The Political Economy of Occupational Family Policies: Comparing Workplaces in Britain and Germany

With a shift in the political debate to more market‐driven social policy approaches during the past decade, politicians in a number of European countries have argued that employers should take on greater responsibilities in the provision of social policy. But why should employers get involved? After reviewing the relevant literature on firm‐level social policy, we analyse the conditions and causal pathways that lead to their provision. Our findings show that (i) the skill structure and level of the workforce are important conditions for firm‐level engagement; (ii) employers have usually been the ‘protagonists’; (iii) the role of unions has been more limited — in Germany they can largely be characterized as ‘consenters’, whereas in Britain, their impact is negligible; (iv) in accordance with the specific systems of industrial relations, the design in Germany very much follows the concept of social partnership; in Britain the design is usually based on unilateral management decisions; and (v) based on these conditions and causal pathways, ‘enclave social policy’ is the likely result of the expansionary policy development, although in Germany, these policies have the potential of becoming an element of ‘industrial citizenship’.     

Specification and Estimation of Production Functions Involving Damage Control Inputs: A Two-Stage, Semiparametric Approach

Productivity assessment of damage control inputs (such as pesticides) is complicated because their effect depends on the exposure to damage agents (such as pests). We discuss some open specification and estimation issues. The contribution is threefold. First, we elaborate the separability conditions for the damage control function and production function. Second, we employ a two-stage semiparametric technique to combine attractive features of both nonparametric and parametric approaches. Third, we model the interaction between pest exposure and damage control inputs by using slope dummies. An application to productivity analysis of small scale Bt cotton production in China illustrates the approach.     

Public Investment in Europe: Evolution and Determinants in perspective*

We describe the evolution of public investment and public capital stocks in Europe over the past three decades. Against this background, we analyse the macroeconomic determinants of public investment, with a special focus on its long‐term trend. We find that public investment has been determined by national income, the stance of budgetary policies and fiscal sustainability considerations. Neither the cost of financing nor the fiscal rules embodied in EMU have had a systemic impact on public investment. The significant downtrend that characterises the evolution of public investment in non‐cohesion countries is chiefly determined by drawn‐out episodes of fiscal consolidation, unrelated to EMU.     

Where Are They Now? An Analysis of the Life Cycle of Convertible Bonds

We study the determinants of the life convertible bonds' life span issued between 1980 and 1998. About 60% of the bonds survive either to a call or to their maturity. The issuers of the remaining bonds are delisted during the life of their bonds. Calls and delistings shorten the average life span of convertibles from the original 17 years to an effective life span of only seven years. Issuer's post‐issuance performance and investment behavior affect the effective life of convertibles. Our results support the sequential financing hypothesis, as bonds issued by firms with speedier investment schedules have shorter life spans.     

Shadow Price Approach to Total Factor Productivity Measurement: With an Application to Finnish Grass-Silage Production

This paper explores an intermediate route between the Fisher and the Malmquist productivity indexes so as to minimize data requirements and assumptions about economic behavior of production units and their production technology. Assuming quantity data of inputs and outputs and the behavioral hypothesis of allocative efficiency, we calculate the exact value of the Fisher ideal productivity index using implicit shadow prices revealed by the choice of input–output mix. The approach is operationalized by means of a nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. Empirical application to Finnish grass silage farms suggests that the Malmquist and the Fisher productivity indices yield similar results when averaged over firms, but there can be major differences in the results of the two approaches at the level of individual firms.     

Improving global spare parts distribution chain performance through part categorization: A case study

Spare parts inventory management is a complex problem and in most cases part categorization is needed to create a manageable number of control groups to focus management efforts more effectively. Usually multi-dimensional or multi-criteria classifications are used, and there are several examples of classification schemes available in the literature. The complexity increases even more when taking into consideration that a distribution chain consists of many parties. Thus, in addition to internal inventory control factors, external factors such as supplier performance, customer behavior and related demand patterns affect the controllability of the various parts.In the paper we try to expand existing classification schemes that cover only one part of the supply chain into a decision tool covering three sides of the chain: the company's distribution center with its internal processes, supplier with supply processes and customer with demand processes. The complexity that is created by the expanded view is reduced by considering two separate links: demand link and supply link. At first the links are analyzed separately considering the most relevant factors of each one and afterwards they are combined into a categorization matrix to classify the parts.The categorization scheme is tested in a large international company for improving its spare parts distribution chain performance. In the case company's demand link, part value and demand variability were used as the factors to create seven categories. In supply link, three categories are created by using availability risk of the material as the categorizing factor. The spare parts distribution chain performance is analyzed with service performance and stock-out cost key performance indicators before and after improvement actions. Finally, it is discussed how widely the insights from the case experience can be generalized towards developing a generic management tool for such a complex situation.     

Nonparametric Efficiency Analysis under Price Uncertainty: A First-Order Stochastic Dominance Approach

This paper extends the nonparametric approach to efficiency analysis to deal with uncertainty of input-output prices. We generalize the notion of economic efficiency to derive necessary and sufficient first-order stochastic dominance (FSD) efficiency conditions. Interestingly, the FSD conditions include as limiting cases the traditional conditions for economic efficiency and technical efficiency. Furthermore, we propose empirical tests for these FSD conditions, which require minimal assumptions concerning the preferences of the decision-maker and the statistical distribution of the prices. From operational point of view, the FSD conditions can be tested empirically using standard mathematical programming techniques. An empirical application to the Dutch electricity distribution sector illustrates the approach.     

Modelling nonlinearity in U.S. Gross national product 1889–1987

This paper considers modelling the annual logarithmed per capita gross national product of the United States in 1889–1987. Some authors have suggested that the parameters of the process generating the data have changed over time but formal parameter constancy tests do not support this argument. The series turns out to be nonlinear and can be adequately characterized by an exponential smooth transition autoregressive model. For comparison, a detrended series is also considered, found nonlinear and modelled using a logistic smooth transition autoregressive model. The behaviour of the estimated models is discussed, and it is seen that nonlinearity is needed to describe the response of the process to exceptionally large exogenous shocks. The properties of the models are further investigated by forecasting several years ahead, and the forecasts are compared with those from other linear and nonlinear models.