Expectations, the business cycle and the Mexican peso crisis

The 1994–95 ‘peso’ crisis did not displaycharacteristics which allow it to be easily captured by traditionalcrisis models. Models based on Minsky's financial fragilityhypothesis offer more persuasive accounts but have been supportedby relatively little direct empirical evidence. This paper providessuch evidence, with particular attention being paid to the roleof domestic financial liberalisation in the process. Minsky'shypotheses about the evolution of expectations over the businesscycle are tracked using business survey data. In addition, crisisindicators are constructed, reflecting the changing vulnerabilityof the economy to shocks. The findings support a Minskyian interpretationof the crisis.     

Rent seeking and the value of time

This paper focuses on the question of how rivals’ rent-seeking expenditures and investment expenditures are affected by the temporal dimension of those cash flows as well as the timing of the cash flow of monopoly rents. The paper applies methods from statistical reliability theory to derive five propositions establishing the conditions that must be satisfied if the rivals apportion their rent seeking and investment expenditures to maximize their certainty equivalents of the monopoly rent. The propositions explicate the responses of the rivals to changes in economic parameters characterizing the rent-seeking contest such as a change in the duration of the monopoly rent cash flow or a change in the number of rivals.     

ON MANAGING HYBRIDS: SOME DILEMMAS IN HIGHER EDUCATION MANAGEMENT

This is an exploratory and conceptual paper. It argues that the concept of a hybrid organisation offers a useful way of conceptualising some dilemmas of current higher education management. The process of hybridisation captures some of the internal stresses and management problems facing higher education institutions caught between quasi-market and commercial market pressures. The increasingly widespread contractual management style may offer an inappropriate coping structure for some of these dilemmas. An open, negotiating management style, making explicit the problems of accountability and legitimacy generated by hybridisation, may be the only way to maintain staff commitment, but is very hard to achieve in the current context.     

On the measurement of imported inflation in developing countries

Zusammenfassung Zur Messung der importierten Inflation in Entwicklungsl?ndern. — W?hrend die Inflationsraten in allen Entwicklungsl?ndern in letzter Zeit stark angestiegen sind, war der Anstieg in den einzelnen L?ndern sehr unterschiedlich. Dies erh?hte das Interesse daran, den Teil der Preissteigerung festzustellen, der auf ?u\ere Einflüsse zurückzuführen ist. Hier wird die Ansicht vertreten, da\ die relative Bedeutung der importierten Inflation leicht überbetont werden kann, wenn man bei Entwicklungsl?ndern mit Annahmen arbeitet, die üblicherweise für Industriel?nder angewandt werden. Insbesondere dürften in Entwicklungsl?ndern Abweichungen der Produktion vom Trend aus verschiedenen Gründen ein schlechtes Ma\ für einen Nachfrageüberschu\ sein. Es trifft auch nicht notwendigerweise zu, da\ Entwicklungsl?nder ausl?ndische Reserveflüsse nicht neutralisieren k?nnen. Unter diesen Umst?nden dürfte — wie am Beispiel der Philippinen gezeigt wird — eine Geldmengen-Preis-Gleichung weit erfolgreicher sein, zwischen Importpreisen und inl?ndischem Nachfragesog als Ursache der Inflation zu unterscheiden.

---

Résumé Sur le mesurage d’inflation importée dans des pays en voie de développement. — Pendant que les taux d’inflation ont fortement accéléré dans des pays développants récemment, les accroissements ont varié considérablement dans les pays augmentant l’intérêt d’identifier cette partie d’inflation là qui est due aux causes externes. Ici nous arguons que l’application des suppositions aux pays développants utilisées communément pour des pays développés peut facilement exagérer l’importance relative de l’inflation importée. Particulièrement, pour les pays développants, les déviations de la tendance de production seront une bonne mesure de la demande d’excès pour des nombreuses raisons. Il n’est pas aussi nécessairement vrai que les pays en voie de développement ne peuvent pas stériliser les afflux des changes. Sous ces circonstances, nous démonstrons pour les Philippines qu’une quantité d’équation de prix d’argent peut avoir beaucoup plus de succès de distinguer entre les prix d’importation et les pressions de démande locale comme sources d’inflation.

---

Resumen Sobre la medición de la inflaci⤵ importada en países en desarrollo. — Mientras las tasas de inflaci⤵ recientemente se han acelerado en forma acentuada en los países en desarrollo, los aumentos han variado considerablemente a traves de países, elevando el interés por identificar la parte de la inflación debida a causas externas. Aquí se argumenta que la aplicación de supuestos comunmente utilizados para países desarrollados en paises en desarrollo pueden exagerar fácilmente la importancia relativa de la inflación importada. En particular, para países en desarrollo, desviaciones de la trayectoria de productión serán por varias razones una medida poco satisfactoria para el exceso de demanda. Tampoco es necesariamente cierto que los países en desarrollo no pueden esterilizar los flujos de moneda extranjera. Bajo estas circunstancias, como se muestra para las Filipinas, una ecuación preciocantidad de dinero puede ser mucho más exitosa para la distributión entre precios de importatión y presiones de demanda doméstica como fuentes de inflación.

     

Money,income and prices in Latin America: An empirical note

Recent papers by Behrman and Vogel, using a simple monetary model, have provided evidence that the price adjustment mechanism in Latin America is characterized by a lagged response to money supply changes which may seriously impede stabilization efforts. In both studies the response to income changes is also drawn out in time. This note re-examines and expands on this evidence, finding that the model only performs well for the high inflation countries and that in these countries price adjustment for both the money supply and real income appears to be virtually complete within the current year.     

The Involvement of Civil Society Organizations in British Industrial Relations: Extent,Origins and Significance

This article examines the involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs) in UK industrial relations. Organizations of this type, including advocacy, campaigning, identity and community organizations have attracted increasing attention from employment relations scholars in recent years. The study reported in this article demonstrates that CSOs have become increasingly active in the sphere of work and employment, partly in response to trade union decline but also owing to political opportunities, afforded by the labour market policy of the New Labour government. It is claimed that CSOs operate at multiple levels of the industrial relations system and interact with the state, employers and trade unions. They generate significant effects within UK industrial relations and can rightly be judged significant ‘new actors’ on the UK employment scene.