A dynamic macroeconomic model with monopolistic behavior in the labor market

Is the monopolistic behavior of a wage setting labor union compatible, in the long and in the short run, with price stability and full employment? What is the effect, if any, of economic policies? The answers are strongly affected by the prevailing technology and by the union's objective function. With limited short run production possibilities, a short run trade-off may exist between full employment and maximum expected real wage revenues. In the long run, however, when expectations are fully adjusted, this trade-off disappears. Therefore, a labor union consistently pursuing maximum short run expected real wage revenues may not maximize long run effective real wage revenues. Price stability is granted in the long run, provided inflation is not induced by public policy. The only instrument a pure consuming government has to fight long unemployment is to reduce its share of aggregate demand.     

The owners' interventions in decision-making in large corporations: A new approach

This paper, which is based on my doctoral dissertation published under the title ‘Propriété et pouvoir dans les grandes entreprises’, presents a new approach for measuring the separation of ownership and control in large corporations. It aims at replacing the usual methodology set up by Berle and Means with a more adapted procedure. In the first part, the conceptual framework is described. The procedure consists mainly of distinguishing between several domains of control according to the types of decisions concerned, as well as between several modalities of the owner's interventions. It leads to a classification of the corporations on a scale consisting of several degrees of separation of ownership and control. In the second part, the paper presents the results of an empirical study applying the procedure to the case of forty large Belgian corporations.     

Crisis and opportunity: From technological to social change

Despite rapid technological and social change, we continue to play the game by the old rules, exacerbating the global crises and undermining chance and choice for the future. This article calls for new rules: determined and responsible political leadership, an improved social conscience, pluralism in technology, and the acceptance of unemployment as a temporary and creative necessity rather than fighting it by resisting technological innovation. Anticipation and preventive action in confronting the future are better than post facto adjustments or repair.     

Age structure shifts in Research & Development (R&D): Some statistical evidence and an integrative approach to link behavioural aspects of individual and group age in collaborative R&D

Since empirical material concerning the age structure of industrial R&D organizations is scarce an attempt is made to present some statistical evidence in support of the wide-spread notion of a shift toward a higher median age in R&D laboratories during the past years. Then, on an individual level of analysis the results of an extensive review of existing empirical research on the covariation of individual age and scientific performance are summarized in brief. On a group level of analysis research relating age of collaborative R&D groups (i.e., average length of time group members had worked together in a particular group) to group performance is discussed. To integrate the contradictory findings of prior research two analytic concepts are introduced, namely the discrimination of different situations of collaboration and the identification of two basic functions of interactions in collaborative R&D. Based upon these concepts an integrative approach to account for time-related performance patterns on an individual and group level of analysis is laid out. Finally, possibilities of a diagnostic application of the suggested concepts are indicated.     

Canadian consumption and portfolio shares

In this paper we gauge consumption and portfolio shares, rather than the traditional pricing implications. We study both aggregated (financial, tangible, and human) and disaggregated (deposits, stocks, insurance, and pensions) assets. The empirical shares are computed from recent aggregate Canadian data. The theoretical shares are constructed from a flexible specification of both investors' preferences and investment opportunities. Our results reveal that the theoretical shares statistically match observed consumption and aggregated assets, but not disaggregated assets. Also, our findings for corporate stocks are consistent with the empirical asset returns literature. Finally, our findings for other assets highlight several new striking features. JEL classification: G11
Consommation et parts de porte feuille au Canada. Cette recherche analyse la consommation et les parts de portefeuille, plutôt que les prix des actifs. Nous étudions les actifs agrégés (i.e., financiers, tangibles et humains) ainsi que désagrégés (i.e., dépôts, actions et caisses de retraite et assurance). Les parts empiriques sont calculées pour des données agrégées canadiennes récentes. Les parts théoriques sont construites à partir d'un modèle flexible en ce qui a trait aux préférences et aux possibilités d'investissement. Nos résultats démontrent que les parts théoriques reproduisent la consommation et les parts agrégées, mais pas les parts désagrégées. Aussi, nos résultats sont cohérents avec ceux de la littérature empirique sur les rendements. Nos résultats concernant les autres actifs identifient d'autres aspects caractéristiques.     

Voting by Successive Elimination and Strategic Candidacy

We study the impact of strategic choices of self-interested candidates of whether or not to enter an election. We focus on strategic candidacy in the context of the tree and binary voting procedures used by small groups such as committees. We offer a comprehensive analysis for the special but important case of voting by successive elimination. Strategic candidacy slightly enlarges the set of candidates that can be equilibrium outcomes relative to the traditional analysis which takes the set of candidates as fixed. Pareto-dominated candidates can be elected in equilibrium under voting by successive elimination when strategic candidacy is considered, in contrast with a fixed set of candidates. Journal of Economic Litterature Classification Numbers: D71, D72.     

Temporary bubbles

This article studies the dynamics of an overlapping generations model with capital, money and cash-in-advance constraints. The economy can exhibit two different regimes. In the first one, the cash-in-advance constraint is binding and money is a dominated asset. In the second one, the constraint is strictly satisfied and money has the same return as capital. When the second regime holds on a finite number of periods, we say that the economy experiences a temporary bubble. We prove that temporary bubbles can exist in an economy, which would experience under-accumulation without money. We also show that cyclical bubbles may occur.