Foreign Takeovers and Wages in Hungary

This study investigates the wage premium that foreign takeover firms pay for a type of worker on top of the wage before takeover. We apply Hungarian employee-employer matched data from 1992 until 2001, and find a nonlinear wage premium profile before and after a foreign takeover. Takeover targets do not pursue a different wage policy before ownership change compared to other indigenous firms. Then, there is a hike in the wage premium during the takeover year. Moreover, there is gradually building up a wage premium over the following years after the takeover. The later stylized fact helps discriminating bargaining theories of the foreign-investor wage premium from technology spillover theories. JEL no. E24, F16, F23     

Soliciting and evaluating bids for a complex big ticket item

This article reports on a procurement situation where a competitive bidding strategy is usually used. The situation is analyzed and described from the point of view of the procurement organization and not as it is usually done in the literature from the point of view of the bidders. After a brief section on the background, the article concentrates on the design of the procurement process and the actual procurement, concluding with an evaluation of the decision-making process.     

Waste without frontiers?

The transfrontier recovery, treatment and disposal of waste in the European Union is governed by regulations both at the union level and in the individual states. Do these various regulations make economic sense? What are the arguments for and against national export bans and import restrictions over and above the EU regulations?