The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in Southwestern British Columbia,Canada: Union Responses to Unprecedented Government Actions

This paper analyzes the political dynamics between a newly elected, right‐leaning provincial government and a left‐leaning public sector union that resulted in the privatization of 4000 health support housekeeping jobs in southwestern British Columbia in less than a year. The article documents how government set the stage for privatization, the struggle that ensued when the union resisted concessionary bargaining, and the new challenges that emerged for both union and management once housekeeping and other support services were taken over by multi‐national service corporations. This case is significant because the size and scope of this privatization and the legislation that facilitated it are unprecedented in Canadian history.     

British Students at the International Lenin School 1926-37: A Reaffirmation of Methods, Results, and Conclusions

Alan Campbell, John McIlroy, Barry McLoughlin, and John Halsteadhave offered a sweeping, if incoherent, criticism of the researchpresented in ‘Stalin's Sausage Machine’, our recentarticle on British students at the International Lenin School.By expanding upon and reaffirming the methods, results, andconclusion of our original article, we address each of the maincriticisms made and show that none can be substantiated. Usingstatistical analysis based on matched samples, we demonstratethat we did not underestimate the school's impact on the apparatusof the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). We also showthat none of the supposed ‘significant deficiencies’in our handling of qualitative analysis has any foundation.We deal briefly with the sole alternative explanation our criticsoffer for the CPGB's internal leadership changes, namely ‘lifeitself’ and natural causes. We suggest that such a de-politicizedinterpretation not only lacks any evidential basis but revealsa profound ignorance as to the internal workings of communistparties and flies in the face of all available literatures onthe subject. We also document the contrast between our critics'methodological pretensions and the ways in which their casedepends for its plausibility on methods of an extremely dubiousnature. Every possible academic rationale for the attack uponus is disposed of. We therefore end with a plea for a less personalizedapproach to the writing of Communist Party history.     

SPATIAL HEDONIC MODELS OF AIRPORT NOISE,PROXIMITY, AND HOUSING PRICES*

ABSTRACT Despite the refrain that housing prices are determined by “location, location, and location,” few studies of airport noise and housing prices have incorporated spatial econometric techniques. We compare various spatial econometric models and estimation methods in a hedonic price framework to examine the impact of noise on 2003 housing prices near the Atlanta airport. Spatial effects are best captured by a model including both spatial autocorrelation and autoregressive parameters estimated by a generalized moments approach. In our preferred model, houses located in an area in which noise disrupts normal activities (defined by a day–night sound level of 70–75 decibels) sell for 20.8 percent less than houses located where noise does not disrupt normal activities (defined by a day–night sound level below 65 decibels). The inclusion of spatial effects magnifies the negative price impacts of airport noise. Finally, after controlling for noise, houses farther from the airport sell for less; the price elasticity with respect to distance is −0.15, implying that airport proximity is an amenity.     

Stalin's Sausage Machine. British Students at the International Lenin School, 1926-37

Between 1926 and 1937 at least 160 British communists attendedthe Communist International's International Lenin School (ILS)in Moscow. The aims of the school were to produce a new stratumof leading communist party cadres, young, proletarian, disciplined,and free of the taint of reformism. Using materials from theComintem archives in Moscow, this article assesses the degreeto which the school was successful in meeting these objectives.It shows that among the difficulties it encountered were thereluctance of the British Communist Party (CPGB) to lose theservices of large numbers of its best activists and the uncertainapplication of the lessons inculcated by the school when studentsreturned to Britain. In the short term, ILS alumni played acrucial role in the leadership of the CPGB at both nationaland district levels, and some were also drawn into work forthe Comintern or Soviet state organs. However, by the late 1930sattendance at the school played a reduced role in appointmentsto key party positions, and as early as 1943 there was onlyone former student on the CPGB's executive committee. Set ina comparative context, it is argued that the school's significancein Britain was largely confined to the ‘long’ ThirdPeriod of 1927–35 and rapidly diminished thereafter.     

THE IMPACTS OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE ON PROPERTY VALUES: A HIGHER-ORDER SPATIAL ECONOMETRICS APPROACH

ABSTRACT.  We evaluate the impacts of enhanced transportation systems on property values for U.S. manufacturing firms, allowing for higher-order spatial error correlation. We use a state-level model of production cost and input demand that recognizes the productive contribution of public transportation infrastructure stocks. Our findings include significant impacts on property shadow values and input composition from both public highway and airport investment. We also find that these effects have a spatial dimension that depends on the proximity of the transport system; at least one and as many as three spatial error lags are significant in our estimating equations. Further, recognizing production growth from transportation system improvements augments the associated incentives for private capital investment.     

The Characterization of Vegetable Tannins and Colouring Agents in Ancient Egyptian Leather from the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This work characterizes both tanning and colouring materials found in ancient Egyptian leather objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The analytical investigations focused on assessing the development of the technology of ancient tanners using high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), X‐ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT–IR), X‐ray radiography and a scanning electron microscope connected to an energy‐dispersive X‐ray detector (SEM–EDX). Reference leather samples and archaeological leather objects were investigated to identify the animal skin species and the early use of hydrolyzable vegetable tannins for leather tanning. Different methods were used to colour th leather, including madder dying and staining with hematite, or painting with Egyptian blue and Egyptian green.