Reflections on PATCO’s Legacy: Labor’s Strategic Challenges Persist

The 1981 PATCO strike stands out as a symbol of union decline. The penchant to stigmatize PATCO detracts from important aspects of the union’s unorthodox strategy. Preparations for 1981 negotiations were coordinated by rank-and-file activists who referred to themselves as ‘choir boys’. An extensive mobilization network cultivated by the ‘choir boys’ contributed to cohesiveness and in effect democratized PATCO. The union’s effectiveness in building internal solidarity was its most notable accomplishment. Twenty-first-century labor-movement revitalization will require not only strong, creative leadership but also rank-and-file mobilization in the mold of PATCO’s ‘choir boy’ system. It is this type of grassroots activism that has the potential to promote an internal culture of militant action which can serve as the foundation for union growth.

A retrospective on the subprime crisis and its aftermath ten years after Lehman’s collapse

This paper reviews the interactions between policymaking, the financial system and the U.S. economy before, during and after the subprime crisis, with particular attention to current controversies about the policy decisions that led to Lehman’s downfall and their lessons for the future. The first part of the paper documents and analyzes the interactions between policy, financial markets and the economy during the acute and subsequent moderate phases of the crisis as well as during the later gradual exit from the zero lower bound and the extremely slow reduction in high powered money and bank reserves. The remaining parts develop alternative aspects of the thesis that mutual uncertainties inflicted by financial institutions on policymakers and by the latter on financial markets were at the root of the non-negligible surprises that the crisis inflicted on everybody. In particular, it discusses the political economy of bailout operations, reviews and evaluates recent controversies about the reasons for not rescuing Lehman Brothers, and informally presents the structure and policy lessons from a general equilibrium model of the financial sector highlighting the consequences of policy actions that have raised (Knightian) bailout uncertainty. The last section takes a brief look ahead and discusses some longer term consequences of the crisis.     

A note on generalized wald’s method

Let {v _n(θ)} be a sequence of statistics such that whenθ =θ ₀,v _n(θ ₀) N _p(0,Σ), whereΣ is of rankp andθ εR ^d. Suppose that underθ =θ ₀, {Σ _n} is a sequence of consistent estimators ofΣ. Wald (1943) shows thatv _n ^T (θ ₀)Σ _n ⁻¹ v _n(θ ₀) x ²(p). It often happens thatv _n(θ ₀) N _p(0,Σ) holds butΣ is singular. Moore (1977) states that under certain assumptionsv _n ^T (θ ₀)Σ _n ⁻ v _n(θ ₀) x ²(k), wherek = rank (Σ) andΣ _n ⁻ is a generalized inverse ofΣ _n. However, Moore’s result as stated is incorrect. It needs the additional assumption that rank (Σ _n) =k forn sufficiently large. In this article, we show that Moore’s result (as corrected) holds under somewhat different, but easier to verify, assumptions. Research partly supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University.     

A short proof of Deb’s Theorem on Schwartz’s rule

Schwartz in (Nous,7, 1972, Definition, 3) introduces a generalization of the Condorcet criterion, which is the classical approach to rational choice in the context of cycles, and he defines the Schwartz set. Deb (J Econ Theory 16:103–110, 1977) shows that the Schwartz set consists of the maximal elements according to the transitive closure of the asymmetric part of a binary relation corresponding to a choice process or representing the decision maker’s preferences. This note provides a short and simple proof of Deb’s theorem on the characterization of the Schwartz set.     

A customer’s utility measure based on the reliability of multi-state systems

The main focus of this paper is on the development of utility measures for dynamic multi-state systems that have M + 1 discrete states of working efficiency. To develop the utility measures for multi-state systems, we assume that the degradation of the multi-state systems follows a non-homogeneous semi-Markov process together with a backward recurrence time process and that the system can directly degrade into any lower state. The measure considers the immediate utility derived from the state of the system occupancy and the utility due to the system survival expectations derived from its reliability. Moreover, in order to measure the customer’s cumulative utility, the discounted non-homogeneous continuous time semi-Markov process with rewards is implemented. In such a way, the higher order moments of the reward process can be evaluated and then, in particular, the expectation and the standard deviation of the consumer’s accumulated discounted utility. These statistic indices are useful both to the industry in order to compare different system designs offered by the market and to the market itself, in order to know the customer’s utility deriving from the goods she/he consumes. Finally, a numerical example shows the possibility of implementing the model in real-life problems.     

