentration in the tourist destination where the business is located.

In the political fluidity of our times, the dismal economic situation in Greece is perhaps extreme but indicative of a deepening crisis in Europe, which is expanding, both geographically and socially. Contrary to the dominant rhetoric, austerity measures and pacts imposed on Greece, Portugal, Spain – and later Cyprus – do not seem to provide effective remedies. On the contrary, they seem to plunge entire areas and groups of people into a vicious cycle of rising unemployment, shrinking incomes and deep impoverishment. In the context of this rhetoric, an almost exclusive emphasis on the macro-economic aspects of the crisis, seems to “expel” from public debate the fact that there are effects of austerity policies that are unevenly distributed, inscribed as they are on existing inequalities: inequalities among places, between women and men, locals and migrants, big and small employers, secure and precarious workers and, most importantly, intersections of these. This paper engages with some of the less debated aspects of the crisis in Athens, with a focus on the complex and usually invisible ways in which it impacts on women. It draws upon research in a low-income neighbourhood of Athens and focuses on changes in women’s everyday lives, which have to do with job precarity and job loss, destruction of social services and the re-shaping of care, as well as practices of coping with/resisting the crisis.

Eurocentric Christianity since the time of Constantine has often neglected its scriptural traditions of economic justice, choosing instead to support colonial policies that seldom benefit the “least of these” throughout the world. Yet, many texts from the Old Testament speak to the rights of the economically downtrodden, and Christians interested in economic justice must take into account various biblical teachings on the subject. The complex differences between ancient Israel's economic situation and the current economy notwithstanding, how might a return to the scriptural call to justice confront current Christian perspectives in a global economy? By exploring teachings on economic justice from the diverse genres of the Old Testament, Christians can develop an economic ethic informed by biblical principles rather than submitting to cultural pressure derived from electoral mandates. Such a task however, is not exempt from several interpretive dangers, and Christians must take great care in discerning these teachings with a consistent and reflective interpretive strategy.

This study shows that both race and perceptions about one’s personal economic situation can play a role in how voters assess the likely future of the city under a racially other mayor. Using the historic transition of the Providence mayoralty to a Latino mayor as the context, and new survey data collected in September 2010, our research show that Latinos –the ethnic “winners” of the contest, are more likely to express positive expectations about the city under Mayor Taveras’. On the other hand, whites have a less positive outlook for the city. Both those who lost economically and those whose fortunes improved during the recession express more pessimistic expectations for the city. Our study also shows that blacks who have been affected by the downturn are more likely to have a less optimistic outlook of the city under Taveras’, an indication that intraminority competition is taking place in Providence among the city’s poor minorities.

We examine the relationship between TV viewing and economic expectations during economic recession. A content analysis of 84 hours of local network primetime programming (news and nonnews) identifies a moderate bias toward economic pessimism in the broadcasts. A survey of the adult population ( N = 356) points at a significant positive relationship between TV viewing (total viewing and viewing of news programming) and economic pessimism at both the national and the personal levels. A similar relationship exists between TV viewing and optimistic bias—the tendency to be more pessimistic on economic matters at the national than at the personal level. These results remain significant when controlled for demographics, trust in national institutions, evaluation of current economic situation and consumption of media other than TV, and corroborate a second-order cultivation effect in the economic context.

This study examines the current state of institutional repositories in Zimbabwe and the challenges and enablers for institutional growth, whilst evaluating the operational issues that might be affecting the setting up of institutional repositories. The qualitative research involved interviews with university librarians and personnel from the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). The University of Zimbabwe currently houses the only repository in the country listed on the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). The research concludes that the current state of repositories has largely been influenced by the political and economic situation in the country. Partnerships forged between the libraries and INASP are playing a significant role in supporting research and setting up of the repositories. The issue of repositories in Zimbabwe requires much attention and financial assistance from the government and from the universities themselves.

In this paper, we examine the time varying effect of corporate structure on firm value in an emerging market using Korean firms. We find that during a good economic situation (a good state from January 2000 to March 2001; a bad state from October 2001 to April 2002), firms recover (suffer) from external shocks and have a much brighter (darker) prospect of investment opportunities and firms with poor corporate structure experience a bigger (smaller) rebound in their share values. These results are robust for different measures of corporate structure and hold when we control for a variety of variables that affect firm performance during these periods. Our evidence suggests that the role of corporate structure has been changed following macroeconomic situations such as stock market index or economic index.

