Common elements of efficiency wage theories: What relevance for developing countries?

Conventional labour economics argues that wages are determined by supply and demand and that the typical firm is a wage taker. Efficiency wage theories state that wages are endogenous to a firm's own optimising behaviour and that the wage rate determines the labour productivity. These theories raise questions regarding the effectiveness of expenditure‐reducing and expenditure‐switching adjustment policies. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on efficiency wages. It examines alternative models, highlights the emphasis of empirical research towards industrial countries, and points out the need for a test based on the major implications of the theory.     

Multijurisdictional drug task forces: An analysis of impacts

In the past decade, municipal police organizations have devoted significant resources toward drug enforcement. One popular strategy in addressing the American drug problem is the formulation of multijurisdictional drug task forces. Despite their popularity, the impact of these cooperative ventures on law enforcement agencies has not been adequately evaluated. The research reported here examined the effect of membership in a drug enforcement task force on levels of drug enforcement outputs and perceptions of effectiveness by comparing law enforcement agencies participating in drug task forces to agencies which do not participate. Results suggest that task force membership impacts perceptions, but does not appear to influence objective measures of drug enforcement outputs.     

Predicting Bureaucratic Control: Evidence from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments

The extent to which politicians control bureaucracies that are delegated authority over public policy involves fundamental positive and normative issues for the study of politics. Considerations related to such issues have stimulated a great deal of debate about whether the legislature exercises control over bureaucratic performance. However, establishing the measurable empirical conditions under which elected officials do and do not assure agency responsiveness remains unsettled.
In light of this state of affairs, we try to determine whether it is possible to develop a general means of predicting control, or at least of predicting what we term intent to control, based on the assumption that legislators' preferences toward agency responsiveness reflect the nature of the policy environment. Our application to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 finds strong empirical evidence that statutory provisions vary predictably, depending upon whether legislators possess the requisite technical ability and are likely, or wish, to be held politically accountable. Our results indicate that control varies for reasons that fit well with our understanding of how elected officials deal with complexity and their own political situations. Our findings also imply that subtle, but measurable, differences in the specific policy environment are crucial for understanding control.     

The rise and decline of China's export processing zones

Accepting the Grindle/Thomas argument that developing states enjoy a high degree of autonomy, this article takes a case study approach to analyze the dynamics of Chinese foreign economic policy. The article posits that contending elites coalesced around particular visions of economic development, which have been the major variable affecting the Chinese export processing zone (EPZ) policy. Thus the current decision to rescind SEZ preferences is based on the elites’ decision to ‘deepen’ China's outwardly‐oriented development.     

Acting out of character: Window on the identity crisis

An autobiographical account of acting out of character at a life turning point is presented as a window on a young person's identity crisis. Analysis of that account reveals (1) that the play of the tentative identities reflects the concurrent crisis in the character of that person's society, (2) that the story the person now has to tell sets forth the range of the psychosocial issues active in his life, (3) that the mysteries generated identify for the person the specific issues at crisis, (4) that the novelty of the event itself catalyzes called for changes, and (5) that the metaphor of the out of character actions serves to preview the ultimate resolution.Received M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, in 1964, and psychiatry training at Yale. Interests lie in the area of psychotherapy with disturbed youth, careers of young people who become psychiatric aides in mental hospitals, and group homes for adolescents.