Revisiting General and Specific Union Beliefs: The Union‐Voting Intentions of Professionals

We examine how general and specific beliefs about unions influence the union‐voting intentions of professional employees. Previous research, mainly on nonprofessionals, has found that both beliefs are significant in predicting voting behavior, but that specific beliefs have the stronger effect. Using a structural equation model, we found a causal relationship between general and specific beliefs, and that the total effect of general beliefs is nearly three times as strong as that of specific beliefs.     

Firing Costs and Capital Structure Decisions

I exploit the adoption of state‐level labor protection laws as an exogenous increase in employee firing costs to examine how the costs associated with discharging workers affect capital structure decisions. I find that firms reduce debt ratios following the adoption of these laws, with this result stronger for firms that experience larger increases in firing costs. I also document that, following the adoption of these laws, a firm's degree of operating leverage rises, earnings variability increases, and employment becomes more rigid. Overall, these results are consistent with higher firing costs crowding out financial leverage via increasing financial distress costs.     

Sigma Convergence versus Beta Convergence: Evidence from U.S. County-Level Data

In this paper, we outline (i) why σ-convergence may not accompany β-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of β-convergence in the United States, and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that σ-convergence cannot be detected at the county level across the United States, or within the large majority of the individual U.S. states considered separately. Indeed, in many cases statistically significant σ- divergence is found.     

On the Behavior and Determinants of Risk‐Based Capital Ratios: Revisiting the Evidence from UK Banking Institutions*

Using bank‐level panel data from the United Kingdom, this paper investigates the factors that influence banks' choice of risk‐based capital ratios. The study focuses on evaluating the role of regulatory capital requirements. Findings indicate that such requirements, even when not binding, affect banks' capital management practices and suggest that banks maintain targeted buffers above regulatory thresholds. That behavior differs across several dimensions, including bank size, nearness to regulatory minimum, reliance on core (equity) capital and exposure to market discipline. Capital ratios also vary over the economic cycle. These findings have implications for the ongoing review of international capital standards.     

Framing the Carolingian Economy

This essay argues that the degree of commercialization on Carolingian great estates should not be overstated. Rather, the strategies and ambitions of Carolingian estate managers were primarily determined by a 'domainal' ideology and concerns for good stewardship. Moreover, the structural demands of the Carolingian state may have played a rather more important role in framing economic conditions than is commonly supposed. Here Carolingianists need to learn some of the lessons that have helped to transform the writing of ancient economic history in recent decades.     

Unit Trust Investment Products: Is the rate of return reported by fund managers to investors reliable and comparable?

Funds under management in retail unit trust investment products have grown tenfold in the past decade and now represent the savings of some 1.5 million retail investors. These investors cannot specifically command the infomation they require and consequently rely on what the market provides. This paper provides some evidence that because of a lack of independent verification and mandated standards the investing public cannot be certain that reported rates of return are either reliable or comparable.     

THE LABOUR FORCE DYNAMICS OF THE MARGINALLY ATTACHED*

One of the most important measures of the state of the labour market is the unemployment rate. However, the standard definition of unemployment ignores an important group of people who are not employed but who want to work – the marginally attached workforce. The marginally attached are defined as those who are not employed, want to work but are not actively seeking work and therefore not classified as unemployed. The paper uses longitudinal data from the Survey of Employment and Unemployment Patterns (SEUP) to test whether the marginally attached are behaviourally distinct from the unemployed or those who are not attached to the labour force. We find that the labour force transitions of the marginally attached, on the whole, are between those of the unemployed and the unattached. Another finding is that the length of time over which the labour market dynamics are considered is crucial to our understanding of the labour market dynamics of the marginally attached. An implication of the findings of this paper is that a range of measures of potential labour supply should be considered, and that the measure used should depend on the specific question being asked.