Lessons from the Snowy Slope: Vision and Politics in American Social Insurance

The enactment of social insurance, a fundamental departure from means‐tested welfare programs, was born out of the crisis of the Great Depression. Policy options to strengthen Social Security are mathematically simple, but ideologically contentious. Arguments against the program, remarkably consistent since its inception, have been gaining traction in the current political climate. As the debate proceeds, it is useful to examine the history of opposition and review the case for universal social insurance.     

Lessons from the History of Affordable Housing Cooperatives in the United States: A Case Study in American Affordable Housing Policy

Understanding the history of the affordable housing cooperatives in the United States helps us understand the general history of American affordable housing policy. This paper contains a decade-by-decade summary of the history of affordable cooperatives. The affordable cooperative movement has evolved from ethnic and union groups which developed self-help cooperatives in the 1920s, through the federal funding of low-income cooperatives in the 1960s and 70s, to local nonprofit organizations using ad hoc packages of funds to organize cooperatives during the 1980s and 90s. As this history unfolds, it provides answers to contemporary policy questions affecting both cooperatives and affordable housing in general.     

Plant closings: Lessons from the maine experience

This paper discusses the economics behind plant closings, suggests a possible role for public policy to ameliorate the effects of closings in some situations, and reviews Maine's experience with mandatory advance notice of closings and severance payments. The possibility of a less flexible labor market in Maine is noted, as are areas for future research. Finally, the economic and political history of Maine's experience with plant closing legislation is discussed in terms of its implications for similar legislation at the federal level.     

Shared appreciation mortgages: Lessons from the UK

The recent rise in shared appreciation mortgage (SAM) availability motivates careful consideration of underlying borrower incentives. The lender’s share of appreciation in SAMs (share) is essentially a dynamic prepayment penalty imposed on the borrower. However, the borrower faces a moral hazard due to his ability to affect the penalty by reducing maintenance. We adapt a competing risks mortgage-pricing model to calculate SAM theoretical equilibrium rates. Our borrower possesses rational expectations of both the house price market and interest rates. Our simulation results may help explain the lack of secondary market interest for the UK SAMs containing extreme contract terms.     

Reverse Diffusion in US Multinationals: Barriers from the American Business System

abstract    This paper addresses the issue of 'reverse diffusion' of employment practices in multinational companies, which is defined as the transfer of practices from foreign subsidiaries to operations in the country of origin. It adds to the literature by examining the influence of the parent business system in multinationals. Specifically, it addresses how the dominant institutions and established organizational structures and practices in the home country affect the extent and impact of reverse diffusion of employment practices. Drawing on fresh evidence from American-owned multinationals in the UK we argue that there is considerable potential for reverse diffusion to occur among this group of firms. However, we highlight a number of barriers to reverse diffusion that the American business system presents, demonstrating that these constrain both the prevalence and the impact of it in practice.     

Lessons from Ireland: arbitrating dismissal disputes

In the UK there has been increasing concern about the growing ‘legalism’ of the Industrial Tribunal System. An alternative is the system in the Republic of Ireland which uses a ‘Rights Commissioner’ under a ‘regulated arbitration’ system. This article examines the lessons to be drawn from Ireland and their relevance to reform in the UK.     

The temporary shutdown decision: Lessons from the Great Recession

The temporary shutdown condition provides guidance on dealing with a serious transitory downturn in demand. The traditional condition says managers should stop production when revenues fall below avoidable costs. This condition is flawed because it ignores how lost human capital and reputational damage harm future profits. As a consequence, firms may optimally operate with losses far larger than stipulated by the traditional condition. We provide the first broad empirical analysis of the temporary shutdown decision, focusing on the Great Recession. We show that large operating losses were common and temporary shutdowns were exceedingly rare, even among very small public firms.     

