Hungarians and Germans: A literaryHassliebe

Originally presented as a paper at the Biennial Conference on Central and Eastern Europe, University of South Florida, March 30–April 1, 1995.     

Books in review

She is author of Equity and Gender,and Property Rights and Eminent Domainboth published by Transaction.     

Managing retrenchment in a public service organization

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to identify the distinguishing features of an effective approach to managing retrenchment in a public service organization. It draws on the author's experience in Alberta and makes reference to experience in the rest of Canada and in the United States. Management responses to changes in the external environment are considered under two headings: strategic and operational. Strategic responses aim to acknowledge economic reality and to increase political support by enhancing credibility and visibility. A new corporate strategy aims to position the organization for maximum effectiveness at a smaller size in the post-retrenchment period. Operational responses emphasize communication and productivity planning. Restraint measures include voluntary staff reductions, compensation reductions and non-voluntary staff reductions, usually in that sequence. The central operational issue is reducing staff complement and the principal dilemma is whether to encourage voluntary terminations or to select the staff to be dismissed. The outcome is a trade-off between fairness and rationality. Ten principles of effective retrenchment management emerge from the experience discussed: 1. scan the environment; 2. acknowledge reality; 3. foster political support; 4. renew the commitment to productivity; 5. review the corporate strategy; 6. target the reductions; 7. reduce slowly; 8. seek alternatives to staff reductions; 9. balance rationality and fairness in staff reductions; and 10. communicate, communicate, communicate.     

Building our future glass homes – An essay about influencing the future through regulation

The present paper surveys the prospects and possibilities of regulating the application areas of Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) – or in a broader sense, of influencing the future way of life – at the intersection of law, technology and society. It dissects the anticipated further erosion of personal privacy – the focus area of the essay – caused by technological developments and related interests. After sketching out an ironic dystopia, in which the idea of transparency is foisted upon the public by future technological developments, the author contemplates the relationships between legal regulation and the underlying values in the predictable but unknowable milieu of future life conditions. While studying the immutability of fundamental values, the author offers a brief survey of the role of public opinion, as well as of the limitations of taking into account the majority opinion, followed by a thought experiment about the possible ways of regulating the “Code”, approaching it from the direction of two fundamental rights, the right to human dignity and the freedom of academic research. After reaching conflicting conclusions and making a few suggestions about possible ways to regulate the area, the author makes a proposal about the introduction of a small-scale experimental tool, metaphorically named as a predictive learning model of regulation. Despite the difficulties and the uncertainties, the essay's overall perspective on the role of legal regulation is not a pessimistic one, as long as it is used flexibly and in conjunction with other means of regulation.     

A preliminary assessment of the new home seller capital gains law

Abstract

In August 1997, the capital gains law was changed to enable most sellers to move down in price without incurring a tax liability. The previous law was critiqued as detrimental to cities by promoting out‐migration to higher‐priced homes; it was asserted that the requirement that sellers buy a home equal to or greater than the value of the one they sold to defer tax liability obstructed movement down in price. This study asked whether movement down in price increased in four Ohio cities after the law was changed and whether movement out of the central cities decreased and movement in from the suburbs increased.

Statistically significant change in movement down was found in only one city. Movement up in price and outward dominated all four areas. The study produced no direct evidence of the factors that influenced seller‐buyer move decisions. The process of life‐course change—younger households moving up to larger, more expensive homes and older households moving down to smaller, less expensive properties—was probably the driving force.