Twenty years after the beginning of the implementation of EU Cohesion Policy in Greece in the current programming period, 2007–13, for the first time Greek regions have been excluded from Objective 1 ‘Convergence’, a situation that it seems will continue in the next period. As it appears, Cohesion Policy has helped the country and its regions to converge to the European average. However, at an intra-national level, it seems that this is not the case, since internal inter-regional disparities appear to have increased in recent years. To these developments should be added the impact of the economic crisis, which according to early indications has negative repercussions for almost all Greek regions, with varying levels of intensity. These findings, combined with the constantly deteriorating economic situation at national and regional level, sustain the argument that Cohesion Policy will continue to be one of the most important policies of the EU and should constitute a powerful tool against the crisis and its regional dimensions.

Since Scribner described the first prosthetic chronic dialysis shunt in 1961, the surgical techniques and strategies to maintain vascular access have improved dramatically. Today, hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide are treated with some combination of native vein fistula, synthetic vascular graft, or synthetic semipermanent catheter. Despite significantly lower efficacy compared with autologous fistulae, the basic materials used for synthetic shunts and catheters have evolved surprisingly slowly. The disparity between efficacy rates and concomitant maintenance costs has driven a strong campaign to decrease the use of synthetic grafts and catheters in favor of native fistulae. Whether arguing the benefits of Fistula First or “Catheter Last,” the fact that clinicians are in need of an alternative to expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) is irrefutable. The poor performance of synthetic materials has a significant economic impact as well. End-stage renal disease (ESRD) accounts for approximately 6% of Medicare's overall budget, despite a prevalence of about 0.17%. Of that, 15%–25% is spent on access maintenance, making hemodialysis access a critical priority for Medicare. This clinical and economic situation has spawned an aggressive effort to improve clinical care strategies to reduce overall cost and complications. While the bulk of this effort has historically focused on developing new synthetic biomaterials, more recently, investigators have developed a variety of cell-based strategies to create tissue-engineered vascular grafts. In this article, we review the evolution of the field of cardiovascular tissue engineering. We also present an update on the Lifeline™ vascular graft, an autologous, biological, and tissue-engineered vascular graft, which was the first tissue-engineered graft to be used clinically in dialysis patients.

This article considers important developments over the last decade which have laid the foundations for a new approach to criminal justice policy; an approach in which economic analysis is central. These developments include aspects of the policy debate on sentencing; the government’s commitment to evidence-based policy; investment in the economics profession across government; and the rise of the Justice Reinvestment movement. While many of the opportunities presented for economic analysis of sentencing policy have not yet been exploited, there is reason to believe that they will be over the next few years. Various reasons are discussed including the current economic situation, which makes increasingly untenable the continuing commitment of government to increasing prison capacity without consideration of more efficient alternatives. The article concludes by suggesting some steps that the new government might take to ensure that the benefits of an economically efficient approach to criminal justice policy are realized.

This article presents a content analysis of 2,471 customer comments regarding three hundred London restaurants on an online restaurant guide. Favorable comments far outnumbered negative reviews. The study’s chief purpose was to identify the factors that are most salient in a guest’s evaluation of a restaurant. Although food is established as the king of the meal experience, as found in other studies, the starter is cited as a highly memorable item in many consumers’ comments. A preference structure model emerges suggesting that customers consider food, service, ambience, price, menu, and decor (in that order) when reflecting on their experiences. Contrary to expectations, the model remains relatively constant when tested in times of economic plenty and economic crisis. Depending on how management monitors and responds to them, comments on electronic guides and in social media can destroy a restaurant or help secure the business’s longevity. Restaurant managers who respond successfully to comments in electronic forums can turn an unsatisfied customer to a loyal one. The study provides a comparison of comments made during times of favorable economic conditions and times of economic recession.

The book of Joel is of major importance for understanding the formation of the Book of the Twelve. After a quick survey of previous research and some methodological considerations, the article will show that the book of Joel was integrated into the Book of the Twelve already on a very early level. Together with the books of Amos, Micah, and Zephaniah this book once formed a small collection of four prophetic books. This collection can be dated in the Persian period and can be read as a literary reaction to the disastrous political and economic situation of that time. The article ends with a brief look at the further redactional development of the Book of the Twelve.

