Documents found
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71.More information
Do we do enough for the future? This question is related to many different current issues, from the reduction of sovereign debt in Europe, to the pension reform, the fight against climate change, the preservation of natural resources, the level of public investment in infrastructure, or the fiscal treatment of long-term savings for example. Our social responsibility towards future generations is decentralized through the choice of the discount rate, which determines the tradeoff between present sacrifices and future benefits. How should we define the efficient level of long-termism? In this paper, I summarize the most important evolutions in the economic analysis of this question in recent years. Given the strong uncertainties that prevail concerning the long term evolution of our society, I recommend to use a discount rate ranging from 2 times the anticipated growth rate of consumption for short time horizons, going down to 1 % for time horizons above 100 years. The systematic risk premium should also have a term structure, starting at around 1 % for short maturities to 3 % for extra-long ones.
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72.More information
The change in status of its territory with the law of March 19, 1946 does not lead to the end of the business island in Guadeloupe: Until the 1980s, it remained under the influence of the sugar industry imposed as the only one. tool of its economic development. How is this longevity explained? Who are the players and what networks do they rely on? That's the subject of this article.
Keywords: Guadeloupe, patronat, réseau, industrie sucrière, décolonisation, pouvoirs, Guadeloupe, employers, networks, sugar industry, decolonization, powers
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73.More information
This paper analyzes how French regional venture capital now holds as a performing original model. Its original features are linked with the profound heterogeneity of operators and their specialization according to different spatial levels embodied in each other.We present the strategies of those different operators, and a typology of them, based upon a distinction between financial logic and institutional. The first one governs the activity of private organs intending to make profit from spatial amenities provided by their local insertion. The second one comes from the growing responsibility taken by local public authorities to overcome the dramatic subcapitalization of small and medium firms.Even if the offer of equity to those firms is still missing, a new paradigm of regional development is bound to emerge in France from the interdependencies between public and private funding.
Keywords: Développement régional et local, Capital de risque, Financement de la création, Financement de l'innovation, Collectivités territoriales
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74.More information
AbstractLegal Pluralism and Immigration : The Case of Moroccans in BelgiumLaw case in Belgium involving Muslims and affecting personal status have multiplied over the past few years. The practical interest in Belgium of Muslim family law derives from the persistence of the rule on conflicts of laws in article 3, paragraphe 3 of the Belgian Civil Law Code. This provision authorizes a liberal treatment and the recognition of foreign personal status. It leads to difficulties in harmonizing a law that fundamentally remains very dependent on its coranic origin, with the prescriptions of the secularized Belgian code. Going beyond the technical details of the conflict on law codes, authorities and jurisdictions, this study focuses upon an incompatibility. This incompatibility is not limited to the law codes. The inadequacies of the law are seen here as an exemple of the problem of communication between cultures.
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75.More information
INTRODUCTIONShift work more and more appears to be an economical necessity and seems to spread into many industrial sectors — almost everybody is submitted to it. However, it is necessary to have a better knowledge of the advantages and dangers of that kind of work in order to prevent and to palliate them.ITS CAUSESThe technical reasons that are the origin of that kind of work are well known. But economical factors are much more important and determine the actual growth of shift work — Those factors are :a) the cost of equipment is higher ;b) because of progress, equipment grows older more rapidly than its real depreciation.However there are a few social reasons for shift work :a ) a few public services cannot be stopped ;b) the necessity of lenghtening opening hours of stores, etc.Shift work is thus a characteristic of an advanced period of the technical, economical and social evolution of industrial societies.ITS FORMSEven though that kind of work is quite used in large firms, note is to be taken that shift work has different forms depending of the industrial sector.The General Commisariate of the French Plan has published in its survey a graphic that clearly shows the mentioned differences. TABLE I THE DISTRIBUTION OF SHIFT-WORKERS IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTORS Percentage of firms using % of wage earners working on shift work shifts in every sector Metal production 60.4 55.0 Textile industry 39.1 37.0 Paper