Replacement rates and labour market behaviour

This paper studies how the replacement rate, defined as the ratio of disposable income when unemployed to expected disposable income if beginning to work, affects individuals’ transition rate from unemployment. Linked register data, representing a local Finnish labour market in 1996, are analysed with piece-wise constant exponential hazard models. Results suggest that the effect of the replacement rate and, thus, of “unemployment traps”, is fairly modest. It does not seem to change with time spent unemployed. The impact on the transition rate into employment is lower than on the transition rate out of the labour force. Unemployment insurance recipients are found to be less sensitive to changes in the replacement rate than are unemployment assistance recipients.     

Congestion, ownership, region of operation, and scale: Their impact on bus operator performance in Norway

The goal of this paper is to determine the impact that inputs such as fuel consumption and total number of workers employed have on operators’ efficiency in the Norwegian bus industry. Further, we investigate operations characteristics that are associated with the inefficient use of inputs in bus operations. This information is highly relevant for the subsidizers (decision-makers) since resource inefficiency leads to greater costs (ceteris paribus). We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to explore these issues. The results suggest that there is, in general, a potential for input saving in the sector of about 21%. No significant differences were found between urban and bus rural operators with respect to efficiency scores; neither were there any performance differences with respect to ownership. This latter result deviates from previous international studies, and can likely be explained by the lack of competition in the Norwegian bus industry. A particularly interesting result suggests a formidable degree of input congestion in the Norwegian bus industry, which is in contrast to previous international studies on such congestion.     

Battle in the Boardroom: A Discursive Perspective

This article examines the centrality of discourse in achieving managerially relevant outcomes, with a focus on the in-situ performance context of corporate storytellers. The Ricœurian concept of speech act, capturing both the intentionality of organizational discourse and the social context of its production and reception, implicitly guided our research effort. The article has at its core a story of how senior organizational officers exploited the volatile circumstances of a public takeover in Singapore. By looking at the social construction of narratives in their many fragments we come to see how a key protagonist carves out a powerful position. The efficacy of his performances can be seen to be dependent upon the effective use of poetic tropes and the receptiveness of listeners to particular Chinese archetypal relationship-driven themes. In crafting our story we use multiple texts which were produced in and around two case organizations. As such we offer a carefully constructed collage, a mixture of production and reproduction, sticking closely to forms of communication that key organizational actors used to plan, enact and interpret their actions and those of others. Whilst our story offers insights to readers with an interest in organizational discourse, corporate governance and Asian management practices, we refrain from imposing an authoritarian interpretation that insists on identifying with the intentions of the authors.     

A Laboratory Investigation of Multiperson Rationality and Presentation Effects

This paper reports the results of laboratory experiments in which subjects were presented with different two-person decision problems in both their extensive and normal forms. All games generated the same equilibrium outcomes. Our results indicate that the presentation of the decision problem significantly affects the strategy chosen. Surprisingly, these presentation effects were most prominent in the simplest games where differences in presentation would seem most transparent. It appears that subjects are much more likely to use (and fear) incredible threats when the problem is presented as a one-stage rather than as a multistage game. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: 026,215.     

The Impact of Foot and Mouth Disease on the Price of Beef

The Impact of Foot and Mouth Disease on the Price of Beef The 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in the UK had many economic, social and personal impacts. One of the direct economic effects of the FMD outbreak arose from the manner in which livestock was marketed following restrictions placed on livestock movements. Farmers were restricted to selling their finished livestock on a deadweight basis to abattoirs, and the processing/marketing sector incurred increased costs. We show how, from a theoretical perspective, an increase in marketing costs can simultaneously lead to a rise in the retail price and a fall in the farm gate price. We then test this theory by examining the impact of the FMD outbreak on the price of beef at the retail and farm gate levels by analysing the differential or ‘marketing margin’ between farm gate and retail prices. Results show that the average marketing margin increased by 14pAg (3.1 per cent) following the FMD outbreak when compared with the pre FMD period. The estimated cost of this price differential to the UK beef industry is £130m between March 2001 and October 2002. This equates to a loss of £56m to beef farmers and implies increased processing/marketing costs of £74m to the downstream industry and ultimately consumers. L‘ impact de la fièvre aphteuse sur le prix du b?uf Les conséquences de l'épidémie de fièvre aphteuse qui a éclaté en Grande‐Bretagne en 2001 ont été profondes, à la fois économiques, sociales et individuelles. L'un des effets économiques directs a trouvé son origine dans les restrictions apportées aux transports de bétail. Les agriculteurs ont été empêchés de vendre directement en vif aux abattoirs leurs animaux terminés. Cela a coûté cher aux transformateurs et à la distribution. On montre ici, d'abord d'un point de vue theorique, comment l' accroissement des coûts de transformation a pu, à la fois, faire augmenter les prix de détail, et diminuer les prix au producteur. La théorie est ensuite testée, à partir de l'évolution, depuis l' apparition de la fièvre aphteuse, des prix du bceuf sur pied et au détail, ainsi que des marges de distribution. On arrive ainsi à montrer que la marge de commercialisation moyenne, c'est‐à‐dire la différence entre le prix a la ferme et le prix de détail, s'est accrue de 14 centimes par kg (3,1%) après l' apparition de la fièvre aphteuse, par comparaison à ce qu'elle était avant. Le coût total estimé de ce différentiel de prix représente 130 millions de livres pour la filière bceuf entre mars 2001 et octobre 2002. Ce coût aura été couvert par une perte de 56 millions de livres pour les agriculteurs, et un surcoût net de l'industrie de transformation, qui a été passé au consommateur, pour un montant de 74 millions de livres. Die Auswirkung der Maul‐ und Klauenseuche auf den Rindfleischpreis Der Ausbruch der Maul‐ und Klauenseuche (MKS) im Jahr 2001 in Großbritannien zog zahlreiche wirtschaftliche, soziale und persönliche Auswirkungen nach sich. Eine der direkten wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen ergab sich daraus, wie Vieh gemäß der veränderten Viehvermarktung in Folge der Einschränkungen beim Tiertransport verkauft wurde. Die Landwirte durften ihr Schlachtvieh nur auf Grundlage des Schlachtgewichtspreises an Schlachthöfe verkaufen, und im Sektor Weiterverarbeitung/Vermarktung kam es zu höheren Kosten. Wir zeigen auf, wie vom theoretischen Blickwinkel aus höhere Vertriebskosten gleichzeitig zu einem Anstieg des Einzelhandelspreises sowie zu einem niedrigeren Erzeugerpreis führen können. Wir überprüfen diese Theorie, indent wir die Auswirkung des MKS‐Ausbruchs auf den Einzelhandelspreis und den Erzeugerpreis für Rindfleisch durch Bestimmung des Differenzials oder der “Marktspanne” zwischen den beiden Preisen untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse belegen, dass die durchschnittliche Spanne nach dem MKS‐Ausbruch im Vergleich zur Spanne aus der Zeit vor MKS urn 0,14 britische Pfund pro kg (3,1%) angestiegen ist. Die geschätzten Kosten dieses Preisdifferenzials für die britische Rindfleischindustrie belaufen sich für die Zeit zwischen Marz 2001 und Oktober 2002 auf 130 Millionen britische Pfund. Dies bedeutet einen Verlust in Höhe von 56 Millionen britischen Pfund für Bullenmastbetriebe und impliziert einen Kostenanstieg im Bereich Weiterverarbeitung/Vermarktung in Höhe von 74 Millionen britischen Pfund fur weiterverarbeitende Industrien und damit letztlich für den Verbraucher.