Border tax adjustments and U.S. trade

This paper reports welfare and terms of trade effects from border adjustments in the indirect taxes used by major U.S. trading partners using a numerical general equilibrium model of world trade and production due to Whalley (1985). Where the United States is a net importer of manufactures (as with Japan and the EEC) the United States gains by having these countries administer taxes on a destination rather than an origin basis. This is because the taxes involved typically have higher rates on manufactured products, and a discriminatory origin basis tax with higher rates on exportables operates akin to an export tax.     

Developing a Leadership-Rich Culture: The Missing Link to Creating a Market-Focused Organization

Much has been written about the need for organizations to be more market-focused. Authors have addressed a myriad of constructs which promote the realization of the marketing concept. This article examines leadership and its development in the context of creating a market-focused organization. It links the areas of leadership development, leadership skills, and internal customer culture to the strategy development process. The emphasis in a leadership-rich culture is on the relationships between leaders, followers, and customers. This idea parallels existing thought in the relationship marketing literature touting the benefits of relationships in buyer-seller partnerships and network structures. In addition, this article offers a leadership deployment process to create a market-focused organization from top to bottom.     

The kill programme: an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ in a slaughterhouse

It has been argued that ‘dirty work’ is characterised by strong occupational and workgroup cultures. This literature has mainly focused on direct workers, but this article largely attends to indirect ‘dirty’ workers, specifically meat inspectors, through ethnographic research conducted in a UK slaughterhouse. Four arguments are developed; the first is that ‘dirty workers’ may not all display group cohesiveness; indeed, individualisation may be more evident depending upon the technology used, internationalisation and employment conditions. Second, there is complexity and diversity within ‘dirty work’ and even single occupations can contain considerable variety, rendering generalisations problematic. Third, we argue that much greater attention needs to be given to the wider contextual issues affecting ‘dirty work’, specifically changing labour markets, itinerant labour, economic conditions and technologies. Finally, we argue that stigmatised work may become more so if it is equated with the low wage economy and/or undercutting conditions of employment through exploiting migrant labour.     

Three books,two movements,one story

These three books take different approaches to analysing the transformative potential of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil. Vergara‐Camus' book also examines the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Carter solicited essays from numerous specialists and sees his book as contributing to existing efforts to overcome inequality. Mészáros emphasizes the influence of power relations on the law, determining that it takes an organized pressure group such as the MST to ensure that authorities implement policies that challenge the status quo. Vergara‐Camus' grassroots approach, which involved periods of living with peasant families, concludes that the MST's strategies for building alternative, autonomous rural communities is more realistic – more universalistic – than that of the Zapatistas, whose military tactics tend to reinforce the group's isolation in the forests of Mexico's southernmost state. The review evaluates these arguments, the authors and their evidence from the perspective of a researcher experienced with the objects studied.     

Commodity price inflation, retail pass-through and market power

When commodity prices rise, wholesalers and retailers of products derived from basic commodities respond by passing along at least a portion of the price increase to consumers. In this paper we examine whether firms respond differently to positive commodity price shocks than to negative commodity price shocks; that is, whether commodity price volatility alters market power. We exploit recent volatility in food commodity prices over the period 2007-2010 to investigate how commodity price shocks translate into market power in two different vertically-structured food product industries: potatoes and fluid milk. For potatoes, we find both wholesale and retail market power decreases (increases) during periods of rising (falling) commodity prices. Moreover, price-cost margins widen a substantially greater degree in response to negative shocks than margins narrow in response to positive shocks, indicating that commodity price volatility increases market power. For fluid milk, we find that market power likewise declines during periods of rising commodity prices; however, market power does not significantly change during periods of falling commodity prices, suggesting that commodity price volatility decreases market power.     

Benchmarking Risk Management Within the International Water Utility Sector. Part I: Design of a Capability Maturity Methodology

Risk management in the water utility sector is becoming increasingly explicit. However, due to the novelty and complexity of the discipline, utilities are encountering difficulties in defining and institutionalising their risk management processes. In response, the authors have developed a sector specific capability maturity methodology for benchmarking and improving risk management. The research, conducted in consultation with water utility practitioners, has distilled risk management into a coherent, process‐based framework. We identified eleven risk management processes, and eight key attributes with characterise the extent to which these processes are defined, controlled and institutionalised. Implementation of the model should enable utilities to more effectively employ their portfolio of risk analysis techniques for optimal, credible and defensible decision making.