Collective bargaining: crisis and its consequences for American society

The term ‘collective bargaining’ was first used extensively and developed in full form by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. As the intellectual father and mother of British industrial relations and through their multiple contributions to research, government and policy making, and university affairs, the Webbs served as role models for multiple generations of British scholars. Willy Brown, scholar, educational leader and active public servant, stands as our generation's Webbs' equivalent. In all three domains he has carried on the Webbs' legacy with the highest distinction. So it is fitting that one essay in this collection honouring Willy be devoted to an examination of the current state of this institution the Webbs called collective bargaining. I am honoured to present an analysis of collective bargaining, albeit one limited to its effects, the consequences of its decline and its potential future in the United States.     

Monetary policy,exchange rates and labor unions in SEE and the CIS during the financial crisis

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the levels of unionization and the rigidity of exchange rates represent a constraint for the monetary policy in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a particular focus on the recent economic crisis. Toward that end, a New Keynesian model with price and wage rigidities is used. The results show that monetary policy responded counter-cyclically during the crisis only in countries with weak trade unions and in countries with flexible exchange rates, which indicates that fixed exchange rates and strong trade unions constrain monetary policy in countries in these regions. Also, the findings show that the main driver of price inflation in these countries is not economic activity, but wages, which are affected to a large extent by trade unions. Therefore, trade unions should be active partners in the decision-making processes in these countries.     

风险出没,注意!

这边厢,担心国际经济形势不稳,新帝国主义祸水东引;那边厢,又怕国内经济转型带来的阵痛令社会无力承受。风险处处,且观且行。     

The productivity crisis

Productivity shouldn't be taken for granted, even in a country like the United States. To prevent the kind of serious mistakes that have been made in England, all levels of industry, capital, management, and labor, must be motivated toward productivity.     

危机之下的文化审视

由美国次贷危机所引发的全球经济危机愈演愈烈,在欧美国家经济降温冲击企业出口、银根紧缩及生产成本大幅上升等一系列不利因素的影响之下,强大的外部压力导致一次前所未有的企业裁员浪潮,出口萎缩,内需不振、股市大挫、地产低迷、失业加剧,一时间各行各业人心惶惶,企业内部人人自危.中国企业面临着改革开放以来最寒冷最残酷的"冬天".     

从美国次贷危机看金融危机形成机理

对美国次贷危机形成的内在机理和金融危机形成过程中各利益相关者动机的分析发现:形成机理是金融机构误导房地产消费者和证券投资者,进而误导美联储,美联储的救市措施又进一步将次贷的风险及代价分摊到了全球金融市场;房地产商、金融机构、投资银行、特别载体、基金都属于得益者,受到损失的则是政府(中央银行)和投资人;次级贷款的资产证券化实际上在房地产业和证券业之间构架了一个桥梁,将风险从一个市场扩散到另一个市场.总之,美国次贷危机形成的关键点在于不良资产证券化,而政府不可能通过金融监管来防范资产证券化这一金融工具被机构错误地使用,因此中国在进行资产证券化试点的过程中一定要慎重.     

The Norwegian banking crisis: Managerial escalation of decline and crisis

This paper examines the impact and nature of managerial contribution to the Norwegian banking crisis. Numerous findings are reviewed which suggest that many bank managers produced inappropriate responses to the initial decline and subsequent crisis, and thus contributed to the crisis, due to a set of common managerial misrepresentations of the situation. These include: external attribution of failure, overoptimism and overconfidence, the confirmation trap, the illusion of control, irrational escalation of commitment and insufficient adjustment.     

民营企业中的危机激励

文章就"危机激励"作了一系列探讨,通过一些具体的理论分析和实证研究,显示出危机激励的优点在于它可以根据民营企业不同时期的经营状况充分加以应用,充分展示其柔性和弹性,改善了传统的正向激励模式所呈现出的刚性和硬性。并对"危机激励"在民营企业中的应用状况作了简要的概述,使得"危机激励"在民营企业中不仅具有理论上的可行性,同时具有实际应用价值和可操作性。     

