Search

The Cobb-Douglas function indicates that the demand for labor in the United States and Australia is elastic. This would indicate that total labor income decreases as wages rise. Must trade unionists' insistence on maintaining or raising wages even under conditions ot widespread unemployment necessarily indicate short-sightedness or selfishness on the part ot employed unionists? This article answers in the negative. In the first place, a mathematical bias in the Cobb-Douglas function prevents its showing simultaneously an inelastic demand for labor and a positive share of labor in the national dividend. In the second place the function considers only the "gross" elasticity of demand. The "net" elasticity which takes account of workers' income while unemployed, is necessarily lower and more relevant here. In the third place, the Cobb-Douglas function is inapplicable to the long run in which population is variable, and in which labor seeks maximum real wages consistent with full employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-section surveys of public opinion are now being conducted continuously in five countries-the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia and Sweden. Through these surveys it has become possible for the first time to measure and to report the views of the common man on the same issue at the same time in five nations of the globe with a combined population of nearly 200,000,000. Sampling surveys as a means of systematically discovering public opinion make no claim to perfection or infallibility. But through their development it has become possible to chart the main trends of public opinion in the five nations and to study the impact of war events on public thinking. The American Institute, oldest of the five, has been measuring and reporting American opinion for seven years. It receives its entire financial support from more than one hundred daily newspapers, of all shades of political belief.

The article focuses on several issues related to rural sociology. In February 1943 the Minister of State for Postwar Reconstruction in Australia appointed a commission to inquire into and report on the organization of Australian rural economy and the reorganization and rehabilitation of the Australian rural economy during the postwar period. The reports are based on hearings held in the rural sections of the country and the limited published materials available. The report includes a general review of Australian rural economy, a consideration of the importance of rural industries, an interpretative analysis of Australian agricultural history, a review of the factor's influencing production costs and a report of rural social conditions. Early in 1943, 275 Michigan farm families in three counties were visited to find what adjustments they had made to war conditions. The study covered expenditures, medical service, rationing, farming programs, community activities, internal family adjustments, and participation in war related activities.

IT WOULD SEEM then that the achievements of countries like Australia and New Zealand are worthy of emulation. Much constructive work, of course, is being done in the United States. For instance, the College of Agriculture at the University of Wyoming has succeeded in adding 3 pounds to the weight of the fleece during the past five to ten years by instructing Wyoming sheepmen how to breed large, sturdy sheep that bear low-shrinkage, high-quality wool. The government also is expanding its research in breeding and marketing practices; but unfortunately, the government seems to have the unhappy faculty of nullifying its constructive efforts by destructive activities. For example, long and short hedging in wool and wool top futures against price uncertainties is a legitimate instrument that wool growers, wool dealers and manufacturers can use to protect themselves from financial loss, but this was made more or less difficult in 1946 by the ceiling prices and the actions of the CCC. But if wool growing is to survive in this country, it must retain its traditional characteristic of freedom, for from the very beginning of time, the pastoral life has always been the freest element in any country's economy. Thus the sheep farmers must be taught to help themselves, as they must learn more about their business and give the market what it wants. But they cannot gain this knowledge by crouching behind trade barriers and leaning on subsidies, for in the last analysis, competition is the only real educator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the paper "The Catholic Action Rural Movement," by John H. Millet. This article is descriptive, intended as a survey of the general rural movement within Catholic Action, with indications of its applicability in the United States. Attention is given almost exclusively to the Australian and Canadian national movements, since these countries are deemed more nearly comparable to the United States than Belgium, France, Holland, or Switzerland. Both farm and non-farm people are reached; in Canadian parishes farm youth and town youth are in the same cells, in Australia adult farmers and non-farm rural adults form separate sections.

The article discusses the sources of uranium, and observes its principal occurrence in several countries around the world. The carrying out of uranium research has been kept in the highest level of concealment from media. However, its confidentiality has subsided due to the open statements made by government officials in several countries they possess radioactive resources. These countries include Canada, Australia, France and Sweden. In the U.S. alone, its geologic effort to explore possible resources of uranium is extensive ranging from the Belgian Congo and Canada, and some quantities derived from Colorado. Details about the exploration activities carried out by U.S. Geological Survey are outlined, as well as the three classification of uranium deposits.

This article discusses the effect of methyl bromide fumigation on orchids. Orchids are liable to be infested by insects and mites, particularly scale insects, and however carefully the plants are checked and cleaned before export the occasional insect infestation passes unnoticed. Several countries, therefore, require a fumigation treatment as a safeguard against the introduction of orchid pests. In Australia, all orchids are fumigated on arrival with 32 ounces of methyl bromide per 1,000 cubic feet for one and a half hours. In the U.S., only imports found by inspection to be infested are treated, the dosage applied being 40 ounces of methyl bromide per 1,000 cubic feet for 2 hours at 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

The purpose of the article is to compare the use of management accounting techniques in Australia with their use in the U.S. and Canada. It has been suggested that Australian industry uses management accounting techniques to a lesser extent than American industry. Two research projects conducted recently throw light on these opinions. The first examined the management planning and control practices of a selected group of 424 American and Canadian companies. The second project, commenced in 1957, examined financial organization and control practices in a selected group of 157 Australian companies. The two surveys seem to support the belief, however, that through the joint efforts of professional management and accounting associations over the last ten years, the knowledge and use of management accounting techniques have been increased. But there is still a need for a wider and more effective application of management accounting techniques. If management accounting in Australia is to make its full contribution to increasing the nation's productivity, it may be concluded that educational and professional exchanges with the U.S. and Canada should continue in the future as they have in the past.