Additional foreclosures loom over the hotel industry in 2010, as hoteliers run out of ways to economize while demand remains low and economic recovery elusive. Although industry operators’ resourcefulness has lowered average breakeven occupancy to 50 percent, diminished rates have limited profitability. Supply will grow in 2010 when rooms already in the pipeline open. Demand should recover in 2011, although the unprecedented nature of the current economic situation means that all predictions are subject to constant scrutiny and revision.

Reviews a range of reports, features and web-based resources focusing on the credit crunch and the likely impact on libraries. Suggests that for public libraries, the majority of commentators indicate that the global financial crisis may be a mixed blessing, leading to new and increased use on the one hand but raising the threat of cuts to services on the other. Notes that there are few reports on the potential impact of the economic situation on academic libraries although, again, universities in general may benefit as people seek to retrain or update their skills to make themselves more marketable in the careers marketplace. Concludes with a discussion of how the core principles of librarianship should be maintained and emphasized during these hard times.

This article was finalized in April 2006, just after the last general elections in Hungary, and it explains the political developments until that date. It is well known that on 17 September an unprecedented revolt broke out in the country, with a direct confrontation of civilians and the police forces including the siege of the National television and the detention of hundreds of protestors. The explanation given for the revolt was the prime minister's leaked speech on the political lies of his own socialist party and the unrevealed economic situation of the country. Yet this article—written before the revolts—shows that confrontation was not solely the consequence of the leaked speech of the prime minister but of an already existing climate of political confrontation, here called “new populism.”

In a cross-sectional questionnaire study with 245 employees from West Germany and 357 employees from East Germany, the inferior labour market and economic situation in East Germany could be shown to be related, as expected, to the psychological contract, with a poorer delivery of the deal and lower levels of justice and trust. Affective commitment, on the other hand, was shown to be higher in the East than in the West German sample. Moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that the cognitive perception of psychological contract breaches is less related to emotional strain and distributive justice in the East German than in the West German sample. Results are discussed within the framework of economic and normative differences, and also with reference to social exchange theories.

With explicit consideration of structural changes, this paper constructs the Economic Performance Index (EPI) by integrating economic growth rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate and the ratio of current account relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Intranational analyses and international comparisons of EPIs of the USA, Japan and Korea have been performed. The intranational analyses indicate that the EPI of each country properly reflects economic situation and performance, respectively. Especially in case of Korea, the EPI dropped substantially at the end of each political regime due to political instability. Findings from international comparisons are as follows. Firstly, the EPI of Korea is more affected by other countries than those of the USA and Japan. Specifically, Korean economic growth and the balance of payments are largely affected by Japan while the inflation rate is largely affected by the USA. Secondly, while the EPI of the USA is virtually not affected by Japan or Korea, the inflation rate and balance of payments of the USA are slightly affected by Japan. Lastly, even though the EPI of Japan is mostly affected by the USA, Korea and the USA have almost the same effect on the balance of payments of Japan.

Employability is believed to be a crucial concept concerning employees’ job security. This study investigates whether factors associated with human capital and the dual labour market predict perceived employability. Two national representative Swedish samples are used, representing economic recession (1993, N ¼ 4952) and prosperity (1999, N ¼ 6696). Employability was perceived as higher during prosperity, but human capital factors as well as dual labour market factors predicted perceived employability, irrespective of the time period. These findings indicate that the understanding of employability is enhanced by considering both structural and individual dimensions.

For the residents of public housing, whose mobility is often reduced due to their precarious economic situation and their stage in the life cycle, the accessibility of services and facilities is a fundamental concern. Moreover, in Montreal, public housing is dispersed throughout the city. Accessibility thus varies greatly from one building to the next. The aims of this study are first to evaluate the accessibility of various urban resources using spatial data analysis in geographical information systems and then to develop an indicator of the accessibility of services and facilities for each public housing project using multivariate data analysis. The final results show that there are eight sub-types of landscape facilities around public housing buildings. Overall, half of the residents of public housing buildings have very good or good accessibility to services and facilities. Most of these residents live in public housing in some of the central or relatively central districts. On the other hand, for 45 per cent of public housing residents, there is a low level of access and 5 per cent have very limited service accessibility.

