Pragmatism and Compliance: Employer Responses to the Working Time Regulations

Analysis of Working Time Regulations data reveals three patterns of response that help to explain the lack of employers' post‐implementation protest: coincidence with current practice; easy ‘escape’ options; and non‐compliance. Whether this represents a failure of health and safety legislation or a pragmatic response to labour market conditions is discussed.     

The Impact of Transaction Costs and the Expected Length of Stay on Homeownership

Economic theory suggests that an increase in the expected length of stay in a dwelling increases the probability of a household choosing to own a house rather than rent. This hypothesis is derived from recognition that there are substantial transaction costs associated with homeownership and increased expected time in the home reduces the annualized transaction cost. Using a military data set, we confirm that expected length of stay in a dwelling and the transaction costs of selling are very important to the ownership decision. Our best estimate of the transaction costs of selling a home are the sum of 3% of house value and 4% of household earnings.     

信息披露对供应商产品定价的影响研究

通过构建供应商直接价格竞争的信号博弈模型,研究了不同信息披露情形下的供应商定价-收益均衡。对均衡结果进行分析表明:(1)供应商的竞争促使信息得到完全披露;(2)名誉损失成本可促使供应商披露可靠信息;(3)信息披露过程中,供应商可能会牺牲客户的利益而获利。     

Costs of delay and rent-seeking under the modification of final judgment

Under the MFJ, the Bell Operating Companies are restricted in the activities they can undertake. Requests for waivers f'mm these restrictions must be approved by the Department of Justice and a Court. Most requests are ultimately approved. If we assume that all such decisions are made correctly, then the costs of delays associated with the approval process are much larger than any reasonable estimate of the benefits of the process. To these costs must be added the substantial costs of rent seeking and of the uncertainty associated with the process.     

The Value Relevance of Accounting under Political Uncertainty: Evidence Related to Quebec's Independence Movement

The Canadian province of Quebec is a region of an advanced industrialized nation characterized by a strong independence movement and, therefore, provides an interesting context in which to test the effect of political uncertainty on the relationship between market values and accounting values. In this study we compare market‐to‐book value associations of a sample of firms headquartered in Quebec with those of a sample of Canadian firms headquartered outside Quebec, over the period 1988–2002. Our comparisons suggest that, on average, the value of Quebec‐based firms is significantly less than other Canadian firms when valuation is based on multiples of book value and earnings. In addition, we find that the “Quebec discount” decreased significantly in the period immediately following the 1995 provincial sovereignty referendum wherein Quebeckers voted (narrowly) against Quebec sovereignty. We conclude that the relative undervaluation of Quebec firms is related, at least in part, to political uncertainty associated with the Quebec independence movement.     

Environmental Uncertainty and Product–Process Life Cycles: A Multi-level Interpretation of Change Over Time

ABSTRACT Product-process life cycle models are often used to describe long-term change in organizations. Such models generally assume a deterministic trajectory of long-run industry evolution and production core transformation that lead to standardization over time. Typical interpretations of these models do not explain the short and intermediate term choices and competitive dynamics that lead to the longer-term changes, or explain viable 'off-trajectory' positions and post-stabilization complications that can arise. In this paper, we use multiple theory streams to augment discussions of product-process life cycle models in ways that allow interpretation of the role of uncertainty and management decision-making for the typical trajectory of standardization as well as off-trajectory and post-standardization phases.     

上市公司会计信息质量与债务融资成本的关系研究

本文选取2010年至2014年度在深圳证券市场主板及中小板A股正常上市的非金融类上市公司作为本文实证分析的研究样本,实证分析上市公司会计信息质量对债务融资资本成本的影响程度。研究发现:上市公司的会计信息质量与其债务融资成本呈显著负相关关系;且针对所有权性质的进一步研究可知,相较于经营更加稳定的国有企业,会计信息质量对非国有企业的债务融资成本的影响更加显著。     

供应链环境下信息共享对库存的影响研究

实现供应链管理的关键是信息共享。通过文献综述,对供应链环境下,信息共享对库存的影响进行了分析和研究。并对牛鞭效应、VMI、采购承诺和数量柔性与信息共享的关系进行讨论,最后得出了供应链环境下,信息共享的障碍。     

Us Debt and Deficits: Time to Reverse the Trend

This article provides a primer on budget deficits from the creation of the federal government. Today federal government spending is 24% of GDP (compared with its historical average of 8.8%), fuelling debt of historic levels. The only effective way to reduce debt levels is to cut entitlement programmes and then set a tax rate sufficient, over the course of the business cycle, to fund government spending.     

风险与挑战——中国企业如何应对美国"337条款"

美国是我国重要的贸易伙伴，但同时也是对我国提起反倾销申诉比较多的国家，而中国企业近几年来受到的反倾销调查也是世界最多的，当中国企业逐渐对反倾销调查有所防范时，一种新的贸易壁垒正悄然地被美国企业使用，并且更多地针对中国的企业。比起反倾销来，“337调查”是更能置出口企业于死地的贸易壁垒。然而我国企业显然对此并没有做好充分准备，当这些企业被起诉而接受“337调查”时，竞感到十分意外，他们根本没有关注过“337条款”，更不知道“337条款”到底是什么。可见其法律意识十分淡薄。因此，我国企业需要尽快增强对“337条款”的认识，以便在对美贸易中采取相应的对策。     

Perceived Environmental Uncertainty: The Extension of Miller's Scale to the Natural Environment

Large businesses are professionalizing their approach to environmental management, in pursuit of quality management, cost effective eco-efficiency and regulatory compliance. However, recent evidence suggests that business corporations are not integrating the natural environment into their strategic thinking. One of the major reasons for this is the contingent relationship between perceived uncertainty in the business environment and strategic decision making. This paper describes the development and testing of a Perceived Environmental Uncertainty (PEU) measurement scale for the natural environment. The new PEU scale is based on Miller's (1993) PEU scale for the commercial environment and grounded in the environmental management theory. It is also shown to possess very good reliability and dimensionality. The new PEU scale was applied in the form of self-report questionnaire. Respondents were senior executives (n = 198) from the UK textile industry. We specifically looked for variations in levels of executives' PEU along the industry supply chain. As a result of applying the new scale, our findings show that the natural environment presents significantly higher levels of PEU for executives in the textile making-up/retail sector. The major cause of uncertainty for the textile making-up/retail sector is that firms in this sector are at the end of the supply chain and therefore exposed to up-stream risk, which is often very difficult to manage.     

