Labour market oligopsonistic competition: ...

the effect of worker immobility on wages

an article by Marios Michaelides (IMPAQ International, Labor Research Division) in Labour Economics

Abstract

We suggest that firms in a local labour market may be able to exploit worker mobility costs and offer immobile workers wages that are lower than their marginal product. If so, the ability of employers to exploit worker immobility in setting wages would decline in the competitiveness of the local labour market. We test this intuition using a measure of individual mobility costs and measures of local labour market competition. Our findings suggest that worker immobility causes substantial wage variation across workers in small, weakly competitive markets, and in occupations where wages are individually bargained.

Hazel’s comment:
Intrigued by a word in the title of this article that was completely outwith my vocabulary I set out to track down a meaning which allowed me to make sense of the article.

Thank you, Google, for your “define:” feature.

oligopsony – similar to an oligopoly, but where a small number of large buyers (not sellers) control a large proportion of the market and drive prices down. investors.saic.com/glossary.cfm

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Game as a career metaphor: ...

a chaos theory career counselling application

an article by Robert George Leslie Pryor and Jim E H Bright (Australian Catholic University, Sydney) in British Journal of Guidance & Counselling Volume 37 Issue 1 (February 2009)

Abstract

The potential of game as a career metaphor for use in counselling is explored and it is argued that it has been largely overlooked in the literature to date. This metaphor is then explicitly linked with the Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC), by showing how the notion of attractors within the CTC can be illustrated effectively using games metaphors. Games simultaneously illustrate the closed and open systems aspects of human endeavours and therefore can be a useful way of encouraging clients to appreciate the contingent and uncertain nature of their career development. It is argued, therefore, that metaphors provide an example of analogical reasoning that is useful for dealing with the modern counselling realities of complexity, connectedness, systems, changeability and chance.

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Re-conceptualisation of higher education quality management problems ...

using feedback systems thinking

an article by Benedict Oyo and Ddembe Williams in International Journal of Management in Education Volume 3 Number 3/4 (2009)

Abstract

Higher education institutions’ quality management-related problems are rooted in the underlying dynamics, complexity and nonlinearity of the systems’ structure in educational settings. An attempt to address these problems before understanding their causes has often led to no lasting solution. It has also been suggested that the degree of success of any intervention approach to quality improvement depends on the rigour of problem conceptualisation phase. This paper calls for the adoption of cause-effect analysis in identifying and representing higher education quality management problems, taking into account the inherent feedback within the quality system structure. The paper contends that feedback systems thinking provides higher education managers and quality assurance researchers with tools for quality process analysis. A feedback structure drawn from the Ugandan universities’ setting is used to illustrate the usefulness of feedback systems thinking for conceptualisation of quality problems.

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Social class and participation in further education:

evidence from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales

an article by Ron Thompson (School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield) in: British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 30 Issue 1 (January 2009)

Abstract
This paper examines the class distribution of young people, aged 16-17 years, in colleges of further education (FE) using data from the Youth Cohort Study. It finds that, contrary to popular perceptions of FE colleges as being for “other people’s children”, middle-class students as well as working-class students are well represented. However, this does not imply that FE colleges are institutions of choice; middle-class representation is often related to lower achievement and, for low-achieving working-class students, leaving education entirely is more likely than entry to FE. These findings are explored using notions of habitus and field. Their relationship with studies of the education of middle-class children is also discussed, and the paper suggests that research on class in FE colleges must come to terms with middle-class presence.

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Élite destinations: ...

pathways to attending an Ivy League university

an article by Ann L Mullen (Department of Sociology, University of Toronto) in British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 30 Issue 1 (January 2009)

Abstract
As higher education expands and becomes more differentiated, patterns of class stratification remain deeply entrenched, in part due to class-based differences in college choice. A qualitative study of 50 Yale students shows the effects of social class, high schools and peers on students’ pathways to college. For students from wealthy and highly educated families, the choice of an Ivy League institution becomes normalised through the inculcated expectations of families, the explicit positioning of schools, and the peer culture. Without these advantages, less-privileged students more often place élite institutions outside the realm of the possible – in part because of concerns of élitism. These findings suggest that even low socioeconomic-status students with exceptional academic credentials must overcome substantial hurdles to arrive at an Ivy League university.

Hazel’s comment:
It's not just in the UK that the economically deprived find it difficult to break down the barriers to entry into the institutions of the economically advantaged.

