Railroad deregulation,carrier behavior,and shipper response: A disaggregated analysis

The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 provided American railroads with almost complete relief from rate regulation. Regulatory reforms resulted in rapid and pronounced changes in firm behavior and an eventual reconfiguration of the industry as a whole. This investigation provides a highly disaggregated study of deregulated rail rates for seventeen commodities. The results indicate that the Staggers Act fundamentally altered the way in which rail carriers price their services. As importantly, the results suggest that shippers have responded to altered railroad behavior by changing the characteristics of their shipments. Together, the changes in railroad behavior and shipper responses to these variations have produced lower railroad rates for a small but measurable number of movements across a wide range of commodities.     

An experimental assessment of alternative teaching approaches for introducing business ethics to undergraduate business students

This study employs a pretest-posttest experimental design to extend recent research pertaining to the effects of teaching business ethics material. Results on a variety of perceptual and attitudinal measures are compared across three groups of students — one which discussed the ethicality of brief business situations (the business scenario discussion approach), one which was given a more philosophically oriented lecture (the philosophical lecture approach), and a third group which received no specific lecture or discussion pertaining to business ethics. Results showed some significant differences across the three groups and demonstrated that for a single lecture, the method used to teach ethics can differentially impact ethical attitudes and perceptions. Various demographic and background variables did not moderate the relationship between the teaching method and the dependent variables, but the sex of the student was strongly associated with the ethical attitude and perception measures. Scot Burton is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisiana State University. His research has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Research, and the Journal of Marketing, among others. Mark. W. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisianna State University. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Journal of Business Research. Elizabeth J. Wilson is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Louisiana State University. Her research has been published in the Journal of Advertising Research and Industrial Marketing Management.     

Creative Rebellion and Moral Efficiency as Elements of Managerial Ideology

It is a supreme irony that given the requirement for rebellious creativity, organizations discourage individuality. Accordingly, these cases of creative rebellion contain the seeds of a more informed criticism of the dominant management paradigm. The conventional notion of efficiency is questioned. The concept of moral efficiency is explained. The cases examined describe and analyze: (1) Refusal to concur with the findings of an aircraft accident report that covers up senior officer management weakness. (2) Falsification of data in order to overcome the dysfunctional impact of a management information system. A deconstruction of these stories suggests theoretical as well as practical tension between the dominant normative management paradigm and the manner in which an innovative perspective of individual ethics pushes toward adaptive solutions to problems that cannot be solved by orthodoxy.     

The sociopolitical analysis of inflation

Zusammenfassung Die soziopolitische Analyse der Inflation. — Dieser Artikel über Natur und Ursachen der gegenw?rtigen Inflation versucht, die haupts?chlichen Mikro- und Makro-Varianten der soziopolitischen Analyse, die zumindest in Europa eine heftig verteidigte Alternativlehre zum Monetarismus — der herrschenden Orthodoxie in den Vereinigten Staaten — darstellt, Revue passieren zu lassen. Die soziopolitische Analyse kann, in entsprechend abgewandelter Form, in gewisser Hinsicht als Wiedergeburt der Lehre von der kosteninduzierten Inflation angesehen werden. Allerdings ist die übliche Version des soziopolitischen Gedankenguts nicht eindeutig hinsichtlich der Rolle, die das Geld bei der Entstehung der Inflation spielt. Im allgemeinen und besonders in den spitzfindigeren Abhandlungen dieser Art wird implizit oder explizit die wichtigste Behauptung der Monetaristen anerkannt, n?mlich die, da\ eine Vermehrung der Geldmenge über die Steigerung der realen Produktion hinaus die Inflation verursache und daher die beste N?herungsvariable für die Erkl?rung der Inflation sei. Dementsprechend wird das Hauptanliegen der soziopolitischen Analyse, der Verteilungskampf sei Hauptursache der Inflation, auf eine besser zu verteidigende Grundlage gestellt.

