‘Shopping for Voice’: Do Pre‐Existing Non‐Union Representation Plans Matter When Employees Unionize?

The transition to unionization in three workplaces with pre‐existing non‐union employee representation plans (NERPs) is contrasted to three matched sites, which had only individual representation. Pre‐existing collective voice arrangements had substantial effects on the process and outcomes of unionization. While the individual representation sites presented a conventional process of mobilization and attachment to the union, the NERP sites revealed a more equivocal outcome. The union was used in an instrumental manner to increase NERP power and to achieve worker demands already articulated by the NERP. NERP leaders became union leaders. There remained significant attachment to the NERP and a reluctance to fully embrace unionization.     

The Endless Day: The Political Economy of Women and Work

Few critics will question that the high tide of the influence of American institutional economics was reached during the New Deal. John R. Commons, Thorstein Veblen and their disciples reached the apex of their impact on public policy as sources of doctrine, policy-making and advising. Commons remains an influential figure in the history of institutional economics and progressive social thought. And he resides in the American tradition of empirical collectivism as articulated by Currin V. Shields in 1952. The tradition as understood by Commons finds the ultimate locus of power in democratic majorities, not in hegemonic classes or corporate networks, and it is only by its refinement and replenishment that it can meet the demands thrust upon it. His mature theoretical work, published between 1924 and 1950, is the main source of his empirical collectivism as shown through textual exegesis and biographical extrapolation.     

Gender as a determinant of small business performance: Insights from a British study

The performance of small businesses, that is the ability of small firms to contribute to job and wealth creation through business start-up, survival and growth, has been an important area of policy and academic debate in the 1980s. Surprisingly little has been written about gender and small business performance. Our literature search revealed only a small number of studies of any substance on this subject, though over forty made some mention of it, Most studies shied away from direct examination of quantitative performance measures (such as jobs created, sales turnover, annual growth), tending to concentrate on qualitative measures of success or failure. The paper examines small business performance and gender using data obtained from a survey of 600 (300 women, 300 men) Scottish and English small business ownermanagers, part of a three year study on the impact of gender on small business management. Analyses suggest that the relationship between gender and small business performance is complex, but that gender still appears to be a significant determinant even after other key factors are controlled for.     

The firm's insurance decision. Some questions raised by the capital asset pricing model

Using the capital asset pricing model it is shown that the firm will be indifferent towards insurance against specific risks. Insurance against systematic risks involves a transfer of these non-diversifiable risks from the firm to the insurance company, and will thus only be available at a price which reflects the ‘market price of risk’. Again the firm will be indifferent towards insurance. This then leads to the investigation of alternative motivations for a firm purchasing insurance — the costs of financial distress, human capital considerations, asymmetry of information and tax laws.     

AN ESTIMATION OF U.S. FAMILY WEALTH AND ITS DISTRIBUTION FROM MICRODATA, 1973

This paper presents a method of estimating U.S. family net wealth across the entire population, utilizing capitalization of several income items available from income tax microdata. Other forms of wealth, and debt, are indirectly estimated using relationships gleaned from estate tax data. Concentration in the distribution of wealth, and assets such as corporate stock, are measured with Gini coefficients and Lorenz curve analysis and compared to similar estimates of concentration in the distribution of income. Comparisons of the results with previous estimates for the United States are made in the latter section of the paper.     

Food Aid and Food Security: A Cautionary Note

A simple model is presented to examine the effects of instability in global food aid supplies on foreign exchange expenditures and food availability in recipient countries. When global food prices rise, food aid recipients are doubly affected through decreased availability of food aid, and through higher costs of additional commercial imports needed to make up the shortfall. Empirical estimates of key parameters of the model suggest that countries with a high dependence on food aid may place their food security at risk.
Suit un modèle simple qui permet d'analyser les conséquences de l'instabilité des approvi-sionnements destinés à l'aide alimentaire sur les dépenses en devises étrangères et l'offre d'aliments dans les pays bénéficiaires. Lorsque le prix mondial des aliments augmente, les bénéficiaires de l'aide alimentaire subissent le contrecoup à la fois d'une aide alimentaire réduite et du coût plus éléve des produits importés pour répondre à la pénurie. Une estimation empirique des principaux parametrés du modele suggére que les pays qui dépendent fortement de l'aide alimentaire compromettent leur sécurité alimentaire.     

On the welfare implications of restricting bankruptcy information

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) dictates that adverse events such as a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing must be removed from an individual’s credit record after 10 years. The intent of the law is to provide partial consumption insurance by giving an individual a fresh start. However, the law obviously weakens incentives not to default, which can result in higher interest rates that in turn reduce intertemporal insurance. Because of this tradeoff, it is unclear how long is the optimal length of time that an adverse event remains on an individual’s credit record. In this paper we assess the welfare consequences of varying the length of time that adverse events can be on one’s credit record. We calibrate the model to US data where the exclusion parameter is set to be 10 years on average. Then we run a counterfactual to find the length that maximizes ex-post economywide welfare using a consumption equivalent measure. The model predicts agents prefer to remove the bankruptcy flag after one year, though the gains are small.