The lay system in commercial fisheries: Origin and implications

In most commercial fisheries, the crew is remunerated via some form of the lay system. Under the lay system, the crew is paid with a share of revenues or a share of revenues less costs. Naturally, the presence and the functioning of the lay system are well known and accepted as one of fishery's important institutions. Compared with share contracts in agriculture, however, the lay in fisheries has garnered relatively little research. This article has two goals. First, we provide an explanation for the existence of the lay system as an incentive mechanism to alleviate a potential team agency problem. This explanation of the lay system explains anomalies, such as the presence of wages in some fisheries, that are odds with the theory of pure risk sharing. Second we show the implications of the lay system for econometric modeling of fisheries and for understanding firm behavior. In general we conclude that models that fail to account explicitly for the incentive properties of shares are likely to provide poor representations of fishing firm behavior. The thrust of the paper is that the formation and working of the lay system are a fundamental force in fisheries influencing firm behavior and research results in a way that has been largely ignored.     

Where are the Sunday babies? II. Declining weekend birth rates in Switzerland

Birth dates from almost 3 million babies born between 1969 and 2005 in Switzerland were analyzed for the weekday of birth. As in other countries but with unprecedented amplitude, a very marked non-random distribution was discovered with decreasing numbers of births on weekends, reaching -17.9% in 2005. While most of this weekend births avoidance rate is due to fewer births on Sundays (up to -21.7%), the downward trend is primarily a consequence of decreasing births on Saturdays (up to -14.5%). For 2005, these percentages mean that 3,728 fewer babies are born during weekends than could be expected from equal distribution. Most interestingly and surprisingly, weekend birth-avoiding rates are significantly correlated with birth numbers (r = 0.86), i.e. the lower the birth number per year, the lower the number of weekend births. The increasing avoidance of births during weekends is discussed as being a consequence of increasing numbers of caesarean sections and elective labor induction, which in Switzerland reach 29.2 and 20.5%, respectively, in 2004. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that both primary and secondary caesarean sections are significantly correlated with weekend birth avoidance rates. It is therefore likely that financial aspects of hospitals are a factor determining the avoidance of weekend births by increasing the numbers of caesarean sections.     

我国女职工劳动保护立法问题研究

在多年从事妇女劳动问题研究的基础上 ,对我国企业执行女职工劳动保护法律、法规和政策的状况 ,从不同的角度进行描述和评价。分析各类所有制企业在女职工劳动保护方面存在的突出问题 ,并探讨修正现行女职工劳动保护立法的可能性 ,特别是对国务院的行政法规———《女职工劳动保护规定》提出比较具体的修订建议。这些建议包括对妇女进入劳动或工作过程之前的平等就业机会的保护 ,但主要侧重妇女就业之后 ,在工作场所中的劳动保护问题     

浅谈对劳动和劳动价值理论的认识

随着科学技术的发展和劳动形成、结构的变化,社会上对马克思的劳动和劳动价值理论存在种种误解和曲解。技术进步、社会分工和生产的发展,科学技术工作和经营管理作为劳动的重要形式,在生产中发挥着越来越重要的作用。但马克思的劳动和劳动价值理论在当今世界没有过时和失效。     

香港特区建筑安全管理的探讨与借鉴

近年来 ,香港特区的建筑业安全状况有了长足进步 ,由于香港的发展既长期受到西方国家先进技术和知识的影响 ,同时又具有中国的传统文化背景 ,因此 ,研究其成功的经验对内地的建筑安全工作有着十分重要的借鉴意义。笔者主要从香港政府部门 (劳工处和环境运输工务局 )对建筑安全的管理和非政府机构 (职业安全健康局、绿十字会等 )对建筑安全的作用两方面进行探讨 ,总结香港特区在建筑安全方面的成功做法 ,最后对内地的建筑安全工作提出了一些建议。     

劳动湖水环境评价与防治对策

对齐齐哈尔市劳动湖水环境进行了评价,并对劳动湖水环境变化趋势和污染原因进行了分析,提出了防治对策,为齐齐哈尔市政府和环境管理部门提供科学依据。     

The water-energy-food nexus: Is the increasing attention warranted,from either a research or policy perspective?

In recent years, the notion of a nexus involving water, energy, and food has been gaining attention in the scholarly literature and popular press, due partly to the impetus provided by an international conference on the nexus in 2011, and partly to the increasing interest among researchers and public officials in determining the investments and policies needed to achieve and sustain water, energy, and food security. While the notion of such a nexus is compelling to some observers, interactions involving water, energy, and food have been known and studied for many years by scientists and policy analysts. The need for greater integration of research and policy discourse across sectors and regions has been expressed in international meetings since the late 1940s. In addition, the conceptual basis for including water, energy, and food in the “nexus,” to the exclusion of other resources and inputs is not evident. In many cases, the information excluded from studies claiming to implement a nexus approach might be of greater importance to science and policy than the information included in the analysis. In this paper, I review some of the experience gained in earlier attempts to enhance integration and policy coherence, and to promote systems analysis. The challenges observed in implementing programs of integrated natural resources management (INRM) and integrated water resources management (IWRM), in particular, suggest that efforts to implement a water-energy-food nexus approach will not enhance the policy process in all settings. In sum, it is not clear that the increasing attention given to studies claiming to implement a nexus approach is warranted.     

The Role of Ethnobotanical Skills and Agricultural Labor in Forest Clearance: Evidence from the Bolivian Amazon

Research on the benefits of local ecological knowledge for conservation lacks empirical data on the pathways through which local knowledge might affect natural resources management. We test whether ethnobotanical skills, a proxy for local ecological knowledge, are associated to the clearance of forest through their interaction with agricultural labor. We collected information from men in a society of gatherers–horticulturalist, the Tsimane’ (Bolivia). Data included a baseline survey, a survey of ethnobotanical skills (n = 190 men), and two surveys on agricultural labor inputs (n = 466 plots). We find a direct effect of ethnobotanical skills in lowering the extent of forest cleared in fallow but not in old-growth forest. We also find that the interaction between ethnobotanical skills and labor invested in shifting cultivation has opposite effects depending on whether the clearing is done in old-growth or fallow forest. We explain the finding in the context of Tsimane’ increasing integration to the market economy.     

森林转型、农地边际化与生态恢复

中国20世纪80年代迎来了国家土地利用形态的转型,即代表自然生态空间的森林面积降至低谷后反转向上,代表人类干扰较强的耕地面积从扩张到收缩.这是生态状况从整体恶化向整体改善转变的最直接原因.森林转型对应着国家经济社会发展的阶段性演进过程,存在着必然性.其直接原因,是农林交错带的农业在与森林竞争土地资源的过程中失去优势.伴随工业化和城市化的劳动力价格上升,生活水平提高带来的林木产品需求增加,是森林竞争力提高和农业竞争力下降的经济驱动力;而转型前农业扩张引起的生态退化,则是其政策驱动力.在中国森林转型初期,政策起到了关键的促进作用.随着城市化的加速发展,人口年龄结构向老年型转变,中国迎来了劳动力工资持续上涨的阶段.以坡耕地为代表的劳动力密集型农地利用方式,由于难以实现机械化,劳动生产率与平原区农业的差距将越来越大,被“边际化”的可能性越来越高.这给森林面积或自然生态空间的进一步扩张提供了机会.