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Ten trivial (i.e. non-work-related) items

Big toys for big boys via In through the Outfield by Neil Infield
It is often said that men are just boys in adult bodies. This seems to be the approach taken by Männerspielplatz, an amusement park for men that lets them get in touch with their inner construction worker (thanks to SpringWise)
Neil has really surpassed himself with finding this gem!

Baby pictures in lost wallets increase the chance they will be returned via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

Edinburgh psych researcher Richard Wiseman and team left a load of wallets lying around with various contents, trying to see if there was a correlation between, say, baby pictures or cards indicating charitable giving and the rate at which wallets are returned.
Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture (via Derren Brown)

via Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
Christina Hoff Sommers has been called a "thug," a "parasite," and a "female impersonator." But to be accused of practicing "metonymic historiography" - Oh, dear... more

via Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
The mind is not the brain. To confuse the two, which is what neuroscience does all the time, leads to a world bereft of meaning, morality, dignity, and freedom... more

via Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
Albert might marry Victoria, but he was not to run the household. He was only allowed to bring from Germany his valet, his librarian, and his greyhound... more

Friday Fun: Redstar Fall via the How-To Geek by Mysticgeek
This Friday we take a look at a fun and relaxing physics flash game called Redstar Fall. It becomes challenging the higher up in levels you go and provides fun distraction until the whistle blows. The goal of the game is to get the red star on the platform by removing different objects but don't let it fall off. Play Redstar Fall

via Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
Auto repair as a skilled manual labor is far more cognitive than most people realize, Matthew Crawford says. And it's one thing that can't outsourced to China... more

Birth and early history of the Internet video via Phil Bradley's weblog
Found this really nice little gem of a video from Peter Scott's weblog.
It's about 8 minutes long and gives a really nice simple introduction to the early history of the Internet.
History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

via Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate
Col. Percy Fawcett was convinced by research, deduction, and clairvoyance that an undiscovered city lay hidden in the Amazon. So he tried to find it... more

Survival of the fitness craze by Fiona Russell via The Herald
It started with the Russian special forces and was then revamped as a US military training method, before celebrities such as Lance Armstrong, Sly Stallone, Jennifer Aniston and Penelope Cruz became converts. Now the ancient-looking kettlebells have arrived in Scotland and it seems that demand is outstripping workshop places. Read more
But what is a kettlebell? I was intrigued to discover that it's more like a kettle ball. Take one medium-sized child's ball and add a handle from an old-fashioned, stand on the stove, kettle and there you just about have it.
Google brings up a lot of companies trying to sell these things, which come in a range of colours and weights (including pink 2kg ones for the ladies), but my favourite find was a photo from Iran in 1897 on a “vintage kettlebells” blog.

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Powerlessness corrupts

I recently “re-found” this short essay by Richard Reeves and thought to share it with you in the context of the powerlessness of people to overcome the effects of the recession on their lives.

via Demos Greenhouse by Richard Reeves

Lord Acton famously wrote in 1887 that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. (Actually his Lordship's full name was John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, which takes some beating.) But Acton was thinking about power over others – and in particular arbitrary, unaccountable power. Like Cicero, Rousseau, Harrington, Mill and Madison, Acton feared the consequences of all forms of slavery, not only for the slave but the owner, too.

Autonomy – self-government – is something else. The power to set and alter the trajectory of your own life is not corrupting, but liberating. That's why Demos searches for and communicates ideas to give people more power to shape their own lives. I hate the term “empowerment”, because it presupposes that it is the job of others (the well-educated élite) to improve others: there are few more patronising phrases than “I am here to empower you”. Similarly, discussions of the “devolution” of power start from the presumption that power should ordinarily be held by the officers of the expert state. Any dispersal of power has to justified on economic or efficiency grounds. This is entirely the wrong way round. Witness the conservative alliance of the British Medical Association and UNISON opposing progressive government plans to extend pilots giving people with long-term health conditions their own budgets. But power, like jam, is best spread around. Our starting point should be that power lies in the hands of people, with every step towards centralisation strongly justified in terms of better outcomes for the disenfranchised individuals and communities.

Our vision is a democracy of free citizens, with an equal stake in society. Attaining these goals requires progress along four axes, which guide Demos’s work: more capable citizens; public institutions which enhance independence; opportunities for citizenship; and security. A society of powerful citizens will be better for all. The most disadvantaged in our society are those who lack a sense of power over their own destinies, who live at the mercy of others. The powerless end up detatched from society, politics and community. In the end, it is not power which corrupts, but powerlessness.

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