New development: Solving an extremely hazardous problem. Disposing of toxic waste from Britain’s nuclear industry and nascent public engagement

ABSTRACT

Waste disposal from the use of nuclear technology for power generation poses international challenges in terms of its enduring, costly and highly toxic nature. This article focuses on the challenges faced by the UK given the lack of solutions that appear to stem from an absence of public debate and consensus. The problems of nuclear waste disposal are contextualized by considering the challenges of public acceptance, lack of funding provisions, cost uncertainties and new reactor construction.     

The measurement of structural differences between economies: An axiomatic characterization

Summary. In empirical studies concerning comparison of economic structures and/or structural changes of economies, it is quite useful to employ an aggregate index to describe the structural difference (similarity). This paper offers an axiomatic characterization of the measurement of structural difference between economies that leads to some difference (similarity) index which is practically useful in empirical studies. Received: September 3, 1999; revised version: November 9, 1999     

Resolving the Credibility Problem of an Honest Government: A Case for Foreign Investment Subsidy

We develop a simple model of direct foreign investment where the host country government cannot credibly signal its honest intention such as to stick to the contracted tax rate. The foreign firm has some prior belief regarding the ex post discretionary policies of the local government. Since the investment is completely irreversible, such a belief pattern might not induce the firm to invest in a country which badly needs it. It is shown that the host government can design a subsidy scheme which might attract foreign investment by removing the credibility problem.     

Adversarial and Amiable Inference in Medical Diagnosis,Reliability and Survival Analysis

In this paper, we develop a family of bivariate beta distributions that encapsulate both positive and negative correlations, and which can be of general interest for Bayesian inference. We then invoke a use of these bivariate distributions in two contexts. The first is diagnostic testing in medicine, threat detection and signal processing. The second is system survivability assessment, relevant to engineering reliability and to survival analysis in biomedicine. In diagnostic testing, one encounters two parameters that characterize the efficacy of the testing mechanism: test sensitivity and test specificity. These tend to be adversarial when their values are interpreted as utilities. In system survivability, the parameters of interest are the component reliabilities, whose values when interpreted as utilities tend to exhibit co‐operative (amiable) behavior. Besides probability modeling and Bayesian inference, this paper has a foundational import. Specifically, it advocates a conceptual change in how one may think about reliability and survival analysis. The philosophical writings of de Finetti, Kolmogorov, Popper and Savage, when brought to bear on these topics constitute the essence of this change. Its consequence is that we have at hand a defensible framework for invoking Bayesian inferential methods in diagnostics, reliability and survival analysis. Another consequence is a deeper appreciation of the judgment of independent lifetimes. Specifically, we make the important point that independent lifetimes entail at a minimum, a two‐stage hierarchical construction.     

The memorable Gordon Tullock

During my visit over 1978-9 to VPI, I got to know Gordon Tullock and his colleagues James Buchanan, Geoff Brennan, and David Friedman well, having meals frequently. I learned from these eloquent debaters a lot in many ways.     

Human resource management in the Canadian manufacturing sector

Using a sample of 356 Canadian manufacturing organizations, this study examines the pattern of implementation of a wide range of HRM practices including external recruitment procedures, internal job posting systems, performance appraisal methods, job evaluation methods and pay-for-performance systems. A comparison of the adopted HRM practices between large and small firms and between union and non-union firms is also made. The results show that the main difference between large and small firms lies in the recruitment procedure and the job evaluation process. The difference between the union and non-union firms is associated with the greater emphasis placed on performance by the latter.

This study also presents some evidence regarding the perceived importance of twenty HRM activities. The evidence suggests that the three most important activities include health and safety compliance, employee/labour relations and disciplinary issues. On the other hand, the three least important ones are conducting attitudinal surveys, public relations activities and career planning development.     

Wages and skills utilization: effect of broad skills and generic skills on wages in Singapore

Many people go for training to upgrade their skills which is hoped to pave the way for better pay. But what are the kinds of skills that really affect wages? Employers have emphasized the value of generic skills such as interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork and problem solving. Does possession of these skills translate to at least the same or better wages as compared with having broad skills represented by educational qualifications and job‐related training? This paper, arising from the research project on the Skills Utilisation in Singapore, aims to answer which skills can have more influence on wages and which job‐related training in terms of training duration can have more impact on wages. Using ordinal logistic regression, our findings show that educational qualification and initial training time can influence wages as well as utilization of leadership, planning and problem‐solving skills.     

Management forecast credibility and underreaction to news

In this paper, we first document evidence of underreaction to management forecast news. We then hypothesize that the credibility of the forecast influences the magnitude of this underreaction. Relying on evidence that more credible forecasts are associated with a larger reaction in the short window around the management forecasts and a smaller post-management forecast drift in returns, we show that the magnitude of the underreaction is smaller for firms that provide more credible forecasts. Our paper contributes to the literature by providing out-of-sample evidence of the drift in returns documented in the post-earnings-announcement drift literature, with the credibility of the news being one explanation for the phenomenon.