Employer‐supported volunteering benefits: Gift exchange among employers,employees, and volunteer organizations

Using gift exchange theory to explain the growing trend of employers offering employer‐supported volunteering (ESV) benefits, this article discusses the creation of exchange relationships between the employer and employee and between the volunteer organization and employee. Hypotheses derived from the employee's perspective are tested with a nationally representative sample of volunteers (n=3,658). Findings suggest that ESV benefits are positively related to hours volunteered by the employee. Volunteer hours predict employee perceptions of skill acquisition, and such perceptions are positively related to perceptions of job success and employer recognition. We discuss the implications of these findings for business, employees, and volunteer organizations, with an emphasis on human resource management policy and practice. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Union status of young men in Britain: a decade of change

Previous empirical studies of individual union status in Britain have been cross‐sectional. In contrast, we use longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study, to estimate the determinants of male trade union membership over the period 1981–1991. As suggested by union theories, we find that it is important to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity, and our preferred model allows for correlation of individual heterogeneity with observable variables. Our estimates reveal that the observed decline in very large workplaces, and the contraction of the public sector, explain about one third of the predicted decline in union membership over the period. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interest rates are low but are annuities expensive?

It is often claimed that annuities are now 'expensive'. That claim is at least partly based on money illusion. Careful analysis shows that the current prices of annuities are largely the result of a decline in inflation expectations which has brought about a change in the income stream for annuities.     

The Accuracy of OECD Forecasts for Japan

A variety of accuracy measures, error diagnostics and rationality tests are applied to the OECD's macroeconomic forecasts for Japan of aggregate demand and output, inflation and the balance of payments. It is found that the OECD forecasts are superior to naive no-change predictions and forecasts generated by simple autoregressive time-series models. Most forecasting error is nonsystematic. As predictors of direction the OECD's six-month ahead forecasts should be considered valuable; this cannot be said for forecasts which look ahead a year and 18 months. Many forecasts fail bias, efficiency and consistency tests so that the rational expectations hypothesis is not generally supported.     

A study of political activism in labour courts

We analyse 1234 judicial decisions to estimate political activism amongst judges arbitrating dismissal disputes in Australian labour courts. The political colour of the appointing political party and judges’ work background affect probability of employee success by about 10% points.