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Résumé L’analyse socio-politique de l’inflation. — Cet article sur la nature et les sources de l’inflation actuelle essaie de revoir et d’analyser les principales micro et macro variantes de l’analyse socio-politique qui, en Europe au moins, est une vue alternative fortement défendue vis-à-vis le monétarisme qui est l’orthodoxie dominante dans les E.U. Dans un certain sens l’analyse socio-politique peut être regardée comme renaissance de l’analyse ?cost-push? dans une forme proprement modifiée. Cependant il y a encore une certaine ambigu?té dans la pensée sociopolitique regardant le r?le de la monnaie d’amener à l’inflation. Généralement, et particulièrement dans les traitements plus sophistiques qui s’occupent avec ce genre, il y a une récognition implicite ou explicite du paradigme principal des monétaristes: la croissance monétaire à l’excès de la croissance de production réelle est le déterminant approximatif de l’inflation. En conséquence, l’analyse du conflit de distribution comme instigateur majeur de l’inflation s’est retirée sur un terrain plus défendable. L’objectif général de l’analyse sociopolitique est de souligner le conflit de distribution comme déterminant fondamental de l’inflation.

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Resumen El Análisis Sociopolítico de la Inflación. — El artículo analiza las principales variantes, micro y macro, de la teoría sociopolítica de la inflación con el objeto de aclarar la naturaleza y causas de la inflación actual. En contraposición con la ortodoxia monetarista que domina actualmente la opinión norteamericana, el análisis sociopolítico de la inflación encuentra al menos en Europa un amplio frente de partidarios. El enfoque sociopolítico podría en cierta forma interpretarse como una modificación de la teoría que postula los costes de producción como la principal causa de la inflaciń. Aun así, la función del dinero en la generación de inflación es en general algo ambigua dentro del pensamiento sociopolítico. En general, pero especialmente en los trabajos más sofisticados de este género, hay un reconocimiento implícite o explicite del principal postulado monetarista: El crecimiento de la oferta monetaria en exceso del crecimiento de la producción real determina la tasa de inflación. Debido a este reconocimiento, el análisis del conflicto en la distribución de producto national como el instigador primordial de la inflación ha sido reagrupado a la largo de argumentes mas plausibles. El análisis sociopolítico postula así con todo, la existencia de un conflicto distributivo como el determinante fundamental de la inflación.

     

MODELS OF STOCK MARKET PREDICTABILITY

I briefly review the success of past studies purporting to explain equity valuations and predict future equity returns. The Campbell‐Shiller mean reversion models are contrasted with an expanded version of the so‐called Federal Reserve model. At least from 1970 to 2003, Federal Reserve–type models did somewhat better at predicting long‐horizon returns than did a mean reversion model based on dividend yields and price‐earnings multiples. However, timing investment strategies based on any of these prediction models do no better than a buy‐and‐hold strategy. Although some predictability of returns exists, there is no evidence of any systematic inefficiency that would enable investors to earn excess returns.     

Practitioners’ Perspectives on the IPO Process and the Perils of Flotation

Abstract

A substantive literature examines the short- and long-run performance of share returns following an Initial Public Offering (IPO). However, the related issue of why companies seek to raise money through an IPO, or the factors that are important in this equity-issuing process, have attracted very little academic attention. The current paper seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating attitudes to these issues in the UK using two research methods: (i) a detailed questionnaire survey of companies that have recently undertaken an IPO; and (ii) interviews with managers and advisers who have been involved in the IPO process.     

Privatization: The thatcher case

This paper reviews the process of privatization under successive British governments. It concludes that the Thatcher experiment has had an effect in reversing the previous trend towards nationalization. This has been part of a continuing worldwide swing away from government enterprise. The major result has been an increase in internal efficiency (as distinct from allocative efficiency) of the enterprises concerned. Purchases of shares by management and workers of privatized firms has created an important lobby which will oppose renationalization by a future government.