The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America's small-scale producers

Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter-tendency to the neo-liberal globalisation regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America's coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade's economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years' research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small-scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.     

The legal aspects of corporate computer usage policies

In this paper we examine the legal aspects of corporate computer usage policies including their creation, management, and their relevance to corporate computer forensic investigations. Misuse of corporate computing facilities cannot only lead to a reduction in employee productivity and network bandwidth, but can also increase the risk of infection of such facilities by computer viruses and other malicious code. Moreover, it may lead to the risk of liability and legal action.     

The Communal Basis of Swiss Liberty

This article examines the relationship between liberty and itscommunal basis in Switzerland. The author identifies the basiccultural values shared by the Swiss that have served to guaranteea republican form of government. These values are an expectationof "nonpersonalized" government and a preference for small-scaleorganization. These, together with the multilingual compositionof the country, have combined to produce Swiss republicanismfrom which liberty is a byproduct. More recently, the Swissnotion of liberty has evolved from communal liberty into onethat is oriented toward individual rights, which has also certainnegative implications.     

Government health policy and hospital labor costs: the effects of wage and price controls on hospital wage rates and employment

This study examines the rapid growth of hospital wage rates and employment levels over the past decade, with particular attention to the period 1971-73, when wage and price controls were in effect throughout the economy. The analysis shows that the hospital regulations under the Economic Stabilization Program reduced real hospital wages below what they would have been in the absence of controls; a similar but smaller effect of the controls on hospital employment levels is also shown. This suggests that if the current HEW proposal for hospital cost containment is enacted, its impact would be a significant decrease in the rate of growth of hospital wages and employment.     

Performance Indicators in Academia: An X‐Efficiency Approach?

This article utilises three different perspectives to evaluate the uses of performance indicators in Australian higher education: federalism, neoclassical economics and X-efficiency theory. The introduction of performance indicators by the Commonwealth government is associated with providing the most efficient path for the allocation and distribution of scarce resources in higher education (neoclassical economics), increasing its control over the universities (federalism theory), and applying pressure to them and in turn their academic members to increase their effort levels (X-efficiency theory). X-efficiency theory is proposed as a possible model to support and inform efforts to better understand and improve the operation of performance indicators.