Asymmetric Adjustment Costs, Asymmetric Pricing and Employment: Evidence from the UK

This paper uses an asymmetric multivariate model to investigate asymmetries in employment and pricing behaviour by firms. This generalises the approach of Granger and Lee (1989) and also exploits the cross equation restrictions on the equations for prices and employment implied by a restricted cost function—the dual to a Cobb‐Douglas production function. Our results suggest that both prices and employment respond asymmetrically to shocks to costs and demand.     

Ethics,gratuities, and professionalization of the purchasing function

This study investigated (1) whether potential future purchasing agents were predisposed to accept gratuities or whether the practice of gratuity acceptance is a manifestation of the job itself, (2) whether the existence of a code of ethics forbidding gratuity acceptance curtails the occurrence, and (3) whether disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions affect gratuity acceptance. Hypotheses based upon the concepts of organizational concern and institutionalized ethics are developed and empirically tested. Results suggest that future purchasing agents are predisposed to accept gratuities and that formal written ethics policies decrease the acceptance of gratuities. Disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions concerning gratuities failed to affect gratuity acceptance significantly.Gregory B. Turner is assistant professor of marketing at Livingston University. He has published inThe International Journal of Logistics Management and theTransportation Journal.G. Stephen Taylor is Associate Professor of management at Mississippi State University. His research interests include ethics in computer usage, performance appraisal, and turnover control.Mark F. Hartley is Assistant Professor and National Association of Purchasing Management/Carolinas-Virginia chair of Purchasing at the College of Charleston. His research interests include ethics and professionalization of the purchasing function.     

A framework for the analysis of firm risk communication

In this paper, we propose a framework for the analysis of risk communication and an index to measure the quality of risk disclosure. Mainstream literature on voluntary disclosure has emphasized that quantity can be used as a sound proxy for quality. We contend that, in the analysis of the disclosure of risks made by public companies, attention has to be paid not only to how much is disclosed but also to what is disclosed and how.We apply the framework to a sample of nonfinancial companies listed in the ordinary market on the Italian Stock Exchange. To verify that the framework and synthetic index are not influenced by the two factors recognized in the literature as the most powerful drivers of disclosure behavior for listed companies, we use an OLS model. The regression shows that the index of disclosure quantity is not influenced either by size or industry. Thus, the synthetic measure can be used to rank the quality of the disclosure of risks.     

Patterns of corporate governance and technical efficiency in Italian manufacturing

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the corporate governance system and technical efficiency in Italian manufacturing. We use a non‐parametric frontier technique (DEA) to derive technical efficiency measures for a sample of Italian firms taken from nine manufacturing industries. These measures are then related to the characteristics of the corporate governance system. Two of these characteristics turn out to have a positive impact on technical efficiency: the percentage of the company shares owned by the largest shareholder and the fact that a firm belongs to a pyramidal group. Interestingly, a trade‐off emerges between these influences, in the sense that one is stronger in industries where the other is weaker. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Government guarantees and self-fulfilling speculative attacks

We develop a model in which government guarantees to banks’ foreign creditors are a root cause of self-fulfilling twin banking-currency crises. Absent guarantees, such crises are not possible. In the presence of guarantees banks borrow foreign currency, lend domestic currency and do not hedge the resulting exchange rate risk. With guarantees, banks will also renege on their foreign debts and declare bankruptcy when a devaluation occurs. We assume that the government is unable or unwilling to fully fund the resulting bailout via an explicit fiscal reform. These features of our model imply that government guarantees lead to self-fulfilling banking-currency crises.     

South Korean Labor Market Discrimination Against Women: Estimating Its Cost

A bstract . South Korean chaebols (large family owned firms) have extensive government ties which provide them with favorable treatment. In turn, the government obtains support from the chaebols. The chaebols have gained economic or excess profits through exploiting monopolistic power in the domestic South Korean product market and through exploiting monopsonistic power in the domestic factor market.
How a monopsonistic firm obtains excess profits is illustrated and related to the behavior of the chaebols as a whole. Major focus is on the labor market. The chaebols have discretionary power over how to exploit their monopsonistic position. The status of women in the South Korean work force in light of this discretionary power is considered. An estimate of the income loss involved is made.     

Union recognition and partnership at work: a new legitimacy for Irish trade unions?

In the Irish context of national partnership and the promotion of workplace partnership at firm level, unions might be expected to have achieved, at least, a pragmatic acceptance by employers. Using a survey of full‐time union officials in eight trade unions organising in the private sector, this paper reports their experiences of recent recognition campaigns. Employer opposition appears to have intensified, and in a substantial percentage of cases has involved the victimisation of activists. In facilitating employees to make a free choice regarding union representation, the Codes of Practice and the Industrial Relations Amendment Act 2001 are regarded by the majority of officials as inadequate. A majority of officials favoured the introduction of a statutory right to recognition. Non‐union firms appear as ‘free riders’ that have enjoyed the benefits of national partnership but evaded the compromises and concessions that necessarily characterise such agreements. If left unchecked, the free‐rider phenomenon could undermine the institutional framework on which partnership is based.