存在即期收益时房地产开发的投资时机与可达性问题研究

本文在房地产价格与建设成本均随机以及二者存在相关性的条件下，运用期权分析技术建模，研究了存在即期收益情形下的房地产最优投资时机及其可达性问题，指出投资规则中应当包含期权价值。此外，比较静态的数值分析表明，当相关性存在时，不确定性不一定提高期权价值反而会抑制房地产投资。该结论与不确定性提高期权价值，从而抑制投资的经典结果相反。同时，我们也指出，即期收益提高了投资的临界水平并赋予了投资期权以更大的价值，这表明即期收益抑制了投资水平。特别地，我们对结果亦给出了经济与政策含义。     

信息化建设在人力资源档案管理中的必要性及保障条件

随着时代的进步,科学的发展,人类社会正逐渐地进步。随着先进技术的引入和先进的管理观念的掌握,使人力资源档案管理的创新得到了新的发展。人力资源档案的管理应该突破以前传统的观念,能够充分利用现代的科技手段,来加快自身综合信息化的建设。这是实现人力资源档案的信息资源共享的重要手段和方式,而且具有十分重要的意义。     

Endogenizing the provision of money: Costs of commodity and fiat monies in relation to the value of trade

We consider the problem of including the costs and value of the institutions that define money and support trade, within the framework of economic optimization. We compare monetary systems mediated by durable commodity monies, versus pure fiat monies, in order to understand the separation and eventual independence of the institutionally-created value of money from the values of underlying traded goods. We treat the emergence of monetary function as a problem in mechanism design, modeled by minimal strategic market games that overcome a generalized Jevons failure when agents must commit ahead of time to specialist resource production. We consider in particular the problem of defining closures with respect to both money flows and labor-allocation and trading decisions, and show that minimal models require many of the fundamental institutions of banking and contract enforcement found in real economies, in order to define a self-policing system. We define costs, value, and the efficiencies of the institutions that support trade in terms of a natural money-metric welfare function, and compare the characteristics of commodity and fiat monies by these measures. Through careful treatment of the stock/flow distinction in repeated-game settings, we find that commodity money, even when its value derives heavily from its institutional role, remains defined by its flow characteristics, in contrast to fiat money, for which the control function is defined inherently in terms of stock variables. Our notation is somewhat nonconventional for economics but to do justice to econo-physics concepts such as scaling and dimensional analysis and to stress the distinction between stocks and flows, we believe this notation is justified. We provide a full listing of notation in Appendix A.     

Time to decision: the drivers of innovation adoption decisions

Organisations desire timeliness. Timeliness facilitates a better responsiveness to changes in an organisation's external environment to either attain or maintain competitiveness. Despite its importance, decision timeliness has not been explicitly examined. Decision timeliness is measured in this study as the time taken to commit to a decision. The research objective is to identify the drivers of decision timeliness in the context of adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA), an innovation for enterprise computing. A research model rooted in the technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework is proposed and tested with data collected in a large-scale study. The research variables have been examined before in the context of adoption, but their applicability to the timeliness of innovation decision-making has not received much attention and their salience is unclear. The results support multiple hypothesised relationships, including the finding that a risk-oriented organisational culture as well as normative and coercive pressures accelerates decision timeliness. Top management support as well as the traditional innovation attributes (compatibility, relative advantage and complexity/ease-of-use) were not found to be significant when examining their influence on decision timeliness, which appears inconsistent with generally accepted knowledge and deserves further examination.     

WTO条件下我国外贸发展趋势和对策

一 随着国际贸易环境的变化,首先我国要充分利用国际有利环境,一方面进行对外贸易结构的升级,另一方面,还要在加入WTO后对外贸体制加以全面的革新.     

探究复杂地质条件下止水咬合桩施工难点与应对

在深基坑支护工程中,咬合桩是在桩与桩之间存在一定的间隙,使形成相互咬合的状态,并排列成一定规模的一种基坑围护结构.它独特的结构和施工工艺造就了坚实的防护性能和止水性能,在复杂的地质条件下,对施工人员和制定的施工工艺都有极高的要求.本文对大连湾海底隧道建设工程干坞子项工程中的止水咬合桩施工工艺进行学习分析,在复杂地质条件...     

信息化战争-体化油料保障方式方法研究

通过对信息化战争一体化油料保障方式方法的概念分析,从一体化油料灵活组合的支援保障、功能集成的整体保障、多点全维的聚焦保障、无缝链接的精确保障和军地一体的综合保障方式行为进行了研究;再从一体化油料基线保障、设点辐射保障、投送保障、伴随保障、交替超越保障和直达保障方法进行了研究,从而全面阐述了信息化战争一体化油料保障方式方法.     

浅谈设计变更、现场签证对控制工程造价的影响

设计变更和现场签证的控制,对施工进度和工程质量及造价控制的重要性。