A new contract for welfare: partnership in pensions

The government's Green Paper proposes reducing state pension costs whilst encouraging private sector provision. The success of the proposed ‘stakeholder pension schemes’ depends on regulation. However, regulation can penalise those it is intended to protect. This is a sensitive issue, since stakeholder pension schemes are expected to attract financially vulnerable, lower paid, employees. Whilst the flat rate accrual of the state second pension confers some benefit, certain groups are put in a difficult position by the retention of means-tested benefits.     

Do Teachers Matter? Measuring the Variation in Teacher Effectiveness in England*

Using a unique primary dataset for the UK, we estimate the effect of individual teachers on student outcomes, and the variability in teacher quality. This links 7,305 pupils to the individual teachers who taught them, in each of their compulsory subjects in the high‐stakes exams at age 16. We use point‐in‐time fixed effects and prior attainment to control for pupil heterogeneity. We find considerable variability in teacher effectiveness, a little higher than the estimates found in the few US studies. We also corroborate recent findings that observed teachers’ characteristics explain very little of the differences in estimated teacher effectiveness.     

An Evaluation of the Value Relevance of Consolidated versus Unconsolidated Accounting Information: Evidence from Quoted Spanish Firms

In this paper we investigate the value-relevance of consolidated versus parent company accounting information. In particular we investigate the value relevance of the minority interest components of net total assets and earnings as currently reported and under the full entity approach to consolidated reporting. An Edwards-Bell-Ohlson valuation framework is used to generate results. By this means we cast light on the suitability of accounting regulation being developed based upon the entity or parent company theories of consolidation. We carry out the analysis in the Spanish context and the sample contains 474 observations of non-financial firms quoted in the Madrid Stock Exchange for the period 1991–97. The results from this analysis not only have domestic relevance but provide guidance of a more international nature relating to the impact of group definition, concepts of control and the most value relevant method of consolidated disclosure. The results show that, from a valuation perspective, consolidated information dominates non-consolidated, or parent company, information. However, neither the currently reported minority interest components of net total assets and earnings, nor their values under the full equity method of consolidation, are found to be value relevant. These results raise the question of whether group definitions based on the equity theory of consolidation are the most useful to investors.     

Clinical negligence in the UK: throwing the baby out with the bath water?

As the total cost of clinical negligence claims has grown in the UK in recent years, calls for reform have resurfaced. The government now plans a White Paper on the subject next years. This paper assesses some of the economic arguments surrounding such reform. It suggests that the principle of negligence performs a useful economic function, that there is sum uncertainty surrounding the precise costs of the UK's clinical negligence, and that costs of alternative systems may sometimes be larger than they first appear.     

Transition to the market in agriculture in Ukraine: Priority areas for reform

Abstract

There are a number of key characteristics of Ukrainian agriculture which are central to the discussion of the reform process. These include the predominance of state ownership and control, lack of commercial management skills, uneven commitment to reform in a decentralized system of responsibility, monopoly, a low level of technology and limited access to resources that facilitate efficient operation of the market. Necessary restructuring will involve three categories of measures including the establishment of a competitive environment, augmenting enterprise response, and macroeconomic stabilization. At present reform has proceeded extremely slowly and speeding the process appears to require Western aid, both financial and technical, to provide a demonstration of the benefits of reform in order to stimulate its more rapid uptake.     

Management training in small and medium-sized enterprises: methodological and conceptual issues

The paper examines the impact of management training and development on the organisation and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), via a variety of quantitative and qualitative research techniques and including both crosssectional and longitudinal approaches to analysis. The paper demonstrates the value of management training and development in SMEs and demonstrates a series of one-off and longer lasting effects on their organization and performance. The paper also highlights the conditions under which management development projects are likely to be more successful. Finally, the paper extends the schema developed by Arthur and Hendry (1990) and Hendry et al. (1991), indicating the factors influencing training within businesses, and shows the indirect and complex links between management training and firm performance.     

The Demand for Broad Money in the United Kingdom, 1878–1993

Using annual data from Friedman and Schwartz (1982), Hendry and Ericsson (1991a) developed an empirical model of the demand for broad money in the United Kingdom over 1878–1975. We update that model over 1976–1993, accounting for changed data definitions and clarifying the concept of constancy. With appropriate measures of opportunity cost and credit deregulation, the model's parameters are empirically constant over the extended sample, which was economically turbulent. Policy implications follow for parameter nonconstancy and predictive failure, causation between money and prices, monetary targeting, deregulation and financial innovation, and the effect of policy on economic agents' behavior.