The Economics of Exchange‐Rate Regimes: A Review Essay

The exchange‐rate regime issue has taken centre‐stage in discussions of international economic policy. Much of the profession appears to have been converted to ‘the hypothesis of the vanishing middle regime’; for countries well‐integrated into world capital markets, there is little, if any, middle ground between floating exchange rates and monetary unification. This paper considers the exchange‐rate‐regime issue in the context of recent books on the subject by W. Max Corden and Morris Goldstein. Both authors prescribe managed floating exchange rates, supplemented with inflation targeting, for emerging‐market economies. Under managed floating, and with a credible monetary policy, the public finances in order, and strengthened debt management and prudential regulation, the exchange rate is free to act as a market gauge for assessing policies and as a mode of conflict resolution. Both authors also argue, however, that no exchange‐rate regime is a Holy Grail. Ultimately, a credible exchange‐rate regime depends upon the trust evoked by governments. There is no exchange‐rate regime, whether of the managed‐floating or hard‐fix variety, that can eradicate a history of failed stabilisation attempts.     

Race,Self-Employment,and Upward Mobility An Illusive American Dream: Response to John Sibley Butler's Review Essay

Small Business Economics -     

The First European Business Ethics Prize Essay

We are pleased to print here the winning entry for the 1995 European Business Ethics Essay Competition, which was sponsored jointly by the Foundation for Business Responsibilities and London Business School and to which entry was open to students for the MBA or equivalent management degree at any institution in Europe. The author, Mr Nils Elmark, subsequently gained his MSc degree in Public Relations at the Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, and is now with Marks and Brands, St. Kirkstrade 3, DK-1073 Copenhagen, Denmark.     

An Essay on the Origins of Entrepreneurial Opportunity

In this article, we apply a process of logical inference to draw conclusions about the origins of entrepreneurial opportunity from existing conversations in the field of strategic management. We equate the execution of a competitive strategy – as described in the strategic management literature – to the exploitation of an entrepreneurial opportunity – as described in the entrepreneurship literature. Given this assumption, we survey five extant theories of strategy in an attempt to categorize and describe the circumstances that define how and with what consequence entrepreneurial opportunity exploitation results in future opportunity. Given this review, we characterize the `outcomes’ of strategy execution as a function of the ‹match’ between strategy and environment in an effort to extend and refine Holcombe’s [Holcombe, Randall, 2003, Review of Austrian Economics 16(1), 25–43] position that entrepreneurial opportunity is born of prior entrepreneurial action.

‘Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.’ Ovid, A.D. 17

     

Editorial Essay: Mapping the Ethical in Neuroscientific Research

The unmanaged organization (Gabriel in Organ Stud 16:477–501, 1995) is moving from coffee corners to social networks. This means not only a change of media, but also a transformation in how organizations exert control over workers and how workers resist the commodification of emotions (Fineman, in: Fineman, Emotion in organizations, Sage, London, 2000; Lindebaum in J Manag Inq 21:262–277, 2012). After analyzing instances of the online publication of images and texts that escape organizational control, we identified three main ambiguities helpful in framing future studies about organizational control and resistance: ambiguity between private and public spheres, ambiguity between spontaneous and performed manifestations, and ambiguity between the distribution and control of power. Our main contribution is to understanding the Internet, particularly social networks, as a medium for employee resistance through distance (Collinson, in: Jermier et al., Resistance and power in organizations, Routledge, London, 1994), and in using the three aforementioned ambiguities to help analyze this phenomenon.     

Review

Journal of Business Ethics -