Large Non-Union Companies: How Do They Avoid a Catch 22?

Large non-union companies might be expected to enjoy extensive work-force flexibility deriving from their high-wage, high-involvement strategies. However, where there is a strong local union presence, this might be expected to exert a strong dampening effect on the levels of internal flexibility achieved. Such companies, fearful of union organization, could not then enjoy the freedoms that might be associated with a non-union strategy. Research conducted in the Republic of Ireland on large non-union US companies operating in the electronics industry suggests a conceptual framework indicating how a Catch-22 situation is avoided in these companies.     

THE REAL WAGE GAP

Over the past year a gap has opened up between the growth of manufacturing productivity and that of real wages. This gap cannot persist indefinitely, but it can be closed in many different ways. The best that can happen is that wage settlements fall while output and productivity accelerate. The worst outcome would be continued stagnation of real output and no deceleration of wages, in which case the required productivity improvement would have to come about through renewed labour shedding. There are worrying signs that this has started to happen. An intermediate solution might involve a fall in the exchange rate, with some improvement in competitiveness boosting real output (so that UK producers get a larger share of buoyant consumer spending) and some rise in prices holding back real wages.
We continue to believe that the most likely outcome is a rise in output and a fall in the rate of wage settlements. In our June forecast this occurs despite a fall in the real exchange rate. In these circumstances we expect the growth of unit labour costs to fall back from its current high level so that the current 3 per cent inflation rate becomes a true "core" rate. But a moderate fall in the real exchange rate may prove hard to achieve, especially if the oil price continues to weaken. We therefore explore what would happen if the required depreciation happens more rapidly, so that interest rates have to remain high to prevent it getting out of control. In this case we would expect lower growth and higher inflation than we forecast in June.     

A note on the equality of distribution of child mortality: Java-Bali, 1950-1976

Infant mortality is a widely recognized social indicator that is a useful index of the relative socioeconomic condition of subgroups of the population of a developing country. In developed countries, a more appropriate indicator of mortality is the proportion of babies who die before they reach their 5th birthday. 3 birth cohorts are identified from data provided by the Indonesian Fertility Survey conducted in Java and Bali in 1976 in order to examine the trend in mortality: births occurring 15 or more years before the survey, 10-14 years before the survey, and 5-9 years before the survey. 4 characteristics of parents related to education, occupation and urban vs. rural residence are used to analyze child mortality trends. A table shows the estimates for various combinations of these characteristics. Child mortality has decreased, but more importantly, it has decreased most for parents on the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Either parent having secondary education appears to be the key factor in the experience of low child mortality, although as more parents achieve secondary education, another factor may emerge as more important.     

Brazilian management gurus as reflexive soft-HRM practitioners: an empirical study

This article is an empirical study of Brazilian management gurus, that is, Portuguese-speaking gurus who practise almost wholly in Brazil. It is based on secondary, and primary elite interview data, and finds that Brazilian gurus are reflexive, national-culturally congruent, soft-HRM practitioners, a collective institution working with companies on the implementation of soft-HRM initiatives. Identifying Brazilian gurus in this way is our first contribution. Our second contribution is to provide an empirical account of the very existence and work of these particular national gurus, distinguished from international gurus (like Tom Peters), and not otherwise mentioned in the literature on gurus or soft-HRM. Our third contribution is to present gurus' own understandings of their practice in this soft-HRM role. This they relate to the Brazilian cultural context, and distinguish from that of business schools and motivational speakers. They also identify personally unique characteristics. Our final contribution, taking these three together, is to explore their implications for understandings of HRM, in Brazil and internationally, particularly in relation to the role management gurus.     

A Dynamic Study on Ecological Disaster,Government Regulation,and Renewable Resources

This article develops a dynamic model to investigate renewable resource markets under different property rights. We find that different property rights regimes in renewable resource markets yield very different equilibria. Under private property rights, the valve point increases with the natural growth rate, productivity, number of firms, and marginal costs. Under common property rights, “the tragedy of the commons” inescapably occurs. This study suggests how to avoid ecological disaster by implementing a set of public policies.     

“Do Fiscal Deficits Influence Current Accounts? A Case Study of India”

This paper examines the effects of fiscal deficits on the current account deficits in the Indian economy. In many developing countries, fiscal deficits are mostly financed through monetization, causing crowding out of private investment expenditures. However, fiscal deficits in India are mostly financed through official borrowings from various external sources, leading to higher interest payments and outgoings on the external account. Such a policy could eventually precipitate balance of payments crises despite favorable trade account and real exchange rate. Data over three decades for the Indian economy show that, in addition to the real exchange rate and the ratio of private investment to GDP, fiscal deficits significantly contribute to the current account deficits.     

Price clustering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange

We investigate price clustering of intraday trades and negotiated block trades on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) from 2003 to 2009. Prices of traded assets tend to cluster on certain final digits, such as 0 and 5. In Chinese culture, 8 is associated with good luck and 4 with death so these numbers may be attractive or avoided. We find that price clustering on the final digit of 0 is significantly higher during the morning call auction and early in the trading day. We find no evidence of price clustering for the digit 8, but there is a significant dearth of prices ending in the inauspicious number 4. Price clustering is significantly higher for negotiated block trades, for which about 28% end with 0. Multivariate analysis shows that price clustering is lower for more liquid firms, but higher for firms with higher return volatility, a higher price level, or when the market is volatile. Our evidence supports the costly negotiation hypothesis. Our results also support the attraction hypothesis in that we document significant price clustering at round numbers and even numbers even after controlling for factors that are associated with price uncertainty.