The impact of surplus sharing on the portfolio mix of public sector defined benefit pension plans: a public choice approach

The riskiness of state employee pension plan portfolios varies across states. We investigate whether this variation is related to how public employees and taxpayers share actuarial surpluses of pension accounts. We focus on two determinants of a plan’s asset mix: the relative influence of public employees to taxpayers; and whether a surplus-sharing contract is specified. Our theoretical model demonstrates that the effect of public employee influence on the asset mix is ambiguous. Our empirical results corroborate this complex theoretical result. In our theoretical and empirical analyses, if a surplus sharing rule is specified, plans adopt a more aggressive investment allocation.     

Instruments for Exploring Organizational Culture: A Review of the Literature

Organizational culture is widely considered to be one of the most significant factors in reforming and modernizing public administration and service delivery. This article documents the findings of a literature review of existing qualitative and quantitative instruments for the exploration of organizational culture. Seventy instruments are identified, of which 48 could be submitted to psychometric assessment. The majority of these are at a preliminary stage of development. The study's conclusion is that there is no ideal instrument for cultural exploration. The degree to which any measure is seen as "fit for purpose" depends on the particular reason for which it is to be used and the context within which it is to be applied.     

The long‐term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long‐term effect of project‐based housing assistance—public housing and private assisted housing—on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project‐based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Overall, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The decline of an export industry,or the growth of Peruvian sugar consumption in the long run

Growth of domestic consumption of agricultural exportables is a neglected aspect of LDCs’ long‐run primary export performance. Price and income elasticities of local demand for specific exportables vary with economic development, so the Peruvian sugar industry was chosen to illustrate how and why such changes occur. Elasticity estimates for different types of sugar are presented for several time periods between 1913 and 1978. A comparison of these results with those of other researchers suggests that aggregating raw, refined and plantation white sugar consumption may bias income elasticity estimates for refined sugar upwards, and price elasticity estimates downwards.     

Note on land reform in Bangladesh: The efficacy of ceilings

In this note, new data concerning the agrarian structure of Bangladesh are employed to test the efficacy of ceilings on the size of landholdings as a means of making land available to the landless and the near landless. The data confirm that the numbers of potential claimants for land far exceeds the potential supply, even if ceilings on holdings were lowered from 100 standard bighas (331/3 acres) to 25 standard bighas (81/3 acres).     

Reviews

Arabic Edition of the British Council Map of Europe and the Middle East. Scale 1: 11,000,000. Royal Geographical Society

Iraq Irrigation Handbook: Part I. Euphrates. Compiled by Ahmed Sousa, under the direction of J. D. Atkinson. Published at Baghdad by the Government of Iraq, 1944. 10” × 7”. Pp. in, with 35 tables, 18 figures and 1 plate, also, in a portfolio 15” × 14”, 16 other plates. Price not stated.

Jenghis Khan. By W. Yan. Hutchinson International Authors, Ltd. 9s. 6d.

From Tunisia to Normandy. By Major‐General H. Rowan‐Robinson, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. Hutchinsoh.

Defence is Our Business. By Brigadier J. G. Smyth, V.C., M.C. Hutchinson and Co. 10s. 6d.

Anna and the King of Siam. By Margaret Landon. Illustrated by Margaret Ayer. John Day Co., New York. Pp. 391.

The Modern Prison System of India. By Lieut.‐Colonel F. A. Barker, C.I.E., O.B.E., M.A., M.D., B.C., I.M.S. (Retd.).

Fabian Colonial Essays. With an Introduction by A. Creech Jones, M.P., and edited by Dr. Rita Hinden. Geo. Allen and Unwin. Pp. 261. 8s. 6d. 1945.

Modern Exploration. F. Kingdon Ward. 124 pp. Published by Jonathan Cape at 6s.     

‘Just like working for the dole’: Rural households,export crops and state subsidies in Papua New Guinea

Globally national governments have been forced to devise means for dealing with a rising tide of unemployed and semi‐employed. One method used in industrial countries involves reducing the levels of welfare payments and attaching particular conditions for the receipt of unemployment benefits. Working for the dole is one such condition. In non‐industrial countries, with primarily rural populations and without previously established unemployment benefits, other forms of dealing with increased levels of the relative surplus population have been devised. When unemployed are associated with lawlessness, forming a threat to social order and capital accumulation, particularly in urban centres, particular efforts are made to keep people in the countryside. Although household production of export crops faces global surpluses and falling international prices, one means of pressing the relative surplus population to smallholdings has been to subsidise their growing of even greater volumes of the produce. The dressing of virtuous rhetoric, ‘honest toil’ and similar terms, should not disguise the fact that the nationally subsidised crop prices are a form of welfare payment. The payment is intended to resecure the subsumption of labour to capital in conditions where accumulation forces increasing numbers of people into pools of surplus labour. Here the case of rural households in Papua New Guinea is utilised for an argument which has a much wider application.