“Constitutionalizing” the corporation

To become effective instruments in the attainment of a sustainable society, corporations should have their constitutional status settled. Thus far, mainly by Supreme Court decisions, corporations have an uncertain status. They are “persons” under the Constitution and have certain rights; but unlike natural persons, they do not have concomitant constitutional duties. Corporations should be viewed as “private” governments exercising substantial power in society. They are, however, considered to be associations of individuals rather than divisions of society. The need is to legitimate their governing power by “constitutionalizing” them. That can be done by corporations accepting, or having imposed upon them, two principal constitutional duties. First, means should be developed whereby corporate officers routinely take the general good into account. That duty could be implemented by making “social impact statements,” analogous to but broader than the familiar environmental impact statements, before making important corporate decisions. Secondly, as “sociological communities,” corporate officers wield considerable power over members of those communities. A bill of rights similar to the Constitution's Bill of Rights is recommended so as to make corporate power that is necessary for achievement of societal goals as tolerable and decent as possible. Acceptance of those duties would make corporations parts of, not separate from, the greater corporation called society. They would be private, profit-making entities with a definite public function. Preferably, the duties should be voluntarily accepted. Congress, however, has undoubted constitutional power to impose both, should it so desire.     

“ENVIRONMENT”, “NEEDS” AND REAL INCOME COMPARISONS(1)

Conventional measures of national product make no pretence of including everything that affects welfare. As increasing attention is being paid to environmental pollution, the problem of incorporating certain non-economic variables into the analysis of well-being becomes more relevant. The object of this note is to show how a difference in “needs” for, and hence expenditures on, anti-pollutants, which will show up in conventional national accounts comparisons as differences in “tastes”, should be converted into differences in real income.     

The Role of Absolute Continuity in “Merging of Opinions” and “Rational Learning”

D. Blackwell and L. Dubins (1962, Ann. Math. Statist.38, 882–886) showed that opinions merge when priors are absolutely continuous. E. Kalai and E. Lehrer (1993, Econometrica61, 1019–1045) use this result to show that players in a repeated game eventually play like a Nash equilibrium. We provide an alternative proof of merging of opinions that clarifies the role of absolute continuity while casting doubt on the relevance of the result. Persistent disagreement, the opposite of merging, allows the construction of a sequence of mutually favorable “bets.” By a law of large numbers, both agents are certain they will win these bets on average. This certain disagreement violates absolute continuity. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C11, C69, C72, D83.     

At the crossroads of “futurism” and “prospective”: Towards a Canadian synthesis?

North American “future studies” and the French concept of “prospective” have been integrated to provide the basis for an attempted “Canadian Synthesis” in the approach developed by the Montreal-based think-tank, the Gamma Institute. In this paper the founding president of Gamma outlines the four stages of the approach in a conceptual framework entitled the “Chronospace” and illustrates its applicability by referring to some of Gamma's projects in the last 12 years.     

Ecological Intuition versus Economic “Reason”

This paper discusses the discount rate to be used in projects aimed at preserving the environment. The model has two different goods: one is the usual consumption good whose production may increase exponentially, and the other is an environmental good whose quality remains limited. The stylized world we describe is fully determined by four parameters, reflecting basic preferences, “ecological” and intergenerational concerns, and feasibility constraints. We define an ecological discount rate and examine its connections with the usual interest rate and the optimized growth rate. We discuss, in this simple world, different forms of the precautionary principle.     

CAN CHINA'S “MINI-BANG” SUCCEED?

Despite the phenomenal success of China's economic reform, the Chinese economy encounters a series of increasingly perilous problems, such as the recurrence of a "boon-and-bust" cycle, inflation, corruption, and regional disparity. This paper argues that the root of these problems is the discrepancy between the reforms in the macropolicy environment and the reforms in the micro-management institution and resource allocation system. In October 1993, the Chinese government introduced a reform package in a bid to make the macro-policy environment more consistent with the liberalized micro-management institution and resource allocation system. However, the traditional macro-policy environment was formed endogenously to facilitate implementing the "catching-up and forging-ahead" development strategy. Unless, the Chinese government abandons that strategy, it cannot complete the reforms in the macro-policy environment and it cannot uproot the problems appearing in the reform process.     

