Measuring the national wealth in seventeenth-century England

This article discusses William Petty's 1665 estimate of the wealth of England and Wales—the first set of national accounts—and compares it with Gregory King's (1696), which is shown to be heavily influenced by it. There are conclusions about the methodology of the first political arithmeticians, the kinds of national resources which could be measured for the first time in the seventeenth century, and the lacunae which made it likely that Petty and King underestimated per caput and aggregate incomes. An appendix prints a contemporary analysis of hearth tax returns for every county.     

Jury Decisions and Awards in Personal Injury Lawsuits Involving Foodborne Pathogens

A study of food poisoning jury verdicts in 32 states (1988–1997) revealed that plaintiffs won awards in food poisoning jury trials 31% of the time, and received a median award of $25,560. Multivariate analyses were performed to examine the effects of various factors on food poisoning jury verdicts and on the size of the award. The odds of a plaintiff victory increased if a foodborne pathogen or illness was specified, and decreased if defendants had “deep pockets”or used medical expert testimony. Illnesses involving hospitalization, death, or chronic complications received higher awards than other illnesses.     

Twin Tracks—Employee Representation at Eurotunnel Revisited

The introduction of the European Directive on Information and Consultation and the recent implementation of the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations into United Kingdom (UK) law have increased the focus on workplace representation arrangements. This paper examines the interplay between nonunion and union representative arrangements at Eurotunnel (UK) and assesses their effectiveness in representing the needs of employees over a 5‐year period. Importantly, the paper also examines the opportunities and challenges of both nonunion representation (NER) and union voice arrangements. The findings show that the effectiveness of nonunion structures as bodies representing the interests of employees in filling the lack of representation is questionable. However, union recognition through an employer–union partnership agreement has also raised important issues regarding the effectiveness, impact, and legitimacy of unions at Eurotunnel. The main implication of this research is that the existence of a mechanism—union or nonunion—for communication between management and employees at the workplace may not be a sufficient condition for effective representation of employee interests. In addition, while trade unions may provide greater voice than nonunion arrangements (thus the reluctance of management to accept such voice arrangements), the strength of voice is dependent on the legitimacy and effectiveness of trade unions in representing employees’ interests at the workplace. And that in turn depends on the union being perceived by the workforce as both representative and able to act independently. If the union cannot, it will not meet the needs of either employees or management—and could run the risk of being supplanted under the provisions of the new EU Directive on Information and Consultation with tougher requirements for compliance in terms of procedures for consultation and information disclosure.     

The Effect of Limited Liability on the Market Response to Disclosure*

Abstract. We formalize the effects of an earnings disclosure on security prices under an assumption of limited liability. We derive various nonlinear relations between equity prices and earnings under a variety of capital structure assumptions and. if possible, we tie the relations attained to results from the existing empirical literature. We also characterize how debt prices respond to earnings when holders of debt have limited liability. Finally, we analyze how changes in the degree of leverage and conversion features of debt affect the relation between price and earnings.     

The Youth Labour Market in Australia*

This paper uses unit record data from the 1985 Australian Longitudinal Survey to review the major features of the youth labour market. It is shown that education plays an important role in determining the incidence of unemployment, wages, hours of work and access to training opportunities. Analyses of labour market dynamics indicates that the probability of leaving unemployment falls off substantially as the duration of the unemployment spell increases. A major conclusion of the paper is that the longer term unemployed appear to be segmented from other labour market participants. An implication of this finding is that there b very little which the longer term unemployed can do at the margin to influence their success other than adopt the most productive method of job search.