To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
This chapter considers the pension ‘problems’ that worried the 1979–83 government. The first was how to protect pensioners from inflation without creating an ever-widening gap between the retired and working generations. In different forms, this problem was understood as one of redistribution, intergenerational fairness, and an instance of a ‘ratchet’ effect, whereby small measures led to ever more extreme distributional effects over time. The analysis shows how the government sought to redress this not via system change but by adjusting how it administered the existing apparatus. The second problem identified was the proportion of resources that society would need to devote to pensions of all kinds in future and whether and when this would become unsustainable. This ‘burden’ of pensions was debated and defined through public speeches and technical work by officials within government. By 1983 it provided enough of an imperative that the government returned to office in June that year no longer felt limited to outflanking industry interests and pursuing reform within the existing system but, instead, began seriously to attempt revolutionary change. Through this account, the chapter offers a new characterisation of the Thatcher government’s first term. Rather than a government lacking the radical zeal of its successors, it shows that Thatcher’s first administration was frustrated by the feeling it had boxed itself in. In policy fields such as pensions, the chapter argues, the first Thatcher government is best thought of as practising ‘problem disiy’ through a neoliberal lens.
This study examines how income, location and regional disparities are associated with food expenditure and dietary diversity in Mexico. Using household expenditure data and an entropy-based approach, we confirm Engel’s Law: food budget shares decline with income but do so unevenly across urban–rural areas and regions. Consistent with the Engel curve for variety, wealthier households diversify their diets, spending more on high-value foods, while poorer rural households remain reliant on staples. Quantile regression shows that income has the strongest positive effect on diversity at lower quantiles, with diminishing returns at higher levels. Household characteristics, education, region, and food prices further influence diet. The results thereby underscore the need for income-sensitive, regionally targeted nutrition policies.
This Element presents a framework for analyzing the complexities of contracting, how these vary across circumstances, the ways contract managers can address challenges, and the skills of contract managers. The framework is grounded on central concepts. Market frictions are underlying imperfections that cause common contracting problems; contract management activities are the tasks and procedures that contract managers perform to prepare and execute the purchase; and skills are the ability to perform contract management activities that identify and mitigate frictions. These concepts are interdependent – market frictions can influence the efficacy of contract management activities, activities may reduce or increase the presence of frictions, and skills may influence both the choice and effectiveness of activities in addressing contracting challenges. Omitting any of these components is likely to result in misleading accounts of the root causes and potential solutions to contracting challenges.
This paper studies efficiency in the housing market in the presence of search frictions and endogenous entry of buyers and sellers. These two features are essential to explain the housing market stylized facts and to generate an upward-sloping Beveridge Curve in the housing market. Search frictions and endogenous entry create two externalities in the market. First, there is a congestion externality common to markets with search frictions. Sellers do not internalize the effect of listing a house for sale on other sellers’ probability of finding a buyer. Second, the endogenous entry of buyers leads to a participation externality, as new entrants in the market raise search costs for all buyers. The equilibrium is inefficient even when the Hosios-Mortensen-Pissarides condition holds. Using a calibration to the US housing market, we quantify the size of these externalities and how far the housing market is from the optimal allocation. The optimal vacancy rate and time-to-sell are about half their equilibrium counterparts, whereas the optimal number of buyers and homeowners are above their decentralized equilibrium values. Finally, we investigate how housing market policies restore efficiency in the housing market.
The design of subnational fiscal frameworks shapes how tax and spending choices affect fiscal sustainability. Using Scotland as a case, we show that its fiscal health depends crucially on how the UK Government manages its own sustainability. National and subnational fiscal sustainability are interconnected. Differences in factors like demographics and health between Scotland and the UK also influence fiscal outcomes. These dynamics must inform any debate on reforming the UK’s fiscal frameworks, especially if further devolution—including to English regions—is pursued.
Using an administrative nationwide dataset of 1,673 tea producers, this study examines the key factors that drive tea pricing. Empirical results indicate that price levels vary across production regions, tea varieties, altitude, and certification status. On average, black tea commands higher prices, while other teas (green, Oolong, and Baozhong) are typically lower. However, as a special local tea, Oriental Beauty (and other teas) has the highest price. The cultivation altitude and organic certification are significantly associated with price premiums. In summary, this study provides strong evidence to show that regional origin, growing conditions, and certification may greatly influence tea’s market price, offering practical insights for producers and policymakers.
This study examines the relationship between microfinance and poverty alleviation, considering the moderating effect of both digital and traditional financial knowledge, as well as of social capital. The data sample comprises survey responses from 500 clients of conventional and Islamic microfinance institutions in Bhakkar, one of Pakistan’s most dynamic microfinance districts. The empirical results, obtained via structural equation modeling, show that digital financial knowledge positively moderates the relationship between microfinance effectiveness and poverty alleviation. A similar result is found for the moderating role of social capital when traditional financial knowledge is included in the model. However, this is not the case when digital financial knowledge is included in the model. These findings emphasize the importance of promoting both financial literacy and digital skills to maximize the positive impact of microfinance on poverty reduction.
As part of the Journal of Management and Organization’s 30th birthday celebration it is important to reflect and consider what is valuable advice. This perspective article is coauthored by a number of academics and brings together their thoughts about value in management practice. An international array of management teachers and researchers provide their advice in the hope of inspiring future generations of management researchers.
