Demographic and Economic Pressure on Emigration out of Africa*

Two of the main forces driving European emigration in the late nineteenth century were real wage gaps between sending and receiving regions and demographic booms in the low‐wage sending regions. Our new estimates of net migration for the countries of sub‐Saharan Africa show that exactly the same forces driving African across‐border migration are at work today. The results suggest that rapid growth in the cohort of potential young emigrants, population pressure on the resource base, and slow economic growth are likely to intensify the pressure for migration out of Africa and into high‐wage OECD countries over the next two decades.     

Non‐linear Predictability of UK Stock Market Returns*

Linear predictability of stock market returns has been widely reported. However, recently developed theoretical research has suggested that due to the interaction of noise and arbitrage traders, stock returns are inherently non‐linear, whereby market dynamics differ between small and large returns. This paper examines whether an exponential smooth transition threshold model, which is capable of capturing this non‐linear behaviour, can provide a better characterization of UK stock market returns than either a linear model or an alternate non‐linear model. The results of both in‐sample and out‐of‐sample specification tests support the exponential smooth transition threshold model and hence the belief that investor behaviour does differ between large and small returns.     

Corporate Board Composition, Protocols, and Voting Behavior: Experimental Evidence

We examine voting by a board designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between privately informed insiders and owners. Our model demonstrates that, as argued by researchers and the business press, boards with a majority of trustworthy but uninformed “watchdogs” can implement institutionally preferred policies. Our laboratory experiments strongly support this conclusion. Our model also highlights the necessity of penalties on insiders when there is dissension among board members. However, penalties for dissent appeared to have little impact on the experimental outcomes.     

Ill-behaviour of transformation-frontiers with environmental quality versus pollution

If one looks at environmental quality N as a renewable natural resource (with its own natural dynamics) which is changed by emissions Z, then one gets a better understanding of the shape of the damage function. In the case of a logistic growth dynamics one obtains a well-shaped transformation frontier N(Z), even in a two-species natural dynamics. For a more general natural interaction in the framework of a prey-predator model one obtains the possibilities of a cusp catastrophe which makes the transformation frontier N(Z) ill-shaped for the standard arguments of economists and their most favoured environmental policy instruments.     

Buildings for the Japanese information economy : Neighbourhood and resort offices

A new physical infrastructure to support activities based on communications and the transmission of information is being developed. Part of this infrastructure includes the construction of ‘intelligent’ buildings which are seen to play as important a role in improving efficiency of office workers as automation has played on the shopfloor of manufacturing industry. The location of these buildings is important. This article focuses on two types of experimental office development—neighbourhood offices and resort offices.     

Ethical Outsourcing in UK Financial Services: Employee Rights

Outsourcing is becoming a major option in British business, including the financial services industry, and it raises a number of ethical considerations. The author of this major ethical study contends that "Outsourcing seems to present a particular threat to employees ... because of the factors which have led to outsourcing and the way in which it tends to work." Mike Henderson is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and Senior Lecturer in Financial Services in the School of Financial Studies and Law of Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Pond Street, Sheffield S1 1WB, England.     

A note on incentive incompatibility under franchising

This note provides a formal demonstration of the incentive incompatibility problem that exists in franchisor — franchisee relationships. It is shown that incentive incompatibility exists with respect to both price and quality. Several contractual mechanisms designed to mitigate the incompatibility problem are examined.