票据危机隐含金融风险

一个累计亏损2千多万元、资产负债率高达96%的企业,并且因挪用客户资金建设三星级大酒店而占压近亿元的资金,本身已形成了潜在的风险。然而,就是这样一个企业,工行某省分行营业部不但没有积极清收原有贷款,相反违反规定,采取突击签发银行承兑汇票等手法向该企业注入大量资金,一日之内,化整为零,突击签发银行承兑汇票18笔,合计1.7亿元。类似的事件伴随着近年来我国票据市场业务迅猛发展的势头频频发生。2003年,我国票据市场步入新一轮的加速发展轨道,与此同时,票据业务的风险也在不断暴露出来。2003年,审计署在对中国工商银行审计中发现票据市场管理混乱,一些商业银行分支机构和企业将目光转向银行票据业务,他们通过一些公司为虚构贸易背景的票据进行包装等手法,大肆套取银行信贷资金,从中非法牟利。一些银行为了争抢票源,展开恶性竞争,违规降低贴现利率,扰乱利率市场,并为一些以融资为目的的企业贴现无真实贸易背景的银行承兑汇票,大量银行信贷资金被套取。票据市场存在的严重问题严重扰乱了市场经济秩序,并为市场经济的健康发展埋下了隐患。目前,银行、融资企业和“票据掮客”联合包装银行承兑汇票,导致大量贴现资金流入股市和非生产领域,为票据市场经济泡沫埋下了隐患、给银行违规经营和诱发腐败提供     

The crisis,the corporations and the state

Book reviewed in this article: O'Connor, J. 1973: The fiscal crisis of the state. O'Connor, J. 1974: The corporations and the state.     

The development of the Indonesian labour movement

The paper examines the development of the labour movement in Indonesia in the context of trade unionism elsewhere in the area of the Asia-Pacific region. The Indonesian labour movement is shown to exhibit a dual nature; consisting of an official sponsored and legal form of unionism, and an independent, quasi-illegal form of unionism. The two have a conflicting yet symbiotic relationship, where the state plays a very significant role in determining the parameters for behaviour in industrial relations. Although the form of state intervention in Indonesia may be different from state intervention in other comparable countries, its aims are broadly similar. In this context the Indonesian independent labour movement is shown to have had some measure of success in resisting the restrictions placed upon it in its attempt to advance its members' terms and conditions of employment.     

PPG模式危机分析

尽管在短短两年时间里获得了空前成功，但PPG模式自出现以来就饱受争议，并在2007年集中爆发了一系列危机。     

The debt crisis in Ireland

This paper takes a multidisciplinary approach to analyze the current debt crisis in Ireland. It briefly reviews Irish economic performance from 1980 to 2008 and in particular the Celtic Tiger years. The paper looks at changes in the Irish money supply and its contribution to the Irish housing bubble and the subsequent economic problems facing Ireland. An estimate of the negative wealth effect in Ireland since 2007 is made. Given that Ireland is a small open economy, a number of other factors which are both domestic and international are considered in an attempt to explain what has happened in Ireland, where might Ireland go from here and what lessons can be learnt. These factors include: the theory of political economics, the principal-agent problem, the theory of optimal currency areas, the Balassa Samuelson effect, the dynamics of a capitalist economy, neo-liberalism, European monetary integration, international bond markets and ‘insurance’ that was sold to cover a Eurozone breakup. The Irish culture is considered to differentiate Ireland from other EU countries, in particular, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.     

The Chicago School after the crisis of the new millennium

After the self-criticism of Richard Posner (A failure of capitalism. The crisis of ’08 and the descend to depression. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2009a and some later papers), a position shared in part by Gary Becker, it is right to ask what exactly remains of the Chicago School, which came into being in the early 1930s with Knight and made a name for itself in the 1980s as the new orthodoxy with Lucas (Reh) and Fama (Emh). The financial crisis has, in this sense, cast the debate between the Saltwater school (the American universities on the coast) and the Freshwater school (the universities near the Great Lakes, including Chicago) in a new light. This article traces the development of the Chicago School, the consolidation of conservative think-tanks (especially the Mont Pelerin Society whose members have included, among others, von Hayek and Friedman) and the more recent positions of the School, including some that are less organic (Diamond, Kashyap, Rajan, Zingales). At the centre of the debate is the question of the failures of the State vs the failures of the market and the role of institutions. On a methodological level the relationship between law and economics (L&E) is also in discussion, which leads to an interesting comparison between Chicago (again Posner, past and present) and Yale (Calabresi). After having described the echoes of the debate across the Atlantic (with particular reference to Italy), it will be asked if the anomalies that can be found in the consolidated paradigm (Reh, Emh, but also L&E) will lead to the abandonment of pre-constituted models in favour of a less rigid theoretical framework (Ike together with Keynes and the Chicagoan Knight, but also to a certain extent, von Hayek) or simply a pause for reflection.