“I even met happy gypsies”

Economic studies of the Roma population, which is the largest and the poorest ethnic minority in Europe, remain sparse due to the limited availability of appropriate micro level data. This paper provides a comparative analysis of life satisfaction between Roma and non‐Roma young adults aged between 15 and 24 years using survey data collected from Serbia in 2010 and from Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011. Results from raw answers show that the young Roma population living in settlements is less satisfied with life than non‐Roma. However, we find instead that the former group is more satisfied once we account for the fact that Roma have more disadvantaged characteristics on average. Also, Roma young adults expect a better life within one year compared to the non‐Roma in Serbia while there is no difference in Bosnia and Herzegovina.     

TESTING CATCHING‐UP BETWEEN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: “GROWTH RESISTANCE” AND SOMETIMES “GROWTH TRAGEDY”

This paper provides empirical evidence that there is no convergence between the GDP per‐capita of the developing countries since 1950. Relying upon recent econometric methodologies (non‐stationary long‐memory models, wavelet models and time‐varying factor representation models), we show that the transition paths to long‐run growth (the catch‐up dynamics) are very persistent over time and non‐stationary, thereby yielding a variety of potential steady states (conditional convergence). Our findings do not support the idea according to which the developing countries share a common factor (such as technology) that eliminates per‐capita output divergence in the very long run. Instead, we conclude that growth is an idiosyncratic phenomenon that yields different forms of transitional economic performance: growth tragedy (some countries with an initial low level of per‐capita income diverge from the richest ones), growth resistance (with many countries experiencing a low speed of growth convergence), and rapid convergence.     

“Large” versus “Small” Players: A Closer Look at the Dynamics of Speculative Attacks

What is the role of “large players” (e.g., hedge funds) in speculative attacks? Recent work suggests that large players move early to induce smaller agents to attack. However, many observers argue that large players move late in order to benefit from interest‐rate differentials. We propose a model in which large players can do both. Using data on currency trading by foreign (large) and local (small) players, we find that foreign players moved last in three attacks on the Norwegian krone during the 1990s. During the attack on the Swedish krona after the Russian moratorium in 1998, foreign players moved early. Gains by delaying attack were small, however, because interest rates did not increase.     

Picking “Lemons” or Picking “Cherries”? Domestic and Foreign Acquisitions in Norwegian Manufacturing*

We compare the performance in employment, wages and productivity for domestic plants acquired by new domestic and foreign owners. Prospective foreign owners pick large, high‐wage, high‐productivity plants, while new domestic owners choose average performers of above‐average size. Employment, labour productivity, and total factor productivity decline in domestic acquisition targets before acquisitions; only wages recover afterwards. Employment, wages and labour productivity increase after foreign acquisitions. The sample selection introduced by long‐term comparisons and a focus on unique events introduces a downward bias into the results for domestic acquisitions and an upward bias for the foreign acquisitions.     

“Fair marriages”: An impossibility

For marriage markets [Gale, D. and Shapley, L.S., 1962, College admissions and the stability of marriage, American Mathematical Monthly 69, 9–15.] so-called fair matchings do not always exist. We show that restoring fairness by using monetary transfers is not always possible: there are marriage markets where no amount of money can guarantee the existence of a fair allocation.     

The “similarity” and “heterogeneity” theses in studying innovation: evidence from the end-of-life vehicle case

The paper seeks to understand how eight companies in the European car industry responded to changing business conditions under the threat of regulation on the waste problem of end-of-life vehicles. It was observed that the companies pursued diverging innovation tracks in dealing with the regulatory pressure, although competing in the same markets and subject to similar regulatory pressure. The case is interesting to consider in the light of recent discussions of differences in styles of innovation. The question then is whether any sort of style of innovation may be distinguished in the diverging innovation tracks. The objective of the paper is to add to these discussions by considering the results of this case study in the light of “similarity” and heterogeneity hypotheses that may be advanced around “styles” of innovation.     

THE ASYMMETRIC IMPACT OF “INFORMATIVE” AND “UNINFORMATIVE” FEDERAL OPEN MARKET COMMITTEE STATEMENTS ON ASSET PRICES

This paper examines the effect of the information content of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statements on the level and volatility of Treasuries and stock returns. Statements are separated into “informative” and “uninformative” groups with informative statements delivering important information which was not previously anticipated by the consensus. We find evidence that the information content of FOMC statements tends to generate an asymmetric response, with informative statements having a larger effect than uninformative statements. Asymmetries tend to be more pronounced for the conditional mean than conditional volatility. The behavior of volatility is tent‐shaped, spiking during policy announcements and declining before and after the release. We also find that the evolution of the language of the FOMC statements does matter to market participants and that joint releases of target rate changes and informative statements have a distinctly more pronounced impact than other types of announcements. (JEL E52, E58, E65, G12, G14)