Greece in the Eurozone: Lessons from a decade of experience

This study examines Greece's experience as a member of the Eurozone over the period 2002 to 2011. In evaluating the Greek experience within the Eurozone, we derive the following fundamental policy lessons that apply both to similar small peripheral EU countries that plan to enter the Eurozone, or any other economic union, and to the Eurozone itself in terms of facilitating their integration in a large monetary union. First, countries with inefficient public systems must re-engineer and restructure the decision making process in the public sector before they become members of an economic union. Second, countries must generate a friendly environment toward business and provide (a) a simple, stable tax system, (b) an effective and efficient justice system, and (c) a high quality educational system. Third, the living standards of the people are determined by the productivity and competitiveness of the economy and not by an inefficient and overspending public sector. Fourth, structural funds should be used to improve the competitiveness of the economy, not serve the political clientele of the party in power. Fifth, the admission requirements to an economic union must be strict and these requirements must be enforced. Sixth, capital market investors must always differentiate default risk within the country-members of a monetary union.     

The UK and EMU: Lessons from Europe

Her Majesty's Treasury is due to report in June 2003 on the economic case for the UK adopting the Euro. One criterion concerns the extent of economic convergence between the UK and the European Union countries. Differences in financial, credit and housing institutions between countries present one important subset of constraints to sustained convergence (Maclennan et al, 1998) - largely neglected in the economic literature on common currency areas. These types of differences create tension within the Eurozone. Empirical evidence supporting these concerns has emerged in signs of overheating in the Netherlands, UK and some of the fringe economies, and in the relative stagnation of Germany and Italy. The UK's buoyancy, however, is accompanied by serious economic imbalances, with consequent risks of instability. These would be exacerbated should the UK be prematurely locked into an exchange rate and interest rate regime unresponsive to domestic conditions. There is much to learn from European experience: from Germany and Italy, on the consequences of illiberal economic structures; from The Netherlands, on some of the risks of liberal credit markets; and from Denmark, with a liberal credit market but rational property taxation. In this paper, John Muellbauer argues that convergence does not have to be fully achieved, if there is a counterbalancing policy instrument to mitigate some of the effects of these slow-to-dissipate differences. Specifically in the UK, a reformed system of property taxation would contribute greatly to long-term stability and the preservation of economic balance.     

从传统制造向智能制造转型:管理学原理考察

传统制造业企业向智能制造转型正在成为热潮,文章将其纳入经典管理理论分析框架,从企业突破生命周期、变革战略管理和实现持续成长这三个角度,分析了企业从传统制造向智能制造转型的逻辑机理,并提出了政策建议。     

Economies of extremes: Lessons from venture-capital decision making

An organization's ability to exploit extreme events—such as exceptional opportunities—depends on its capacity strategy. The venture capital industry illustrates the interplay of expensive capacity and negative externalities from high utilization. The cost of adding a venture capitalist provides a strong incentive to run lean, but such leanness may make it impossible to evaluate all interesting investment opportunities. Using concepts from extreme-value theory, we analyze the trade-off between the costs and benefits arising from an increase in the number of evaluated deals. We ground our analysis in 11 years of archival data from a venture capital firm, representing 3631 deals, the decisions made, the reasons for those decisions, and the decision lead times. The firm identified 20% of arriving deals as worth evaluating during the screening process, but was not able to evaluate approximately 9% of those interesting deals due to a lack of capacity. We show that the value of increasing the number of deals evaluated increases with the tail weight of the distribution of deal values. When the right tail is light, increasing the number of deals evaluated may provide too modest a benefit to justify the cost. When, however, the right tail is heavy, the value of increasing the number of deals is likely to more than compensate for the cost of capacity. Our results provide new insight into the relative value of a chase capacity strategy that emphasizes responsiveness versus a high-utilization heuristic that emphasizes productivity. Our approach can be applied to other search operations such as personnel selection, quality circles seeking to identify root causes, and making employee capacity available for innovation.     

基于集装箱行业制造特点的制造执行系统研究与实施

制造执行系统(MES)是企业信息集成的纽带,是实施企业敏捷制造战略和实现车间生产敏捷化的基本技术手段。文章阐述了MES的内涵,在罐式集装箱行业生产特点的基础上,提出了MES功能设计和系统实现方法,以提高企业的生产管理水平。     

美国市政债券市场概况及其对我国的借鉴

在美国,市政债券是指州和地方政府及其授权机构发行的有价证券,目的是一般支出或特定项目融资.一般划分为一般责任债券和收益债券.自20世纪70年代末以来,美国的市政债券市场发生了较大的变化,这些变化值得我们关注;同时,美国市政债券的规模可以为我国发行市政债券提供一定的借鉴,值得我们分析.