This paper highlights how the social and economic situation of immigrants changes after their formal legalization and discusses what they have to go through for their complete integration. Legalization can hardly solve the problem of immigrant employment, nor can it pull all immigrants out of the underground labor market and integrate them into the Greek economy and society. The process towards complete integration is painful and involves a series of successive phases of various durations. During this period, apart from economic conditions, various institutional and cultural factors can hinder or delay integration. With respect to economic integration, immigrants seem to fare rather well. Their official unemployment rate is only slightly higher than the Greek unemployment rate, the two rates converging over time. This suggests increasing relative opportunities for immigrant employment, precarious or stable as it might be. Immigrant jobs come as a result of their flexible adjustment to the needs of the labor market – official or underground – compared to the inflexibility in the supply of Greek workers, due to labor mismatches and relatively high reservation wages. Wages of immigrants are generally lower, but are approaching the wages of their Greek counterparts. Educated immigrants much more than educated Greeks are forced by the circumstances to exercise jobs not measuring up to their qualifications.

Two decades after the year-long miners' strike of 1984/5, this paper presents a contemporary account of the social and economic situation faced by ex-miners in South Yorkshire, uncovering those factors that continue to inhibit new employment and adaptation following the contraction of the coal industry. Forty-one in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with men who had worked in the region's coal mining industry for varying periods of time. The interviews were designed to examine many of the problems that have emerged following deindustrialisation and assess appraisals of retraining provision and prospects for employment. Findings increase understanding of issues endemic to many former pit villages including continuing high levels of localised unemployment and disproportionately high numbers of incapacity benefit claimants. A greater understanding of the reluctance of individuals to adapt, retrain and seek new, alternative employment will lead to more successful methods of dealing with the problems associated with continuing economic inactivity in the region's former coalfield communities and has many important consequences for existing regeneration programmes and employment initiatives.

This paper discusses the macro economic profile of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China during the reform period, the Western Development Strategy and the importance of the region in the changing geo-strategic and geo-economic environment in Central Asia. Xinjiang is the largest administrative unit in China and is rich in mineral resources, especially oil and natural gas, that will make it a major player in generating rapid economic growth in the western part of China in the coming decades. Xinjiang is not only far ahead of other western provinces, it also has the advantage of a flourishing international trade with eight neighbouring countries as well as with other CIS countries and West Asia. The region has also achieved more in basic education. This paper draws attention to the intra-regional economic disparities and the inherent weakness of this arid and water scarce region.

The article studies the occupational security and the perception of the economic situation of Russian immigrants in Israel and other Israelis. Similar rates of job security were found in the two groups. It is suggested that cultural factors and policies of integration of immigrants into the labor force affect these .ndings.

By the late 1980s changes in the British and global political, social and economic situation necessitated a major rethink of the Labour party's policy approach. This rethink began with the 1987 Policy Reviews and continues to develop under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In contrast to many critics of New Labour's economic and social reforms this article argues that the party is not acting on simple pragmatic grounds, nor are they simply a ‘kinder’ neo-liberal party. Rather, it is argued that there is a clear coherence to New Labour's governing approach and that this is itself guided by the leadership's understanding of endogenous growth theory. The long-term goal is that by adopting an endogenous growth strategy the government will be able to reinstitute an activist policy regime capable of promoting the party's traditional values of equality, justice and fairness within a socioeconomic policy designed to ensure long-term growth and prosperity.

The performance of the Irish economy has received considerable international commentary in recent years. The focus of this attention has generally been on how an economy with severe fiscal imbalances and endemic unemployment in the 1980s was transformed in the 1990s so that it exhibited phenomenal economic growth and employment gains. This paper argues that the turnaround in the fortunes of the Irish economy was due to the confluence of a number of endogenous and exogenous factors and explains that tourism, often overlooked by commentators, played an important role in the transformation. The paper focuses on the performance of tourism since the mid-1980s, outlines the sector's contribution in the macroeconomy and details some emerging concerns that must be addressed if the tourism industry is to continue to play an important role in the economy of Ireland.

WTO's Tourism Market Trends, Edition 2002 series of regional reports offers a comprehensive and timely analysis of tourism trends in the world and the various regions, sub-regions and countries. The six volumes of the series contain a consistent set of 2001 results including a detailed examination of the effects on international tourism of the 11 September attacks and the economic downturn experienced in 2001. Furthermore, this year's series also pays special attention to the International Year of Ecotourism celebrated in 2002. This edition of ‘Databank’ gives an overview of the main results for the previous year.

The purpose of this paper is to present and demonstrate the usefulness of the dynamic shift-share method in examining the performance of the tourism industry using time-series employment data for the State of Texas and the USA, and to compare its results with those of the traditional accounting based shift-share analysis. The findings show that, compared to the US average, the change in employment in Texas was mainly due to the strong national economy and not to the region's competitiveness or sectoral make-up. According to the findings, the use of a dynamic shift-share model eliminated one theoretical problem inherent in the classical static method.

