Centralisation and decentralisation in local government bargaining

The system of pay bargaining in local government has been subjected to conflicting pressures, both from employers and trade unions, since the second half of the 1970s. The author argues that these difficulties will intensify under the increasing financial stress which local government is experiencing.     

麦德龙不再"纯情"为哪般

公元2003年1月11日，成才麦德龙开始公开允办理个人临时会员卡，消费者只要凭身份证就可领到一张免费的麦德龙临时会员卡，享受到“超低”的商品价格优惠。此举马上使个人消费者趋之若鹜。往常专事检查会员卡的保安“摇身”成了临时的会员卡办理处的秩序维护员。该店现任总经理汪祚文称“成都此举开了麦德龙的先河”，     

打造无形无痛的“紧箍咒”——中小企业的人力资源管理

在<西游记>中,唐僧带领他的三个徒弟历尽艰辛,最终取得真经.在取经途中,大弟子孙悟空本领高强,一路降妖除魔,为取经立下了汗马功劳.但孙悟空在刚开始时野性难训,不服唐僧管教,经常违反佛家规范.于是,观音菩萨就在他的头上套上了一个金箍,一旦孙悟空不服从管教,唐僧就会念紧箍咒,让孙悟空疼痛难忍.当师徒四人取得真经到如来佛祖面前论功行赏时,孙悟空因为功劳卓越被封为斗战胜佛.     

解决方案最关键——访中邮科技物流系统集成公司总经理李京欣

先进的技术和设备、完美的解决方案、丰富的行业经验,这是我们现在、也是将来发展的优势所在.中邮科技物流系统集成公司总经理这样告诉记者.     

An investment‐led expansion is no pipe dream

• Contrary to some perceptions, the UK's economic recovery has not been a disproportionately consumer‐led one. In fact, business investment has punched well above its weight in supporting growth. And the conditions look good for this outsized contribution to continue.
• Consequently, we think that the threat of ‘secular stagnation’, reflecting a lack of appetite to spend on the part of firms, is one that the UK should avoid. Moreover, strong investment growth should have desirable by‐products in the form of more accommodative monetary and fiscal policy.

     

BoE financing of the government deficit is no longer taboo

• ▪ The BoE has hinted that it could directly finance the government's soaring deficit. While there is no urgency to do so at present, BoE purchases could calm potential disruption in the gilt market and be a strong economic support.
• ▪ Direct money financing by the UK central bank would be a radical approach, but not unprecedented. However, it's necessary to go back to 1914 to find the last episode when the BoE took on the role of funding public borrowing.
• ▪ Once normality returns, money financing could result in a rise in prices. But a time-limited expedient shouldn't result in persistent inflation. And policymakers could seek to unwind the BoE's money creation.

     

Centralisation of Collective Bargaining in a Decade of Decentralisation: The Case of the Engineering Construction Industry

This article examines the sole recent case of the comprehensive centralisation of bargaining. This ‘exceptional’ case allows new light to be cast on existing trends in multi-employer bargaining. The analysis suggests the importance of the state and unions as interlocutors in the political process of the determination of employer ‘interests’.     

Desperate entrepreneurs: no opportunities,no skills

Promoting entrepreneurship has become an important policy strategy in Europe in the hope to stimulate the crisis-shaken economy. In this paper, we caution against undue expectations. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 17 European countries, we find that a considerable proportion of the new entrepreneurs have started a business despite a negative perception of business opportunities as well as lack of confidence in their own entrepreneurial skills. This proportion has increased during the economic crisis, especially in those countries which were particularly affected by economic downturn and rising unemployment. We extend existing entrepreneurship theories to account for this phenomenon, which we call “nons-entrepreneurship”. Testing the hypotheses derived from our model, we find that the primary motivation for these people to turn to entrepreneurship is the lack of other options to enter the labour market during the economic crisis. Still, this sort of “desperate” entrepreneurship does not equal necessity based entrepreneurship, warranting further research.     

There is no smoke without a fire: The effect of government interventions in less advanced economies

The lack of liquidity in the interbank market during the crisis of 2007–2011 led governments to impose different policies to rescue their countries’ banking sectors. While in advanced countries interventions in the banking sector were mostly related to a lack of liquidity and significant asymmetric information regarding counterparty risk, in many less advanced countries they had a precautionary motive. In our article, we investigate the effectiveness of policy interventions on healthy banking markets, with possible negative spill-over effects from other countries. To this extent, we use an event study methodology to test the effect of liquidity and financial sector policy announcements on interbank spread changes in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period between 2007 and 2011. We find that standard liquidity interventions did not provide effective stabilization. In fact, our evidence suggests that the spread widened after their announcement, probably as a result of the negative signal and consequently increased risk aversion of banks. In such situations, regulators should consider policy instruments that aim to decrease uncertainty in the market.     

汉语中“不A不B”格式语义关系之考察

汉语中"不A不B"是一种很常见的四字格.它的结构严密紧凑,格式整齐均匀,音调和谐上口,而且节奏鲜明,表述精练,含义丰富,因而在语言中使用频率很高.对于中国人来说,这种格式比较容易理解,而在对外汉语教学中,很多学生经常会把这种格式理解为简单的否定,本文以"不A不B"格式的语义关系为分析对象,把A和B在语义上大致分为三类:同、近义,对、反义和同属于一个类属义场来分析"不A不B"的语义关系类型并考察其在语境中的运用.     

PPG的YES和NO

网络经济时代,Internet、交互式Web应用和电子协作等计算机技术彻底改变了传统的商业方式,虚拟组织应运而生。直销、外包、快速反应的供应链和沉重的营销费用均使其具有两面性,众多的跟风者更是对这一创新组织形式提出挑战。     

支付担保刻不容缓

在工程建设中，由于工程项目不确定性的增加，业主，承包商，设计单位，监理单位，分包商等各方面的因素加大了工程风险。各工程款支付方导致了大量拖欠款的问题，引发了诸多经济，社会问题，本文从拖欠款的现状及根源出发，探讨了解决这一问题的办法一推行支付担保以及对这一办法实施的具体措施和途径，以期能对广大决策者和管理者有所启发。     

Asset prices in an exchange economy when agents have heterogeneous homothetic recursive preferences and no risk free bond is available

We study a pure exchange economy under incomplete markets where households have heterogeneous homothetic recursive preferences and lending and borrowing are precluded. We fully characterize the properties of the efficient allocations and the equilibrium asset price. The ownership distribution dynamics reveal the emergence of a dominant agent, who after some finite time, remains the only investor that increases asset holdings until asymptotically owning the entire wealth. Investors can be ranked according to a unique parameter that aggregates agents’ preference characteristics and we show how time discount rate, attitude towards risk and intertemporal substitution contribute to capital accumulation.     

摩托罗拉：采访未果

在《环境信息公开办法（试行）开始实行的第一年里,摩托罗拉中国投资有限公司在中国天津的一家工厂没有按照相关规定,在环保部门公布名单后的30日内向公众公开包括污染物排放信息。     

没有对手,力求共赢自然之友上海小组会员顾训中:

环境问题已经成为当下世人关注的焦点.正在丹麦哥本哈根举行的联合国气候变化大会不管其结果是否符合人们的期待,已充分凸现这一关注发展到了何等程度.当地媒体称之为一场关于人类命运的交锋,一向严肃的英国<金融时报>更是夸张地称其是二战以来最重要的国际会议.而此次会议触及的还仅仅只是环境问题的一个方面.水环境问题、土地问题等更为严重的领域尚未涉及.