International briefing 16: training and development in the Republic of Ireland

This paper explores the landscape of training and development in the Republic of Ireland, a country with an impressive economic record in recent years. Both the Irish economic context and business context are explored. The national system for training and development and the surrounding policy and strategy context are set down. Survey data are drawn upon to examine the nature of training and development at organizational level. Here influence on training and development, levels of expenditure, the number of days per employee category and the dominant methods employed training and development are all discussed. Finally the academic study of training and development in the Republic of Ireland is examined.     

The Effects of Occupational Injuries After Returns to Work: Work Absences and Losses of On-the-Job Productivity

We extend the research on postinjury employment by estimating productivity losses for workers with permanent partial disabilities (PPDs) in the first three years after injury. Our method distinguishes between productivity losses attributed to spells of work absence versus reduced earnings during spells of employment. The method is applied to data for 800 Ontario workers with PPDs. The results document large productivity losses persisting at least three years after injury, with different loss patterns for workers returning to stable versus unstable employment. Human capital investments or job accommodations can reduce productivity losses, but the significant determinants of losses differ for the stable versus unstable employment groups.     

Temporary controls on capital inflows

During the past decade a number of countries imposed capital controls that had two distinguishing features: they were asymmetric, in that they were designed principally to discourage capital inflows, and they were temporary. This paper studies formally the consequences of these policies, calibrates their potential effectiveness, and assesses their welfare implications in an environment in which the level of capital inflows can be sub-optimal. In addition, motivated by the fact that these types of controls have often been left in place after the dissipation of the shock that lead to the controls being implemented, the paper evaluates the welfare cost of procrastination in removing these types of controls.     

Gentlemanly capitalism in New Zealand

This article responds to McAloon's contribution to this journal criticising the argument advanced by P.J. Cain and myself in British Imperialism . McAloon's research on Canterbury and Otago merits serious attention, but it is argued here that he is mistaken in claiming that it disproves the case we made for applying our concept of gentlemanly capitalism to New Zealand. Both the structure of 'settler capitalism' and the social characteristics of the settlers themselves provide a good fit with our interpretation. Nevertheless, McAloon deserves credit for putting this subject on the agenda, and it is to be hoped that other historians of New Zealand (and also of Australia) will now reconsider the relationship between the 'rules of the game' established by the imperial centre and the degrees of dependence experienced by the constituent parts of the empire.     

Estimating the Size of a Criminal Population from Police Records Using the Truncated Poisson Regression Model

The truncated Poisson regression model is used to arrive at point and interval estimates of the size of two offender populations, i.e. drunk drivers and persons who illegally possess firearms. The dependent capture–recapture variables are constructed from Dutch police records and are counts of individual arrests for both violations. The population size estimates are derived assuming that each count is a realization of a Poisson distribution, and that the Poisson parameters are related to covariates through the truncated Poisson regression model. These assumptions are discussed in detail, and the tenability of the second assumption is assessed by evaluating the marginal residuals and performing tests on overdispersion. For the firearms example, the second assumption seems to hold well, but for the drunk drivers example there is some overdispersion. It is concluded that the method is useful, provided it is used with care.     

Inferential Causal Models: Integrating Quality & Quantity

In-depth data analysis plus statistical modeling can produce inferentialcausal models. Their creation thus combines aspects of analysis by close inspection,that is, reason analysis and cross-tabular analysis, with statistical analysis procedures,especially those that are special cases of the generalized linear model (McCullaghand Nelder, 1989; Agresti, 1996; Lindsey, 1997). This paper explores some of the roots of this combined method and suggests some new directions. An exercise clarifies some limitations of classic reason analysis by showing how the cross tabulation of variables with controls for test factors may produce better inferences. Then, given the cross tabulation of several variables, by explicating Coleman effect parameters, logistic regressions, and Poisson log-linear models, it shows how generalized linear models provide appropriate measures of effects and tests of statistical significance. Finally, to address a weakness of reason analysis, a case-control design is proposed and an example is developed.     

Dividend reinvestment plans: An empirical analysis

This study examines the effect of initiating discount and no discount dividend reinvestment plans on shareholder wealth. The results show a negative response to DRP announcements, which is significantly smaller than that found in studies of new equity offerings. These results are consistent with the Scholes and Wolfson (1989) hypothesis that managers in need of equity capital use DRPs to mitigate the adverse stock price effects of new equity issue announcements. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in the price response of discount and no discount DRPs for industrial firms. This result is supportive of the signaling potential of discount DRPs. Supportive evidence is also found in the analysis of firm characteristics for industrial firms.