Zwischen institutioneller Kontinuität und De-Institutionalisierung – Industrielle Dienstleistungen als Parallelwelt überbetrieblicher Arbeitsbeziehungen

This paper focuses on the paradox that the legal foundations of the German collective wage bargaining system have remained stable over the last four decades even though there has been simultaneously a significant decrease in the actual coverage of industry-wide collective agreements. Based on insights from historical institutionalism it is hypothesized that a mismatch between industry-based wage-setting and the inter-firm network as the unit of value creation causes an institutional fragmentation into segregated worlds of wage-setting. In these segregated worlds, employees experience changing wage-differentials according to their contract status although they fulfill similar job tasks within the same work context. Empirically, the paper uses industry-related services as prototypical example to illustrate this sort of institutional fragmentation. A comparison with other types of institutional change shows that fragmentation is characterized by continuous rule ambiguity and rule competition, which undermines the reliability of collective wage-setting while leaving the institutional setting formally untouched.     

Surplus labour and economic efficiency in the traditional sector of a dual economy: The Guatemalan case

In this paper we present empirical evidence on two closely related and widely discussed theoretical issues in development economics:

(A) the sign and the magnitude of the marginal productivity of labour—as they relate to the existence of surplus labour in the traditional sector of dual economies, and

(B) the economic efficiency of farmers in traditional agriculture. With regard to (A) we found the marginal productivity of labour in the traditional sector of Guatemalan agriculture to be positive, but considerably lower than the average wage rate that prevails in the area. Regarding (B) our estimated indexes of efficiency indicate that farmers in the traditional sector of Guatemalan agriculture make inefficient use of their economic resources.     

The intifada: Two assessments

Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising ‐ Israel's Third Front. Edited and translated by Ina Friedman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Pp.352. $22.95. ISBN 0–67530–3     

The Reform of the Local Administration in Spain in Terms of Population

Spanish Local Corporations are playing an increasingly important role in the provision of public services without reducing their function of consolidation and structuring of the current sociopolitical system. This reality implies an increase in their need of financial funds without new compensation resources. Also, there is a certain tendency to loose population in many counties along with a greater organic and territorial dispersion that accelerates their financial weakening. This makes necessary to find management alternatives ensuring the appropriate provision of local public services and thus the Local Corporation reform becomes an alternative. In this context, the present paper approaches the analysis and the results based upon a territorial balance criterion on the population and its distribution, aiming ultimately to design an indicator able to measure the need of the Spanish local government structure according to its population and the size of its municipalities. This indicator might measure the regional impact to any variation both in the distribution of its population and in the number of municipalities.