industry 35.1 29.0 Chemical industry 26.1 26.0 Building material 22.0 20.0As a general rule, let us say that in France, one wage-earner out of six works on shifts. Thus only a minority of wage-earners are implied in that kind of work ; however it is not an exception anymore limited to some industrial sectors.ITS ORGANIZATIONThat are mainly two sorts of shift work : the two team and the three team shift-work :1 ) In the two team shift work, the system is quite homogeneous : only beginning and ending hours of work vary. The most fluently practiced time table is the following :6 a.m. — 2 p.m. — morning team ;2 p.m. — 10 p.m. — afternoon team.2) In the three team shift work, in the textile industry, for example, the usual time tables are :5 a.m. — 1 p.m. — morning team ;1 p.m. — 9 p.m. — afternoon team ;9 p.m. — 5 a.m. — night team.However, in the textile industry, the percentage of women employed brings out many difficulties.Three systems of organization exist :1.—In the first system, the worker changes of shift each week.2.—In the second, the order of succession of the shifts is different : from P.M. to A.M., from A.M. to night shift and from night shift to P.M.3.—The third system officially requires three teams to cover the twenty four hours. In fact, this system needs four teams : three teams are working while the fourth is at rest.The complexity of three problems is in fact due to the difficulties and practices of each industry and is also due to the difficulties met in their application and to the preference of wage-earners to certain time tables.Those difficulties are at the same time :a ) familial— change in normal life customs.— difficulties in practicing familial responsabilities.b) social— difficulties in keeping in relations with friends.— the shift-worker feels « social dead ».— he feels on the fringe of the union, the firm and society.— he cannot take advantage of formation and leisure program.c) physiological.The dangers of shift work are quite discussed. Note is to be taken that it has been proven that workers are more inclined to work on the morning shift than on any other shift. In fact, as Menzel puts it, there is a general deficiency of blood circulation during night time.On the other hand, daily rest, in order to be as complete and refreshing as night rest, would necessitate silence and lodging facilities that are quite rare at the present time especially in France.The following table on insomnia illustrates my idea : TABLE II WORKERS AFFECTED BY INSOMNIA % affected by insomnia Living at their Bad lodging place conditions Day-labourer 12 18 Shift workers 15 75 Day-labourer having been shift-worker 84 97However, two points must be taken into consideration about women in the labor force :a) shift work is often imposed to them and, because of their non-unionization, it is difficult for them to resist ;b) night shift affects domestic duties of women.Note is to be taken that the major cause of physiological and nervous desiquilibrium is the frequent changes in time tables. Thus keeping the body from finding a regular life rythm so necessary.CONCLUSIONOne could solve the problem by using four teams instead of three : the night shift would not work more than four hours. To do so, it would be preferable to employ half time workers especially for those night shifts.The present situation could be ameliorated :a) by avoiding to ask workers living far from the firm or having bad lodgingconditions to work on night shifts ; b ) by increasing medical supervision of these workers ;c) by avoiding to place on work shift those who cannot medically get adapted to it or older workers used to work daily on fixed time tables ;d) by making a special effort to give medical information to employers and wage earners on the dangers of changing time-tables.It seems that we are inclined to a greater use of this kind of work. We must try to adapt it to man. The contrary is impossible. Even economies will never modify physological laws. That is why research must be continued in order to determine the dangers of shift work. In addition to this, an information campaign must be undertaken in order to eliminate changing time-tables.
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78.More information
ABSTRACTThe article deals with the paradoxes and conflicts which have appeared since the return to democracy in Brazil at the beginning of the eighties, considering the local participation of the newly-formed political parties, the emergence of a relatively new type of crime for Brazil (organized crime centred around drug trafficking) and the role of a current inside the Catholic Church, as well as recently-created neo-Pentecostal sects. As a result of the interaction amongst those social actors, new forms of fear have become an important dimension in order to understand the recent developments in local politics within the favelas (irregular housing) of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, as well as other Brazilian towns. The article focuses on the pitfalls and paradoxes of the communitarian orientation adopted by the opposition parties and the left of the Catholic Church which ended up by reinforcing the clientelismo and parochialism which they intended to combat. It also discusses the predicaments experienced with the development of democratic procedures, a consequence of the new religious conflict and the presence of armed drug traffickers in the favelas.