In "The Old-New Distinction and Immigrants in Australia," Stanley Lieberson's interpretation of Australian immigration statistics is open to serious question. Contrary to his premise, the Australian immigration experience does not provide appropriate data for evaluating the old-new differentiation of immigrant behavior in American history. The Australian statistics do not support Lieberson's assertion that "northwestern and southeastern European immigrant patterns of adaptation and assimilation will be similar whenever the groups are established in the society at a comparable period." The emergence of the old-new classification of immigrants in America, as Lieberson pointed out, owed much to the change in the composition of immigrants around the turn of the century. The admission into Australia since World War II of immigrants born in southern, central, and eastern European countries differed considerably and fundamentally from the previous influx of "new" immigrants into the U.S. In the case of displaced persons, the Australian government established stringent criteria for admission. The number and monthly rate of admissions of the immigrants were specified as were their age, marital status, dependent status, employability, and "security" and health conditions.

The incidence and patterning of divorce in Australia differs substantially from that in the United States: Australians resort to divorce less frequently than do Americans, and generally only after a much longer duration of marriage, it is suggested that this arises from differences between the two countries in (1) the availability of divorce (in both existential and normative senses), (2) the availability of alternative "remedies" for marital disharmony, and (3) the extent of marital disharmony itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a collation of data about religion in Australia. There is an interesting difference between the denominational composition of Australia and New Zealand on one hand and the U.S. on the other. In all these countries the original migration patterns are still reflected in the numerical strength of denominations: the number of Catholics or Eastern Orthodox is an indication of the original immigration of the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Russians, the Greeks and others to these new countries. In the U.S. the original Protestant picture has become effectively blurred through internal factors: migration or differentially fertility can hardly account for the fact that there are 4½ times as many Baptists and Methodists than there are Presbyterians and Anglicans. Catholics in Australia also have a higher fertility rate than Anglicans: the average issue of Catholics according to the 1961 Census is 2.65, of Anglicans 2.33. Fertility of interfaith marriage is consistently lower for all residential areas as compared with marriages in which both partners were either Catholic or Anglican. The frequency of intermarriage of the Australian religious denominations has also been tabulated by the Bureau of Census and Statistics in Australia. They seem to show for instance that Catholic men succeeded slightly more in marrying within the faith than the women: 80.22 percent of Roman Catholic men and 77.41 percent of Roman Catholic women were married to partners of the same faith.

The article discusses the factors responsible for the increasingly poor performance of adult mortality in certain Western countries by means of a cross-national analysis. A model has been created which finds a country's death rate at age 55--59 and could predict very accurately by knowing the regional mortality family to which it belongs and its death rate. The male and female age patterns of mortality may be influenced by the same factors, merely with different intensity, or the pattern changes for the two sexes may be unrelated. Cigarette smoking was first adopted on a large scale in Western Europe, the United States Australia and New Zealand predominantly by younger men. A retrospective survey of smoking behavior in the United States shows that per adult consumption figures may understate the increase in cigarette smoking among older males. Reasons for lower female mortality risks from cigarettes include lower consumption levels, less inhaling and greater use of filtered cigarettes. Older males, have suffered a much larger deterioration in their relative mortality position. Almost all of their difficulties can be traced to changing death rates from cardiovascular diseases, cancer and bronchitis.

Trees of the genus Eucalyptus from Australia were spread widely and numerously through California after the 1850's. Several factors favored their spread, notably the production of limber and fuel, often with unrealistic hopes of financial gain. Planting for windbreaks and decorative purposes was also commonplace. An important and overlooked additional reason for the rapid dissembation of eucalypts in California. especially in the 1870's and 1880's, was the belief that trees of this genus, particularly Eucalyptus globulus or blue gum, could prevent or diminish the serious malaria problem that beset portions of the state. That certain forms of vegetation, especially trees, represented sanitary influences was an ancient notion and it survived even the germ theory of disease. The supposed method whereby eucalypts achieved their healthful influence was through the trees' imagined capacity to absorb or neutralize the noxious gases that were believed to cause malaria. This erroneous and antique miasmatic etiology of malaria, together with belief in eucalypt prophylaxis, was demolished in the late nineteenth century when it was revealed that the disease was caused by blood parasites transmitted by the bites of anopheline mosquitoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual variations are often more brutal for nuptiality than they are for other demographic phenomena. Short-term economic movements, in particular, seem to have a more direct impact. In the long run, however, nuptiality is generally considered as a much more stable factor than, say, fertility which has undergone profound changes in all industrialized countries over the past hundred years. In this article the social scientists will attempt to study these recent trends in the light of longer-term ones, by comparing nuptiality movements in four countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In this paper, they study the nuptiality of birth cohorts by calculating the proportion ever-married at age 50, and mean age at first marriage. Data are not always strictly comparable between one census and another, especially in Canada and the United States where geographical coverage has varied through time. However, the numbers involved were small. Moreover, the definition of marital status has not been changed, at least not the basic distinction between single and ever-married. Through a study of nuptiality trends for the single for about a hundred different birth cohorts, they will attempt to determine whether attitudes towards marriage have changed. But first, they must eliminate the structural effects which affect the phenomenon studied. For instance, marriage becomes more difficult for women and female nuptiality decreases when there is a scarcity of potential male partners.

This article discusses the accounting methods proposed in the book Securities and Obscurities and the suitability of the book for the study of accounting. It relates principally to the features of the accounting of particular companies and to what has happened as a consequence of the accounting of particular companies. It relates to companies in Australia, Great Britain and the U.S. The book proposes the method of direct observation as a method of inquiry. The inquiries founded on the belief that the test of any actual form, and the grounds for any proposed form, of accounting lie in those observable events of the commercial, financial and professional communities which are in the nature of reactions or responses to, and consequences of, particular accounting practices.