Continuity and Change in World Bank Development Discourses and the Rhetoric Role of Accounting

Purpose ? The paper traces how the World Bank has utilised accounting rhetoric/languages in articulating development discourses at different stages of global capitalism through the case study of development projects in Sri Lanka and published development reports. Design/methodology/approach ? Multiple methods are employed including archival research and interviews. In-depth interviews were organised with village level development project participants. Development reports published by the World Bank (1978-2006) are closely examined. Findings ? Development projects in Sri Lanka and development reports show that ideological shifts brought about the changes in accounting rhetoric in development discourses. The paper further shows that the articulations and re-articulations of development discourse have yet to grasp the real complexity of the local problems in those villages in Sri Lanka. The mere focus on management styles (albeit important) driven by the ideology of the aid agencies seems to bring little reward to villagers and, indeed, the policy makers. Research limitations/implications ? This study focuses on the effectiveness of development projects and shows how culture and values in a traditional local setting are in conflict with rational ideas imported from a different setting. This finding has policy implications for the economic development programmes often prescribed by the aid agencies without considering the local context. Originality/value ? The paper adds to the literature on the use of accounting languages in development discourses, especially in the context of Less Developed Countries (LDCs). It will be of great value to researchers and practitioners seeking to gain a better understanding of reforms driven by a particular set of accounting technology in distant places

Gender gap in Hong Kong: an update

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Implementation of Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in Hong Kong: Predictors of programme completion and clinical outcomes

This study examined the effectiveness of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in a government child health service delivery context with Chinese parents in Hong Kong. Specifically, the study sought to identify pre-intervention variables that might predict programme outcomes such as, level of clinical improvement and programme completion. Participants were 661 parents of pre-school and primary aged children participating in a group version of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program. There were significant decreases in disruptive child behaviours, levels of parenting stress, general stress and anxiety and an increase in parenting sense of competence. Greater change in reports of child behaviour problems was related to lower levels of family income, new immigrant family status, and higher pre-intervention levels of parenting stress. The present study provides a profile of parents who are most likely to benefit from parent training programmes

Under-reporting of inpatient services utilisation in household surveys – a population-based study in Hong Kong

BACKGROUND: Recognising that household interviews may produce biased estimates of health services utilisation, we examined for under- and over-reporting of hospitalisation episodes in three recent, consecutive population-based household surveys in Hong Kong. METHODS: Territory-wide inpatient service utilisation volumes as estimated from the 1999, 2001 and 2002 Thematic Household Surveys (THS) were benchmarked against corresponding statistics derived from routine administrative databases. Between-year differences on net under-reporting were quantified by Cohen's d effect size. To assess the potential for systematic biases in under-reporting, age- and sex-specific net under-reporting rates within each survey year were computed and the F-test was performed to evaluate differences between demographic subgroups. We modelled the effects of age and sex on the likelihood of ever hospitalisation through logistic regression to compare the odds ratios respectively derived from survey and administrative data. RESULTS: The extent of net under-reporting was moderately large in all three years amounting to about one-third of all inpatient episodes. However, there did not appear to be significant systematic biases in the degree of under-reporting by age or sex on stratified analyses and logistic regression modelling. CONCLUSION: Under-reporting was substantial in Hong Kong's THS. Recall bias was likely most responsible for such reporting inaccuracies. A proper full-design record-check study should be carried out to confirm the present findings

Exploring the interplay between Buddhism and career development : a study of highly skilled women workers in Sri Lanka

This article adopts a socio cultural lens to examine the role of Buddhism in highly skilled women workers’ careers in Sri Lanka. While Buddhism enabled women’s career development by giving them strength to cope with difficult situations in work, it also seemed to restrict their agency and constrain their career advancement. Based on our findings, we argue that being perceived as a good Buddhist woman worked as a powerful form of career capital for the respondents in our sample, who used their faith to combat gender disadvantage in their work settings

'Parasitic invasions' or sources of good governance: constraining foreign competition in Hong Kong banking, 1956-81

This paper investigates the operation and impact of the moratorium on new banking licences imposed in Hong Kong in 1965 and the claims that foreign banks destabilised the banking system and drained resources from the colony. First it examines foreign banks' attempts to circumvent the moratorium through claims of special circumstances and buying interests in local banks, and secondly it examines the efforts of incumbents to extend barriers to non-bank financial institutions and to branches of foreign banks. The general conclusions are that while the moratorium was aimed at increasing the stability of the banking system, it had the effect of decreasing the regulatory breadth of the government, and reducing incentives for mergers and acquisitions that might have improved governance

Presenting a new defamilization and familization framework for investigating the residualization of old‐age income security measures—The case study of Hong Kong

Familisation and defamilisation studies are increasingly seen as an important component of welfare research. They are concerned with the threats to individuals’ welfare caused by involuntary participation in the unwanted family relationship. Moreover, they address that the government has the potential to reduce these threats through the provision of welfare measures. This article is intended to contribute to the familisation and defamilisaion studies with the focus on the link between these studies and the studies of residualisation strategies. It has two objectives. The first is to present a new defamilisation and familisation framework for examining the implications of the residualisation strategies used by the government to reform the old age income security system. The second is to demonstrate the empirical significance of this framework. To meet these objectives, three analytical tasks are conducted – i. to discuss the key elements of the defamilisation and familisation, ii. to examine the usefulness of this framework in the analysis of the residualisation strategies, and iii. to apply this framework to the investigation of the main old age income security measures in Hong Kong

Livelihoods after land reform in South Africa

Over the past few decades, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa have pursued redistributive land reform as a means to address rural poverty. The Livelihoods after Land Reform (LaLR) study was carried out between 2007 and 2009, to understand the livelihood and poverty reduction outcomes of land reform in each of the three countries. The South African component focused on Limpopo province, and investigated land reform processes, trajectories of change and outcomes in thirteen detailed case studies. This paper summarizes some of the main findings from the South African study, and briefly compares them with findings from Namibia and Zimbabwe. The paper argues that a fundamental problem affecting land reform in both South Africa and Namibia is the uncritical application of the Large-Scale Commercial Farming (LSCF) model, which has led to unworkable project design and/or projects that are irrelevant to the circumstances of the rural poor. Nevertheless, some ‘beneficiaries’ have experienced modest improvements in their livelihoods, often through abandoning or amending official project plans.Web of Scienc

Impact of natural disasters on income inequality in Sri Lanka

We explore the relationship between natural disasters and income inequality in Sri Lanka as the first study of this nature for the country. The analysis uses a unique panel data set constructed for the purpose of this paper. It contains district inequality measures based on household income reported in six waves of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Sri Lanka during the period between 1990 and 2013, data on disaster affected population and other economic and social indicators. Employing a panel fixed effects estimator, we find that contemporaneous natural disasters and their immediate lags significantly and substantially decrease inequality in per adult equivalent household income as measured by the Theil index. Findings are robust across various inequality metrics, sub-samples and alternative estimators such as Ordinary Least Squares and System GMM. However, natural disasters do not affect household expenditure inequality. Either households behave as if they have a permanent income or all households reduce their expenditure proportionately irrespective of their income level in responding to natural disasters. Natural disasters decrease non-seasonal agricultural and non-agricultural income inequality but increase seasonal agricultural income inequality. Income of richer households is mainly derived from non-agricultural sources such as manufacturing and business activities and non-seasonal agricultural activities. Poorer households have a higher share of agricultural income