Strategies of technical choice in the Peruvian sugar industry, 1955–74

Despite the rapidly growing literature on agricultural mechanisation in developing countries, there are few studies which examine the evolution of technical choice on large plantations over time. This article analyses the process of selective mechanisation in sugar cane harvesting on three Peruvian plantations over a 20‐year period. Decisions regarding the choice of technique and the control of field labour are intimately connected. The concept of a strategy of technical choice is introduced to emphasise this interdependence and to provide a framework of analysis.     

Differentiation and survival among North Carolina smallholders: An empirical perspective on the Lenin‐Chayanov debate

This article addresses theoretical issues concerning differentiation and class formation using North American data. It explores how socio‐economic characteristics vary and impact survival in agriculture. The study is based on panel data collected from a sample of smallholders in three Piedmont North Carolina counties. Factor analysis reveals five major dimensions of differentiation: scale, household labour, off‐farm family labour and income, demographic characteristics, and land tenure. An index of propensity to survive in agriculture, constructed from three waves of panel data is regressed upon five indices measuring the underlying dimensions of differentiation. Land tenure manifests a statistically significant net effect on survival in agriculture. These empirical results support theoretical arguments in favour of integrating analyses of socio‐economic and demographic differentiation in the study of agricultural enterprises.     

Not Seeing Eye to Eye on Frontline Work: Manager‐Employee Disagreement and Its Effects on Employees

The author uses nationally representative data on matched pairs of public school principals and teachers to test whether principal–teacher disagreement about the severity of school problems is associated with teacher turnover. More specifically, the author tests a managerial efficacy hypothesis that proposes that employees will be less likely to leave their jobs when their managers perceive problems to be severe, holding employees’ perceptions of the same problems constant. The author also tests a managerial buffering hypothesis that proposes that employees’ perceptions of problem severity will be more weakly related to their turnover probability when managers perceive problems to be severe. Little evidence is found for either hypothesis, raising questions about public school principals’ ability to translate problem recognition into problem remediation. More generally, the findings suggest a reexamination of the generic claim that “management matters,” which implies that public managers have the power to do things that can help employees perform their jobs well.     

Educational and economic characteristics of student beneficiaries: black-white differences

This article compares black and white student beneficiaries under the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance (OASDI) program during the 1972-73 school year from the standpoint of differences in economic and educational characteristics. The role that OASDI played in enabling students to continue in school full time is studied. The findings show that relatively more blacks were in the student beneficiary population than in the general student population; they were also overrepresented among students attending high school. Blacks were disadvantaged with respect to the educational attainment of their fathers and in terms of total family income. They also had lower-grade-point averages and those in high school were older than their white counterparts. Black high school students nevertheless planned to continue their education and to attend 4-year colleges in about the same proportion as whites. The total amount of educational income of black students was greater than that of white students, but the members of the latter group received more from loans and miscellaneous sources. Grants were the most important source of educational income for blacks. About half the student beneficiaries said they could continue full time in school without benefits and a third said they could not.