Drawing on the New Economics of Labour Migration and debt overhang theories, this study investigates the joint impact of remittances and external debt on CO2 emissions in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from 1991 to 2023. Using balanced panel data and multi-stage estimation techniques—including pooled OLS, Driscoll–Kraay standard errors and Feasible GLS—the study finds that remittance inflows consistently reduce emissions, likely by enabling cleaner household investments. In contrast, both external debt stock and debt servicing increase emissions, suggesting that debt burdens may crowd out environmentally friendly public spending. Notably, the interaction between debt stock and servicing shows a mitigating effect, while heavy debt servicing diminishes the environmental benefits of remittances. Additionally, urbanization and financial development contribute to higher emissions. These findings highlight the need for integrated policies that direct remittances towards green investments and incorporate environmental conditions into debt-servicing frameworks, helping South Asian countries pursue more sustainable development paths.
Credit rating agencies (CRAs) are less likely and slower to downgrade firms with performance-sensitive debt (PSD) if these downgrades increase borrowing costs. This effect is stronger when CRAs rate their most profitable clients and is not driven by selection into PSD contracts, by borrowers adjusting their leverage, or by borrowers hiding information. Originating banks price the CRAs’ conflicts of interest and sell loans with more embedded conflicts more frequently. In contrast, secondary market participants do not price conflicts of interest to the same extent. The recent settlements between the major CRAs and the U.S. government do not prevent rating inflation.
According to its 2022 national glacier inventory, Chile is home to 26,169 glaciers and roughly 80 percent of the glaciers in South America. Yet much of this ice is not legally protected. Diverse local communities whose lifeworlds depend on the spiritual and material integrity of Andean glaciers and their meltwaters are placing growing demands on Chilean glaciologists to accompany grassroots campaigns to defend these ecosystems from the direct impacts of anthropogenic interventions amid the climate crisis and years of megadrought. This article builds off a feminist glaciology framework to examine if, how, and to what extent an emerging generation of Andean glacier scientists is learning to question the masculinist and Western modes of knowledge, thinking, and action embedded in their disciplinary training. Through ethnographic fieldwork with glacier scientists, arrieros (herders), and grassroots organizations in the municipality of Putaendo in Central Chile, and the author’s participation in codesigning a knowledge exchange between Mapuche communities and glacier scientists in the province of Araucanía, this article analyzes the possibility for dialogues between ancestral, local, and technoscientific knowledges to transform the dominant discourses and practices of glaciology. It demonstrates the ontological openings that occur when knowledges that have been systematically marginalized from the technoscientific domain of glacier science are taken seriously in conversations over the present and future of the cryosphere. And it argues that these ontological exchanges not only impact the possibility of climate justice for those communities most directly affected by glacier loss but also can contribute to building more feminist, plural, and decolonial praxis within contemporary glaciology.
Studies have called for exploring authentic leadership in diverse contexts, as organizations expressed a need for credible leadership amid challenging business times and societal volatilities. However, there has been limited consideration of the cultural and contextual boundaries of authentic leadership. This paper addresses this gap in literature and expands the empirical evidence by investigating the conceptualization of authentic leadership through a qualitative study in the context of West Africa. To this end, this research adopts a life-story approach with a variety of 16 business executives who shared their leadership experiences from Ghana. The findings of this research not only support and enrich the multifactorial characteristics of authentic leadership but also reveal an emerging dimension described as collective orientation. Additionally, the findings indicate that authentic leadership holds cultural relevance in emerging economies. Therefore, managers aiming to promote authentic leadership in their organizations need to recognize contextual values and cultivate appropriate environments to achieve positive outcomes.
Career progression in academia is negotiated across multiple stages, yet the relational and institutional dynamics shaping these negotiations remain underexamined. This article examines how career progression negotiations unfold between STEM women academics and decision-makers, including faculty Deans, within Australian universities. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory, the study analyses 50 interviews across 14 STEM faculties. The study finds that career progression negotiations are identity-evaluative encounters that determine whether women academics are recognised as legitimate and promotion-ready. Women academics are required to render their identities visible, coherent, and credible, while decision-makers selectively interpret these claims through institutional expectations of readiness, risk, and merit. These evaluative negotiations accumulate across formal and informal interactions, shaping career trajectories before promotion decisions are made. By theorising intersectional identity negotiation as a relational and co-constructed process, the study recasts career progression as an institutional site of negotiated power, highlighting how practices reproduce or contest inequities in academia.
This paper is a part of the project supported by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 call (project ID is 101027432). We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the participants of the sessions organized at the World Economic History Congress in Paris, CLIO World Conference in Dublin, and the European Historical Economics Society meeting in Groningen, WEast 2023 Conference in Prague, as well as the participants of the seminar series in Utrecht, Groningen, Abu Dhabi (NYU), London (LSE), Odense (SDU), and Berlin (Humboldt), the participants of internal seminars at the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Bologna. We are especially thankful to the participants of the 2023 Summer Workshop in the Economic History and Historical Political Economy of Eurasia (Paris). We especially appreciate the help of Dmitrii Khitrov with map design. We also acknowledge substantive comments by Jutta Bolt, Jonathan Chapman, Herman de Jong, Steven Hoch, Andrei Markevich, Steven Nafziger, Paul Sharp, Alessandro Stanziani, and Jan Luiten van Zanden.