‘A life on the ocean wave’: the ‘post-socialist’ careers of Chinese,Russian and Eastern European seafarers

The emergence of the global labour market (GLM) provides a novel platform for young professional workers to design and develop their careers. This is particularly true for those from China, the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, where economic liberation has made it easier for professionals to move both internally and internationally. Taking into account national variations in economic transition and political constraints, several questions are raised. How does the GLM, for example, influence its choice of employers and career development? What are the similarities and differences between Chinese and Eastern European seafarers? What factors contribute to these differences? Those questions are addressed here, through a study of the case of seafarers for whom a global labour market has been established since the 1980s. By collecting crew information worldwide, a global seafarer database has been built in the Seafarers' International Research Centre (SIRC) at Cardiff University. Accordingly, this paper develops a methodological framework for analysing and comparing seafarers' careers, and revealing the features of career development amongst four major seafarer supplier countries: China, Russia, the Ukraine and Poland.     

A quantitative view on policymakers’ goal,institutions and tax evasion

We develop a general theoretical model to compare two different policymakers both facing tax evasion. Policymakers differs in that they aim to maximize either the fiscal revenues ( $T$ ) as in a social-democracy as, e.g., Sweden, or the GDP as in a capitalistic country as, e.g., the USA. Both Bureaus can manoeuvre the tax rate and the share of tax receipts spent to fight the tax evasion rather than to increase the public capital. Our model merges the indications of two distinct, and sometimes conflicting, approaches to the analysis of tax evasion in that reconciling them. We also find that the feedbacks between the private and public sector are linked to some Laffer-type relationships usually unexplored by the existing literature. As compared to capitalistic systems, then, our results show that social-democracies end up imposing higher tax rates and, possibly, more pervasive regulations. Consequently, they are likely to suffer from larger tax-evasion-to-GDP ratios. This notwithstanding, social-democracies spend relatively more to contrast tax dodgers. On the other hand, $T$ -maximizing governments have better institutional settings and greater employment rates. Whichever the preferred target, however, no policymaker is able to erase totally the tax evasion, which may explain why this latter is so pervasive and persistent even among the richest countries.     

A Study on the Productivities of IT Capital and Computer Labor: Firm-level Evidence from Taiwan’s Banking Industry

The current paper extends the non-neutral stochastic frontier production function—which belongs to the class of a one-step procedure as defined by Wang and Schmidt (2002) and developed by Huang and Liu (1994)—from a cross-sectional setting to a panel data modeling. Using a newly-surveyed dataset from Taiwan’s commercial banks on their investments in information and communication technologies (IT), I find that IT capital and computer labor tend to exhibit higher productivities than their non-IT and non-computer counterparts, that IT capital has positive impacts on the marginal productivities of computer labor and borrowed funds, and that the mean technical efficiency is around 87.7%. Evidence is found that the total factor productivity of the banking sector grew at an average rate of 0.28% per annum, albeit fluctuating, for the past 8 years.     

Modeling and simulation of the quality’s entropy

The aim of the present study is to define quality entropy as well as to illustrate some of its properties. The simulation of the mathematical model for quality entropy shall be performed by means of specialized software for mathematical problem simulation, such as Microsoft Excel that we have employed for this particular study. Our aim is to prove that quality entropy may be expanded to the notions of Markov source of quality and Bernoulli source of quality, by analogy with the Markov and Bernoulli sources employed in information theory. Likewise, the present study delineates some aspects regarding tolerance to quality entropy. The subject of entropy and its application of the management of quality has been approached by other authors as well (Dinu and Vod?, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(4): 60–61, 2007; Dinu, Revista Calitatea-acces la succes, anul 8(5): 62–63, 2007; Georgescu-Roegen, Legea Entropiei ?i Procesul Economic, 1979; Stamatiu, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Quality, Reability and Maintainabilty, 2000; Stamatiu, Proceeding of the 18th International Conference on Quality, Reliability and Maintainability, 2002). Through our transdisciplinary approach, we would like to contribute to the development of this subject.     

The Influence of French on English：the Norman Conquest and Its Influence on English

The English language has been shaped by numerous external languages over the centuries,many know that Latin and German are two of the most important.But few realize how much the French language has influenced English.     

