book reviews

THE CHANGING SYSTEM OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN University of Glasgow LABOUR RELATIONS—HERITAGE AND ADJUSTMENT Sir Otto Kahn-Freund, Q.C.* Lanchester Polytechnic MANPOWER PROBLEMS IN THE HOTEL & CATERING INDUSTRY Hotel and Catering Industry Training Board THE POSTAL BUSINESS 1969–79 University of Nottingham WORKING WOMEN AND THE LAW Legal Officer General and Municipal Workers' Union INDUSTRIAL LABOR IN THE USSR Univesity of Glasgow AFRICANISATION, NATIONALISATION AND INEQUALITY University of Edinburgh     

Market index returns,macroeconomic variables,and tax-loss selling

This study provides the most direct macro-level test to date of the tax-loss selling hypothesis as an explanation of the January effect. By examining relationships between macroeconomic variables that should be related to tax-loss selling and market index measures of the January effect, this study provides an approach that addresses the market microstructure problems that are inherent in much of the prior research regarding tax-loss selling. This study also addresses some of the methodological and variable specification concerns in prior macro-level testing, resulting in stronger support for taxloss selling. The authors wish to acknowledge the editor and anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Share Option Rewards and Managerial Performance: an Abnormal Performance Index Model

Managerial share option schemes are widely used as a means of motivating and rewarding corporate performance. Such schemes normally adopt a static exercise price; when additional exercise criteria are employed they are often based on earnings per share. A static exercise price does not adjust for economic changes outside the control of management, and earnings per share hurdles have similar limitations. This paper presents a ‘phantom’ managerial option based on relative performance, together with a pricing model for the valuation of the option. The option is developed and demonstrated using an abnormal performance index. It offers a structure which could be used for different forms of performance measurement, and resolves some important criticisms of the reward and incentive effects of traditional schemes.     

Internet shopping and internet banking in sequence: An explanatory case study

Adoption of Internet banking often follows on from usage of Internet shopping, but policies to increase Internet banking use typically ignore this ordering. This article presents a case study that underscores this sequence of Internet service adoption and identifies factors that shape the propensity to use the Internet for shopping and banking. Application of bivariate probit regression techniques to data sourced from a survey of 259 respondents in Athens, Greece, and estimation of marginal effects of the determinants of Internet banking use conditioned on the determinants of Internet shopping use illustrate that ignoring the sequence of Internet service use can lead to incorrect policy recommendations. This article contributes to the literature by theorising the underlying causal mechanisms of Internet banking adoption and presenting supporting evidence via a sequential modelling approach. We find that personal capacity is an important determinant of Internet banking use in a standard, non-sequential approach but it has no significant effect when the model is sequential. Our results suggest that policymakers should emphasise usefulness attributes of Internet banking when attempting to increase Internet banking usage by people who already use the Internet for shopping.     

Wavelet timescales and conditional relationship between higher-order systematic co-moments and portfolio returns

This paper investigates the association between portfolio returns and higher-order systematic co-moments at different timescales obtained through wavelet multi-scaling, a technique that decomposes a given return series into timescales enabling investigation at different return intervals. In Australian industry portfolios, the relative risk positions indicated by systematic co-moments at some timescales are different from those revealed in daily returns. A strong positive (negative) linear association between beta and portfolio return and co-kurtosis and portfolio return in the up (down) market is observed in daily returns and at different timescales. The beta risk is priced in the up and down markets. Co-kurtosis is not priced when the beta is in the pricing model. Co-skewness appears to be priced at a relatively high timescale and this is observed only after the up and down separation of market returns.     

Is British output growth related to its uncertainty? Evidence using eight centuries of data

We examine the empirical relationship between output variability and output growth for Britain using data for eight centuries covering the 1270 to 2014 period. Drawing on the economic history literature, we split the full sample period into four subperiods and use GARCH models to measure output growth uncertainty and estimate its effect on average growth. Within each sub-sample, we allow output growth to depend on the state of the system, for example 2-regime switching model would switch between high-growth and low-growth regimes. We find that the effect of uncertainty on growth differs depending on the existing growth regime. Low-growth regimes are associated with a negative effect of uncertainty on growth, and medium or high-growth regimes are associated with a positive effect. These findings are consistent across the four states of economic development. Our results indicate why the empirical literature to date has found mixed results when examining the effect of uncertainty on growth.     

ELECTRIC UTILITY DEMAND-SIDE MANAGEMENT IN POLAND

Demand-Side Management (DSM) improves load factors and energy efficiency and reduces emissions. DSM methods are understood in the United States, but using DSM in Poland poses problems related to constraints in the power sector and the economic environment. This paper discusses the reorganization of the Polish energy sector and Polish energy policy during in the transition since 1989 and discusses the obstacles to implementing DSM programs.