FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT,NON‐TRADED GOODS AND REAL WAGES

Using a three‐sector general equilibrium model with non‐traded goods, we investigate the impact of foreign direct investment on the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers. We show that foreign direct investment increases the real wages of skilled and unskilled workers alike, but widens the gap between the two under plausible conditions.     

The design of an integrated group decision support system for technology assessment

Responding to the challenges of the marketplace compels firms to employ new production methods to improve product quality and delivery reliability, to reduce costs, and above all, to achieve greater flexibility. This paper outlines the system design of a group decision support system, developed to guide management through the process of new technology evaluation and adoption. The advantages of the proposed architecture include the opportunity to integrate a variety of independently developed components, the localisation of components (which leads to simplified maintenance) and the flexibility in the future for expanding and modifying the system.     

UNIFORM TECHNICAL PROGRESS: CAN IT BE HARMFUL?

Abstract.  In a model incorporating trade in final goods, intermediate goods and capital, we show how 'uniform' technical progress across sectors can lead to immiserization. The condition for immiserizing technical progress crucially depends on the pattern of specialization. Our results tend to hold in a more general specification of the basic structure.     

Who are these people? Personality traits and judgments about trade secret misappropriation in post‐employment activities

Trade secret theft is a problem that almost all organizations face. The greatest threat is employee mobility and potential unethical post‐employment behavior. This study investigates the role of individual personality traits in judgments about trade secret misappropriation. Our hypotheses were tested in three studies addressing three different situational contexts: current employees, employees about to be laid off, and students who had quit their job. Relationships were estimated with robust regression. The results show that some personality traits predict judgment about another person's trade secret misappropriation, and that the situational context in which individuals formulate their ethical judgment moderates the impact of personality traits on ethical judgment.     

Indonesian politics in 2012: coalitions,accountability and the future of democracy

Indonesia is a successful but flawed democracy: while the electoral process has worked well, the quality of democratic governance is less encouraging. Missing from the equation between elections and democracy is political accountability. Parties’ obsession with coalition building as a route to political power has made it difficult for voters to attribute success or failure to elected officials. Coalition government allows politicians to send contradictory messages, and in 2012 religious minorities – which are neither banned nor protected – have paid a heavy price for the lack of accountability and leadership. In Jakarta an outsider, Joko Widodo, won the gubernatorial election despite facing an incumbent backed by a broad coalition. His victory illustrates that coalition building does not guarantee success, and that the electorate is mature enough not to be swayed by appeals to religious and ethnic sentiment. This gives heart to those hoping to strengthen democracy and democratic values in Indonesia.     

Skilled and Unskilled Immigrants and Entrepreneurship in a Developed Country

Evidence from some OECD countries suggests that skilled immigrants are over‐represented in entrepreneurship. We offer an analytical explanation to show that it may be a direct outcome of asymmetric information between immigrants and potential employers in the rich countries. Limiting occupational choices to self‐employment and employment, we show that skilled immigrants vis‐à‐vis natives may be proportionally over‐represented in small businesses. This compensates for the income loss in the labor market. It results from higher critical risk aversion among skilled immigrants compared with natives and subsequently leads to higher average income for all immigrants in the cross‐section. Finally, we show why a lesser number of unskilled immigrants enter self‐employment and discuss the speed of income convergence between all immigrants and natives.     

Traded and Nontraded Goods and Real Wages

The paper explains most, if not all, observations made by the empirical literature regarding the behavior of skilled and unskilled real wages in the United States, especially those since 1980. Generalizing the Stopler–Samuelson theorem, the authors show that the nontraded sector is critical to explaining the effects of changes in the price of traded goods on relative and absolute wages. Factor‐intensities play their role as in the traditional Stolper–Samuelson model, but the output of the nontraded sector matters as well. Specifically, freer trade benefits capital and hurts both the skilled and unskilled labor if the import as well as the nontraded sectors contract. This is a new result to the literature on Stolper–Samuelson issues.