Management Accountants’ Occupational Prestige Within the Company: A Social Identity Theory Perspective

Abstract

Professional associations and researchers in management accounting have attempted to increase the prestige of management accountants. Although studies have suggested that occupational prestige is important, the prestige of management accountants within the employing organisation and its consequences are still not fully understood. Building on social identity theory, we investigate the effect of occupational prestige, as perceived by management accountants, on organisational–professional conflict. We suggest that prestige can mitigate conflict because management accountants with high prestige will identify more strongly with their organisation, as they see it as a source of self-esteem and might believe that they are taken more seriously by managers. At the same time, we hypothesise that prestige exerts an indirect conflict-increasing effect via professional identification. This is based on the idea that prestige may cause proud management accountants to start to identify more strongly with their profession and become hard-liners, unwilling to compromise the values associated with their profession in the interest of the firm. Results from a series of three surveys support the indirect conflict-increasing effect. Moreover, the results suggest a direct conflict-reducing effect of perceived prestige. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Mechanism and Risk of Chinese Local Govermnent Debt——From the Perspective of Fiscal Federalism on the Western Minority Province A

自1994年分税制改革以来,中国大量基层政府尤其是县级政府相继陷入财政困难,进而举借债务且债务规模不断膨胀、风险不断增大的境况.对地方政府债务形成机制,目前主要认为是因为改革不彻底的原因.但是,还应该针对中国财政体制与其他成熟市场经济国家间存在的特异性,研究地方政府债务产生机制.分税制改革不彻底,农村税费改革,转移支付制度,中央宏观政策,政府绩效考核等多方面的原因共同导致了地方政府债务的产生.     

Franchising and intellectual capital: A franchisee’s perspective

Various studies have focused on the reasons for franchising. Most studies have concentrated principally on the franchisors’ motivations for franchising, with only a few exploring franchising as a route to self-employment. This paper seeks to provide a conceptual framework which examines the value of franchising to franchisees, employing an intellectual capital perspective. It is suggested that the (perceived) value of the franchise system is unlikely to remain static over time, and that the perceived benefits of franchise systems will vary according to both system and franchisee attributes.

The impact of the shutdown policy on the asymmetric interdependence structure and risk transmission of cryptocurrency and China’s financial market

By taking Bitcoin, Litecoin, and China’s gold and RMB/US dollar exchange rate market as research objects, this paper apply the MF-ADCCA and time-delayed DCCA methods to study the impact of China’s mainland shutdown of cryptocurrencies trading on the non-linear interdependent structure and risk transmission of cryptocurrencies and its financial market. Empirical results show that the cross-correlation between cryptocurrencies and China’s financial market has a long memory and asymmetric multifractal characteristics. After the shutdown, the long memory between cryptocurrencies and Chinese gold has weakened, and the long memory between cryptocurrencies and the RMB/US dollar exchange rate market was strengthened. China’s shutdown policy has a certain risk prevention effect. Specifically, after the implementation of the policy, the risk transmission of cryptocurrencies to China’s financial market has weakened, but the influence of China’s financial market has gradually strengthened.     

The impact of VIX on China’s financial market: A new perspective based on high-dimensional and time-varying methods

Based on the new perspective of high-dimensional and time-varying methods, this paper analyzes the contagion effects of US financial market volatility on China’s nine financial sub-markets. The results show evidence of non-linear Granger causality from the US financial volatility (VIX) to the China’s financial markets. Increased US financial volatility has a negative next-day impact on the stock, bond, fund, interest rate, foreign exchange, industrial product and agricultural product markets, and a positive next-day impact on the gold and real estate markets. US financial volatility has the greatest impact on industrial product market, following by stock, agricultural product, fund, real estate, bond, gold, foreign exchange, and interest rates. Major risk events such as the global financial crisis can cause an enhanced contagion effect of US financial volatility to China's financial markets. This paper supports the achievements of China's actions to prevent and resolve major financial risks in the period of the COVID-19 epidemic.     

A note on compact differentiability and theδ-method

Letη _n ,n ∈ ?, be arbitrary functions defined on a probability space (ω,A,P) with values in a normed vector spaceB ₁ ,μ ∈ B ₁ andξ ₀ a separable random element inB ₁ such thatξ _n :=√n(η _n ?μ) converges weakly toξ ₀ in the sense of Hoffmann-Jørgensen. Then with (B ₂, ∥·∥₂) being another normed vector space andφ:B ₁→B ₂ compactly differentiable atμ with derivateD _μ, the random variable $\parallel \sqrt n (\phi (n_n ) - \phi (\mu )) - D_\mu (\sqrt n (n_n - \mu ))\parallel 2*$ converges to 0P-stochastically where “*” denotes the measurable cover. We show that the classicalδ — method extends to the non-measurable case where in the proof we shall not make use of any representation theorems but only of a slight refinement of the usual characterisation of compact differentiability, due to the fact that we will not assume {ξ _n :n ∈ ?} being tight.