Instrument instability and short-term monetary control

The literature on instrument instability tends support to a policy of smoothing interest rates: it contends that rigid adherence to a monetary rule would bring about explosive interest-rate movements. This contention is examined using a simple model which incorporates rational expectations; the results suggest that instrument instability is associated with interest-rate smoothing rather than with short-term control of the money supply. Furthermore, policy that attempts to stabilize interest rates may itself account for empirical findings which have hitherto been viewed as evidence that instrument instability would occur if the money supply were closely controlled.     

Vocational training and new production concepts in Germany: some lessons for Britain

This article shows the pivotal role, played by the German system of vocational education and training, in the emergence of a new manufacturing policy. It offers a critique of recent changes in British training policy and practice and suggests further radical revisions in that area, in order to break out of the vicious circle of low training effort–low technology–low competitiveness.     

Corporate goal structures and business students: A comparative study of values

Are the values of business students of today synchronized with the reality of the present business environment? Two hundred twenty-two business students rated the importance of twenty corporate goals. Moreover, the students rated the same goals as they perceived chief executive officers (CEOs) would have rated them. Significant differences were found between the two ratings, with students ranking social and employee-oriented goals as more important than they perceived CEOs would have.     

Monetary policy interaction within or without an exchange-rate arrangement

In a simple stochastic two-country model in which each country uses monetary policy to offset shocks that impinge on its national income, the policy rule chosen by each country is affected by the rule chosen by the other. A monetary union emerges as a Nash equilibrium (and is Pareto optimal) if the variance of shocks affecting the real exchange rate is small. An exchange-rate arrangement, and in particular a system of exchange-rate bands such as the European Monetary System (EMS), may create a need for more policy cooperation and may give scope for strategic asymmetries.     

Firm heterogeneity and worker turnover

Previous empirical analyses of job mobility focus on worker rather than firm characteristics. This paper exploits a unique data set on enterprise employment. We describe sectoral differences in turnover rates and in the persistence of turnover. We also present evidence of persistent turnover differences at the level of the individual firms—a result that is expected if firms have managers with differing ability to screen workers. When we consider the consequences to the firm of such turnover, we discover that high turnover firms are less likely to survive.     

Evidence of Sex Discrimination: In Similar Populations, Men Are Paid Better Than Women

A bstract . Nationally women earn only 60 percent of the salary income earned by men. Numerous uncontrolled factors, however, might cause such sex-related differences in salary. In this study, certain factors usually uncontrolled are controlled with the choice of sample populations and by using multidimensional contingency table analysis. The samples consisted of male graduates of University of Hawaii College of Business (n = 311) and female graduates of that college (n = 94). In this comparison, women earned 81 percent of the salary earned by men, although, by the usual measures their backgrounds were similar. Factors of ethnicity, type of job taken, participation rate , and college major did not explain the salary differences between men and women. From this it is inferred that the difference arises from sex discrimination.     

Predicting U.S. jet fighter aircraft introductions from 1944 to 1982: A dogfight between regression and TFDEA

Since its inception in 2001, technology forecasting using data envelopment analysis (TFDEA) has been used with a number of applications. This paper presents a formal comparison of TFDEA with a previously published application from Technological Forecasting and Social Change by Joseph Martino. Using the data and multiple-regression model from Martino, we compare results obtained from TFDEA to those previously published. Both techniques predict the first flights of fighter jets introduced between 1960 and 1982 by using first-flight data of aircraft introduced between 1944 and 1960. TFDEA was found to better predict the first-flight dates than the multiple-regression forecast. These results indicate that TFDEA may be a powerful new technique for predicting complex technological trends and time to market for new products.