This paper draws upon various studies of internal and international migration and permanent and temporary movements to assess the diverse effects of migration on families in Indonesia. The types of effects examined include those on family structure and composition, family headship, marriage and divorce, intergenerational and intrafamily relationships, care of children and the aged, the economic situation of the family, the role and status of women and power relationships in the family. Both migration and the family are in a very dynamic situation and there are important two-way relationships between them. International migration has both positive and negative influences on families in Indonesia. It is important to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between migration and family to maximize the benefits and at least ameliorate the negative effects.

The relationship between unemployment and mental well-being has been thoroughly researched. Longitudinal studies have shown unemployment to have negative impact on mental well-being, whereas re-employment has positive impact. This research has however taken little interest in a more complex concept of labour market status than just`employment versus unemployment', or indeed other alternative exit routes from unemployment. In this article, an investigation is made into the impact of different exit routes from unemployment on mental well-being. This is done using a longitudinal and nationally representative survey of 3,500 unemployed Swedes. The results indicate that the mental well-being outcome of exiting unemployment is related to how the new status resolves economic difficulties and the uncertainty faced in the unemployment situation. The increase in mental well-being when re-entering paid labour is differentiated depending on the contractual situation. Exit to permanent employment means a larger increase in mental well-being than exit to temporary employment or self-employment. Exit to university education increases mental well-being, whereas exit to high-school equivalent studies does not. Exit from unemployment to maternity/paternity leave increases mental well-being, exit to sick leave reduces mental well-being, while exit to early retirement pension does not significantly change the mental well-being.

A modified three-round Delphi study of 14 general managers was used to predict which changes will occur in Hong Kong’s hotel industry as a result of the change in sovereignty from Britain to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. The managers predicted that competitiveness within the hotel industry would become more intense following an immediate short-term lull in business, or recession, after the handover. In the long run, managers predicted that the number/type of hotels, influx of new labor, and volume of business would increase, making Hong Kong highly competitive with the rest of Asia.

The author gives an overview of the history and present situation of the education of children with a visual impairment in Hungary. A survey of the different services shows that they began long before they had a legal basis. Hungary has sound laws but the economic situation, even though it has substantially developed, is still not so strong as to provide enough financial support for programmes. The number of itinerant teachers is not sufficient, mainstreamed children are not equipped well enough and the price of access technology is extremely high. An Eastern European Network for Access Technology (Project EENAT) aims to address many aspects of access technology. The main challenge and development in this field is Windows accessibility in the Eastern and Central European region.

This article considers tourist attractions in Singapore and the consequences of the Asian financial crisis for operators within the context of crisis management theory. The range of visitor attractions in Singapore is identified, and the period of economic turmoil that began in the late 1990s is summarized together with an account of its impact on tourist activity. The results of a survey of leading attractions indicate the effect of the crisis on business, responses to it, and the application of crisis management planning. The analysis suggests both an absence of formal planning and the need for it given the nature of travel and tourism and its exposure to uncertainty, risk, and disaster. The study thus provides an insight into how attractions’ managers deal with a crisis, but its limitations are also recognized with the need for more thorough analysis conducted during a longer period of time as the crisis continues to develop.

It is generally believed that the economic situation created by liberalization has had a beneficial effect on industrial relations, particularly in private industries. However, much depends on the relations between management and labour and the attitudes they have to one another in individual establishments. The case recounted here illustrates this important point.

North American rodeo, once considered a festival pastime engaged in by nomadic ranch hands, has evolved into a contemporary sport form. Given its cultural trappings and savvy business and marketing strategies, rodeo has experienced a rise in popularity. Furthermore, with other sport forms falling into fan disfavor due to the behavior of owners, coaches, and players, rodeo appears to offer a purer, less complex, competitive environment whereby competitors pit their skills against a myriad of unknowns for a financial purse. The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural milieu of the rodeo cowboy in an attempt to thoroughly examine and ultimately answer the question, Is the American rodeo cowboy a cultural icon, athlete, or entrepreneur? Ethnographic and archival research methods were employed in the collection and corroboration of data for this study. The findings suggest that the contemporary North American rodeo cowboy is a cultural icon, athlete, and entrepreneur.