Meaning of Money before, After and during Dual Currency Circulation Period Among Estonian Students☆
Abstract The research design of the study was a longitudinal trend study measuring the meaning of money from cross-sectional samples of middle-school students over the period of four years with 16 month time interval: May 2008, September 2009, January 2011, and May 2012. Teenagers were administered a questionnaire before, after and during dual currency period consisting items about multidimensional meaning of money: symbolic, affectional and behavioral, and open-ended questions. The meaning of money before and after the dual currency period was highly evaluated in symbolic and during dual currency period in conflicting affectional terms, but conveys over the time functional meaning.
Adjustment Under a Currency Peg: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania During the Global Financial Crisis 2008-09
The paper traces the Baltics’ adjustment strategy during the 2008-09 global financial crisis. The abrupt end to the externally-financed domestic demand boom triggered a severe output collapse, bringing per capita income levels back to 2005/06 levels. In response to this shock, the Baltics undertook an internal devaluation that relied on unprecedented fiscal and nominal wage adjustment, steps to preserve financial sector stability as well as complementary efforts to facilitate voluntary private debt restructuring. One-and-half years on, the strategy is making good progress but not yet complete. Confidence in the exchange rate was maintained, the banking system was supported by its parent banks, external imbalances and inflation have largely disappeared, competitiveness is improving, and fiscal deficits are gradually being brought back towards pre-crisis levels. However, amid record levels of unemployment, further reforms are needed to foster a return to more balanced growth, fiscal sustainability, and a healthier banking system.
Professional tensions in client-centered practice: using institutional ethnography to generate understanding and transformation.
For almost 20 years, occupational therapists have advocated client-centered practice. Yet client-centered practice is fraught with tensions that arise outside the practice of individual occupational therapists. This paper is guided by two questions: What produces professional tensions in client-centered practice? and What understanding and change might be generated using institutional ethnography? The sociological theory and method of institutional ethnography are described using data from an ongoing investigation of mental health services as a social institution. Illustrated are the research aim, research questions, and institutional analysis that distinguish institutional ethnography from conventional ethnography. Two professional tensions are associated with attempts to fulfill client-centered practice in mental health. One is that of working at cross-purposes with the prevailing hierarchical structure; the other tension is that of being celebrated yet subordinated in the medical and management hierarchies of health services. Although client-centered practice is difficult to do, the authors recommend institutional ethnography as a research approach to generate understanding and transformation of the context and practice of occupational therapy.