Land Restitution in Post-Communist Bulgaria

While international scholarship has generally been laudatory of Bulgaria's land restitution efforts, painting them as part of an overall success story and yet another example of the country's sharp break with communism, a real analysis of Bulgaria's so-called 'success story', particularly by the legal community, has been sorely lacking. This author has found that in many ways the approbation Bulgaria has received from the international community for its restitution efforts is more a reflection of the Bulgarian government's willingness to confront the problem than its ability to effectively deal with it. Through the use of documents, court records, and interviews conducted by the author, this article endeavours to document the problems and shortcomings of a system that is considered such a courageous and worthy pursuit that few have been willing to criticize it. Essentially, this paper attempts to answer the question, not of whether Bulgaria's restitution effort was able to do some good, but whether it could have done--and could still do--much better.     

US firms' evaluation of employee credentials in international business

This paper updates a 1991 survey of salaries and careers among US-based international business professionals and managers. These employees typically offer a high level of both international and functional qualifications, implying that aspiring workers need substantial credentials to compete in this market. International credentials directly increase salaries only modestly, suggesting a rough balance of supply and demand for these qualifications. Larger salary premiums are commanded by functional specialties utilizing new information technology. Comparisons of the 1999 and 1991 surveys document partial convergence in employers' treatment of men and women but remaining 'glass ceiling' barriers to women's advancement.     

Flexibility: The next competitive battle the manufacturing futures survey

Over the past 4 years research teams from INSEAD (Fontainebleau), Boston University and Waseda University (Tokyo) have administered a yearly survey on the manufacturing strategy of the large manufacturers of the three industrialized regions of the world. In this paper the results for the 1986 survey are compared. One of the most striking results of that year's survey is the emphasis some of the more advanced manufacturers put on their efforts to overcome the trade-off between flexibility and cost efficiency. In particular for the Japanese respondents these attempts become clear. Europeans and North Americans are not yet seizing the opportunity to cut costs through rapid production and design changes, and are focusing more on traditional cost reduction programmes and the improvement of quality. This might mean that they are preparing the basis on which they can built to obtain added value from flexible automation. If this is the case then the Japanese are clearly ahead.     

Determinants of the Size of the Small Business Sector: They Are Labor Productivity, Wage Rates and Capital Intensity

Abstract . Statistical analysis of a hitherto unpublished tabulation of the 1976 Annual Survey of Manufactures provides new evidence of the small business/ large business relationship in the U.S. economy. Small business (measured by employees) seems to have an advantage over large in that it has relatively lower wage costs. But the data prove it has a higher ratio of labor inputto unit output. Higher productivity in large firms make its wage/output relationship an advantage over small firms. Large firms pay appreciably higher wages than small where most production is by large firms. Highly skilled and hence higher paid workers may be a correlate of higher mechanization. Similarly, the role of capital intensity as an indicator of technology differences explains why capital productivity is no adequate explicator of firm industry share. These variables are closely related to profit margin. Relatively high book values in large firms are associated with low small business industry shares. Nor do large businesses have an advantage in lower prices for raw materials and parts. In the U.S. large business is centered in the capital intensive industries.     

Index Futures Trading and Stock Return Volatility: Evidence from the Introduction of Mid Cap 400 Index Futures

The MidCap 400 stock index is used to provide new evidence on the relation between stock index futures trading and stock return volatility. The study documents a significant decrease in return volatility and systematic risk, and a significant increase in trading volume for the MidCap 400 stocks after the introduction of the MidCap index. A control sample of medium-capitalization stocks, however, exhibits similar contemporaneous changes in these measures. The MidCap stocks and the control stocks also experience a significant decrease in volatility and an increase in volume after the introduction of MidCap 400 index futures. Thus, the study finds no difference in the behavior of the MidCap 400 stocks and the control stocks and no evidence of a relation between index futures trading and volatility in the stock market.     

Disequilibrium macroeconomics, money as a buffer stock and the estimation of money demand

Standard explanations of the seeming instability of the money demand in the post-1973 period usually link to stories about financial innovation and deregulation. I propose an alternative hypothesis: Much of the seeming instability occurs because of shifts in monetary policy, either explicit or implicit, in an environment where the Federal Reserve controls a more “exogenous” money stock. My econometric analysis modifies existing methods for estimating markets in disequilibrium and incorporates newly developed cointegration and error-correction modeling. My findings provide support for the buffer-stock interpretation of the money market.     

THE NEW LEVERAGED LOAN SYNDICATION MARKET

Over the past ten years, commercial lending has been transformed from a one-off, bilateral "market" in which issuers maintained one or more separate banking relationships into a capital market in which one or more underwriters structure and price loans for syndication to groups of investors. This market-driven evolution has been most dramatic in the leveraged lending segment (defined as loans priced at LIBOR plus 150 basis points or more), where wide margins have attracted a large and growing field of underwriters, intermediaries, and investors.
Liquidity is the overriding theme in today's syndicated loan market, making the market a more user-friendly one for corporate borrowers and deal sponsors. As a result, a record number of corporate issuers are taking advantage of the syndicated loan market to finance strategic transactions or simply to reduce their borrowing costs. Deal sponsors, too, are tapping the market to finance leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and acquisitions at a pace not seen since the late 1980s. But, although acquisition pricing has reached cash flow multiples that recall those of the late '80s, equity contributions by sponsors are larger and credit structures are more conservative.
For banks and other investors, reduced loan pricing and more flexible credit structures have been balanced by much greater access to a large volume of diversified assets, as well as the ability to manage asset-specific and portfolio risk more effectively. As a result of more effective portfolio management strategies, lenders today are less vulnerable to credit problems with individual issuers or a given industry segment, and the bank market as a whole should be much less subject to disruption than it proved to be in the early 1990s.     

Firms' Cost Functions: A Reconstruction

Three empirical stylized facts characterize afirm's cost functions: AVC is generallyhorizontal; scale economies are often important;and capital usage (as well as labor usage)varies with the rate of output. In contrast ourstandard theory of diminishing marginalproducts, variable proportions, and U-shapedunit cost curves does not adequately reflectthese stylized facts of industrial reality. Explicit distinction between capital stocks andcapital flows allows a remodeling of a firm'scost curves to conform with these empirical facts.