The Living Wage – Policy And Practice

A recent development in addressing the longstanding problem of low pay in the United Kingdom has been the emergence of a social campaign for a ‘living wage’. Using a case study approach this article explores an employer's decision to pay the living wage that, in turn, provided both challenges and opportunities for the unions in their dealings with contractors.     

20年来在维修与可靠性工程专业推行校外读研的经验

大部分从事维修与可靠性专业的人员在其工作期间都受过短期课目培训。不过,许多人认为,具有评定意义的正规学习对他们的工作和所在公司来说,会在那些具有实用价值的技能和知识方面得到进一步提升。从20世纪80年代中期开始,澳大利亚莫纳什大学（Monash University）那些不能到校内上课的工程师们,开设了维修管理专业的研究生课程。后来又开设了可靠性工程的课程,1998年这两个课程合并成为了硕士学位课程。现在全世界已有几百名学生从这个专业毕业。随着在网络增强式教学方面的进展,这个项目有了重大的发展,2006年学习这个课程的学生已经遍及五大洲19个国家。丈中介绍这个课程的发展和演变以及一些经验教训,同时也列举出了毕业生们从中所能得到若干益处。     

Mental Health and Wellbeing and Unemployment

This article examines the relationship between mental health and wellbeing and unemployment utilising the 1995 National Health Survey (1995 NHS) and the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing of Adults (1997 SMHWB) data sets. Three indicators of mental health and wellbeing are adopted. The first is a psychological wellbeing measure derived from responses to questions included in the 1995 NHS on time felt down, happy, peaceful, and nervous (the SF-36 mental health scale). The second indicator relates to diagnoses of mental disorders including substance use disorders, affective disorders and anxiety disorders. Our final indicator relates to suicidal thoughts and plans and (unsuccessful) suicide attempts. On the basis of these measures, unemployed persons exhibit poorer mental health and wellbeing outcomes than the full-time employed.     

FINANCIAL LIBERALISATION, CONSUMPTION AND WEALTH EFFECTS IN SEVEN OECD COUNTRIES

We estimate the impact of financial liberalisation on consumption in seven major industrial countries, and find a marked shift in behaviour, notably a decline in short‐run income elasticities and a rise in short‐run wealth and interest rate elasticities. A corollary is that consumption equations estimated over both pre‐ and post‐liberalisation regimes may be misleading, and either a form of testing as presented here or a shortening of the sample period may be appropriate for accurate forecasting and simulation.     

The Power of Images: Marketing Tourism in the 1990s

This conference was held at The Roehampton Institute, London on 2–3 September 1992 with its main aim being to bring together those involved in tourism education and those from the industry to discuss the future of tourism marketing. Organised jointly by Tina Bryant (University of Hertfordshire) and John Eade (Roehampton Institute), the event attracted delegates mainly from the academic community, with members of the tourism industry conspicuous by their absence! Ray Youell of Sheffield Hallam University describes the somelime contrasting perspectives evident at the conference.     

Are some Indian banks too large? An examination of size efficiency in Indian banking

In this paper we use data from the years 1997–2003 to evaluate the size efficiency, as distinct from scale efficiency, of Indian banks. Following Maindiratta [Maindiratta A (1990) J Econ 46:39–56] we consider a bank to be “too large” if breaking it up into a number of smaller units would result in a larger output bundle than what could be produced from the same input by a single bank. When this is the case, the bank is not size efficient. Our analysis shows that many of the banks are, indeed, too large in various years. We also find that often a bank is operating in the region of diminishing returns to scale but is not a candidate for break up.

Staged investments in entrepreneurial financing

Venture capitalists deliver investments to entrepreneurs in stages. This paper shows staged financing is efficient. Staging lets investors abandon ventures with low early returns, and thus sorts good projects from bad. The primary implication from staging is that it is efficient to invest more in later rounds. The model yields a number of predictions on how the ratio of early to late round financing varies with uncertainty, the outside options of both parties, the value of the venture, the costs of investment, and project difficulty. We test these predictions against data on venture capital financings and find significant empirical support for the theory.