Patterns of Investor-State Dispute Settlement Decisions

This paper examines the pattern of settlements, investor wins and state wins in investor-state dispute settlement cases, focusing on the impact of arbitration rules, the resources and experience of the litigants, the type of treaty breach under investigation, and the pattern of state intervention. Logistic regression results show that settlements are more likely when investors do not disclose their allegations publicly, when the host state has been involved in a greater number of past cases, and when the respondent state has a higher control-of-corruption rating. Panel awards to investors are more likely in cases of alleged direct expropriation and less likely for indirect expropriation. Panel decisions favoring the state increase with higher per capita income and rule-of-law ratings.     

Cuba,Trade Dependency and the GATT/WTO System

Cuba sought economic independence from the U.S. and its reliance on sugar exports after its 1959 revolution, but subsequently developed new dependency relationships. In the meantime, Cuba remained inside the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), despite conducting most of its trade outside it. This paper explores the political economy of Cuba’s participation in the GATT and later the World Trade Organization (WTO). Documents show that Cuba sought to use its participation to gain new markets and influence in the developing world. While Cuba has gained little economically from its participation, in recent years it has diversified its exports and trade partners, and its trade interests now align more closely with WTO rules. Economic reforms will be necessary in order for Cuba to benefit.     

Confounding and collinearity in regression analysis: a cautionary tale and an alternative procedure,illustrated by studies of British voting behaviour

Quality & Quantity - Many ecological- and individual-level analyses of voting behaviour use multiple regressions with a considerable number of independent variables but few discussions of their...     

The Human Development Approach: An Overview

The human development (HD) approach puts the improvement of people’s lives as the central objective of development. This paper provides an overview of major aspects of the approach. It shows how it emerged with the evolution of development thought and a widening of development objectives The paper explores the two-way relationship between HD and the rival objective, economic growth, is explored and broad characteristics of countries that have been exceptionally successful or unsuccessful , countries with three country cases considered in greater depth. The paper identifies major dimensions of HD, beyond the three elements included in the Human Development Index (HDI) and shows they are poorly captured by the HDI. An overview of global change on HD dimensions from 1980 to 2015 gives a mixed picture with progress on basic HD, uneven trends in some areas, and notable worsening on the environmental dimension. In conclusion, the paper discusses some outstanding issues which need more attention.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

EVA,not EBITDA: A New Financial Paradigm for Private Equity Firms

Private equity firms have boomed on the back of EBITDA. Most PE firms use it as their primary measure of value, and ask the managers of their portfolio companies to increase it. Many public companies have decided to emulate the PE firms by using EBITDA to review performance with investors, and even as a basis for determining incentive pay. But is the emphasis on EBITDA warranted? In this article, the co‐founder of Stern Stewart & Co. argues that EVA offers a better way. He discusses blind spots and distortions that make EBITDA highly unreliable and misleading as a measure of normalized, ongoing profitability. By comparing EBITDA with EVA, or Economic Value Added, a measure of economic profit net of a full cost‐of‐capital charge, Stewart demonstrates EVA's ability to provide managers and investors with much more clarity into the levers that are driving corporate performance and determining intrinsic market value. And in support of his demonstration, Stewart reports the finding of his analysis of Russell 3000 public companies that EVA explains almost 20% more than EBITDA of their changes in value, while at the same time providing far more insight into how to improve those values.     

Discretionary technology bootlegging tensions in institutional healthcare work

We explore individuals who take some of their technology use ‘underground’, described as ‘bootlegging’, to enhance healthcare work. We find that healthcare professionals’ informal use of mobile applications in healthcare work sometimes ‘sticks out’ and this produces professional identity tensions: (1) conflict with perceptions of professional behaviour, and (2) defilement of expert judgment. Our analysis, moreover, reveals that identity work (i.e. ‘accepting’ and ‘sensemaking’) provides a coping mechanism to deal with these unresolved professional identity tensions. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the constitutive entanglements and two‐way interactions of discretionary technology bootlegging, professional identity and autonomy in institutional healthcare work.     

Battles in the costing war: UK debates, 1950-75

In the UK, 1950-75 was a lively period in the long-running debates between proponents of absorption and marginal costing. In the nexus of competing interests, management accountants advocated and defended rival costing systems with much vigour and passion. Expressed in the language of the times, these debates were 'battles' in the costing 'war'. We focus on these battles, analysing the various forces that operated upon the combatants, and locate them in the wider costing war. We conclude that no final resolution of the conflict was achieved in the twentieth century, nor is one likely in the foreseeable future.     

Restricted electricity use among poor urban households

For a variety of reasons, this article argues, electricity must be seen by policy‐makers in South Africa not as the sole provider of all future household energy needs, but rather as one component of an energy mix which includes such ‘transitional’ fuels as coal, gas and paraffin. The reasons for this are that electricity is expensive for poor households; it is subject to power failures and disconnections for non‐payment; the poor find it difficult to monitor and to control their consumption; appliances are expensive and several are required to make best use of electricity; people prefer other fuels because they are familiar and have strong personal and cultural associations, and because Eskom is not trusted owing to its past ties to illegitimate local authorities and misunderstanding of electricity and how its use is monitored and charged for. Further, it is mistaken to equate ‘development’ with total electrification: most developed countries have fuel mixes which include gas and coal, particularly for cooking and heating. Accepting an affordable fuel mix for the poor in particular would focus attention on the problems currently associated with paraffin, gas and coal, namely fires, poisoning and air pollution.     

Family income and child outcomes in Canada

Abstract.  A positive relationship between income and child outcomes has been observed in data from numerous countries. A key question concerns the extent to which this association represents a causal relationship as opposed to unobserved heterogeneity. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to implement a series of empirical strategies for estimating the existence and size of the effect of income on three measures of cognition. Our results indicate that the effect of income on these outcomes may well be positive, but that it is likely to be smaller than conventional estimates. JEL Classification: I10